It was very different at the start. He was introduced to one as a villager, a mother holding a woven reed basket whom he’d never seen. How have you not seen me? How have you not seen my son? She told him her name, they talked, she said he was a good age to play with her boy. He was seven. Raiyda was eight.
He felt his father’s hand on his feverish forehead and heard his voice, but it was as if one or both were underwater, and everything boiled and was sluggish, dark, pulling at him like the tide. His mother was sick too.
He began to see them more and more as time went on. He was ten, sanding the shaft of a spear for his father, talking to an older girl from Tor’Watha who came down to trade fish. Do they even have fish in Tor’Watha? Do you get them from the river? She showed him how to tie a line to the shaft and gave him a hook from her belt to use. But it was his hook. It was his father’s hook. The traders wouldn’t be there until later that day.
His father stood with his back straight, looking up at the branches of a twisted tree on the edge of their territory. It was almost too close to Suncrown. The journey to the catacombs had to be made through the mountains, or they’d hit the Farstrider Enclave and be shot down before the pale white towers were even within running distance.
He was talking to someone, something, in the tree. When Raiyda approached him he didn’t notice, his golden eyes glazed over, dead. A normal conversation. What kind of sticks? Was this the right tree? How many leaves did he need? Exactly six. Exactly seven. This was not the right kind of tree.
When Raiyda touched his hand his father looked down, then up, then back at the village. Why had he even come out here? Sticks? Leaves? What was he talking about? They went back to Zeb’Nowa hand in hand.
His mother was sick again. Her sister lived in the hut next to theirs. She forbade Raiyda’s father from coming in. She said mother was too sick for him and his bad spirits, bad voodoo. A witch doctor came and said the same. Not allowed. Father nor son. The doctor looked down at Raiyda, fifteen, and turned away.
The two of them watched from a distance as his mother’s remains were wrapped in white. Family was supposed to carry her jars into the catacombs, but they were hand in hand outside of the ceremony. Her sister, her sister’s husband, Raiyda’s sister, eight. Jars in hand. Warriors walked behind them with the body.
Their hut was gone from them when they returned. Raiyda saw his father speaking to someone, unseen. He said it was spirits. Was it his fault mother had died? They blamed him. He blamed himself. He was sweating and smacking the palms of his hands against his forehead. He sat by the river with his head between his knees, pulled at his tusks. He said his tusks had to come off. Raiyda stood and watched. The spirits didn’t like him anyway. Different ones came to him and spoke to him of different things than his father.
No, she couldn’t come with them. They were bad juju. They were diseased. Bad spirits came with them. The Loa did not like them. But the little girl, nine, was safe still. She heard nothing and the spirits did not bother her. The witch doctor said they had been cursed, the father for black crimes, the son for being of his father. They left Zeb’Nowa and headed south, to the Plaguelands.
Raiyda found comfort in the bells of Kun-Lai. Every morning, six, bong bong bong. His father said the sound drove him mad. He woke in fear before the bells, a white hot and cold knot in his chest and his stomach that spread like mold. He could feel it grabbing at his lungs. His eyes were wide, knuckles white too. The monks helped him breathe, helped him see clearly, but the spirits never left him. How did trolls get all the way to Pandaria? How many more had died and come just to see him?
He sat by the hot springs and spoke to an elf who spoke Zandali. She was thousands or years old, or hundreds of years old, or thirty years old. Raiyda was seventeen. She wanted to know how to tie this knot, that knot. She asked him about fishing. He showed her how to tie a line to the shaft of a spear, and she gave him a hook. But it was his hook, his father’s hook. He recognized it and was afraid, and looked at her again and she was gone.
And his father sitting beneath the cheery tree, covered in snow and ice. His golden eyes were far away and lost. Raiyda begged for him to come home, but his peace from spirits was beyond his boy, and his only solace was the frozen mountainside. There were no jars. Bells in the morning.
A deep breath balanced him, brought control to his center. He felt the grass beneath his feet and stood at the edge of the cobbled road. It led south this time, to the Plaguelands again, though the Shepherd’s Gate was open. He heard Zinki next to him, her broken Orcish, felt her hand slip into his.
