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kuzi-the-hunturr · 4 months ago

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Long Line of Tragedies

Kian gets some new accommodations, and Leah opens up about her past.

Content Warning: Past Trauma, Death, Miscarriage, Suicide, Alcohol Consumption

It was time.

Leah skipped downstairs and popped into the kitchen. She found Kian in his usual spot on his mat in the corner, back leaning against the wall, reading. “Hey, c’mon, grab your stuff,” she said, motioning for him to get up.

Kian looked up from his book of Zandali poetry, confused. “Where are we going?”

“Your accommodations are getting an upgrade,” Leah grinned. “Things have been going alright, I feel like I’m getting to know what to expect when it comes to this condition of yours, so I think it’ll be fine to let you stay in the living room from now on. It’s a little more comfortable and will afford you a little more privacy. You didn’t seriously think you were going to be sleeping on a mat on the floor of my kitchen forever, did you?”

“Well I…” Kian started but then trailed off. He hadn’t really thought about it. He was at Leah’s mercy in this situation, after all. “Thank you.”

Leah shook her head dismissively. “Don’t thank me yet, you still can’t come and go as you please, but I promised the kitchen floor mat was temporary, and I’m making good on that promise. So come on. You can leave the mat, I’ll get it later.”

Kian stood and gathered up his meager belongings. He only possessed a pillow and blanket and a small stack of books - all things Leah had given him. He followed Leah to the stairwell, where he hesitated a moment before stepping in. This time, the invisible barrier that had kept him confined to the kitchen was no longer there.

The stairwell was unlike anything Kian had ever seen. He was inside the trunk of the tree. Instead of the stairs being hewn from, or attached to the tree, the stairs were the tree. There were no windows, yet the passage was well-lit by bioluminescent plants and fungi that flanked the stairs on either side. Kian instantly realized that this was one large living structure, magically shaped by a druid’s hand.

“Astounding,” he breathed.

Leah turned to him with a smile. “Pretty cool, huh? When I told my friend Azka I was thinking of building a treehouse, he grew and shaped this tree for me. It’s a species native to Zandalar, so it blends right in. This tree, the glowing plants right here, it’s all completely symbiotic. C’mon though, we got a ways to climb.”

Kian followed Leah. The stairs ringed a center column as they wound their way up, up, up to the canopy of the tree. It was all so amazing and beautiful. Soon, the trunk opened up onto a landing that went off in three different directions: left, right, and up. Kian noticed that this part of the treehouse, just like the kitchen on the ground floor, had been constructed with building materials rather than magically shaped from the tree. Leah pointed to the right. “My room’s that way, and the loft is up. We’re going over here.” She motioned for Kian to follow her to the left. Leah stopped at the door of a small Zandalari-style hut.

“Alright, so this is it,” Leah said with a flourish of her hand. “This’ll be your room for the time being.”

Kian stepped in. The first thing he noticed were two low-slung couches arranged in an L-shape that divided the room in half. They were lined with colorful pillows of different shapes and sizes and looked quite comfortable. Kian did not see a bed, so he assumed he would be sleeping on one of the couches. He set his things down and began to look around. Boy, Leah did seem to love herself some bead curtains - they hung in both the door and the windows, just like downstairs. Behind the couches in the far corner was an L-shaped work desk with maps of Azeroth and Zandali scrolls scattered atop it, and on the opposite wall was a shelf filled with tchotchkes. Next to the shelf was a small altar with various implements of Loa-worship.

When Kian turned to look at the wall behind him, his eyes fell upon Leah’s souvenir bass guitar, autographed by none other than Mai’kyl himself, bassist to the incomparable Elite Tauren Chieftains. Immediately his face brightened. “Hey, I think I know how to play one of these,” he said animatedly as he took the lovingly displayed instrument down off the wall.

Leah’s mouth gaped in horror as Kian, to her eyes, unceremoniously grabbed what was probably her most prized possession from its place on her wall. “No no no no!” she exclaimed frantically. “Put that back!”

Kian furrowed his brow, puzzled. “Why? It’s just… I’m pretty sure I can play this…”

The mon did look like he knew what he was doing. He held it properly. This might actually be a chance to unlock some of his memories and perhaps finally make some progress towards remembering himself. At the moment though, Leah only saw the potential destruction of priceless memorabilia from her favorite musician.

“Okay well first of all,” she began, “I know I literally found you in a cave, but you don’t just go grabbing people’s possessions off the walls of their homes. Second of all, that is a gift from a very dear friend who went to no small effort to get that autographed for me because he knows how much I love Mai’kyl, and I won’t see it messed up.”

Kian stared blankly at her. “Who is Mai’kyl?”

Leah’s eyes went wide in disbelief. It didn’t matter to her at that moment that Kian’s memory was comprised mainly of Alterac Swiss and sawdust, everyone should surely know who Mai’kyl is.

“That’s Mai’kyl.” Leah pointed at a poster depicting a Darkspear mon holding a guitar that looked exactly like the one currently in Kian’s hands. The poster hung directly next to where her souvenir guitar had been on display, and it too was autographed, a clear sign of the trolless’s fanaticism. “He’s only the best troll bassist in the world,” she explained enthusiastically. “He plays for the Elite Tauren Chieftains.”

Another blank stare. Leah sighed and facepalmed. “Hang on,” she replied as she determinedly marched to the goblin music box that stood on a side table next to the sofa on the opposite wall. She fiddled with the dials until “Power of the Horde” began blasting from its tiny speakers. “This is the Elite Tauren Chieftains, they’re the most famous rock band in all of Azeroth, aside from maybe Blight Boar.”

Kian had no idea who this “Blight Boar” was either, but he didn’t ask. Instead, he listened to the song for a moment, seeming to consider each power chord, each beat of the drum and bobbing his head in time with the music.

Leah switched off the music box as soon as she was satisfied that he understood. “See?” “Yes, I see,” he nodded. “But please, may I show you this? I promise I won’t ruin your guitar.”

He looked so eager, like a child. Leah was hesitant, but nodded her consent.

Kian took up the guitar, strummed, then winced. It was horribly out of tune. He carefully plucked and listened, then turned the tuning pegs again and again, using nothing but his sharp ears to find the right sound. Finally satisfied, Kian gave the instrument a strum, and the strings rang out in harmony.

