Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2010 13:41:36 GMT -5
((Might also have done well with the name: 'A Metamorphosis' but I just couldn't bring myself to equate Jen/Khaz to a butterfly. *Snickers* Enjoy!))
((Oh, and this story occurs between A Fate Sealed by Actions and Khazgral's initiation in the guild.))
Sewers weren't particularly high on Jen's list of favorite places, but they were usually pretty quiet as far as traffic went... Particularly if you liked to lurk in the exit pipe, which was one of her haunts. Today, however, Jen had holed up in one of the rooms of the inn established near the exit pipe. She could hear people trying to catch the elusive sewer rats outside - a strange fad that had swept through the Horde for some undefinable reason - and the occasional sounds of combat from the area that had been designated for dueling. Every major city had places like this, but none quite stressed the desire to appear free of such things as well as Dalaran did in Jen's eyes. 'Keep it all below the city, keep it all in the filth. F*ckin' mages.'
Her right hand worked diligently at the project before her, manipulating very pricey materials on which Jen hadn't spent a penny and balancing the metallic hand taking form in front of her. 'This would have been hard with two hands. It's nigh-f*cking-impossible with one,' the half-orc thought with a grumble as a bead of sweat ran along the bridge of her nose before tickling the side of it. She paused a moment, balancing the metal precariously between Stumpy's (that's what she was calling her left arm now) elbow and her leg, and wiped the bead away. 'Shoulda looked at how intricate these joints are... But if I skimp on the f*ckers I won't have any motion in the fingers. Gonna be sweet when I've got this done and can use it to work on the other fixtures.' She had ideas up to her eyeballs for potential weapon fixtures, but they would wait until the hand itself had been completed.
Hunger reminded Jen that it must be after lunch in the form of a deep rumble from her stomach. She looked around the dimly lit room she'd paid up for a week and realized she would have to venture out if she hoped to find food. The wooden planks would not do well as a host for the campfire she had brought supplies for. With an exaggerated sigh she collected her possessions and drew on a hooded cloak, then left the inn looking much similar to the day she had arrived in it save for the nasty scar she'd put on her face. In the sewers, near one of the grates behind which the denizens of Dalaran's pipelines reside, Jenkantu lit her fire. She nestled it into a corner so the light it gave off would be minimal, and settled to wait. When the fire burned hot enough Jenkantu set to work preparing Northrend Stew, thoughts of the Tauren with whom she'd so recently shared the meal bringing a small, somewhat sad smile to her lips.
"You hear about Stormwind?" a heavy voice carried through the echoey passageways. It was gruff and male, no mistaking the Orcish accent. 'Stormwind...' Jen thought, 'What about it?' A grin replaced the somber smile she'd been wearing as the voice's owner went on, "Some crazy Orc tried to kill the king with a rocket or some such. Bought it though."
"Oh?" another Orc's voice. They were growing quieter, likely traveling to the inn Jen had left to find her small niche in the sewers.
"Yeah. Orcs in Orgrimmar didn' get nothin' back but the fool's hand. She tried to do it to redeem herself. She was a traitor to the Horde." Her grin disappeared as she sat there, poking the contents of the stew and waiting for it to thicken.
"Ha! Got what she deserved in the end then," the cold amusement from the second participant of the conversation made Jen want to plant her boot in their ass, but instead she lifted a ladle of her dinner to her lips to sample it.
Jen sucked in half of her ladle full, their voices so quiet now she could barely make out the words, "Guess her father was someone important though," she froze, straining to hear the rest of the statement, "I heard he got her hand from them," Jen's frozen form twitched, but she waited, wanting to hear the entirety of his words, "means to bury it tonight, got some priest to speak for the occasion and everything even though she betra...." the voices faded out completely then.
She spat the stew into the waterway of the sewers. "What?" She hissed, blue eyes were wide with shock as she looked in the darkly lit direction the voices had reached her from. 'He's gonna bury... my hand? That makes no sense. That makes no f*ckin sense.' Anger started in her core and spread through her chest and arms, blood boiling with rage, 'How the f*ck does he f*ckin' beat me every other day of my childhood and then f*ckin confiscate my hand from The Shattered f*ckin Hand itself to bury the damn thing?' She breathed deeply, trying to force her muscles to relax. A pain building in her stump from the effort. 'Oh shut the f*ck up, Stumpy' her mental voice snarled angrily, 'Worthless twig of flesh!' Jen stood slowly.
