What the Horde Scum Did
The metallic clamor of Ironforge sang through the corridor stretching past Qaradoc’s stone porch, drenched in the smell of rust and earth. In his weathered chair, he settled a cobblestone with a thousand-mile daze. It wasn’t quite pensive, but thoughtful. Peaceful. A curt puff of smoke billowed from his lips. He stared into the polished bowl of his pipe. It was running out.
Throrim sat on the floor sharpening his axe, his beard still damp from his last drink of mead. "Qar old friend. I dunnae know how ye survived as ye did. But ye did, and tha' pincer made a noice tropheh." He nodded up to the fireplace inside where a large silithid hung, polished to a bright sheen.
A thin-lipped smirk tugged Qaradoc's face. "Don't be coy. I'd be popping clogs if you hadn't dragged my sorry arse to that lovely... What was that nurse's name? Sandra?" He glimpsed through the door at the manicured carapace. It was probably the nicest gift anyone had given him. "It does rather spruce up the mantelpiece, doesn't it?"
"Ain't one for interior decoratin'," Throrim chuckled, resting his freshly sharpened axe against the wall and taking another sip of his mead, drying his lips with his beard. "So wha did ya need me here for?"
"Ah!" Qaradoc perked with one last cloud of smoke. He set his pipe on the stone armrest. "Yes, I was wondering, how much do you know about Ironforge pests? I'm not certain of what mind you, but I seem to be getting some unwelcome guests in the kitchen, and I can't be sure what sort I may be deali--" Qaradoc froze suddenly. His attention was locked on something.
Throrim stroked his beard in thought about the different pests of the place, and between the rats and roaches they could be up for a tussle. "I dunnae kn... what are ye lookin' at lad?" He peered over toward his friend's point of view.
The monk blinked. They were still approaching him. His mouth parted as he slowly rose from his seat. The normally stoic Gilnean looked like Uther’s ghost was delivering him a pie on a unicycle.
Three young dwarves beamed at him from the corridor. “Oye, Master Taliesin!” a ginger-bearded man barked. “We’re back! There better be enough o’ those cigars fer all of us!”
Everything in his chest tingled with the astonished joy he’d given up on feeling weeks ago.
Throrim blinked at the dwarflings. "Well well, wasn't expectin' a party ya old coot." He stood with a brush of his beard and a low bow. "Evenin' lads. Name's Throrim Stoneframe." He grinned, leaning back against the wall. "What's all this with your skin fadin', weren't expecting company?"
Qaradoc shook his head at him. Before he could allow a knot to form in his throat or a sting to offend his eyes, he smoothed his expression to a blank gape. “I most certainly was not. These are Pydilgri’s nephews and niece - not sure if you recall my mentioning her. I thought they were pronounced dead back on Argus."
"Pleasure meetin' ya, Mr. Stoneframe!" the same nephew exclaimed. "I'm Omn, that's Raggyn, and this is Dandarian," he pointed respectively.
"How in blazes are you all still alive?” he muttered in disbelief.
The question bore instant sobriety to their faces, slowing their climb up the porch stairs. Of course, it was a question they should have expected, but that didn’t make the reminder of their escape any less unpleasant. Dandarian hesitated. She pulled at the sandy-brown foxtail cascading over her shoulder before stepping forward. Her brothers slumped in gratitude as she accepted the burden.
“Yer, uh...” She huffed an awkward chuckle. It was shattered by a frown. “I dunnae if yer gonna believe it, Qaradoc. Or approve. It was...” Dandarian swallowed. All of them carried a vague sense of fear, shame even. Their eyes latched onto Qaradoc’s face, his posture, as though uncertain of a scolding.
Qaradoc found himself disliking how ‘sheepish’ looked on them. It was making him nervous.
“Well, we were critically wounded,” she said finally, “but two healers arrived and covered us so we could retreat.”
Throrim nodded as he listened, smiling as he realized the origins of these young ones. "Good old Alliance, sending healers in after the kids." He remembered his time on Argus fondly. Though his words only seemed to make the three fidget more uncomfortably.
Qaradoc's forehead creased. “As much of a miracle as this surely was, that doesn’t sound so appalling,” he remarked.
“We were... we were saved by a Pandaren wavespeaker.”
There was an unimpressed pause. “...Is there an ‘and’?”
Dandarian braced herself. “And a Forsaken priestess.”
Throrim choked on his mead. "For fooks sake lads. I'm surprised they didn't take you out themselves!" He cleared his throat and waited to hear Qaradoc’s response.
Qaradoc said nothing. He went pale.
Raggyn took a defensive step to stand beside her, "Just--let me explain," he started.
"I'll get more mead." Throrim waddle-limped to the kitchen.