The Zandalari moved to take a seat on the nearby sofa. Leah watched his whole demeanor change as he closed his eyes and began to play. Kian normally looked a little uneasy, a little on edge no matter what he was doing, but here, with this instrument in his hands, he looked completely at peace with himself. Right now there were no dangerous thoughts, no dark mojo to be found, just Kian and his music. Keeping his eyes closed, Kian tapped his foot to keep time and bit his lip in concentration. His head moved along with the rhythm and he seemed to not just be playing the music, but feeling it, living it.

Leah found herself moving automatically to sit at his feet and listen. She watched in awe as Kian played the smooth, funky bass riff flawlessly. She was beyond impressed and maybe even a little turned on; she’d always been a sucker for musicians anyway.

Kian finished playing and opened his eyes, then startled slightly when he found Leah as close as she was. He looked somewhat expectantly at her.

“Where'd you learn to do that?” Leah asked, awed.

Kian shook his head. “I don't know. I… I just knew when I saw it that I knew what to do… somehow.”

“Well, that was very good,” Leah replied with a smile, but then quickly added in a more serious tone, “But you still can’t use my guitar.”

Kian arched an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously,” Leah replied. “Again, that was a gift, and it’s very precious to me. But if you think you can hold yourself together for a little trip into the city, maybe we could head to the Bazaar and get you an instrument of your own.”

Kian smiled brightly. “You have no idea how much I would like that.”

Leah was completely unprepared for how handsome she found this smile of his. He’d smiled once or twice before, but it was always more subdued. His pure, incandescent joy at the prospect of having his own instrument made his colorless eyes sparkle like polished diamonds, and Leah couldn’t help but be a little captivated.

Now more animated than before, Kian gently replaced Leah’s guitar where he found it and began exploring the room more closely. He spied a painting on the wall opposite him.

“Oh, is this you? It looks like you. Who is the mon with you?” he asked.

Leah nodded, “Yeah, that’s me and my mate Ja’mez.”

Kian shot a quizzical look in Leah’s direction. She was married? Kian found it somewhat odd that he had been staying with Leah for nearly a month and hadn’t seen this Ja’mez person around yet, and also that Leah had neglected to mention him at all. Perhaps he was away? It wasn’t like Leah had really told Kian a lot of personal details about herself, he supposed, but it still seemed strange. Kian wanted to ask about where this guy was, but decided that was probably rude and none of his business.

He looked at the picture once more. “Quite the painting. You look nice.” “Thank you,” Leah smiled. “A friend of mine, Arandria, painted that at my mating ceremony. It was her wedding gift to us.”

“She is quite talented,” Kian remarked.

He tried to move on, tried to think of something else to talk about, when his eyes landed on a small crystalline statue on the tchotchke shelf that also seemed to depict Leah and this Ja’mez guy together. He pointed to the figurines, “Another wedding gift?” Leah nodded. “My friend Zazu is really good at carving things, and he gave that to us.”

It was no use, Kian’s curiosity was just too great. He turned to Leah and asked as casually as he could manage, “So… where is your mate? I have not seen him yet. Are you sure he wouldn’t be upset with another mon staying with you while he’s away?”

Leah pursed her lips. “He’s dead,” she stated flatly. Suddenly it all made sense.

“Oh. My condolences,” Kian mumbled.

Leah’s expression was impassive. She waved a hand dismissively. “Eh, don’t be,” she sighed. “It was a long time ago now, and if I’m honest, our relationship was a little one-sided.”

Kian furrowed his brow. “Why do you say that?”

The trolless flashed a sardonic smile. “I thought he was the love of my life, my shot at happiness. He, well… he was far more dedicated to his work than he ever was to me. He was a druid, committed to balancing nature, and that task consumed him. He always said he was doing it for me, that I was the reason he kept going, to make the world better for me…” Leah shook her head. “I never could make him see - I didn’t want the world, I only wanted him…”

Kian looked hard at the mon in the statue, trying to get the make of him. “Do you think he ever truly loved you?”

“Oh, I’m sure he did, in his own way,” Leah replied. “But it wasn’t the way that I needed to be loved, and I was too smitten at the time to notice.”

The trolless paused; there was a far away look in her eyes. “I didn’t even get a honeymoon. I came down stairs all packed for our getaway and found him in his battle robes, ready to go help with another fight. ‘I have to go, they need me,’ was all he said. I never saw him alive again after that.”

Kian stood silent, his mouth slightly agape. What an idiot. Even he, as fucked in the head as he was, couldn't fathom leaving a mate who loved him on the eve of their honeymoon. He looked at Leah with no idea how to respond.

“What can I say?” Leah smirked wryly. “Just the latest in a long line of tragedies surrounding yours truly.” Her expression suddenly grew serious. “Sometimes I think I must be cursed.”

The two were quiet for a little while, the melancholy weighing down the room like a wet blanket. Eventually, Leah broke the silence. “Well! Loas, I for sure did not mean to drag down the mood of this evening like that! You didn’t need all those details. Sorry. Do you need some water or something? I can run downstairs.”

Kian slowly looked down at the huntress. “Tell me why you think you’re cursed.”

Leah tilted her head. “What?”

“You said you think you must be cursed,” Kian repeated. “Why? What is this ‘long line of tragedies’ you mentioned?”

Leah raised an eyebrow. “You really wanna hear about all that?” she asked doubtfully. “Why not?” Kian shrugged. “You can’t say something like that and then not explain. And it’s not as if I have another place to be.”

The huntress considered this for a moment. In talking about Ja’mez, she had already shared more with Kian this evening than she had ever intended to. But she was feeling especially honest tonight, and it had been so long since she’d had company to talk to. “Fine, but we’ll need beer instead - water won’t do for these stories. Head on up to the loft while I get us some drinks.”