The voice in his ear was not hers. It was louder, softer, darker, and he shut his eyes to focus on the one he knew was real. There is nothing for you in Revantusk. There is nothing for you in Revantusk. Revantusk is not your home. You are their enemy. You are not even really Horde. You are not even Darkspear. You need to get away from this girl before she takes you away from us. She won’t be there when you need it. She can’t hear you, she can’t hear us, she can’t help you and she needs to go away and you need to go home. There is a place in the woods with three rocks, two big and one small. You need to go there and stay there so we can tell you something good, something important. You need to—
“Raiyda?” Zinki smiled at him, betrayed by the growing concern in her good eye. “Come on. We’re going soon. Juzzie says we gotta meet everyone on de hour so we can go home. You ready?”
Raiyda squeezed her hand and pulled her closer, white hot-cold fear in his chest ebbed by her laughter, her fingertips on his chest.
“I’m ready.” Something behind him growled. “Let’s go home.”
It was dark, with only a flickering light from around the bend to keep them company, casting long shadows like fingers along the wall of the cave. It was damp and cold, hard and unforgiving, and the rope dug into his wrists, red and raw. He had long given up on trying to untie them.
The girl next to him hovered over him as best she could, her own hands tied behind her back. He could barely make out what she said, her tongue thick with dehydration, but her voice was calm and soothing through the veil of his feverish haze. His foot throbbed. The ghost of his missing toe burned when he moved, turning his stomach as he desperately tried to get comfortable. The rock against his back was no help.
“Raaaaaiyda.” A familiar voice cooed in his ear, not from outside but within, overshadowing Zinki’s. “Wake up, sleepyhead.”
His head lolled to the side, vision blurred. His eye had finally swollen shut. He waited for breath on his neck or on his cheek that didn’t come. But he knew that would happen.
“Dey gonna come in here soon.” It was deep and gruff, like two slabs of rock and ice grinding together, hushed like a whisper and trimmed with laughter. He was being mocked and doted on at once. A peculiar care from a peculiar dead man. “When dey come, ya gotta walk, aiight? If ya can’t walk, dey gonna tink ya ready to die, an dey just gut ya right here.”
The cool of a steel blade slid up his belly and he lurched forward, rope cutting into his wrists. “Dey gonna drag ya insides out all ova dis place, just like I would, an den dey gonna take her an do all sortsa terrible tings, an nobody ain’t gonna come an help.”
Raiyda shook his head, dirty blonde hair clinging to his forehead with sweat. He felt his heels dig into the thin layer of dirt on the cave floor, struggling against himself, the rope, the rock. Beside him, Zinki was getting nervous. He could see the black of her outline stand against the light, blocking it from view.
“Get up.” The voice urged, stern and low. He knew it from way back when, almost two years ago. Standing in Zul Gurub where it was too warm and too damp, proudly holding up a wooden box. “For my shoes, or whateva I want!” he’d said, and the beast before him laughed, their naked feet sinking into the moss and mud.
“Get up, Raiyda.” His hand had barely fit around the knight’s wrist, his muscles thick as trees, but he gave a sharp twist and the sword dropped from his hand just like he’d trained. There was surprise then, in a pair of Icecrown eyes, and later he’d told someone they were brothers.
He kicked again against the dirt, his bloodied foot throbbing in pain. Get up, get up. It was so hard. He licked his tusks with a sandpaper tongue and shook his head. Why? Why bother?
“Because,” the voice seemed to shift, just as Zinki’s shadow was joined by others and the silhouettes of their captors filed into the cave. “dey’re comin.”
He sat with his back to a stack of shipping crates, wrapped in a red cloak with a bow across his knees. His boat wouldn’t be clear to board for another few hours at least, and the usual fare of spending one’s money on beer while in Booty Bay was lost on Bran, who wiped his mouth and licked his lips but turned his eyes away.
He was just trying to get across the sea, back to Orgrimmar where he’d left his big cat in the care of an orc named Bubba, who swore he was an expert in not getting mauled. The two of them would be back, of course. The Concurrence had taken up residence here next to the trolls and mercenaries, and some of his old friends had been popping in and out of the Salty Sailor with great frequency. Bran supposed, at some point, he’d have to face the keg.
A troll threw his back against the crates, sliding down to the warped boards of the dock with his legs splayed out in front of him. He was young but tired; youth weighed down by war. Tall, lean, short blonde hair shaved at the sides. His eyes were far away and busy, downcast but moving. Bran could barely make out whispers in Zandali.
“Managarm, down.” The wolf next to him had leaned far over his lap, sticking his nose against the boy’s skin. It waited a moment, ears at attention. “Managarm.” The firm reminder set the wolf back on its haunches, though it kept its eyes on the troll, who hardly seemed to have noticed at all.
“You alright there, old boy?” Green skin, very likely Amani. He’d be lucky if the boy answered him as a friend, if at all. But he only shook his head and leaned away from the elf, skittish like a wild animal.
