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This… was a bad idea.
Kaz'tiik fidgeted, golden eyes darting about the room as more and more people began to trickle inside. He hadn't been around so many others in… well, a while. At least a few years, he knew that. Maybe five years? Six or seven?
He'd been alone a long time, anyway. And now - now he was in a city crawling with all kinds of different people, some of them belonging to races he'd never seen before. Worse, he'd stepped inside a cramped little building with a group of them. The flurry of alien accents and brightly colored clothes was almost too much after so long spent scavenging on his own in the forest, so for now Kaz stayed glued to his one little corner, keeping his back to the wall as he tried to watch too many faces all at once.
He'd done this to himself, though, and he'd done it on purpose - although he wouldn't have come here at all if he hadn't finally been chased from Quel'Thalas altogether. One overslept morning, one instant of letting himself be too cozy in his own routines, and the elf-rangers had come closing in on his southernmost hideout, forcing him across the border to avoid detection and capture… and worse. He didn't dare risk crossing back into the kingdom again, not without knowing whether they'd uncovered enough to change the patrols along the border, and so he'd continued onward, skirting the dead lands beyond his home and coming to the coastline.
He'd had no money for passage on any of the big ships he'd found, but stowing away on one of them had been easy compared to dodging the small, sun-skinned savages who had destroyed his city and slaughtered the last of the Amani Empire.
Unfortunately, the ship’s first stop had been here: a noisy, smelly, crowded port town. The only good thing about this place was that it seemed very far from Quel'Thalas - far enough that the scattering of elves he'd seen hardly seemed to care that he was there at all. Either they didn't rule this place, or they were more of the good elves. More of the kind his mama had been.
Maybe it was both. Kaz had stopped in two other buildings first in search of food and drink and a place to set for a while, and like this one, both of those had been run by little, round-eared creatures. “Gnomes,” they were called. Bright-haired like a troll, with the same soft, brown or peachy skin as an elf, about the size of a toddler and frighteningly good with the metal-and-steam things they built.
Somehow Kaz couldn't imagine a gnome running anything in a place where elves ruled. Not when the trolls hadn't even been allowed to live near them.
The sign outside had said this place housed nightly speed-dating events, and the human woman he'd asked about it had giggled and told him those events were for lonely singles looking for a quick hook-up.
This was probably a bad time to chase tail. Definitely a bad time.
But it would be awfully nice to have somebody cute and friendly showing him around.
This place was run by a gnome, too, and Kaz tried to listen as she cheerfully went through the rules of the event… though he worried he wouldn't remember most of it. There were an awful lot of rules about when to move to a new seat, and where that new seat should be.
He settled down in the nearest chair to his corner, fidgeting again as he watched the gaggle of humans, elves, and other creatures pick places of their own. There was even a troll here - a big man who sat way across the room from Kaz, thick with muscle and scarred all over his nervous face.
But the seat across from Kaz didn't get taken by anybody small or slim or even remotely familiar. Kaz looked away from the rest of the room and found himself staring up at something even bigger than a troll - bigger and a lot furrier.
“Good afternoon,” the creature rumbled, and somehow its - his - face managed to look friendly and intelligent despite very strongly resembling one of the strange quadrupeds Kaz'tiik had seen at the local stables.
The set of long, black, very sharp horns sprouting from his brow sort of put a damper on his friendly smile, though.
“Uh… hi.” Kaz hoped his smile looked more confident than he felt - or at least that he wasn't leaning back quite as far as he felt like he was.
The… person? Man? The creature sitting across from him didn't seem to take any offense, at least. It - he - only sat back in his chair with a chuckle and flicked his ears, setting his feathered earrings dancing lightly against his broad shoulders.
“You’ve never seen a tauren before, have you?” the creature asked.
Tauren. Kaz mulled the word over in his head, scrambling for everything his father and the rest of his people had ever taught him… and relaxed, somewhat, as he realized the word was familiar. Right - right, the tauren were with the Horde, and the Amani had fought with the Horde for a while, until…
Until Zul'jin was slain - and Zul'Aman burned.
“Ah… no, no I haven't,” Kaz'tiik said, eyes flicking again to the tauren’s sharp horns. He couldn't quite keep the bitterness from his voice as he added, “Heard about ya, dough.”