Kian did as he was told and climbed the winding stairs up to the tip top of Leah’s treehouse to the area she called “the loft.” It was an open-walled structure with a thatch roof and breathtaking views of the jungle below. Kian could even catch a glimpse of the great pyramid of Dazar’alor. The little gazebo was comfortably appointed with rugs and floor cushions, perfect for lounging and enjoying the fresh air. A large branch jutted up through the center of the loft, acting as the structure’s main support. Hanging on this branch were two carved wooden tiki masks, which Kian suspected were for more than just decoration, as he swore he could feel a soothing presence whenever he moved near them. Above, attached to the ceiling supports, hung fishing floats of various colors, each containing a flickering candle that bathed the loft in a warm, welcoming glow. If he could ever manage to calm his hornet’s nest of a mind, Kian thought, it would be in a place like this.

He wandered slowly, inspecting each little homey touch. He ran his fingers along the rails, gently pushed the hanging lights to watch them sway. He was looking into the eyes of one of the tiki masks when Leah finally reached the top of the stairs.

“Makin’ friends with Mayumbe?” she asked as she set down two large ice buckets filled with bottles.

“They have names?” Kian asked. “Of course they have names,” Leah almost sounded offended on their behalf. “That one is Mayumbe, and the other is Urundi. They’re my house spirits, they live in these masks and help keep an eye on the place. So you better behave,” Leah smirked.

Kian raised his hands in surrender. “On my honor, I will do my best.”

“Alright, well pick a spot and get comfortable,” Leah said as she plopped down onto a cushion and popped the twist top off a bottle of beer. She took a quick swig before reaching into one of the buckets to pass Kian his own frosty beverage.

Kian lowered himself onto a zhevra-skinned cushion near Leah and looked at the bottle in his hand. Had he ever had beer before? He genuinely couldn’t remember. Stormstout’s Summer Sunset Red Lager, the label read. A proud looking bear-man smiled cheerfully up at Kian from the logo. Pandaren - the word popped into Kian’s mind, though he couldn’t recall just where or when he’d learned that. He twisted the top off and gave it a taste; it was light and dry and a little sweet, like yeast bread drizzled with honey, and it made his throat feel warm on the way down.

Leah sat cross-legged on her cushion and looked into her bottle like she was looking for guidance. “This kinda all starts with my parents,” she began, “but I think for you to understand that, you have to understand Zalazane, and how he ended up doing what he was doing.”

Kian immediately perked up; he’d heard Leah mention Zalazane with regards to his condition before. He found himself leaning toward Leah, instantly curious. The trolless took a sip of her beer, then settled into her story.

“Around when I was thirteen or so, my tribe left our home on the Darkspear Islands to join the orcish warchief Thrall and his Horde in the land of Durotar. That’s in Kalimdor, almost directly west of here,” Leah explained. “It was a rocky start, but eventually we settled on this little collection of barrier islands just off the coast that we called the Echo Isles. Our chieftain, Vol'jin, had a best friend named Zalazane. They’d grown up together back on the Darkspear Islands, and Zalazane had apprenticed under our tribe’s witch doctor, Master Gadrin. I’ll never understand what led him to do this, but Zalazane betrayed us. He started using dark magic to take over people’s minds and build an army, or just use us as slaves or something. Eventually it became so bad, we had to flee the Echo Isles entirely. For the most part after that things were fine, but every once in a while somebody’d wander too close to the Echo Isles and get snatched up, never to be seen again. Plenty of us tried to stop him, but Zalazane was clever. Some brave Darkspear would think they’d defeated him only to find out later the head they’d cut off Zalazane’s body was just a coconut. Just more trickery.”

Leah stopped and took a long pull from her beer, then took a deep breath. “Anyway, about five years later, I volunteered for the Horde’s army. I went off to the Valley of Trials for some training, that’s where we all went back then, and after I’d finished, they sent me back home for a bit before I was to report to Orgrimmar for my first assignment. I came home to find my hut empty, my parents were gone. Master Gadrin told me that a couple of weeks back, my fa’da had gone fishing and hadn’t returned, and my ma’da, fearful he’d been captured, went to the Echo Isles to go find him. My ma’da was a skilled hunter and tracker - she’s the one who taught me everything I know - but I guess it wasn’t enough, because she never came home either.”

“I am… sorry that happened.” Kian said as he set aside his now empty bottle.

Leah chuckled wryly. “We haven’t gotten to the worst part yet.”

Kian pressed his lips tightly together and waited to hear the worst part.

“Against Master Gadrin’s advice, I decided I needed to find my parents - to give them a proper burial, if nothing else. Well… I found my ma’da. She wasn’t hard to find, just kinda aimlessly wandering not too far from the shore. I should have known better, but I called out to her. She looked at me and… there was nothing behind her eyes. But when she saw me she screamed like a banshee and set out to tear me apart with her bare hands. At first, I only blocked her attacks, I wouldn’t dare hit her back, I just kept begging her, ‘Mama stop! Mama it’s me! It’s Leah! Mama wake up, please!’”

Leah’s voice carried an edge of sadness and desperation, and Kian could feel a knot forming in his stomach. He understood now why she initially had thought his and her mother’s conditions had been similar. He silently watched her blink back tears as she continued to recount her story.

“I ended up knocking her out and tying her up and dragging her back to Sen’jin Village. I called Master Gadrin. He’s the best witch doctor there is, he trained Zalazane, I figured if anybody could fix Mama, it’d be him. But…” Leah’s voice faltered a bit, “but he couldn’t do anything. This… husk I’d brought home wasn’t really her anymore. He gave me a sympathetic shoulder pat and left me to… take care of things. Mama wouldn’t have wanted to live like that, so I… I put a dagger through her temple.”

Kian shifted uncomfortably. His inner darkness slavered gleefully at the thought of daggers in skulls. He needed something, anything at all, to distract him. “Fuck,” he said. “I think I need another beer.”

“Heh,” Leah replied absently. “Pass me one too while you’re at it.”

She extended her hand and Kian dutifully passed her a drink. “Thanks. Anyway, I buried my ma’da at the edge of the village. I didn’t find my fa’da’s remains until we liberated the Isles years later. I laid him next to my ma’da. In a way, I’m kinda glad I didn’t find my fa’da then. I don’t know if I could have handled seeing them both like that.”

“Hm,” Kian hummed thoughtfully. He couldn’t remember his own parents. Were they still alive? Did they miss him, or had they sent him away because of this thing inside him? He wondered if he would ever know for sure. Leah’s voice pulled him back to the present.

