Firebrand Pt5 Ch3

Chapter Three: Deal

Tohbie hadn't let go of Tukal. He hadn't tried to make her.

Hail had, in fact, pierced the balloon before letting up. It was likely what had saved them all. The ship had been too damaged to land properly, but the slowly escaping hydrogen had lowered them enough not to crush them all against the earth when it became quickly escaping hydrogen, and the elemental storm that had overtaken them did not follow them to earth. It was not to say they'd escaped the landing unscathed, or even that many people had survived it. The zeplin had driven into the stoney ground as Ashzara, tearing fall-bright trees from the soil by the roots and shattering ancient trunks in a half-mile swath of destruction. The passengers quarters, booked beyond their planned capacity, had been a scene or horror, walls red with blood and the living tangled with the torn bodies of the dead while the scared, injured, and dying wailed a chorus of agony cut through by the beat of driving hail and the creaking and cracking of settling wreckage.

As bad as the passenger quarters had been, the death toll in the stables had been far higher. The horses and hawkstriders who had suvived the crash had been put down to the last, their bodies too fragile to weather the destruction. Many of those not killed by the impact had been killed by churning hooves and paniced fighting.

Tohbie and Tukal had been spared the sight of most of this. They had crawled from the crash and stumbled only far enough to ensure that falling bits of ship would not strike them and collapsted together against the thrown trunk of an uprooted tree. Tohbie had fallen into Tukal's chest, fingers locked in the fabric of his jacket until the adrenaline had burned from her viens and left in it's wake an exhastion so encompassing in comparison that she had nearly fallen asleep where she was. One of Tukal's hands twitched against the back of her neck benieth her tangled hair as if he kept forgetting about her presence and was startled to find her lying there. His other hand dug into the ripped turf beside him, and he stared glassily at the form of the wrecked ballon collapsed into the mangled remains of the deck. The zeplin lay tangled in the sparse orange forest, a modern ruin among the ancient ones.

The wind, which was not much calmer since they'd regained the ground, plucked at the deflated balloon, peeling it away from its shattered wooden frame and billowing it back and forth across the broken ship. It was a wonder any of them had survived the fall, and yet all of them had. Both Patches and Dekk had slunk out of the wreckage, tails at their legs and ears pinned to their necks, and curled silently beside them. Pia had materialized shortly after, her orange and maroon hide streaked with blood and hugging the earth so closely as she moved she nearly slithered. She'd given the two dogs a wary look before settling in the dirt at Tukal's side and ramming her head between his shoulder and the fallen tree with a wavering honk.

Not far off, crewmates and passengers alike dragged bodies, some moving, others frighteningly still, from the wreakage to the continuous cry of queries as to who might be a doctor among those still living. Tohbie barely heard them over the harshness of her own breathing and the sound of Tukal's heartbeat against her ear. She did hear Patches suddenly bark sharply and Dekk whine. Tukal lurched to the side and she looked up to see Pia shoving him urgently with the curled claws of her forepaw.

"Wha..?" he muttered.

The earth below them trembled slowly, at first just enough to confuse them, then it rocked wildly with a dull, deep roar, and Tukal threw them away from the trunk and it rolled in it's shallow furrow. As quickly as it had begun, the quake ended, leaving only a rain of falling wet leaves and suprised cries as evidence that it had ever happened.

"Eart'quake," Tohbie gasped. She had experienced a few in her life, but that didn't make them any less unexpected or shocking.

Tukal rested on his elbows over her, watching the forest around them. When the trees themselves failed to attack them next, he rolled off her and knelt tensly beside her. Tohbie sat up stiffly. Trails of scabs running down her legs and belly pulled sharply over hours-old wounds, and her clothes resisted folding around ridged splotches of dried blood.

"You're hurt," Tukal noted. They hadn't had a chance to look at or talk to one another since the crash.

Tohbie prodded her torn pantleg. Scabs solidified to the ripped fibers crumbled and a slow ooze of blood brightened the wound before sealing over again.

"Not so bad."

She lifted her jacket and shirt, flinching as the fabric pulled away from her skin. Her white shirt was a dull, damp brick color, but she was healing.