“Now now, there’s no need to be afraid. Are you hurt?” The troll shook his head again, inching further away. Something had him well spooked. Bran reached out, hesitant to touch him but more than a little concerned. If he was Amani, he was probably one of the warband’s. They had more than a few wild characters, but this one had a face he couldn’t quite place.
“I’m a friend of Juzmik’s.” He didn’t know what else to say. The boy paused, looking him over from the corner of his vision. Yes, that’s it. “We met years ago, became friends in Dalaran. I was with your warband before the siege, when they fled to Northrend. Grizzly Hills, if you were there.”
The troll nodded slowly. “Raiyda.” His voice was deeper than Bran expected. “An dey’s… I have to go to de jungle soon, but I don’t wanna.”
Raiyda was a familiar name after all. He’d never met the kid, but Juzmik spoke of him often enough, affection and familiarity mixed with unease and distrust. His young sister had chosen Raiyda as her boyfriend, and although he was kind (or so he heard), he was strange. “Spoke to the Loa”, Juzmik told him without reverence. The lot of them were more concerned about who or what he talked to than what they ever said.
And true enough, the boy with his shifting eyes and timid, shaking hands were nothing to inspire confidence or comfort. Bran furrowed his brow as Raiyda’s eyes filled with tears, one hand clutching the collar of his thin shirt. Going out into the jungle was normal for anyone, especially the trolls, but fear had made its home in the boy’s heart and showed itself on his face.
“You don’t… have to go if you don’t want to.” Dealing with children had never been his specialty. He never had any of his own, and no nieces or nephews or even close friends with kids, and well into his 400s he just felt awkward patting Raiyda’s shoulder.
And just like that, they were friends, at least to the troll. Bran stiffened as the boy slumped over against his chest, shaking and clinging to his vest, asking him to promise he wouldn’t have to go. Bran was at a loss, scanning the docks for someone, anyone, to come and collect this very strange person from wherever he was supposed to be. A clinic of some sort, perhaps.
“There there, now.” Bran very gently placed his hand on the boy’s back. His stone, regrettably, was tucked away in his pouch, blocked by the troll’s much larger body. He was trapped, and aside from smoke, decided to do the only thing he knew to calm himself, or anyone else, down.
Down by the heather and the hills of the Loch
Where the girls go to tumble on out of their frocks
And the boys chase em down to get em on their backs
Bury their faces in a Mac girl’s rack
Well I had my eye on Kitty MacLaren
The finest silk she’s always wearin
But the line at her door was a mile deep
And I knew I’d have a fight for my Kitty to keep
She came from the market through South Gate Pass
The mountains have never seen a finer lass
And waiting for her there at Thelsamar
Was every dwarf spillin out of the bar
White as a lily and sturdy as a hammer
The curve of her hips made the old boys stammer
Ruddy red hair all down her back
Kitty MacLaren kept em all on track
She’s as nice as the finest draught
The tune of her whistle makes the boys go daft
But don’t tell me now, I don’t want to hear
It’s Corbin Hornbeard she holds dear
Down by the heather and the hills of the Loch
Where the girls go to tumble on out of their frocks
And the boys chase em down to get em on their backs
Bury their faces in a Mac girl’s rack
Bran licked his lips and tapped his thumb against the troll’s back. He’d cut out a few verses here and there, but doubted anyone this far south would even notice. His smooth Thalassian accent clashed heavily with dwarven songs, and he was happy just to sing through one without stumbling over the words.
He tapped the troll again. Managarm beside him still had his eyes on the boy, ears alert and tail wagging behind him. Bran looked down, gently shaking Raiyda’s shoulder with no answer.
“You alive there, old boy?” But Raiyda only sighed and pulled himself closer, eyes closed, face buried in the soft leather of the ranger’s vest.
Bran nodded to himself and looked around, desperate for anyone at all to walk by and save him, but the dock was unusually quiet, and his boarding was still hours away. Trapped under the body of a sleeping troll, Bran resigned himself to awkward adjustments and the inability to reach his pipe, and a great grey wolf nosing at his hands for a stick to play with.
Raiyda had stripped down to his pants and jumped from the overhang of his hut into the water. He fell, less than gracefully, over the waterfall that fed the mote around the center temple; the elevated slab of rock that once tied the thing they called “Hakkar”, but only in hushed, uneasy whispers.