---
The Legion-painted sky was littered in planet debris. A broken horizon curved up at an eldritch angle. Azeroth’s breathtaking, marble-esque colors churned slowly across the stars; both a reminder of hope and a cruel mockery to those still on Argus’ sundered remains.
Bright felfire streaked above two figures fleeing for their lives - one blubbery, and one frail. They dashed behind a violet boulder.
Seo-yun and Chavivah paused to clutch their knees. The shaman heaved rattled breaths, peering expectantly down at Chavivah through his scruffy mop of hair.
She glanced at the edge of the boulder, and let out an exasperated sigh of relief. The eloquently patterned barricades of Light protecting the camp pulsated several yards away. “Oye,” she droned, “thank the Light.” Chavivah stood upright. “Catch your breath and for the last time we’ll run.”
He nodded, his deep panting beginning to fade. Practically tasting the stench of charred sulfur was proving to be an effective motivator.
Chavivah settled a sullen gaze across the wastes. It took seconds for her to spot a trio of dwarves in the distance, desperately fending off an onslaught of demons. They were losing. One of them howled as a blade buried into his shoulder.
The pallid embers in her eye sockets narrowed.
Straightening his egg-shaped torso upright, Seo-yun prepared to signal his readiness, but stopped. Chavivah seemed distracted. His caterpillar brows knitted as he veered to get a better view of her face.
She looked overcome.
In both slow motion and breakneck speed, her veins were frozen lightning, her body was lead, and her heart was falling glass. She watched as a fel axe screeched towards her grown baby’s neck. He was too far for her to prevent it.
He could still be at home if she’d nagged harder. If he’d become a doctor or an alchemist or a farmer. If she had just caught him leaving for the Isles in time to stop him. All she could think were two blaring words, reducing the core of her being to shredded tissue: “I failed.” Her son, the warlock. Killed in front of his poor mother.
'Too far away’ her decaying tuches! In a blind frenzy she flung back her arm to prepare a shielding spell. Before it could snap back out--
THUD.
Isaac winced. The axe was buried into a shield. The dwarven warrior it belonged to gave a ruffian grunt as her foot kicked out the felguard’s knee. He buckled. She yanked the axe from her wooden buckler. Her orange pigtails whipped back as she threw it into his chest. The demon went limp.
Retrieving her blood-soaked weapon, the middle-aged shield maiden marched up to Isaac with three younger dwarves in tow. There was a younger woman with a long braid, a man with a weaved beard as fiery as her hair, and another, whose blond, Van Dyke brush strew loose over his robes.
Isaac was too shaken to move. Pydilgri glared. Turning away from him with a scoff, they stomped up to Chavivah, warily steadfast. The four of them bore a family resemblance.
Pydilgri wasn’t sure if she already regretted it or not. Then she saw the petrified gratitude on Chavivah’s face.
She expected instant, bitter envy - that was the face she deserved years ago. Her son should have been saved, not this undead demon-caller! But that wasn’t what she felt. Even if it would last for meager seconds, she realized she was living through her. And it was intoxicating. The priestess's expression was so powerful, she could taste her out-of-body deliverance from grief, feel her shock, her reverence, the manner by which she would now consciously cherish him.
Her glowing orbs shuddered. If they were capable, they would be crying. “I--” Chavivah choked. “How to thank you, I can’t begin to say.”
“...Don’t go tellin’ anyone, ya deader,” Pydilgri muttered gruffly, before she and her brother’s children stormed off.
A paw landed on Chavivah’s bony shoulder. With some concern, Seo-yun gestured to the distant camp with a jerk of his head.
Chavivah turned to look back at him. The profound weight of her stare chilled him. Her head finally gave a slight shake inside her cowl.
“...No.”
Time crawled as he watched Chavivah burst out from behind the boulder, her cloak and robes blooming out in a wild flutter. Her gaunt form evanesced, half-visible, in a brief attempt to remain unseen. Seo-yun’s confused panic evaporated when he saw what she raced towards. He discovered the same grim tenderness she wore on his own face.
He knew then. He knew that he and Chavivah were about to die. Black claws tightened around his Moa’ki spear. The lumbering Pandaren bounded after her, his trinkets clacking violently over his leathers.
Raggyn, the blonde mage, wheezed in a shallow puddle of blood. His siblings grunted in fervor as they tried to dodge the demon’s blades. CLANG-- Dandarian’s eyes went wide with a gasp. She held her side, stumbled back a few steps, and fell. Blood gushed from the torn plate onto her hands.
Omn quaked with a vengeful roar. He ignored the broken arm that flailed behind him as he flung his axe at the wrathguard’s chest. The demon sidestepped. His new momentum hastened his raised sword. SSHHHINK-- “AAAUUGH!!” He launched Omn backwards, who landed with an agonized skid beside Dandarian. The Eredar scholar poised herself to finish them off. A ball of sickly felfire erupted between her hands. She hurled it.