"Do you know where we are?"

Tohbie let her shirt drop and looked up. The day was brighter since the elementals had passed overhead. She found the silloutte of Hyjal in the distance, and holding her hand distractedly toward it, turned until she felt she was facing North. She turned again to face South and guessed the foothills piled there were the beginings of the cliffs that enfolded Orgrimmar. Though she knew Azshara only by maps, West would be the Southfury River which would pass under the great bridge up into the high cliffs, Orgrimmar's only other entrance allowed by the landscape.

"Yeah. We go dat way and follow de river downstream to Orgrimmar."

"Lets get our t'ings. See what we got left."

Tohbie looked at the magled ship and barked an ironic laugh, but she went with him to the broken deck in any case. Suprisingly, she could see some of their bags still tangled in the netting beside the massive hole in the side. It was some work, but they managed to climb to and free them. Dragging them back to the relatively open area mindful of further earthquakes that might upset the wreckage, they tipped them out and took stock of what they had left. One of Dekk's saddlebags remained, but his saddle had gone over the side somewhere in the storm and it would have to be discarded before they moved on. Tukal's backpack had also remained with them. She found a few changes of clothing, one shortsword to add to the bootknife she kept at her ankle, and her quiver, though most of her arrows had snapped. What dried food they had was soggy from rain and ineddible, the woven basket of dog rations had been shattered, Tohbie's skinning knives, hatchet, shortsword, and spear were nowhere to be seen, and her bow was cracked in half. Tukal had some clothing and both of his swords as well as a handful of weighted knives. Together they had a modest handful of coin.

Tohbie packed what she had left into her armybag and began prying the metal arrowheads off her broken arrows as Tukal saddled Pia. The raptor danced nervously, but stayed where she was.

"How long will it take to get to Orgrimmar?"

Tohbie looked over her shoulder at the crew and passengers reflexively before lifting the concieling tooled leather up from the bottom of her quiver with her bootknife and releasing the hidden latch there. The false bottom clicked open and she poured her liberated arrowheads into the smuggler's catche.

"Tommorrow, maybe late afternoon or early evening, we will reach Sout'fury. From dere, depending on de river," she shugged. "Better part of a day. Maybe only hours if we can catch a boat."

"Can we make it wit' what we got?"

Tohbie carefully smoothed the leather trim over the release until the cut fell invisibly back into place.

"Easy."

"We should go, den," he said. "Soon de goblins will forget we have crashed an' demand half fare from us for gettin' us t'ree quarters de way an' say dey give us a good deal."

Tohbie laughed once, slowly. "Ai. I see you deal wit' dem before."

She'd never ridden Dekk saddless before, and it took her several tries to get him to work with her. Finally he accepted that she wasn't trying to place a saddle on him and was persuaded to crouch down and let her on his back. His fur, normally coarse to her hands, was slick trying to balance upon, and she wound her fingers in his mane more tightly than she wanted, but he didn't complain. She cast one last look at the other survivors, but reasoned that she was no doctor and the most help she could be was beating a runner to Orgrimmar and hastening a rescue party their way. Together, she, Tukal, and the animals set off without saying a word to anyone.
***
The journey would have been smooth under normal circumstances. The woods were sparse, and the oncomming winter had driven most of the vegitation underfoot into leafless hybernation. The further they traveled in the remaining hours of the day, the drier the forest became and the more the wind settled. Three times, Tohbie drew them to a stop to point out what she suspected was a rabbit warren. Each time she'd flushed several of them from the brambles and by the end of the day when they made camp, she'd hit and killed four of them with a heavy bent branch and they had gathered several pocketfulls of fallen tree nuts that might not all have been rotten.

Unfortunatly, the journey was complicated by Tohbie's missing saddle and torn clothing that no longer held in any body heat. When they decided it was too dark to go on, she was sore from fighting to grip Dekk the entire journey and stiff with cold. As Tukal hunted down enough wood to build a cooking fire, Tohbie gutted one of the rabbits with her boot knife, cut off it's limbs and head, and peeled off it's pelt. Though she had to work with stiff fingers and an impropper knife, she'd gone through the ritual so many times she did it with a minimum of mess all of which the wolves had cleaned up by the time she had the body spitted over the fire.