Get to the temple. He'd heard it in the back of his head, the same familiar voice and voices, urging him to do things before he understood why. He crawled up onto the center island as quietly as he could. The rocks were slick with moss and little water plants that dipped below the surface of the mote, but Raiyda was determined. He hoisted himself up, crawling on hands and knees to a cluster of massive ferns nearby.
Nobody at the temple noticed him. They were preoccupied with something at the top of the steps, something that buzzed with excitement, and the smell of blood was thick in the air even from the base of the island. Senior Sergeant Jin'taza stood at the top, his familiar mask and bright red hair poking up above the rest. He was waving a dagger, its steel painted red, dripping down to his hand and wrist and robe. His woman stood at his side, wild looking as usual with bone and feathers in her hair. She was shaking, laughing, clapping her hands.
Closer.
Raiyda moved to the foot of the temple and began to climb. All pretense of being invisible was lost, and somewhere in the back of him mind Raiyda wondered if he'd make a bad headhunter after all. He stopped a few steps below a woman in dark leather. Her hands rested on wide hips, a shock of green hair toying with a soft breeze that washed over the city of Zul'Gurub, carrying the hungering scent of blood and flesh with it.
Raiyda licked his lips.
An Orc lay before them, bleeding but very much alive. His wild eyes scanned the crowd, fingers fumbling for something in his robe. He was familiar, dark robes, dark hair. His cracked voice pleading with the Trolls to spare him.
“Dis mon came to us, to our gatherin.” Jin'taza waved the dagger. “An why? To tell us it was our place to be slaves. To tell us Garrosh has de right of it. To wish us into shackles and curse our families into poverty and begging. An he in his cowardice refused to fight, refused to step down. He met us in a peaceful city and wished us war, and now here he is to say dose words again.”
The druid knelt down, the point of his dagger pressed against the Orc's throat.
“The w-- the warchief will hear of this.” He licked his lips, sweaty and grasping. “He'll hear of it and he'll storm your pathetic city. He'll tear the head from your body and take your woman for his own. Zul'Gurub will fall again under the might of Garrosh Hellscr--”
Blood poured from his throat, screams of pain reduced to choked, helpless gurgles as he fought against death. Jin'taza's scowl curled into a smile, his blade and hands soaked with red.
“Ya heard de mon! Zul'Gurub is unsafe! De great an powerful Garrosh gonna come for our heads! In de comin weeks, we gonna meet many more Orcs like dis. Ones like de mon we saw in Shattrath, who support Hellscream through slavery, through tyranny and death. We will not find refuge in de Horde much longer unless we take de Horde for ourselves! I say down wit Garrosh, an bring de heads of all who stand wit him to bloody de altars in Zul'Gurub!”
A wild cheer arose from the crowd. The woman in dark leather turned to the steps with a smile on her lips, passing Raiyda by without even noticing him. Little Headhunter. He wrapped his arms around himself and rocked from foot to foot as blood began to trickle down beside him.
“Papa wanted me to be safe.” He whispered, curling his toes. “Is dis what dey call safe?” He looked left, to the temple of Bethekk, where a massive dead man with ice in his eyes slept. He'd called him Little Brother. He turned to the waterfall behind him, where a lanky Frostmane had made him promise to do his best, and not to disappoint him. He turned back to his own hut, where a stocky Troll with a deep, husky voice gave him a bedroll and a box, and told him to be very careful.
And his mind went to the Echo Isles, where horror stories of men in iron and women being dashed and cut along the beach poured from the mouths of the terrified few who'd already fled from Orgrimmar. They filled his ears and eyes, even when he closed them.
It wasn't safe, no. No place was safe for a Troll anymore. But if there was a chance to make it that way, to stand up for his people and be seen, be heard, as something more than a man in chains, he would gladly do what was needed.
Sarjen first met the warband in a black cloak, his armor from Acherus stained and rusted, half the enamel worn away with time and weather. He'd been tucked away in the corner of a dark Orcish bar with a horn of water clutched close to his chest, nervously mumbling to himself and his little pet in Zandali when the boy approached him.
He walked through Revantusk's gates now, a senior sergeant, his armor decorated with deep sapphire eyes and jagged teeth, well polished and dark. His helmet sported two Drakkari tusks on either side, the bottom lined with worg fur that never helped keep him warm.
He dropped the head of his axe in the dirt and looked around. The gates were empty. No guards at their posts, no glow of the near constant bonfire that served as a sort of lighthouse for those looking to find their way home. No chatter, no laughter, no villagers or soldiers milling about.