“Anyway, about a year later, I met Boaris - a tall, handsome Darkspear warrior.”

Kian interrupted her. “I’m sorry… Boaris? What kind of name is that?”

Leah chuckled. “A nickname. He had short tusks that curved up like a boar’s, so that’s what our army buddies called him. He hated his given name, so he didn’t mind going by that.”

“What was his given name?”

“Sul’Rokh,” Leah replied.

Kian wrinkled his nose. “What was wrong with that? It’s a respectable troll name.”

“His fa’da gave him that name, and he hated his fa’da. I never met the mon, but apparently he was a bastard.”

The Zandalari nodded and took another swig of his drink.

There was a smile on Leah’s face as she stared into nothing while she recalled her first love. “Boaris was a good mon, always knew how to make people laugh, especially me. He called me Pink, ‘cause of my hair, which I hated at first. We were together about a year when I found out I was pregnant. We made plans to rotate out of the service and head back to Sen’jin Village. He would train young warriors and I would teach tusklings to hunt, and that’s how we’d live.”

Her face fell. “Until Karazhan. He was assigned to a scouting mission around the old ruined tower of the last Guardian of Tirisfal, Medihv. I’m not sure why the Horde was interested in it, I think the tower might sit on some powerful ley lines or something. It doesn’t matter. All I know is no one came back from that Loa-forsaken place. I went to look for him… alone. Stupid, I know, but what else could I do? Not that it made a difference. That damned tower… It was maddening. It traps souls and memories alike, I couldn’t make sense of the place enough to find anything, let alone bring Boaris home. So I left him there. I was on my way back to Grom’gol, the Horde outpost in Stranglethorn Vale, when I started… bleeding.”

Kian closed his eyes and tried his best to picture anything but blood.

Too lost in her own story to notice his discomfort, Leah continued. “The medic in Grom’gol checked me out. He… he couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat. I… In less than a week, I’d lost both my mate and his child.”

“I can’t imagine what that must feel like,” Kian said softly.

“I sort of shut down,” Leah replied. “As soon as I was well enough, I threw myself back into work. I volunteered for every assignment the Horde would let me, just so I wouldn’t have to think about it.” Kian nodded. “Understandable, I suppose.”

Next, Leah spoke of a mission she had in Northrend where she and her squad had been tasked with a search and rescue of the nearby saronite mines. Some Horde soldiers had recently gone missing, and her superiors suspected they had been taken captive and forced to work in the mines for the Scourge. Inside, Leah’s team heard maddening whispers that seemed to come from the very ore itself. Any captives they freed, to the team’s horror, either became so violent they had to be put down, or they just bolted and threw themselves down the mineshaft rather than returning with the team. And then, as Leah put it, “everything went to hell.”

“We were all talking about how we didn’t like it in there, how it felt unnatural, how we didn’t understand why the captives had acted that way when we tried to free them,” Leah explained. “It was the whispers. It had to be. Saronite is evil stuff, you see - literally the blood of an Old God. Being surrounded by it was almost as bad being in Yogg Saron’s presence. And that’s when Blooddawn, that was her last name, started acting funny. She was tilting her head and pricking her ears like she was listening to something we couldn’t hear. Sarge tried to get her attention, but she just whispered, ‘master,’ and then took a flying leap down the mineshaft just like the captives had. Margok tried to catch her and damn-near fell in after her; we had to pull him back from the edge. We’d barely gotten him away from there when Swifthoof shouted, ‘I’M COMING, MASTER!’ and jumped down the damned mineshaft too. We collectively lost it after that. It was all Sarge could do to get us to calm the hell down and get us the hell out of that Loa-forsaken mine.”

Leah’s next stories were mostly about the wars she’d been in and the comrades she’d lost. Kian wondered exactly how Leah could think a curse was responsible for these deaths. Sure the situation in the saronite mines had been strange, but the others? Kian didn’t find anything particularly unusual about soldiers dying in conflicts, but Leah seemed to take every death to heart. He could see how deeply Leah’s love for her friends ran by just how deeply she felt each loss. It was almost as if she thought that their deaths were somehow her fault. If she had only been faster, paid more attention…

As the night wound on and more and more drinks were consumed, the two went from sitting, to leaning, to lying sprawled out on the floor. Leah took to using Kian as a leg rest, or an arm rest, or sometimes a head rest as the mood would strike her. And to his surprise, Kian found he didn’t really mind that.

Was this what normal felt like? Late night chats over copious amounts of booze? A friend who’s comfortable enough in your presence to lean on you? Dark subject matter aside, Kian had to admit, he liked this. His thoughts wandered. Did he have friends waiting for him somewhere? Did they stay up all night conversing like this? What would it be like for him once his mind was his own once more? Would this all just be a crazy story to tell over drinks some day?

Leah’s voice once again pulled his thoughts back to the present. “And then there was Ja’mez. After years of being alone, he just kinda appeared out of nowhere and kissed me as if he knew it’d be the last first kiss I’d ever have. Normally, I’d have broken off a mon’s tusk and shoved it up his ass for being so bold, but there was something about him.” She chuckled. “Subtletyl wasn’t his thing. He was always pretty good about the big romantic gestures, like sweeping me off my feet for a kiss in the middle of a battlefield… not even kidding about that one. But the small things, like sitting still and having a conversation, or, I don’t know, just being there… that he was never good at. But he could turn on the charm when he wanted, so it was hard to stay mad at him. I mean, I’m not trying to make him sound like an asshole. He was a good mon, just… not a good partner.” Kian said nothing. He was fairly well convinced that anybody who could treat Leah like that was an asshole regardless of his other so-called good qualities.

“Well,” Leah continued, “just like I mentioned earlier, the morning after our mating ceremony, when we were all set to leave for a honeymoon in Pandaria, I come down to find him all dressed and ready to go to war. Azshara was back on her bullshit, and she’d lured the Horde and the Alliance to Nazjatar… all part of her plot to free N’zoth and usher in the return of the Black Empire. He left to go fight. I hated that about him so much - leaving me home like I’m some damsel in distress that needs to be protected. I decided to try and find him - we were a team, and if he was going to fight, so was I. But no matter what, I always seemed to be one step behind him.