Pacing in the sewers did little more than emphasize the confines of the structure and agitate her more, the food idling over her little campfire simmered as it thickened, and the smell didn't even register. Her appetite was gone completely. 'Well f*ck me. I'm not supposed to let them know I'm living.. I'm not. I can't do this...' But she was.
Decided footfalls led her from her corner of the sewer's passageways silently. She was pretty sure she even passed the two Orcs who had inadvertently carried the news to her ears. Her first impulse was to go out the exit pipe, but instead she stuffed her half-completed metallic appendage into the left glove of her armor, threaded wiring through it on the move and avoiding passerby as she did, and bound it to her left arm.
Her steps carried her to the open air of Dalaran's pristine streets soon enough, and not long after that she'd made it to the barber shop. "What can I do for ya?" a Goblin's scratchy voice assaulted Jen's ears in greeting.
A darkly humorous smile danced across her brown lips with their pink tinge, "A lot of things, actually. Start with that stuff that makes your hair grow..."
Jenkantu looked at herself in the mirrors of the Goblin establishment. Her blue eyes were the same they'd ever been, but they were about the only thing at this point. The Goblins had been more than happy to grow her hair out long. She'd paid them to make it more like a typical Orc's hair, coarse, scratchy, and a little more oily than hers was naturally. She'd also paid them to change the color of it at the roots. Whatever these Goblins had cooked up to alchemically service their customers, it sure seemed to work well. Jen's once-black hair was now styled in boar tails of dark purple. 'Dark f*ckin purple.' It made Jen smile in a way that must have been a bit off-putting to the Goblin standing over her shoulder. "Let me know if you need anything else," she squawked as she moved to the front of the shop.
Jen tilted her head to the side and watched the boar tails sway in the same direction. 'Perfect. The little green devils did it perfect, of course.' Her eyes left her hair to inspect her ears more closely. Seven piercings broke the skin of her right ear from tip to earlobe, each one thicker than the one before it. In this ear the piercing through her actual lobe bore a dangling charm shaped like a mechanical hand while a spike pierced the top of her ear. In her left ear there were only six piercings, this primarily because the tip of the flesh was missing; a small chain of gold connected each of the piercings in her left ear, and in each of the dangling sections between the earrings a crimson gem sparkled. Jen had thought about the fact that this presented someone with the perfect way to rip her ear to shreds, but she had also decided that if it ever happened she'd just take the offending individual's ear as the price of their offense. A new piercing also hung from her nose. This one was simply plain gold, something she'd tacked on the list of piercings she'd given the Goblin at the last second, something she'd only added because she'd thought of Rhome. 'F*ckin softy,' she thought as her eyes lingered on it. The last new piercing she'd gotten broke the pink-tinged brown of the right side of her upper lip. It was a single, simple golden loop through which she could push the tip of her fang. This one was put there for a purpose, and that purpose was to remind her not to suck on her upper lip the way she always used to. The other piercings the half-orc had considered were not ones she would trust to Goblins, oh no. If she did decide to go through with them she would be looking for less explosive hands.
With the Goblin no longer hovering over her shoulder, hand outstretched for coin, Jen took a moment to survey her own handiwork. A scar began at the corner of her right eye, the meeting of two curved cuts in her skin that appeared to have healed through stitching by the little 'x's running along them. The outside line continued along her neck and past her collar bone before disappearing behind the conservative neckline of her armor, the left stopped at the line of her chin. It stood out well enough with or without her goggles on to draw the eyes, perfect for Jenkantu's purposes. She bared her teeth to the glass, looking closely at her fangs. While still shorter than a typical Orc's, they now came to a sharp point, perhaps slightly too sharp a point. 'That was a fun little endeavor,' Jen thought as she eyed them closely. She'd filed them herself; a bad judgment call, but until she could find a druid or priest willing to help her replace them with the fangs she'd stolen from a hapless fel-orc in Hellfire Citadel her overly-sharpened fangs would have to do. In the top row of her teeth was the glitter of gold from where she'd put her own tooth out and replaced it. Set into the gold was another of her crimson gems. She'd thought about breaking her nose and letting it heal naturally, but the last thing Jenkantu wanted was dulled senses.