Mist had come to town. It spilled over the precipice of the overlook cliffs like a herd of grey and silver horses, pooling around the sandstone ruins and wooden huts, naked torches and empty tents, seeing into the sea that lapped at the sand as if it felt thirst.
The old knight pulled his cloak around his shoulders and hefted his axe. His own frosty breath and chilly touch went unnoticed in the mist. Within the silence and the curtain that covered everything more than a few feet away, he felt uneasy, uncertain, and alone.
“Sarjen?” He turned, his cloak taking swirls of mist with it, a mini temptest around the old knight's feet. “Sarj, c'mere.” The boy's head was barely visible, poking out from behind a cart that had long ago become a permanent fixture.
He felt shame for a moment. He'd mistaken the boy's voice for Juzmik's, and the memory of a heart beat had tugged at the memory of a blush before he realized he was wrong. This boy was blonde, about the same height as Juzmik but a bit heavier, wrapped in black and red leather with a ratty tabard thrown over all of it. His face was painted with white and his ears lined with rings and chains and bone, gold and red on his mossy skin. He waved, and Sarjen approached.
“Quiet, ya? We hidin.”
“From what?” Sarjen's softest voice was well above a whisper, the metallic din echoing off the walls that turn secrets into canyons, and he paused for a moment to hear what he'd awoken, if anything.
“Attack. Again. We was way outnumbered, sir. Torches an tings out to keep us safe for now. We was lucky de mist came when it did, eh? Ain't nobody gonna come attack us when it's like dis.”
The boy beckoned him closer, pulling him behind the cart by a heavily mailed hand. Sarjen waited for a flinch, an uneasy movement, something to suggest the boy hadn't expected the cold or clammy feeling, the creeping frost that crawled across his armor like a living thing, but it never came.
“Couldn't see who dey was. Mama Tiombi isn't here right now. Warchief isn't here right now.” The boy sat down in the dewy grass, pulling his knees close to his chest. He was very young, with smooth cheeks and hopeful eyes, but there were dark circles beneath them and lines to match. War ruined boys. “General Ezzran was here, but he chased dem up de hill, an I haven't seen him. Juz said to stay in de village an wait.”
He smiled weakly at the old knight and shrugged, settling back against the rotting cart.
“Where is General Juzmik now?”
“Dunno. He went into de inn wit most a de mon. Dere's just a few of us out here now. We supposed to watch de borders to see if Easy or somebody worse comes back.”
Sarjen crouched down beside the boy, leaning his axe against the cart next to him. He was uncomfortable with the thought of not having it in his hand, should the enemy come back and catch the village unprepared, but the boy looked like he needed calmer nerves and a gentle hand, so down it went.
The two of them sat in silence for some time. Sarjen kept a sharp eye on the gate, poking his head out every so often to check for movement in the mist. He looked over the boy's head to check the walls, and straight out in front of them to watch the base of the dock, where dirt met wood and water.
Every so often the boy's head would bob, and he'd snap back up, feigning clarity and energy as best he could.
Sarjen shifted his weight, checking the three points once more before daring to speak.
“What's your name, boy?”
“Raiyda.”
“You look cold, Raiyda.”
The boy nodded, curled up upon himself, careful not to touch Sarjen. He'd had contact with death knights before. He knew how to deal with them without being disgusted by them. It was a courtesy not much people gave, and one Sarjen was not entirely sure he deserved. One he wasn't even sure he wanted. He could easily reach out, take the boy's hand or his arm to pull him closer. Tired as he was, the poor thing might not even resist.
Raiyda looked up, orange and golden eyes clouded with sleep. Warmth clawed its way through his leathers, kissing his shivering skin, his naked toes and fingers. Sarjen tucked one end of his cloak beneath the other, swaddling Raiyda in black and blue as best he could. It was thick; built for Northrend, made to withstand ice and snow as if the knights of the Ebon Blade did anything but welcome it.
“There you go, boy.” Sarjen took his axe in hand and climbed to his feet, dew and mist clinging to his armor in delicate webs of ice and frost. “Get some sleep.”
Raiyda smiled gratefully and buried his nose in the folds of the cloak. Soon he'd be up again, on his feet with the mist gone. The guards would be back at their stations, watching the sloping path that led to the pine tree forests and things dangerous and hungry. They'd spend their time around the bonfire, telling jokes and asking stupid questions, pointless stories and whistling at girls and boys as they walked by. They'd sharpen their swords before dark, and eat roasted fish rubbed with salt or covered in thin sauce, pretending it was something closer to what their mothers made back home.