The tauren's eyes turned a little more serious - though still not very threatening.
“Perhaps we should start at the beginning,” the tauren sighed. “My name is Baine Bloodhoof, of Thunder Bluff in Mulgore.”
“Kaz'tiik,” Kaz answered, deliberately clipping short of his own origins.
“You aren't of the Darkspear tribe,” Baine said, just as a little bell rang somewhere near the front of the room. Odd that the tauren didn't ask - but maybe he dealt with the Darkspear enough to know that much for certain.
Kaz’ face twitched as he fought back a sneer.
“Nah,” he said. “I was Amani, when dey were still around.”
Baine closed his eyes, and Kaz thought he saw the thing’s ears droop.
“I'm sorry,” the tauren offered a moment later. His voice was thick and soft, and there was real sorrow in his eyes.
The old ache tightened in Kaz'tiik’s chest again, and he bit down on the inside of his cheek and looked away until his eyes stopped stinging with tears. He'd done his crying, plenty of it, and he wasn't about to cry more in front of a tauren.
Not even one that looked so sad.
“Were ya dere?” Kaz asked.
“No,” Baine said, and Kaz saw some of the light come back to his face. “I took no part in what happened at Zul'Aman.”
“Don't apologize, den,” Kaz told him. He waved a hand and said, “No good apologizin’ for what others do.”
The tauren eyed him quietly, and for a minute Kaz thought he might argue - but ultimately he nodded and gave another flick of his ears.
“You said you were of the Amani,” Baine said. “And you certainly seem trollish at a glance…”
Kaz felt his teeth come together and made himself sit still as Baine leaned forward, eyes sharp and heavy brow raised in an expression that looked far, far too much like the look Kaz’ papa used to train on him when Kaz was up to trouble.
“But there's more than troll in you,” Baine finished. “I've never seen one built the way you are - certainly not with as many fingers or toes. Your skin is unique, as well. I've never heard of a troll with a human's skin.”
He didn't mention the tusks, Kaz thought dazedly. Everybody before always mentioned his tusks - how they were too small, or womanly, or maybe just taking longer to grow to the big, sweeping size most trollish men sported. But this tauren didn't even look twice at them.
“Elf,” Kaz heard himself say, just as the little bell went off again. “It ain't human skin, it's elf. High elf, on my mama's side.”
Everybody else in the room moved around them - but Baine sat still, apparently unbothered by the momentary confusion his immobility caused the rest of the group.
“Think you're supposed to move a chair over,” Kaz commented.
“Would you prefer if I did?” Baine asked, smiling again. Something about the look in his eye spoke mischief to Kaz'tiik.
“Doesn't bother me one way or de other,” Kaz said with a shrug. “You're confusin’ everyone else, dough.”
“Would you tell me more about yourself?” Baine asked. Apparently everyone else could go pound sand. “You said that your mother was elvish…?”
“Yeah,” Kaz said, settling in more comfortably now that he was reasonably sure the tauren wasn't about to fly over the table at him.
“She was a ranger - her and Papa met on opposite sides of de same fight. Papa said some kinda explosion went off and dey both got separated from de others. Dey wound up agreein’ not to kill each other on account of they only had two workin’ legs and one good hand between ‘em.”
There was more, much more - blood in his mama's teeth and an undying ferocity in her eyes as she hissed and warned his father away from where she sat cradling her broken arm against her stomach; firelight from the distant explosion filling the small cave-in where they lay trapped with a soft, red light that turned his mama’s red-gold hair to flames about her shoulders; his father's sudden, crashing realization that the elf-woman who'd just tried to kill him minutes before was, perhaps, the most beautiful creature he'd ever encountered.
Baine didn't need to know those parts. Those parts belonged to Kaz, in the story he had repeated to himself over and over and over again so that he wouldn't ever forget it. Maybe someday he'd have someone else who could hear the whole thing.
“And from there…?” Baine pressed. His face was perfectly blank, or maybe just too hard to read yet, but Kaz thought he at least sounded interested.