“And those goddamned whispers. I heard them in the dark places of Nazjatar, just like I’d heard them that day in the saronite mines. You don’t forget how the Old Gods sound when their insidious words worm their way into your head. They told me I’d never find Ja’mez, that he’d lie forever in the Sleeping City, that it’d be my fault. “Then one day, I was at home, when I heard a knock. It was Zen’tabi, a friend of mine, and a druid that knew Ja’mez. She…” Leah’s voice faltered. “She told me they’d taken the fight to Ny'alotha, the Sleeping City, N’zoth’s home. She, Ja’mez, and the other druids were ambushed by a pack of void beings. Ja’mez immediately went into bear form and drew the pack away, giving the others time to escape. She said he fought as fiercely as Ursoc, but in the end, they… they overwhelmed him.” Leah paused a moment to dab at her now teary eyes. “He was brave. He died a hero. That’s what everybody told me, like that was somehow a comfort. I couldn’t help but think, ‘If only he’d stayed, if we’d gone to Pandaria, if he had just let me come with him’… Well, anyway… I brought him home, I mummified him myself, just like they did in the old days. I… I couldn’t bring myself to have him burned.

“After that, I was a mess. Life felt so unfair. I’d given so much for my Horde, for my tribe, and it cost me everything. I wasn’t allowed to be happy, clearly. And then the nightmares started. I’d dream I was back in Orgrimmar, but the Black Empire had taken over the city. And Ja’mez was there, fighting alongside me, like it should have been. But then I’d watch him die right in front of me, and I’d hear those whispers, and I’d wake up screaming.

“It got so bad, my friends Zul and Ahuatli got so worried that they asked me to come stay with them. Not that it helped. Somewhere while I was out looking for Ja’mez, I must have gotten exposed to some Old God corruption, because one night I laid down to sleep, then I fell into a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. Over and over I had to relive the worst memories of my life: my parents, Boaris, my baby, Ja’mez, all the friends I’d lost over the years… and all the while those damned whispers would tell me it was my fault. Thank the Loa for everyone who came together to help me wake up, or I wouldn’t be here now.”

It was late when Leah finally concluded her stories. The stars shone brightly against the black velvet of the Zuldazar sky, while the crickets chirped a lullaby to the jungle below. Leah’s head rested against Kian’s side as she lay perpendicular to the large troll. She lazily lifted the bottle to her lips and swigged the last of her beer. They lingered there together in comfortable silence.

“You’ve been really quiet,” Leah said at last. “Here I am, telling you my whole sad life story, and you’ve barely said a word back.”

Kian leaned back on the striped zhevra cushion he’d claimed as his own, his eyes closed, placidly taking in Leah’s tales of woe. The alcohol had made him feel warm and comfortable. It had also softened the rougher edges of his mind and dulled the usual screams of his dark impulses to a murmur. He could easily get used to this, he thought.

“I was thinking,” he spoke as Leah’s voice roused him, “that after listening to you, maybe it isn’t such a bad thing that I cannot remember my past.”

The huntress twisted her head to look at her house guest, sucked her teeth, and scoffed.

“Hey, you asked,” he protested.

“Dick.” She smiled as she gave him a playful elbow jab in the stomach.

Kian, completely unprepared for such an assault, sat up and doubled forward with a cough, causing Leah’s head to slide to the floor with a thud.

“Ow!” she cried as she sat up to rub her head.

The two caught sight of each other and erupted in a fit of drunken laughter.

As the giggles died down, Kian continued to gaze at the tipsy little trolless beside him. He saw how the colorful, flickering light from the lamps above played off her skin. Had she always been this pretty? he wondered.

His gaze lingered just a bit too long for Leah’s comfort, and she turned her face away.

“Well,” she spoke, flustered. “I should get to bed. I’ve stayed up way too late and drank way too much for a person who has work in the morning.”

Leah smiled awkwardly as she rose unsteadily to her feet.

Kian couldn’t explain it, but he suddenly found himself a bit crestfallen that the night had so abruptly come to an end. “Are you good, or do you need help down the stairs?” he asked.

“No, no, I’m fine,” Leah replied hurriedly. “I can handle myself. How about you? Can you find your way to the couch?”

“Yes. I will be okay.” The Zandalari forced a smile.

“Alright, but don’t let me find you on the ground in the morning with a broken neck because you fell out of the tree.”

Kian chuckled wryly. “I won’t.”

Leah turned to make her way shakily down the stairs to her room.

Kian called after her. “Hey, Leah?”

“Yeah?”

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think you’re cursed.”

Leah smiled half-heartedly. “It doesn’t. But I appreciate the sentiment. Sleep well, mon.”

“You too.”

#world of warcraft #world of warcraft troll #fanfic #leahsidhe #leah stories #kian #kian stories #headcanons #wow troll #wow #oc lore #character backstory

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kuzi-the-hunturr · 4 months ago

Text

The Interrogation

Kian's first night as Leah's "house guest," where Leah interrogates him about the darkness within him Content Warning - Past trauma, threats of violence

While the strange Zandalari sipped his coffee, Leah took a moment to really observe him. She had noticed most of these things already but now she wanted to study him without distraction. She took in the features of his face. He wasn’t old, but he didn’t look particularly young either. His face was mostly smooth, with only slight traces of fine lines around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth, but there was something careworn about his expression that led Leah to feel he had a decent amount of life experience. She placed his age at somewhere between forty and forty-five years old.

His viridian hair had been shorn close on the sides, and cropped into a short mohawk on top, much like a lot of the city guards in Dazar’alor wore. The stubble on the sides of his head indicated that his haircut was maybe a few months old. Definitely not regulation. This, along with his well-muscled physique made Leah think perhaps she should drop a line with some of her contacts to ask around and see if the Rastari had any AWOL troops.