Finally the half-orc stood, seeming pleased with the job done. She wore the cloak, but now left the hood down as she paid the greedy green goblins golden coins for their efforts and made her way out of their establishment. A glance at the sky told her it wasn't quite evening. Jen smiled. 'Plenty of time to make it to my funeral. Real test, that, see if good old Dad recognizes me.' Her thoughts were bitter but gleeful despite her skin burning with all of its new piercings. A casual saunter carried her through the streets and soon into the section of Dalaran claimed by the Sunreavers. Boisterous noise and activity filled the area from the open doors of the Filthy Animal, but Jen didn't even glance into the inn, instead walking straight past the fountain and to the standing portal to Orgrimmar.
Here she hesitated, heart pounding lightly in her chest. 'The Shattered Hand is through that portal,' she thought, closing her eyes, '...and they can't lay a f*cking finger on you for the first time in years...' The smile that split her lips was an uneven one only punctuated by her golden tooth and lip piercing. An almost crazy-looking enthusiasm came into her blue eyes. Jen fished her goggles from her pack and put them on before stepping into the portal.
She stepped lightly onto the second story of the building all portals to Orgrimmar seemed to center on. The single Troll standing near the portal to the Blasted Lands greeted her enthusiastically, "How yuh doin', Mon?"
She turned her head toward him, holding her body still, and the blatant enthusiasm of being in this place, in this city, and free of them was visible in the almost sinister smile to her lips. With head crooked to a side, teeth bared and gleaming - particularly the golden one - and boar tails hanging behind her, she responded, "I'm doing just fine. And you?" There was an awkward emphasis on the word 'just', the perfect emphasis to make it stand out and leave the Troll wondering why. Jen stepped toward the Troll, unsure what made her do so, but delighted in the fact that he was clearly disquieted. He shuffled a pace backward.
"I- I be doin' fine too. Welcome to Orgrimmar." His voice lost much of its enthusiasm as he peered at the scar running along the entirety of her right cheek, it's little 'x' shapes seeming to really hold his attention.
She nodded, the tingling high she'd come into making her forget the burn of her piercings altogether. "Good," she said simply. Turning on her heel, the rogue pushed herself over the railing encircling this floor of the structure and leapt lightly down the side of the building. She landed in the water with a splash and immediately kicked her Nitro Boosts into action. The trail of smoke left behind her was all the Troll had to gawk at as she disappeared around the corner and leapt off the highest tier of Orgrimmar.
With her parachute deployed Jen drifted to the red dirt of the bottom of Orgrimmar's city, least the bottom of the entrance to it. The crowd moved out of her way, mainly because they didn't want to be her landing pad. She blinked, looking at what they'd been gathered about. 'Cultists? That's nothing new.' Jen thought dryly as she rolled her eyes behind her goggles and made her way toward the city gates. Once in the shadow of the passage that opened on Durotar the half-orc took a look around. No one was watching her... 'That I can see at least.' She moved between two of the pillars of the passage way and pulled the shadows around her. 'Now then... To make my way to the f*ckin graveyard and see what the f*ck he thinks he's doing.'
Carefully she crept from the gates and toward the graveyard. Finding a suitable place to wait for her father and his priest, Jen sat and started unwinding the wire that bound the false hand to her arm. It had, after all, just been to get her through her little visit to the barber shop. She packed the half-finished hand and those few parts that had fallen loose in her glove away before resting the empty glove on her lap and watching. Adventurers trafficked in and out of Orgrimmar completely oblivious to her presence at the roost she'd found, but more curious than these were people busily at work at a nearby farm. Jen's eyes moved between the farm and the graveyard more than once, her goggles helping her bring both to focus despite being a healthy distance apart.
At one point Jen could have sworn she saw the form of an Ogre with eyes swiveling around... on its arms over at the farm, but she blinked her eyes and cleaned her goggles and by the time they were back on the thing was gone... If indeed it had ever been there. 'That bears more investigation...' Jen thought, starting to get to her feet. What would have been one last glance to the graveyard stopped her though, for there with shovel in hand, stood her father. 'Right, check it. That bears further investigating... later.' Jenkantu thought, moving from her roost to draw nearer her father and the Troll priest that had accompanied him. 'Troll.. of course.'