"Can Pia hunt?" Tohbie sighed, cracking pecans one at a time between the joint of her thumb and her knuckle as the fire crackled red and yellow below the rabbit.

"When she got to." Tukal's voice was less tired than her own, but still reflected the length of the day they'd had if only by a lack of smart remarks.

Tohbie looked between Pia and Patches and Dekk. The raptor lay placidly on the side of her haunches, her shoulder supported on her short arms curled below her. The wolves watched her closely to see if any food was forthcoming, licking the bloody leaves where she'd gutted the rabbit. There were Autumn-fat deer in the forest. She'd seen their prints and droppings all along the game trails they'd traveled West on, and she felt that Patches, at least, was imagining the same images. She hated not having the food ready for them, but it had happened before and though they were not always successful hunting their own food, they had never suffered greatly for it. Patches caught first that food was not in the offering and with no complaint, the two faded into the darkness.

Tohbie kicked the other three rabbits toward Tukal and nodded to Pia. The raptor, who had been pretending to ignore them, had obviously been following the mostly silent conversation. As soon as Tukal reached for one of the bodies, she was on her feet, watching expectantly. She caught each one neatly out of the air and swallowed them whole with a toss of her head. Tohbie watched admiringly. Though she loved her wolves, she had grown up with raptors. Pia was young, probably less than four years old, and possessed a kind of quick grace that Takk had had in her youth.

"I have one like her before we meet," she whispered. "She come over on de boat wit' me. I t'ink she were older den I was."

Pia butted her head into Tukal's shoulder and snorted, flopping back into the yellow grass and stretching. He sat back down and began cracking open pecans as well, tossing rotted ones into the fire where they snapped and hissed.

"Do de dogs know what you say?"

She shook her head. "Dey watch your body and your face and listen to your tone. It were hard at first. I have to learn deir language. Dey cannot learn ours like raptors can. But after dat, it is not so hard. Dey want to do everyt'ing you ask, so dey try to work you out."

"Dey must love you," he said quietly. He turned back to Pia, who lay rubbing her face and neck against broken white stones poking through the leaflitter. "You would not pull me for six miles, would you?"

Pia stopped scratching herself to look up at him with one violet orb of an eye and hooted her thoughts on that amount of inconvenience.

"Dere would be no one to feed you pickled bird feet if you let me die," he reasoned.

The raptor blinked once then barked angrilly.

"Well, it will be hard to do if I am dead."

Pia rolled over so her back was to them and muttered something dark.

"I t'ink she threaten to eat me if I die."

Tohbie laughed. The threat was probably plenty serious, but it was hardly upsetting for anyone who'd grown up in Stranglethorn Veil. She had heard of a great many people who had been outlived by their raptors and subsiquently eaten by them. It was as normal as anything else as far as trolls were conscerned. She wasn't entirely unsure Patches and Dekk wouldn't eat her if they found her dead.

"I will fish your skull out of her droppin's and present it to Bwansamdi meself if it come to dat."

"T'ank you."

Tohbie tried to put off changing her clothes until morning. If she couldn't have a bath when she woke, clean clothes that hadn't been slept in were the next best thing, but even after eating hot food and sitting beside the fire a while, the tears and blood in her clothing kept her from warming. As the fire was banked and talk was made of falling asleep for the night, she opened her bag and began fishing inside for a fresh shirt.

"Not much to be done for de jacket, but I will freeze wit'out an untorn shirt," she sighed.

She opened her coat and cringed when she saw the inner lining black with blood in the darkness. The shirt was worse than she'd guessed. Everything below her chest was stained and stiff. She sighed and began to peel it carefully up away from her skin, tearing scab matter in its wake. She stopped. Two disks of reflected light shone at her from across the fire where Tukal was lying.

"What are you lookin' at?" she demanded.

"All de blood. If you get naked I will not complain."

Tohbie snorted and turned away from him.

"I's seen it before."

"Boar."