His skin was smooth, absent of the rocky patches that normally adorned Zandalari trolls’ shoulders. It was a recessive trait among the Zandalari - uncommon to be sure, but not entirely unheard of. He had no visible tattoos, no identifying marks of any kind, save for a long scar reaching from just below his breastbone down to his navel. Leah wondered about its nature. Because of their regeneration, trolls only tended to sport scars from the most grievous of injuries. But this scar was clean and perfectly straight, whereas marks from battle tended to be jagged and messy. It could be a ritual scar; in those cases the troll undergoing the ritual would make repeated gouges in their skin after using a potion to temporarily halt their healing factor in order to let the scar tissue form. It was a lengthy and painful process that was generally used to make elaborate designs to either honor the Loa, or to indicate rites of passage or tribal affiliations. But this? This was just a single mark. Leah didn’t profess to be an expert of all the various trollish tribal markings, but something told her that’s not what this was. To her, it seemed much more like a surgical scar, but then, why hadn’t his regeneration healed him? Perhaps he’d been cursed, or possibly forsaken by the Loa. It could be, Leah reasoned, that the scar and his dark mojo were somehow related. She made a note to find a way to test her theory later.

By far, the most striking thing about the mysterious Kian had to be his eyes though. They weren’t solid colored, nor did they emit a subtle glow like most Zandalari’s eyes - instead he had separate sclera, irises, and pupils much like Leah herself had. The color of his irises was also unique. At first glance, Leah would have said his eyes were white, but up close, they reminded her much more of quartz crystal. They were a cloudy-clear color that would pick up hues of things nearby. When he looked in the direction of the wall sconces, his eyes would show specks of yellow and red as they reflected the firelight. When he looked down toward the table, they would reflect the bluish color of the inlaid tile. Their unusualness added something to the intensity of his gaze, and Leah couldn’t decide whether she was unnerved or intrigued by them.

Leah jotted her observations down in a small notepad. There was so much that was odd about Kian - his antiquated dialect, his lack of rocky patches, his strange eyes, the unusual scar, not to mention the darkness he carried inside him. Individually these things didn’t mean much, but together, perhaps they added up to something. Though what that might be, Leah couldn’t exactly say.

Kian of course had noticed her looking, or rather, staring rudely at him, but it wasn’t until she started writing that he spoke up.

“Is that about me?” Kian asked as he inclined his head toward the notebook.

“Yeah,” Leah replied. “I’m just jotting down observations, writing down ideas on where to look to help you unravel this mystery. So… now that there are fewer distractions, are you up for answering some more questions?”

“Distractions…” Kian repeated hollowly. “You mean the ‘orc’ who threatened to set me on fire and feed me to that beast?” He sneered as he spoke of Leah’s friend Heroya. “Or perhaps you meant the shaman with the attention span of a saurid?”

Leah smirked. “I suppose working with those two is a bit like herding sabertusk cubs, yes. But that didn’t stop them from making quick work of you in that cave, did it?”

If looks could kill, Leah would have most assuredly dropped dead in that moment. “They got lucky,” the Zandalari spat.

“Maybe so. Sometimes that’s all it takes.” Leah shrugged. “Either way, you’re here now. Let’s focus, please.”

Kian stared daggers at Leah for a long while, and Leah stared right back, placid and unaffected. Finally, Kian conceded. “Alright, little trolless.”

“Good.” Leah nodded. “So exactly how far back can you remember?” “Perhaps a month? Two at the most.” The Zandalari shook his head. “I really could not say. It’s patchy. The times I do recall all seem to blend together, and there are parts missing.”

“That’s okay,” Leah remarked as she scratched more notes onto her pad. “And you don’t remember anything at all before that?”

Kian closed his eyes and seemed to really concentrate for a moment. He opened them and sighed. “No. Nothing.”

Leah continued nodding as she recorded his answers. “And you came from the north, you said. From the swamp?”

“I… I must have. Yes. I remember wading in water. Then there was an ascending path, and a rope bridge. I tried to cover as much ground as I could, I slept in caves, under rock outcroppings, in the hollows of trees…”

At this, Leah furiously scribbled the words “blood troll” and “captive” both followed by question marks. She looked up at Kian for a moment. “And did you encounter anyone as you traveled?”

The Zandalari again closed his eyes and tried to picture the journey in his mind. There were parts that were missing, parts where he only saw red. He worried about just what that meant. “N-no,” he stammered before opening his eyes and looking directly at Leah. This time he repeated himself more confidently. “No. There was no one. You and your friends were the first people I encountered.”

Leah squinted hard at the mon before taking down his answer. “Okay. So, what can you tell me about this scar?”

As Leah pointed her pen toward his abdomen, Kian lifted a hand to absentmindedly touch his scar and then flinched as if it hurt. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” he repeated with apparent distress.

Leah reached out toward him and motioned for him to calm down. “Shh. Everything’s alright. You’re safe here,” the trolless soothed.

This lapse of memory seemed different than what he’d displayed so far; it seemed to Leah more like a trauma response. It was like Kian remembered that something bad had happened to him, but his mind had buried it deeply so as to keep him from ever having to relive it. This was unfortunately something Leah had seen before while serving the Horde’s army, particularly back during the Icecrown campaign. Watching the undead that used to be your comrades turn on you and try to tear you apart tended to have that effect on people. She’d known quite a few soldiers who came back home with more than their share of trauma after witnessing the horrors of the Scourge. Hell, she’d come close to being one herself.

Before Leah could get too lost in her own memories, the atmosphere of the room began to change. She could sense the same strange feeling from the caving rising again. Kian slammed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. Aiden, Leah’s canine companion who had up until this point been curled up placidly in the corner, now stood and emitted a low growl, ready to attack on his master’s word. Leah watched intently and prepared to call on her own mojo to her just in case she had a fight on her hands.

After a tense moment, the heavy feeling in the room dissipated, and Kian opened his eyes. Immediately, he dashed toward the front door, but unable to cross the threshold still, he doubled over and vomited onto the floor.

“Sorry… sorry,” he panted as he grimaced at the sour taste of black coffee and bile.

Leah sprang up from the table to grab a kitchen towel and jar of baking soda. After handing the towel to Kian, she shooed away Aiden, who had gotten up to sniff the pile of sick in that way dogs do. She then sprinkled the powder on the floor to soak up the mess and offered Kian a reassuring smile. “That’s alright. Nothing we can’t clean up. You sit back down, I’ll get you some water.”