She couldn't hear them from the distance she kept, save for the drone of their voices. No words were definable. Still, she didn't want to risk being seen by too many. Jenkantu stood in the shadows, waiting patiently, and was shocked by what unfolded in front of her. The priest spoke words over her hand, 'Seriously? Over my f*ckin hand?' She shook her head, amused, but her eyes found her father's and her amusement died. 'Is he f*ckin cryin?'
He was. Tears streamed from the Orc's eyes as Jen stood watching from a distance, newly appreciative of the spy glass functionality built into her spectralizers. 'Oh you f*ckin bastard!!' The blood rage was back, that bile hatred she'd inherited from her father. Jenkantu had never felt more angry in her entire life save for the day Sora'jan had first used her. She waited as the service crawled to its end, the red sky of Durotar now disappearing before the first vestiges of night. Her father pushed the shovel into the earth time and time again, eventually pulling it up and putting the hand into the grave he'd made. The priest stayed for a time, speaking no doubt about the hereafter, then eventually laid a hand on her father's shoulder and walked away.
Jen moved closer at last, the traffic between the cultist's farm and the city gates now limited as well as the travel from the zeppelin towers. They would be mostly isolated as the dry heat of the soil surrendered to the chill of night. When she was only a few feet away she saw her old man bend at the knees and sink to ground, still crying. She could smell the salt from his tears, hear the ragged intake of his breaths. It pissed her off. His tears were silent in that no sobs accompanied them, they all had been. 'Never been much of a whaler, but boy would I love to change that....' Her blue eyes fixed on the nape of his neck and the thought of how simple it would be to claim the haggard warrior's life crossed her mind more than once, but she found she couldn't do it. 'People would be suspicious if he died at my graveside...' She lied to herself about her reasoning, unwilling to admit any scrap of feeling remained for him.
"I should kill you," the words slid from her mouth like oil before Jen could even take a moment to consider them, "It's what she would want." She said, voice pitched lower than her normal speaking tone.
The warrior looked over his shoulder at her, tear-filled eyes red and puffy, "Then do it." He said simply.
'You f*ckin pussy!' Jen choked back the words, instead she said, "You don't deserve that," and kept her face even and controlled. A long silence drew out between the Orc and his daughter as he looked back to the small, shallow grave. Eventually she broke the thick quiet in the air about them, "Why bury her? Why bother?" The stress on 'her' was meant to imply the feelings she assumed he harbored for her.
He didn't turn to face her this time, instead reaching out and touching the dirt that covered her severed hand, "I love her."
Jen's lip curled and before she had a moment to consider restraining herself she spat at him. It hit him cleanly on the neck, which did raise his hackles, or seemed to, as he got to his feet and turned to face her. "That's the stupidist thing I ever f*ckin heard," she said, voice a condemning mix of venomous tones.
He took the shovel to hand, thinking about attacking her. Jen saw the way he moved, she knew it from her years of living with him. She readied to dodge, waiting for the provocation to kill him, but he didn't lift the makeshift weapon, he didn't strike out. They stood for a time frozen in their minor altercation. Eventually she broke the stillness again, this time turning on her heel to walk away from him forever. His guttural voice broke the relative silence of her steps with the question, "Who are you?"
Jen hesitated, looking back at him over her shoulders, goggles gleaming reflectively in the fading light of sunset. She felt her violet boar tails sway behind her, brush against her shoulders and her back. She gave him a wide smile, baring her razor-sharp fangs and the false gold tooth with its scarlet gem, "Khazgral Bloodcrazed, but you can call me 'Khaz' if you prefer." The chain dangling between the six fresh earrings in her left ear swayed with her motions too, tugging gently at the piercings themselves. Khazgral's smile grew wider with the pain.
"How did you know my daughter?" Her father asked, sounding like he genuinely wanted to know.
She turned to face him fully again, her shoulders squarely set, stump of her left arm hidden in the furls of her cloak. "I worked with her." She tried to make her voice chilling, and was successful. It didn't phase her father though, and in all fairness she should have known it wouldn't. "Give me a reason, Old Man, and I'll come for your life. One more hand to feed my riding wolf." Her father raised an eyebrow at her, but no signs of recognition crossed his facial expression. Khaz shook her head at him, 'He really doesn't recognize me. Jenkantu is no more.'
No words were spoken when she turned again, no more questions sprang to his lips as she walked away from his daughter's grave. 'That life is no more,' she thought, a satisfied grin spread across her brown lips, 'But why the f*ck am I crying?'