“Dey kept meetin’ after dat,” Kaz said. “Sometimes accidentally, and sometimes not so much. Dey managed to keep it secret for a while - until Mama got pregnant, and Papa told a friend, and dat friend got captured by elves and gave ‘em both up thinkin’ he'd save his own skin doin’ it.”
The little bell rang again. Neither of them moved this time.
“What happened then?” Baine asked. Then, as Kaz hesitated, he added, “You do not have to say more - but I sense that it has been a long time since you have had anyone listen to your story.”
“Not sure how long, exactly, but yeah.” Kaz scratched at his jaw, wondering if maybe he should stop. But this tauren couldn't possibly know any elves - he hadn't fought with them at Zul'Aman.
And it did feel like a long time since anyone else had heard the story. That wasn't any good; stories needed ears to listen and hearts to carry them forward.
“I was born a couple days before dey got sold out,” Kaz finally said. “Mama got wind de rangers were comin’ for us, and got me over de river to Papa…”
“—an’ stayed behind, leadin’ de elves offa our trail while I ran wit’ ya back to de village,” Papa’s voice finished in his memory.
Kaz faltered - and Baine noticed, and flicked his ears again with a quiet huff of air.
“How did you survive the assault on Zul'Aman?” the tauren asked after a moment.
“Papa told me to run,” Kaz said bitterly. “I told him no, I'm stayin’ here, I'm grown and I can fight too. So he chased me off de hard way.”
“And you've wandered ever since?” Baine asked, frowning hard - in confusion? Sympathy? It was hard to tell.
The little bell rang again.
“I was stayin’ in what dey call Quel'Thalas,” Kaz answered. “Stickin’ to ruins an’ old hideouts. But I got lazy and let a patrol get too close - I had to bolt so dey didn't catch me. Papa always figured dey’d do worse dan kill me, if dey caught me.”
And Kaz'tiik had no reason to doubt his papa. They'd tortured Zul'jin while he was bound and helpless. Mama was one of their own - one of their best - and they'd still slaughtered her like a lynx too broken to be good for anything but food. Then they'd wiped the Amani out altogether for trying to live in their own ancestral land. If they found and got their hands on Kaz, it’d be the end for him - a long, slow, screaming end.
Baines brow furrowed even more, and again Kaz was struck with the sense that the tauren dearly wanted to argue… but again the tauren seemed to let it go, and visibly forced himself to relax with a long, slow sigh.
“And now?” Baine asked. “Where do you roam these days?”
“Nowhere,” Kaz answered, and for once it was more than just bluster to scare some pretty elf-boy into running away. “I found some boats and hopped one here. I just landed dis morning.”
He looked around and jumped as he realized the rest of the room was beginning to clear out. The event must be over already.
“Looks like de party's over,” Kaz said, hopping up from his chair.
Baine rose as well, slowly and deliberately, and Kaz had to work to keep from flinching at how massive the other man was.
“Where will you go now?” Baine asked.
Kaz shrugged and shook his head.
“Might look around here for a little while,” he said. “Find somewhere to bed down for de night, see de sights, decide what to do after I find somet’in’ to eat—”
He flinched and tried to pull away as Baine suddenly grabbed one of his hands - but the tauren only held onto him long enough to deposit a heavy, richly made purse into Kaz’ palm.
“There should be more than enough here to buy food and a room at a hotel for a few nights,” Baine told him seriously. “Please do so, rather than trying to steal or scavenge for what you need.”
Kaz stared down at the purse in shock.
“Man… I can't pay ya back fa’ dis,” he said slowly. “Ain't got a job or any way of gettin’ money yet…”
A big, heavy hand came to rest on his shoulder, and Kaz looked up to see Baine staring hard at him.
“Repay me by taking the money and doing as I have asked,” he said seriously. “You are too young to have lived so hard.”
Kaz couldn't think of what to say. It was all he could do to nod until Baine patted his shoulder and took a step back.
“If you should decide to leave this place,” the tauren said, “come to Thunder Bluff, in Mulgore. You will be welcome there. You have my word.”
“I'll… I'll do dat,” Kaz said.
Baine smiled, then nodded his great head and turned to leave.
“Earthmother watch over you, Kaz'tiik,” he said.
Then he was gone, striding away into the crowd outside, and Kaz was alone once more.