Raiyda liked to pretend it was noodles. Memories and little truths of his father's shaky hands and the Pandaren who cared for them when he was sick flooded his waking mind, taking him by the hand and leading him into sleep and restless dreams, lulled by the remembered smell of chicken broth and leeks made of mist that danced around his huddled form in the early morning.
The lowest rise of Thunder Bluff was dry and green-gold, much like the rest of them. The center was graced with the presence of a muddy pond that reached ten feet at its middle, and all other happenings did so in a great ring around its shallow rim.
Raiyda sat with his legs crossed, hovering a few feet above the ground. He was good enough at his mediation now to speak freely while he maintained his balance, even allowing himself to open an eye once in awhile to take in his surroundings.
Today, an Amani troll stood next to him. He had thick blonde hair with shaved sides, much like Raiyda's own, corded muscles and a slackened jaw. His eyes were deep set and dark red, with scars in his chin and chipped tusks that had been stained and discolored with time. It wasn't anyone the monk recognized, but they spoke as if they knew each other well.
“You don't think it's weird, to defend that land down there for humans?”
“You have it wrong.” Raiyda slipped easily into his native Shadowpine dialect. It was a subtle difference between that and and the common Zandali spoken by the Darkspear, but he felt at home that way. “We're not defending it for them, we're defending it from them.”
The Amani skirted around to the other side, surprisingly quick for such a stocky body. He cocked his head to the side. “The Forsaken are just dead humans, aren't they?”
Penetrating eyes. Raiyda took a deep breath and closed his own. “They're different now. They have different interests.”
“Not troll interests.”
“No, not troll interests. But the Witherbark in Arathi are not my brothers. Nor are they yours, I think. What do you want?”
“You don't believe that.” The Amani shook his head. “The universal “I”, the conscious “we”. Where does that fit in with tribes, hm? How does “we” exclude whatever you want?”
Another deep breath. Keeping his mind steady was the key. Disruption was the enemy of clarity. Raiyda squared his shoulders, fingers pressed against thumbs, the backs of his hands resting on his knees. “Yes, the one consciousness. All trolls are many spirits in one stream, the stream of the universe. All humans are of the same stream, as are the elves, and the pandaren, and the trees and the fish and everything that lives. We accepting that the I is meaningless and the We is eternal, we become not just ourselves, but everything, and we cannot die just as the flow of life cannot die. No man shall hurt another man, nor any living thing without need, lest he hurt himself as he hurts the stream.”
“But not the Forsaken.”
“Not the--” Raiyda opened his eyes, his legs unfolding underneath him. Mud from the bank seeped between his toes. “What?”
“Mister Kerrie is a Forsaken. His soul is not part of the flow of life, because he is not alive.” Raiyda blinked, watching the Amani circle him slowly. “So why do you fight, knowing his cause is not one of the universe? Knowing he is out of line with the natural order of things? How can the Forsaken cause be the path we follow, as living minds in the one consciousness?”
Raiyda rubbed his eyes. The troll was taller than before, with longer limbs and darker hair. He spoke with a gruff voice, and when he breathed his whole body seemed to swell and shrink back down; some grotesque, bubbling sack of flesh. He was fast and slow, in front and behind, speaking rough Zandali as his purple tongue grew thicker and thicker, and spittle dribbled down his lips and chin.
“You're going the wrong way again, little troll. You're going to trip and fall somewhere cold, in a grave perhaps, in one of those Forsaken farms. You've seen what they did to what they call Hillsbrad.” Darker eyes, deeper voice. “It won't take long for that rot to reach the Thandol span, and spread up, like dirty fingers into the Hinterlands, up, up up, to your little home--”
“Raiyda!”
He rubbed his eyes, sandy blonde hair tumbling over his brow, always in the way. The familiar voice called again, closer this time.
“Raiyda, hey!” Sarjen the younger, his friend from Revantusk. The boy was clad in red leather, clutching a wooden staff in one hand and a waterskin in the other. He smiled uncertainly, his own eyes flicking this way and that around the rim of the pond. “Hey uh, who're you talking to?”
Raiyda blinked and shook his head. The big Amani was gone, his footprints obscured by water lapping at the mud, gone without a sound like a spirit come to torment him and gone again.
“No one.” He said, shaking out his hands. “Don't worry about it.”
Every sunset in Kun-Lai was beautiful to Raiyda. He sat beneath the boughs of a gnarled cherry, still clinging to its autumn blooms beneath a lair of snow, his legs folded beneath him. The mountains that circled the Peak of Serenity were awash with color like melted wax, and the sun sinking beneath them was the dying flame at the end of a wick.