((Oh, and this story occurs between A Fate Sealed by Actions and Khazgral's initiation in the guild.))
~~~~~~~~~~
Sewers weren't particularly high on Jen's list of favorite places, but they were usually pretty quiet as far as traffic went... Particularly if you liked to lurk in the exit pipe, which was one of her haunts. Today, however, Jen had holed up in one of the rooms of the inn established near the exit pipe. She could hear people trying to catch the elusive sewer rats outside - a strange fad that had swept through the Horde for some undefinable reason - and the occasional sounds of combat from the area that had been designated for dueling. Every major city had places like this, but none quite stressed the desire to appear free of such things as well as Dalaran did in Jen's eyes. 'Keep it all below the city, keep it all in the filth. F*ckin' mages.'
Her right hand worked diligently at the project before her, manipulating very pricey materials on which Jen hadn't spent a penny and balancing the metallic hand taking form in front of her. 'This would have been hard with two hands. It's nigh-f*cking-impossible with one,' the half-orc thought with a grumble as a bead of sweat ran along the bridge of her nose before tickling the side of it. She paused a moment, balancing the metal precariously between Stumpy's (that's what she was calling her left arm now) elbow and her leg, and wiped the bead away. 'Shoulda looked at how intricate these joints are... But if I skimp on the f*ckers I won't have any motion in the fingers. Gonna be sweet when I've got this done and can use it to work on the other fixtures.' She had ideas up to her eyeballs for potential weapon fixtures, but they would wait until the hand itself had been completed.
Hunger reminded Jen that it must be after lunch in the form of a deep rumble from her stomach. She looked around the dimly lit room she'd paid up for a week and realized she would have to venture out if she hoped to find food. The wooden planks would not do well as a host for the campfire she had brought supplies for. With an exaggerated sigh she collected her possessions and drew on a hooded cloak, then left the inn looking much similar to the day she had arrived in it save for the nasty scar she'd put on her face. In the sewers, near one of the grates behind which the denizens of Dalaran's pipelines reside, Jenkantu lit her fire. She nestled it into a corner so the light it gave off would be minimal, and settled to wait. When the fire burned hot enough Jenkantu set to work preparing Northrend Stew, thoughts of the Tauren with whom she'd so recently shared the meal bringing a small, somewhat sad smile to her lips.
"You hear about Stormwind?" a heavy voice carried through the echoey passageways. It was gruff and male, no mistaking the Orcish accent. 'Stormwind...' Jen thought, 'What about it?' A grin replaced the somber smile she'd been wearing as the voice's owner went on, "Some crazy Orc tried to kill the king with a rocket or some such. Bought it though."
"Oh?" another Orc's voice. They were growing quieter, likely traveling to the inn Jen had left to find her small niche in the sewers.
"Yeah. Orcs in Orgrimmar didn' get nothin' back but the fool's hand. She tried to do it to redeem herself. She was a traitor to the Horde." Her grin disappeared as she sat there, poking the contents of the stew and waiting for it to thicken.
"Ha! Got what she deserved in the end then," the cold amusement from the second participant of the conversation made Jen want to plant her boot in their ass, but instead she lifted a ladle of her dinner to her lips to sample it.
Jen sucked in half of her ladle full, their voices so quiet now she could barely make out the words, "Guess her father was someone important though," she froze, straining to hear the rest of the statement, "I heard he got her hand from them," Jen's frozen form twitched, but she waited, wanting to hear the entirety of his words, "means to bury it tonight, got some priest to speak for the occasion and everything even though she betra...." the voices faded out completely then.
She spat the stew into the waterway of the sewers. "What?" She hissed, blue eyes were wide with shock as she looked in the darkly lit direction the voices had reached her from. 'He's gonna bury... my hand? That makes no sense. That makes no f*ckin sense.' Anger started in her core and spread through her chest and arms, blood boiling with rage, 'How the f*ck does he f*ckin' beat me every other day of my childhood and then f*ckin confiscate my hand from The Shattered f*ckin Hand itself to bury the damn thing?' She breathed deeply, trying to force her muscles to relax. A pain building in her stump from the effort. 'Oh shut the f*ck up, Stumpy' her mental voice snarled angrily, 'Worthless twig of flesh!' Jen stood slowly.