She peeled up her shirt and cast it over her shoulder, hoping to hit him with it but hearing it fall short. As she unrolled her clean shirt and swung it in front of her to open it and remove some of the lingering stale saddlebag stink, she heard Tukal stand up. Tohbie snatched the shirt to her chest and glared back at him. He gave her a hurt look as he picked up her discarded clothing and put his hand to his chest as if to ask 'what kind of person do you take me for?' He tore free one of the sleeves and discarded the bloodier portions of the cloth.

"I were just gonna say, no point in bloodyin' up two. Hold still a minute."

Holding her shirt over her chest still, she watched him cross behind her, dip the rag in a shallow puddle at the edge of the clearing, and return. He knelt behind her.

"Ditch water?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No. Muddy, ice cold ditch water wit' a gooey wad of pond scum. Get it right."

It didn't really matter. Her wounds were long closed and even if they hadn't been, nothing breeding in the puddles of Azshara could do much damage to her. She was tired and sore and still too unused to company to take such discomforts gracefully. The water was, indeed, icy. She hissed through her teeth as he gently touched the rag to her back.

"Sorry."

She closed her eyes. "It's fine," she whispered.

Tohbie drew her knees up over her chest, holding them loosely with the hand not clutching her shirt. She sighed and settled her chin across her fingers. The cloth warmed as it crossed her back, and as she relaxed onto her knees, Tukal set one hand on her shoulder to steady her. It was good to be touched again, she found herself thinking. It was good to have some kind of contact not nessesitated by imminent death, she ammended, even if it was just someone wiping dried blood from her back to keep her from staining a clean shirt. That was all it was, so she could let herself enjoy it.

That was all it was, wasn't it? Not that long ago, she had spent over an hour almost asleep against his chest, but the memory was insubstansial and blurred. She had been more consumed with fear than anything else. She couldn't remember any other thoughts beyond a greatfulness to be alive. She was alive because he pulled her to safety. Like the dogs had pulled her to safety. She took a sharp breath involuntarily as he traded hands, placing one that was cool and damp against her opposite shoulder and taking up the cloth in the other.

"You pull me back onto de ship," she said quietly.

"Yeah," he replied. "I were dere."

"Why?"

His answer was simple. "You was fallin'."

Tohbie blinked her eyes slowly. That was all it was, wasn't it? It was so hard with people. They were so complicated with their thoughts beyond food and hunt and Pack. Was she supposed to be reading between the lines of what he said? Her mouth was going dry. Tukal was not the same person he had been six years ago. He might still have been kind of an asshole, but he wasn't so bad for someone who was kind of an asshole.

"Dat de only reason?" she murmured.

"You want anodder?"

His hand on her shoulder slid to her upper arm and pulled her back from her knees. She let him push her legs away from her torso with the back of his other hand. He moved to bring himself flush against her back and brought the pink rag against her belly. The shaking was involuntary, but he didn't say anything. His arm crossed her shoulders and he wiped the rest of the blood from her carefully. He let the rag drop into the dirt beside them and tightened his grip once before releasing her.

"Okay," he said slowly. "`Bout as good as I can do."

She blinked once and remembered that he had been cleaning away the blood so she could get dressed. Her hands were trembling, but she managed to pull the shirt she had been clutching over her head. She felt his hands on her sides smoothing her clothing before he slid one arm around her waist and the other across her shoulders to hold her warmly against his chest. Tohbie felt her heart beating less in her chest than it did in her throat and belly as his hand slid up her neck to cradel her cheek and tilt her head back against his shoulder. It seemed all her thoughts crashed into one another in their hurry to form, leaving only a loud kind of silence where they should have been. The corner of his thumb rolled slowly back and forth, tracing a half circle from the side of her nose, below her eye, down her cheek and back. It was the only movement he made for a long time, and after a moment her shaking slowed and stopped.

She dimmly thought he might be waiting for some kind or reaction and could think of nothing to do but reach up to cover his hand on her cheek with her own. She felt his hand shift to curl one finger benieth the corner of her jaw and his cheek slide against hers. He used his palm against the side of her face to tip her chin up over his tusk and bring her lips against his. He kissed her once, not deeply but for a long time. As it ended, his palm slid up beneath the contour of her jaw and lifted her lips gently back away from his.