Kian pressed the towel to his mouth, wiped away the vomit, and did as he was bade. Leah brought him some water. After a few moments, she swept away the dried up vomit and the powder and rejoined her house guest at the table. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wouldn’t have asked if I had known it’d be that upsetting.”

“How were you supposed to know?” Kian shrugged. “I didn’t even know. I cannot remember anything about it at all. You would think that would mean it wouldn’t bother me.” He looked down at the floor and heaved a sigh heavy with weariness and frustration.

“Should we take a break from this?” Leah asked.

“I am fine,” he answered a little too quickly.

Leah arched an eyebrow doubtfully at the stranger, but proceeded all the same. “Alright. Tell me about this darkness inside you.”

“It is… difficult to describe. It’s always with me. I feel it lurking just below the surface. It’s like having a voice in my head, giving me ideas, urging me to do things. They sound like my own thoughts do, and I feel the desire to do what they tell me, but it feels foreign. It’s inside of me, but it is not me. I…” The mon sighed. “I do not know how to explain it any better than that.”

“I think I understand,” Leah replied. “What kind of thoughts do you have? What does it tell you to do?”

“Well,” the Zandalari replied, “right now, the voice is telling me if I were quick enough, I could snatch that pencil from your hand and jam it through your eyeball.”

Leah almost chuckled. “Really? Then why haven’t you tried to do it?”

“Because it’s not in control, I am. For now.”

“So, when I feel it,” Leah said while motioning to herself, “when the whole atmosphere around you changes, that’s the darkness trying to take control of you? It’s trying to push your consciousness to the back of your mind so it can make you do what it wants?” Kian nodded. “I believe so, yes.” “And do you have any idea what triggers it to try to take over?”

The Zandalari shrugged. “Sometimes if I feel angry or I’m threatened, it can manifest -”

“So like when we confronted you in the cave?” Leah interjected.

“Yes. But other times it seems completely random.”

“And you can’t control it at all?” Kian’s shoulders slumped. He looked defeated. “Most of the time, it is… just easier if I don’t try. I can resist on occasion, but it takes every ounce of concentration I have, and it seems to punish me for resisting. It can be incredibly painful. Or make me violently ill.” “Like just now when you puked on the floor?” Leah asked.

“Yes,” the mon replied, looking embarrassed. “And even when I give it everything I have, sometimes I still lose. Which is… frustrating.”

Frustrating didn’t seem like the word he wanted to use, but it was the one he settled on nevertheless. Leah supposed she understood.

“I can imagine,” the huntress replied. “So you want help with this so you can stop killing?”

Kian shook his head. “No, you misunderstand me. The killing is not what bothers me. I like killing. I am good at it. I enjoy the smell of blood. I take pleasure in watching the light go out in someone’s eyes, and knowing that I caused it. Taking a life… it is… the closest mortals get to being gods,” he leered sinisterly.

Leah squinted hard at the mon, unsure of what to make of that confession. “Not sure I agree with you there.”

“To each their own, I suppose,” Kian replied. “Tell me, little trolless, have you ever killed before?”

Something about the way Kian looked at her made Leah uncomfortable; she felt like he was trying to decide how best to cook and eat her. Perhaps he was.

“Yes,” Leah answered matter-of-factly. “But if you think I’m gonna share the lurid details so you can get your rocks off, forget it.”

Kian’s lip curled up in a smirk, but he continued to look at her with that cold, shark-like gaze. “You won’t even tell me which one was your favorite?”

“It’s gonna be you if you keep talking about this,” Leah snarked.

Kian raised his eyebrows and his mouth split into a sinister grin. “I hope that’s a promise.”

This confused Leah. “You don’t value your own life?”

“In the end, we are all just meat for the feast, blood for the sacrifice,” he shrugged.

The huntress narrowed her eyes. “And what Loa do you worship who requires such a tribute?”

The mon opened his mouth to respond, but stopped. Another thing he couldn’t remember. Leah jotted this down; perhaps another sign he’d been forsaken by his Loa? Kian grew visibly distressed. A troll’s Loa was an important part of their existence, if he couldn’t remember his, then he was truly lost. Who would he call on for help now when he needed it most?

“It’s okay. We can come back to that,” Leah assured him. “Don’t worry about it for now.”

The mon shifted uneasily in his seat, but otherwise said nothing. Leah eyed him warily, worried for a moment that he might have another episode, but to her relief, the darkness didn’t return.

“I am fine,” Kian barked when his eyes met Leah’s. He seemed annoyed at her concern.

Leah shook her head. “So if the killing doesn’t bother you, then if you don’t mind me asking, why’d you agree to let me help you?”

Kian looked as if he were considering how to phrase his answer. “Listen, Leah… it is Leah, correct?” The huntress nodded slowly.

“Leah, I need you to understand something,” the mon continued. “I know what I sound like when I say I like killing, but think of me as a… tradesmon who is proud of his hard work.”

“Uh huh,” Leah said, unimpressed. She wasn’t exactly buying into the tradesmon analogy. “And what exactly is your trade? Hunter? Soldier? Mercenary? Assassin?”

He sighed wearily. “I am sure this doesn’t come as a shock, but I don’t recall. The point I’m trying to make is - I am not a mindless butcher. I am precise, I am methodical. If I had been in my right mind when I killed those dinosaurs on the game reserve, you would have never caught me. I am not that sloppy. However this… thing inside me, it turns me into a mindless butcher. When it takes me, I kill without direction or purpose. It steals my mind and forces my hand, and then robs me of my memory. It is that which I cannot abide. I want it gone. I want to be my own master.”

Leah noticed as the stranger talked that his voice was deep and lilting. It was pleasant to listen to, even in spite of the subject at hand. It also struck her as somewhat odd that even though he claimed to remember nothing from his past, he spoke with such conviction about his skills and love of killing. Whoever this mon was, whatever this affliction was that he suffered from, Leah found him interesting, if a bit dramatic.

“And what will you do, once you’re free to do as you please?” she asked.

This question gave the mon pause. “I could not say. Right now, I cannot even picture what life might be like without these thoughts, these urges. Seems foolish to make plans.”

“Fair enough, I suppose,” Leah conceded. There would be time to figure all this out later. For now she needed to focus on the matter at hand, which was figuring out what the hell his dark mojo was that Kian carried within him.