Pacing in the sewers did little more than emphasize the confines of the structure and agitate her more, the food idling over her little campfire simmered as it thickened, and the smell didn't even register. Her appetite was gone completely. 'Well f*ck me. I'm not supposed to let them know I'm living.. I'm not. I can't do this...' But she was.
Decided footfalls led her from her corner of the sewer's passageways silently. She was pretty sure she even passed the two Orcs who had inadvertently carried the news to her ears. Her first impulse was to go out the exit pipe, but instead she stuffed her half-completed metallic appendage into the left glove of her armor, threaded wiring through it on the move and avoiding passerby as she did, and bound it to her left arm.
Her steps carried her to the open air of Dalaran's pristine streets soon enough, and not long after that she'd made it to the barber shop. "What can I do for ya?" a Goblin's scratchy voice assaulted Jen's ears in greeting.
A darkly humorous smile danced across her brown lips with their pink tinge, "A lot of things, actually. Start with that stuff that makes your hair grow..."
~~~~~~~~~~
Jenkantu looked at herself in the mirrors of the Goblin establishment. Her blue eyes were the same they'd ever been, but they were about the only thing at this point. The Goblins had been more than happy to grow her hair out long. She'd paid them to make it more like a typical Orc's hair, coarse, scratchy, and a little more oily than hers was naturally. She'd also paid them to change the color of it at the roots. Whatever these Goblins had cooked up to alchemically service their customers, it sure seemed to work well. Jen's once-black hair was now styled in boar tails of dark purple. 'Dark f*ckin purple.' It made Jen smile in a way that must have been a bit off-putting to the Goblin standing over her shoulder. "Let me know if you need anything else," she squawked as she moved to the front of the shop.
Jen tilted her head to the side and watched the boar tails sway in the same direction. 'Perfect. The little green devils did it perfect, of course.' Her eyes left her hair to inspect her ears more closely. Seven piercings broke the skin of her right ear from tip to earlobe, each one thicker than the one before it. In this ear the piercing through her actual lobe bore a dangling charm shaped like a mechanical hand while a spike pierced the top of her ear. In her left ear there were only six piercings, this primarily because the tip of the flesh was missing; a small chain of gold connected each of the piercings in her left ear, and in each of the dangling sections between the earrings a crimson gem sparkled. Jen had thought about the fact that this presented someone with the perfect way to rip her ear to shreds, but she had also decided that if it ever happened she'd just take the offending individual's ear as the price of their offense. A new piercing also hung from her nose. This one was simply plain gold, something she'd tacked on the list of piercings she'd given the Goblin at the last second, something she'd only added because she'd thought of Rhome. 'F*ckin softy,' she thought as her eyes lingered on it. The last new piercing she'd gotten broke the pink-tinged brown of the right side of her upper lip. It was a single, simple golden loop through which she could push the tip of her fang. This one was put there for a purpose, and that purpose was to remind her not to suck on her upper lip the way she always used to. The other piercings the half-orc had considered were not ones she would trust to Goblins, oh no. If she did decide to go through with them she would be looking for less explosive hands.
With the Goblin no longer hovering over her shoulder, hand outstretched for coin, Jen took a moment to survey her own handiwork. A scar began at the corner of her right eye, the meeting of two curved cuts in her skin that appeared to have healed through stitching by the little 'x's running along them. The outside line continued along her neck and past her collar bone before disappearing behind the conservative neckline of her armor, the left stopped at the line of her chin. It stood out well enough with or without her goggles on to draw the eyes, perfect for Jenkantu's purposes. She bared her teeth to the glass, looking closely at her fangs. While still shorter than a typical Orc's, they now came to a sharp point, perhaps slightly too sharp a point. 'That was a fun little endeavor,' Jen thought as she eyed them closely. She'd filed them herself; a bad judgment call, but until she could find a druid or priest willing to help her replace them with the fangs she'd stolen from a hapless fel-orc in Hellfire Citadel her overly-sharpened fangs would have to do. In the top row of her teeth was the glitter of gold from where she'd put her own tooth out and replaced it. Set into the gold was another of her crimson gems. She'd thought about breaking her nose and letting it heal naturally, but the last thing Jenkantu wanted was dulled senses.