He hadn't come to Kun-Lai enough over the past few months. He was always here or there, spending time in Silvermoon or the Undercity. He'd paid a few visits to Revantusk, and even chanced a glimpse at his old home in Zeb'Sora, where Amani trolls still hid behind woven rush doors and sang their war songs out of sight of the unforgiving Farstriders who hunted them for their tusks. He'd gone to Northrend to see the fighting pits in Grizzly Hills, where orcs and trolls and tauren lived day to day on venison, and huddled under shaggy worg hides when the harsh winds from Zul'Drak poured over Drakkari made walls.
He'd fought in the rebellion, in the Barrens and in Orgrimmar. He'd given his money to an elf collapsed beneath a bridge, and his precious box to a woman struggling to carry everything in just her arms. His cheeks were smudged with dirt and his leathers were cracked and stained by weather, but he smiled easily enough, and when he finally returned to Pandaria the monks welcomed him happily.
It was hardly a few months after they'd arrived the first time that his father passed away. There was fluid in his lungs, the mistweavers told him afterward. He'd come to them sick, and was too far gone by the time he let anyone know. Raiyda could still feel the burning in his eyes and in his chest, finding his father's body propped up against a low hanging tree, covered in a layer of fine snow.
He could remember how stiff his hands were; how he was too heavy to move; the way his eyes looked out over the mountains. He always looked sad after all that had happened. Even when they were smiling, even when they had Raiyda's sister with them, his father's laughter was strained and his shoulders sagged.
The snow was piercing at first, then it prickled his skin, and finally he forgot about it all together. A group of young pandaren, climbing the mountain as part of their training, struggled to pull one troll off the other. When he recalled those memories now, it was as if he watched them through the lens of another; an impassive observer with no connection, no empathy, no familiarity.
Why was that boy fighting against them? His lips and fingers were cracked, and his clothes weren't heavy enough to withstand a winter's night in Kun-Lai. Ice had formed on his tusks and in his mess of blonde hair, but still he dug his feet into the snow and clawed at the corpse beneath the tree as the young monks struggled against him.
He watched the boy rest his chin on his knees in a warm bath as a kindly mistweaver hovered over him, her far away voice echoing questions he heard long ago. “Why did he bring you here? Did he know he was dying? Did he say anything to you? Do you have any family?”
Family. There was a young girl back in Zeb'Sora, with blonde hair and crooked teeth, who looked so much like her older brother. There was his mother's sister, who frowned at his father and at him, and swept them away from her house and the little girl, to keep them all safe from the black spirits that plagued them, as she said.
His father, relishing the chill in his lungs and against his skin, telling his son not to listen to the spirits so much, that they could help, but they could also hurt. Telling him to learn the difference between the people he could touch and the spirits he could not. Don't let them control you, Raiyda. You have to be your own man, Raiyda. I miss your mother very much, Raiyda.
The home he'd found in an Amani warband, with its proud generals and sweet girls. Ezzran, who called him his brother, and Jeen, who gave him his box. Sweet Bahula, tugging at her leggings. Juzmik's gracious offers. He stood beside them at the gates of Orgrimmar with a short blade strapped to his back, gold and green across his chest. He forgave the ones who turned and ran, and stood in awe of the matron who gave her everything to keep them all alive.
The warchief with bloodied wrists, carried from his cell.
Raiyda sighed, feeling the weight of his travels slide from his shoulders to mingle with the snow. He was reminded several times that Siabi was a business, not a warband, but when they were a warband it was that, and not a family, and a family was your flesh and blood.
But the newness of them made him smile. Most of them in their 20s except for little Sarjen, who was older than Raiyda still, all of them stepping out of Revantusk for their first real adventure. The outcast elves, all of whom would see more in their lives than Raiyda and his children and his children's children would ever see. Goblins who gravitated to the sound of coins rubbing together. An orc here. Forsaken there.
They blended and became beautiful and warm, filling Raiyda with something he dearly missed; something that grew old beneath a tree and lost its spark; something that stood beside him while others dropped their swords and went back.
They filled him with the hope that he could come to a place called home one day, and his biggest worry would be when they were coming in, not if, and his mind would never wander to Kun-Lai, nor his feet scale the frigid steps. He would never feel the need to light a candle along the outer ring of the temples. He would never have to make his way up the mountainside, where young monks traveled to test themselves against the elements; to sit beneath the gnarled wood and look out across the mountains with eyes too old to belong to someone so young.