Leah quietly continued to scribble for a moment. Possession? Mind-control? She scrawled these ideas hurriedly into her notes. Did he actually have a separate entity living inside him? How would she even go about testing that? Find and contact a demoniac, she wrote.

As for mind-control, Leah wasn’t so sure about that. The two types of trollish mind control she was the most intimately acquainted with were Zalazane and Zanzil’s methods, and none of their victims were ever lucid enough to know they were being controlled. The fact that Kian was even a little aware of what was happening made his condition wholly unique so far as she knew.

She followed up her thoughts with a note to consult the Chroniclers’ archives next time she was in the city. Dazar’alor boasted one of the most extensive libraries on Azeroth, containing information dating all the way back to the first written records of the trolls - literally thousands of years of accumulated knowledge. The Chroniclers’ collection of information on trollish rituals and magical practices was unmatched. If there was an answer to be found, surely Leah would find it there. At last, she now had a few ideas on where to start her research, so that was something. It was time to set the ground rules.

“Alright, Kian. I think I have everything I need for now, so let me tell you how I see this working. Ideally, I’d like you to have a modicum of freedom while you’re here. You’re going to be confined to this room for now, and you’ll only be allowed to leave if you’re under my direct supervision, but it’s not my intention to keep you chained up. I’m sure this goes without saying, but if you feel that mojo coming on, you’re going to have to try to fight it. I’ll help however I can, but we both know it’ll mostly be up to you. If things go well, I’ll give you more run of the house and maybe the yard, we’ll see. Once we figure this out, and I’m sure you won’t be a danger to anyone, you’ll be free to go your own way. How does that sound?”

Leah extended her hand for Kian to shake. He studied her with an inscrutable expression, his eyes darting from her hand to her face. Finally, he accepted her hand. “It sounds reasonable.”

Leah smiled. “Alright. So are you hungry?”

“That is the second time you have asked me that question,” Kian remarked. “And yet you still haven’t answered,” Leah said teasingly. “Seriously, can I get you something to eat?”

“No,” Kian replied gruffly. “Are you sure?” Leah chirped. “I have a lovely brutosaur stew I could heat up for you.”

The Zandalari scowled up at Leah. She would help him, yes, but he was a prisoner, and this exchange between them should stay purely transactional. He didn’t want to be Leah’s friend, and he wasn’t about to be bought off with homemade stew. But… something warm to eat might be nice after living in the wild and eating whatever he could scarf down quickly. Grudgingly he nodded his acquiescence. Kian had to admit that the stew Leah dished up was a far cry better than what he had been eating the last couple of months. The meat and vegetables were tender and well-seasoned, the broth rich and filling. Much tastier than stringy, raw, cold ravasaur meat and foraged mushrooms that tasted like dirt. He finished his first bowl and mopped it clean with some bread Leah had set out for him. Then Leah offered him seconds and he eagerly accepted. She seemed happy to see him eat; Kian was a bit suspicious of this, but not enough to stop him from eating his fill.

After the dishes were all cleared away and the leftover stew stored in the icebox, Leah slipped upstairs for a moment, leaving Kian once more under the watchful eye of her hunting companion Aiden. She returned momentarily with an armful of books. “Here, so you don’t get too bored down here,” she explained as she set the tomes down on the table. “And here’s a notepad and pen so you can doodle or keep a journal or whatever. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to remove all the pointy objects from the kitchen, and then get out of your hair so you can rest.”

Once Leah and Aiden had departed for the night, Kian took up his books and moved to the sleeping mat Leah had placed in the corner. It was no down mattress, but it was dry and reasonably comfortable. Compared to his previous accommodations in the cave, he may as well have been staying in Queen Talanji’s royal chambers.

Freshly showered and with a full belly, Kian felt more like a person than he had since he could remember. He propped himself up against the wall and picked up the book that was lying on the top of the pile. The title read boldly in all uppercase letters LEARN TO SPEAK ORCISH: How to Sound Like a Native Speaker in No Time at All! Kian scoffed. He wouldn’t be reading that one any time soon. The little bit of Orcish he’d heard the others speak tonight sounded coarse to his ears; Zandali with its smooth lyricalness was the obvious superior language in his mind. He looked at the book a little more closely before setting it aside. It was old and frequently used - the spine was cracked and worn and some of the pages were dog-eared. Kian wondered for a moment if Leah had used this same book when she had learned the language; she was clearly fluent in it. Meanwhile he didn’t even know what an orc was, nor could he remember seeing one previous to meeting Leah’s fiery friend. Had Leah not told him different, he would have guessed the tall, muscular orc woman to be an Amani troll, albeit with a birth defect that gave her too many fingers and toes.

Kian flipped open the front cover of the Orcish language primer. On the inside, in handwritten Zandali print read, “Leah Sid’he Darkspear, Year 21.” What year is it now? Kian thought. He scowled in frustration when he realized he didn’t know. So many things he should know, so many things he couldn’t remember. Maybe in time it would come to him. For now, he needed a distraction. He picked up the next book - A Comprehensive History of the Troll Empires, by Chronicler Tokini. Nope. Too heavy and too serious for the moment.

The third book in the stack was a paperback that featured an illustration of a bland looking shirtless mon flanked by two busty elven women. The title, written in flowing script across the cover read Hot and Misty. Kian shrugged, cracked open the book and began to read. He’d only been reading for approximately a half an hour when he snapped the book shut and proclaimed to no one in particular, “This is rubbish!” The protagonist, Marcus, had to be without a doubt the most milquetoast character ever. And why were these women fawning all over him? Did Leah actually like this stuff? Kian would most certainly question her about this later. She seemed too smart to like such tripe.

There was only one book left. Kian was pleasantly surprised to find it was a compilation of Zandali poetry. He flipped it open to a random poem and began to read. And then he read another, and another. Each rhyme, each stanza felt like it awakened something deep in him, though he couldn’t say just what. He read until the wee hours, until he could no longer hold his eyes open, then drifted off into the first comfortable sleep he’d had in what felt like ages.

#world of warcraft #leahsidhe #leah stories #kian stories #wow kian #world of warcraft troll #zandalari #headcanons #wow troll #fanfic #lore #character backstory

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