Finally the half-orc stood, seeming pleased with the job done. She wore the cloak, but now left the hood down as she paid the greedy green goblins golden coins for their efforts and made her way out of their establishment. A glance at the sky told her it wasn't quite evening. Jen smiled. 'Plenty of time to make it to my funeral. Real test, that, see if good old Dad recognizes me.' Her thoughts were bitter but gleeful despite her skin burning with all of its new piercings. A casual saunter carried her through the streets and soon into the section of Dalaran claimed by the Sunreavers. Boisterous noise and activity filled the area from the open doors of the Filthy Animal, but Jen didn't even glance into the inn, instead walking straight past the fountain and to the standing portal to Orgrimmar.
Here she hesitated, heart pounding lightly in her chest. 'The Shattered Hand is through that portal,' she thought, closing her eyes, '...and they can't lay a f*cking finger on you for the first time in years...' The smile that split her lips was an uneven one only punctuated by her golden tooth and lip piercing. An almost crazy-looking enthusiasm came into her blue eyes. Jen fished her goggles from her pack and put them on before stepping into the portal.
~~~~~~~~~~
She stepped lightly onto the second story of the building all portals to Orgrimmar seemed to center on. The single Troll standing near the portal to the Blasted Lands greeted her enthusiastically, "How yuh doin', Mon?"
She turned her head toward him, holding her body still, and the blatant enthusiasm of being in this place, in this city, and free of them was visible in the almost sinister smile to her lips. With head crooked to a side, teeth bared and gleaming - particularly the golden one - and boar tails hanging behind her, she responded, "I'm doing just fine. And you?" There was an awkward emphasis on the word 'just', the perfect emphasis to make it stand out and leave the Troll wondering why. Jen stepped toward the Troll, unsure what made her do so, but delighted in the fact that he was clearly disquieted. He shuffled a pace backward.
"I- I be doin' fine too. Welcome to Orgrimmar." His voice lost much of its enthusiasm as he peered at the scar running along the entirety of her right cheek, it's little 'x' shapes seeming to really hold his attention.
She nodded, the tingling high she'd come into making her forget the burn of her piercings altogether. "Good," she said simply. Turning on her heel, the rogue pushed herself over the railing encircling this floor of the structure and leapt lightly down the side of the building. She landed in the water with a splash and immediately kicked her Nitro Boosts into action. The trail of smoke left behind her was all the Troll had to gawk at as she disappeared around the corner and leapt off the highest tier of Orgrimmar.
With her parachute deployed Jen drifted to the red dirt of the bottom of Orgrimmar's city, least the bottom of the entrance to it. The crowd moved out of her way, mainly because they didn't want to be her landing pad. She blinked, looking at what they'd been gathered about. 'Cultists? That's nothing new.' Jen thought dryly as she rolled her eyes behind her goggles and made her way toward the city gates. Once in the shadow of the passage that opened on Durotar the half-orc took a look around. No one was watching her... 'That I can see at least.' She moved between two of the pillars of the passage way and pulled the shadows around her. 'Now then... To make my way to the f*ckin graveyard and see what the f*ck he thinks he's doing.'
Carefully she crept from the gates and toward the graveyard. Finding a suitable place to wait for her father and his priest, Jen sat and started unwinding the wire that bound the false hand to her arm. It had, after all, just been to get her through her little visit to the barber shop. She packed the half-finished hand and those few parts that had fallen loose in her glove away before resting the empty glove on her lap and watching. Adventurers trafficked in and out of Orgrimmar completely oblivious to her presence at the roost she'd found, but more curious than these were people busily at work at a nearby farm. Jen's eyes moved between the farm and the graveyard more than once, her goggles helping her bring both to focus despite being a healthy distance apart.
At one point Jen could have sworn she saw the form of an Ogre with eyes swiveling around... on its arms over at the farm, but she blinked her eyes and cleaned her goggles and by the time they were back on the thing was gone... If indeed it had ever been there. 'That bears more investigation...' Jen thought, starting to get to her feet. What would have been one last glance to the graveyard stopped her though, for there with shovel in hand, stood her father. 'Right, check it. That bears further investigating... later.' Jenkantu thought, moving from her roost to draw nearer her father and the Troll priest that had accompanied him. 'Troll.. of course.'
She couldn't hear them from the distance she kept, save for the drone of their voices. No words were definable. Still, she didn't want to risk being seen by too many. Jenkantu stood in the shadows, waiting patiently, and was shocked by what unfolded in front of her. The priest spoke words over her hand, 'Seriously? Over my f*ckin hand?' She shook her head, amused, but her eyes found her father's and her amusement died. 'Is he f*ckin cryin?'