But the wind caught someone cooking dumplings down below, and the laughter of a girl like a ringing bell, and the low hum of the pandaren tongue, and Raiyda smiled. Kun-Lai wasn't so bad. He'd come here for a reason, with his tormented father who wanted nothing more than a better life for his son. The pandaren had been kind to him, kind to them. He could still see his father smiling over a bowl of warm water, wrapping his knuckles after a day of unfamiliar training, and wondered if it was everything he'd hoped it would be.
And even if it wasn't, well, the sunsets were always nice.
Stonard was shrouded in shadow, and each glimpse of light revealed the silhouette of trees overhead to be skeletal hands on the ground below, reaching inward, and the moon was a bone against a charcoal sky. The only sounds were the crackle of torchfire and the bog toads with thick throats, calling to one another from the mud and the river. It was fall everywhere, even in the too-thick too-warm swamp of sorrows.
The wood perimeter was tarred long ago to keep rot from seeping in, but the smell of fresh decay clung to it, clung to clothes and skin, and Raiyda suspected it was something the barricade kept out, rather than the thing itself. He turned his head, pressing his temple against a fashioned spike, back firmly against the wood.
There were spirits here he hadn't counted on. They were familiar and unfamiliar all at once; coming to him with tusks and rasping voices, but they were smaller and slimmer than he remembered, and their voices sounded so different. Old friends from older empires. Off in the distance, the sunken temple trembled with memories.
Look at dem. He heard one of them speak close to his ear. No breath. They were only spirits this time. Do you see dat one talk to de woman? She is above him because she has de upper hand.
“She's just tall.” Raiyda mumbled, eyes fixed on her legs. “And he's not so big is all.”
The spirit hissed in his ear. He could see them plainly, though he suspected they did not want to be noticed. The voodoo mama, dear Tiombi, in dark green and short sleeves, her generous thighs peeking out from a cut in the cloth. And across from her, as always, the doting boy general with his braid down to the small of his back. The two of them shared an intimate closeness while they spoke, too softly to hear, but he could see the smile on her lips and the tension in Juzmik's shoulders.
Perhaps they were planning something. Did it matter? Raiyda closed his eyes. He was never involved in the decision making process. He didn't need to be. His place was at the bottom, with the worn and the tired and the fresh faces alike. He spoke gentle words to nervous young soldiers and offered his extra pay to those who were struggling with old wounds. He was barely a warrior at all, and that was fine.
But to see them talk there, yes, he could see her fingers on his friend's arm, and the nervous fidgeting Juzmik was partial to when he was excited. Little conspiracies for one another, and no one else. A secret club.
Maybe dey are talkin about you. The spirit offered in a smaller voice, slinking underneath a well-worn spike. Did ya tink dat? Maybe dey are sayin Raiyda is no good for dis. Raiyda does not even fight, does he? Raiyda could have died on dat mountain.
It was some time ago, yes, he remembered! Trapped up on that mountain, shivering and unable to move or make a sound, like his father with his eyes frozen shut, though for Raiyda relief came in the form of a few monastery students on their way to the peak, and for his father it came in a grave beneath a snow covered tree.
He was there still, the image burned into the back of his eyelids, and through the humidity of the swamp he shivered.
The spirit beside him inched closer, and though there was no breath he could feel its presence like a hum in his ears and a weight on his forehead. He squeezed his eyes and silently begged for it to go. Dey gonna leave ya here if ya not careful. Maybe dey not even rememba ya here.
He shook his head.
Dey gonna leave ya here unless...
Raiyda licked his tusk, eyes half open. They always asked for something. Things he couldn't understand and didn't want to. Certain kinds of plants, coffee, things that belonged to other people. He tried to make sure the real owners would find it later, standing puzzled over a carefully stacked pile of trinkets and sticks and flowers, but the guilt and unease still made his skin crawl.
“Whatcha want?”
We need dose rocks right outside de village by de stream. Dere are nice ones by de place where de crocs eat; we saw dem on de way here-- Hadn't that been him?-- an we need dem. Dey are stained red wit blood, an we need dem. Put dem up nice for us.
The spirit smiled and Raiyda nodded, rising to his feet. The whispered conversation behind him went on, all but forgotten, a distant buzz in the back of his mind as he slipped into the swamp.
The woman looked over her companion's shoulder, golden eyes still sharp despite the dark outside the torches by the door, momentarily distracted by a flash of green and gold by western gate. Juzmik followed her gaze, fire blind and squinting.