His eyes glowed in the moonlight, but she could still see them just beyond the shine. The look he gave her wasn't hopeful or lustful as she had expected. It was simply curious as he awaited her reaction.

"No," she whispered slowly. She felt her throat tightening as if she might cry.

"Do you still see Sol when you look at me?" he asked. There was no anger or sadness in his voice.

She shook her head. In truth, she had thought little of his twin brother in years. "I see you."

His hand on her cheek slid down again to her shoulder and after a moment, she moved her own hand further down his wrist. There was no more intimacy in his touch, just a kind of familiar warmth.

"Should I let you go?"

She shook her head slowly and felt him nod. He didn't ask her any more questions beyond that. He didn't ask for any further explaination. He just held her companionably in the cold, windy darkness. She closed her eyes and ducked her head down against his collar. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence and so it took her a long time to explain herself.

"I would just be a waste of your time," she sighed.

"You get to decide what be a waste of me time?" he asked lightly.

"Just savin' you some hastle is all."

"An' how is dat?"

Tohbie slid down and turned in his grip so she could bury her head against his chest below his line of sight. He adjusted his hold on her with an easy motion.

"Radder not talk about it," she muttered.

"I t'ink I should get to know if you t'ink you get to decide for me."

Tohbie sighed. "Knowin' don' help. I tell... someone before. It's de kind of t'ing you want to t'ink don' matter when you hear it. But later, you start to realise.." She trailed off.

"You tell me a lot of what I will t'ink," Tukal noted. "I will make you a deal."

"Don' do dis," she sighed.

"I will do what I want," he said lightly. "You don' got to listen. You did not have to give me an excuse, an' I would not have somet'in' to argue. I were willin' to take a 'no.'"

Tohbie snorted, caught between amusement and annoyance.

"You t'ink you will tell me dis an' I will t'ink I don' care. Your beauty will... blind me to me sensibilities."

She groaned and waited for him to get on with it.

"An' den, some time down de road, mont's... years... I will run outta puppy love an' decide I do care. Yes?"

Tohbie nodded once. She hadn't really meant it to sound quite so pettey, but Tukal likely knew that as well. It was, in it's essence, entirely accurate.

"So tell me what it is," he continued. "An' we will put two weeks between us an' tonight-" his hand caressed her back and for just a moment his touch was intimate again "-an' I will decide if I am boddered. You will take what I feel how you will, an' I will be fine wit' dat."

Tohbie squirmed. She should have left it at 'no.' But what he was asking was far from unreasonable, and it wasn't like it had really been a secret until recently, just something she spoke of rarely.

"Dat sounds fair enough," she sighed.

"Well, I did pull you back up into de boat," he agreed.

Tohbie chuckled briefly, but the sound cut off as quickly as it started. "You know, I only ever tell two people after I leave de Isles," she stated.

Tukal didn't reply, just tightened his hold on her once and returned to simply letting his arms rest across her.

"I can't have any more children," she finally told him. "And I never meet a healer of any kind who could change dat."

She expected him to have a reaction of some kind beyond what he did. She thought he might exclaim that that was not much of a secret, or wonder out loud how anyone could care about something like that, any of the things Natram had said when she'd told him that had been so good to hear at the time. It would even have also been something of a relief, she thought, if he'd told her he really did want to have children some day, and there would be no reason to pursue her if that was not ever going to be in the offering; thanks for the information, he had more constructive women to turn his attention to.

But all he said was, "Okay."

She drew back slightly so she could look up at him. His face was impassively neutral and his eyes difficult to read in the darkness.

"I got two weeks to come up wit' an oppinion," he said. "Till den, you can suffer your curiosity."

He hugged her again. They sat for a while, listening to the wind in the trees and the rustle of fallen leaves, until they agreed it was getting late and that it was cold and that, having not yet gotten replacements for their bedrolls, it was alright to fall asleep together. Tohbie curled up under his arm with her jacket spread over her side and thought as little as she could about what he might say in two weeks until sleep overcame her.