He was. Tears streamed from the Orc's eyes as Jen stood watching from a distance, newly appreciative of the spy glass functionality built into her spectralizers. 'Oh you f*ckin bastard!!' The blood rage was back, that bile hatred she'd inherited from her father. Jenkantu had never felt more angry in her entire life save for the day Sora'jan had first used her. She waited as the service crawled to its end, the red sky of Durotar now disappearing before the first vestiges of night. Her father pushed the shovel into the earth time and time again, eventually pulling it up and putting the hand into the grave he'd made. The priest stayed for a time, speaking no doubt about the hereafter, then eventually laid a hand on her father's shoulder and walked away.
Jen moved closer at last, the traffic between the cultist's farm and the city gates now limited as well as the travel from the zeppelin towers. They would be mostly isolated as the dry heat of the soil surrendered to the chill of night. When she was only a few feet away she saw her old man bend at the knees and sink to ground, still crying. She could smell the salt from his tears, hear the ragged intake of his breaths. It pissed her off. His tears were silent in that no sobs accompanied them, they all had been. 'Never been much of a whaler, but boy would I love to change that....' Her blue eyes fixed on the nape of his neck and the thought of how simple it would be to claim the haggard warrior's life crossed her mind more than once, but she found she couldn't do it. 'People would be suspicious if he died at my graveside...' She lied to herself about her reasoning, unwilling to admit any scrap of feeling remained for him.
"I should kill you," the words slid from her mouth like oil before Jen could even take a moment to consider them, "It's what she would want." She said, voice pitched lower than her normal speaking tone.
The warrior looked over his shoulder at her, tear-filled eyes red and puffy, "Then do it." He said simply.
'You f*ckin pussy!' Jen choked back the words, instead she said, "You don't deserve that," and kept her face even and controlled. A long silence drew out between the Orc and his daughter as he looked back to the small, shallow grave. Eventually she broke the thick quiet in the air about them, "Why bury her? Why bother?" The stress on 'her' was meant to imply the feelings she assumed he harbored for her.
He didn't turn to face her this time, instead reaching out and touching the dirt that covered her severed hand, "I love her."
Jen's lip curled and before she had a moment to consider restraining herself she spat at him. It hit him cleanly on the neck, which did raise his hackles, or seemed to, as he got to his feet and turned to face her. "That's the stupidist thing I ever f*ckin heard," she said, voice a condemning mix of venomous tones.
He took the shovel to hand, thinking about attacking her. Jen saw the way he moved, she knew it from her years of living with him. She readied to dodge, waiting for the provocation to kill him, but he didn't lift the makeshift weapon, he didn't strike out. They stood for a time frozen in their minor altercation. Eventually she broke the stillness again, this time turning on her heel to walk away from him forever. His guttural voice broke the relative silence of her steps with the question, "Who are you?"
Jen hesitated, looking back at him over her shoulders, goggles gleaming reflectively in the fading light of sunset. She felt her violet boar tails sway behind her, brush against her shoulders and her back. She gave him a wide smile, baring her razor-sharp fangs and the false gold tooth with its scarlet gem, "Khazgral Bloodcrazed, but you can call me 'Khaz' if you prefer." The chain dangling between the six fresh earrings in her left ear swayed with her motions too, tugging gently at the piercings themselves. Khazgral's smile grew wider with the pain.
"How did you know my daughter?" Her father asked, sounding like he genuinely wanted to know.
She turned to face him fully again, her shoulders squarely set, stump of her left arm hidden in the furls of her cloak. "I worked with her." She tried to make her voice chilling, and was successful. It didn't phase her father though, and in all fairness she should have known it wouldn't. "Give me a reason, Old Man, and I'll come for your life. One more hand to feed my riding wolf." Her father raised an eyebrow at her, but no signs of recognition crossed his facial expression. Khaz shook her head at him, 'He really doesn't recognize me. Jenkantu is no more.'
No words were spoken when she turned again, no more questions sprang to his lips as she walked away from his daughter's grave. 'That life is no more,' she thought, a satisfied grin spread across her brown lips, 'But why the f*ck am I crying?'
Founded April 26, 2005