▣▣Zan’ZajiZan'Zaji sat at a low table in her cluttered hut looking at the pandaren sitting across from her. Her elbows were propped on the table and she leaned forward one cheek against her clasped hands. “Mah relatives? Why ya wantin ta know ‘bout dem little bear?” Her smile was coy, it wasn’t often someone asked questions that weren’t about themselves.
Zaji leaned back this customer had been polite, uncommon with far too many that visited this witch doctor’s hut. Her brother might have been the witch doctor but who was she to turn someone away. “Ya know wat, Zan'Zaji gonna answer ya,” she started using third person in this instance. “Normally w'en someone ask about ya relatives dey just wanna know about dah ones you be related to by blood. Sos Zanji’s parents and any siblin’s she’s got, ya? Well neva knew dah troll dat woulda been ‘er papa, but not sad ‘bout dat, was some Gurubashi warrior. An ‘er mother, she was ah good un. Devoted ta dah tribe’s ancestas, spiritual woman, ah good t'ing ta be ya know? dah dead be a powaful bunch dey is. Tejah'Zea were her name.” She smiled as she spoke the name. “But her didn’t make it offa deh Darkspear’s Island when dah trolls come ‘ere.” She said nothing else on the subject of her parents but the smile she continued to wear held no remorse or hatred.
“And Zaji’s siblin’s ya? Her have one brot'er, ah real piece ah work him was. Papa Don Sowdi,” the grin she offered when she spoke this name was different than the one she’d shared when she gave her mother’s name. It was obvious she felt a deeper fondness and love for him than she seemed to either of her parents. “Him nothin’ but a trouble maker…him and her both, but Papa no longer wit’ us,” she motioned to the bleached skull sitting nearby. “Ya know w'at dey say…stay away from dah voodoo mon.”
“Relatives,” Rajas repeated in a dull tone. His gaze shifted to the side, as though it was a burden to think on them. He straightens up his back for a moment, stretching his shoulders and arms as he settles himself on his seat before hunching forward again, forearms propped against his knees.
“Fatha were a hunta. I knew ‘im, ‘e was a good enough man. I ain’t eva see eye-ta-eye wit’ ‘im, but I respected ‘im. Were a hard-workin’ type. Stuck up fa us when tha Drakkari cause trouble. I know at least one time ‘e took a foul beatin’ for us.”
Leaving that memory behind abruptly, Rajas cocks his head. “Me motha be tha only reason I be ‘ere. She were tha drivin’ force behind me kin leavin’ Zul’Drak. Ain’t none-a them thick-skulled brutes wanted us ta be goin, neither. Did they best ta keep us around. She managed ta stow me an me brotha away, got us far away from tha north as she could manage.”
With somewhat of a grin, Rajas takes his wondering gaze and directs it toward his single-person audience. “Which be leadin’ us neatly to me brotha, Thakra. A hunta, like ma fatha. Ego bigga than tha twin empires. Skill ta match it, tho. Settled down somewhere, I hear. Ain’t seen ‘im since… years ago. I ain’t been countin’.”
Rolling his shoulder, Rajas sits up straight once more and peers down his crook nose. “That be it. Now, you buyin’ somethin, or you jus’ gonna keep bein’ nosy?”