The dwarves grimaced. They heard it land with a smoldering blast. Nothing else happened. Their eyes peeled back open.
Remnants of felfire tumbled over a dome of Light. A Forsaken priestess gritted her teeth in pain, her arms quaking to sustain the shield.
Seo-yun plodded to her side and aimed his spear, grizzled and determined.
The dwarves gaped at them.
“No, no!” Chavivah snapped. “Heal them, you fish-smelling shlemiel!”
Seo-yun blinked dumbly. He reached his spear over his shoulder to holster it, then jerked his paw skyward. A totem ornamented in blue surged from the earth. Gushes of water, magically shimmering in sunny light, swelled from nowhere onto the dwarves. The glittery deluge poured over each of their wounds. With every wave that poured over them, their gashes mended further, then further...
Forcing a spare hand, Chavivah reached into one of her pockets and threw something at them. “Here, catch!”
Omn snatched it instinctively from the air, still wincing from the residual pain. He peered down at it. It was a gold pocket watch.
“If we don’t make it,” Chavivah shouted, “be sure this gets to Isaac Benesh, my son. You promise?”
Dandarian’s throat felt dry. Raggyn’s mouth twisted as a sting formed in his eyes. Omn was glued onto the watch nestled in his hand, silent as the Forsaken’s sacrifice really began to sink in. “Aye lass,” the sister murmured, unable to say anything more.
“Good answer. Seo-yun,” Chavivah shot a glimpse over her shoulder, “are they good to run?”
Seo-yun flounced his scrutiny over their injuries. They weren’t completely healed, but it was good enough for them to run back to camp. He lowered his arms while his totem wriggled back into the ground. Then he gave a nod.
“All right, run back-- and don’t you destroy your mother’s heart by dying! Now gay avek!!”
Heaving themselves up, the dwarves stared at her, dumbfounded. Raggyn mustered the stomach to speak up, “B-but what aboot--”
“GAY AVEK, I SAID!” Chavivah bellowed, pointing a jagged, clawed finger. “GO! GO ALREADY, GO!”
They ran. In a whirlwind of thrashing limbs, wounded bodies, and sobs, they tore across the remaining stretch of battlefield.
Omn, Raggyn, and Dandarian managed to fumble behind the glowing barricades untouched. Barely able to see them anymore, Raggyn turned to a group of Draenei galloping to retrieve them.
His eyes were raw with tears by the time a gloriously armored paladin knelt to his level. “Let’s get you--”
“P-please,” Raggyn blubbered out. “Someone has ta get ‘em. Please...!”
The paladin knitted her brows. “Who?”
The shield atrophied into nothing. Seven demons stared the pair down. Chavivah faced him, her illuminated gaze soft. “Seo-yun...” Gratitude and heartache did not begin to describe the way she said his name.
Seo-yun gazed back. For the first time since they began working together, months ago, he actually spoke.
“Family is worth dyin’ for, Chavivah.”
Her decayed lips quivered into a small smile.
The demons charged. Seo-yun grabbed his spear, a chorus of totems bursting beside his feet. A bubble of Light wobbled over him, then herself. Chavivah lowered into a fiendish pose with her claws erect. Tentacles of dark, celestial Void lashed out beside his totems.
The last thing the dwarves saw before being dragged off was an exploding flurry of spells.
---
Throrim had come back with his mead about halfway through the story, mouth agape and a freshly wetted beard. He couldn't believe his ears.
Qaradoc was stone. He gave a quiet sigh. “Only half-decent Horde I’ve ever heard of and they wind up pushing daisies.”
“Actually we just heard they survived,” Omn said. “They’re bein’ treated in Dalaran.” He dug into a pocket and revealed the watch. There was a brief reverent pause when he glanced down at it. “We were plannin’ on visiting ‘em to return this. Lucky fer this Isaac lad, there’s no reason to give this thing to ‘im.”
"Ye lads are expectin' us tae believe that ya were rescued by some horde fookers... Well I never thought I'd see the fookin' day." Shaking his head he looked at Qaradoc. "Well ya git. We escortin' them or wha?"
Qaradoc fixated on the watch for a long time. He couldn’t move. His neck shifted as though he had literal trouble swallowing. Hardened by a demanding thirst for answers, he cast a resolved stare on his cherished survivors.
“...May we come with you?”
Throrim trotted off upstairs to find his gear. "Well that settles that dunnit?"
Special thanks to @commander-dawnstriker who played as his muse, Throrim. Any writing about Throrim belongs to him.
If you’re interested in following my other toons: Chavivah: @illsufferdear Seo-yun: @whalecarver Qaradoc: (no tumblr yet, but there will be one soon!)
Thanks for reading!