(2021-02-25) Oranna and the Innkeeper

Details

Author:	Athena
Summary:	Oranna gets a new pair of gloves, thinks about her recent adventures, and talks to the innkeeper.
Rating:	T for Teen

With an irritated sigh, Oranna pulled on her new gloves. She directed a glare at the snow leopard placidly walking along beside her.

"Ye can't keep doing this, lass," she said to the leopard. "I'm keeping that man in silver repairing and replacing these things." She had now owned and repaired more gloves in the past two weeks than she’d owned in the entire past 20 years.

The snow leopard Can't Be Found yawned mightily. Oranna chose to believe it was unrelated.

It was evening, anyway. Oranna had been out hunting troggs for a bounty, trying to earn enough coin to pay her tab with Lina Stover. The human woman had repaired Boomstick beautifully, and it was honestly better than it had ever been. When the girl had placed the tab on the table Oranna had thought she'd perhaps accidentally added a zero by mistake. But, no. Lina had assured Oranna she'd given the best price she could, mostly charging only for the materials and parts. It wasn't every day she got to work with an antique like Boomstick, after all.

Oranna had smiled tightly, and counted out the silver she had on her. It wasn't going to be enough. After the embarrassing conversation about payment plans, Oranna had set out immediately to Redridge. They had seemed to have a load of problems people would offer a few silver to fix.

Then she'd been unceremoniously thrown off a cliff by an enormous gnoll, and considered, perhaps, it might be better to see if the folks in Loch Modan could use more help with their trogg infestation.

She had run into Thaldor, a dwarf who she had worked with once before, in the cave with what seemed an infinite supply of troggs. Thaldor was a bit of mystery to Oranna. He spoke exclusively in Dwarven, even when she used Common back at him, and although he seemed easy going, his eyes were constantly moving with calculations, observing everything around him as if he were writing an on going log for a report. He made Oranna a little uneasy, but only because she wasn't sure she'd want to know what he had "logged" about her.

They had both spotted Brannagen fighting off two troggs who had corned the priest at the same time, rushing to help. Now, Bran, Oranna liked. The priest had a habit of walking headlong into danger, and sometimes seemed to drift off into his mind, but he had a good, kind heart and a way about him that Oranna felt all those who served the Light should have. He was a traveler, which was a way of living that Oranna still struggled to wrap her mind around, and seemed pulled to distant faraway places. Mostly, she supported the dwarf, although at times she worried about him when she wasn't around to shoot the swarm of rat kobolds he had wandered into.

The three dwarves had made quick work of the bounty, and Oranna had collected her share, and promptly mailed her first payment to Lina in Stormwind.

Her first order of business back in Ironforge had been to see a blacksmith about repairs to her leathers. It wouldn't do to have weak spots with EVC and Stingers setting their scopes on the Company. The blacksmith had done what he could, but he had flat out said her gloves were beyond anyone's hope of resurrecting.

That she couldn't even blame on the troggs. Befound had begun an alarming habit of chewing on Oranna’s gloves, and it was taking time to break the snow leopard of it. Befound had gotten to these ones when Oranna had overslept.

She had sighed and paid for the new gloves. Better to negotiate with the blacksmith than the snow leopard still vaguely reeking of trogg intestines.

They left the blacksmith and made a bee line to the inn. The inn was both tavern and inn. The lower half was a tavern, the Stonefire Tavern, and managed by a dwarf well into his middle years with bright red hair and an enormous beard that still didn't quite detract from the incredible size of his nose. Firebrew was easy to spot, at least.

The tavern was busy, with many patrons from Ironforge there simply for dinner. Oranna directed Befound upstairs, noticing that the leopard was still sniffing the air, scented with fresh meat, but she was no longer making any movements towards the patrons that Oranna would be forced to thwart. That was progress at least.

Once Befound was settled with her puzzle box, a contraption Oranna had bought from a gnome selling her wares in Stormwind that could have several bits of meat stuffed inside that would take a snow leopard some time to wriggle out, Oranna went back downstairs.

"Ah, Stormbreaker! The usual?" Firebrew asked as Oranna approached the counter.

"Aye," she replied wearily, placing the copper on the table. The day was rapidly catching up to her. She rubbed a hand over her brow, massaging at a point that still throbbed slightly from where an opportunistic trogg had thrown a knife at her. It had hit her with the handle instead of the blade, which was lucky, but it still hurt.

"You alright there, lass?" Firebrew placed the tankard of water down in front of Oranna, a frown of concern on his face.

"Oh, aye, it's nothin'. Jus' a bit of a bump," Oranna said, forcing a small smile. The innkeeper only frowned harder.

"You seem to have a lot of those these days, lass," he said. Oranna sighed and raked a hand through the strands that had escaped her tight braid. "You sure you're not in over your head?"

At his words, Oranna straightened, pulling her shoulders back.

"You're in over your head, lass. You can't possibly just go off by yerself into Void knows where while that damned Doomhammer bastard is still stomping around!" Her ears are burning with unspent anger and she's barely resisting throwing her axe at the well meaning, if condescending, dwarven woman.

"He's retreating. The humans have it in hand. I know what I'm doing." Her fists are so tight she's afraid she's hurting herself but she can't feel it, she can't feel anything with this feeling crushing her like a spider pulling a web tighter and tighter around her, squeezing out everything that makes her a person.

"I know what I'm doing," Oranna said, echoing herself from 20 years before. "I am working with a Company. We're doing good things."

"Settle down, lass, I meant no harm." Oranna gritted her teeth. She was not a cat to be told to settle, but she clenched her teeth around the words. The innkeeper shrugged. "I see a lot of your kind. Brave dwarves who think they'll go out, make a good coin, and come back home like the old days. But things have changed. Dwarves go out, and we don't come back. Azeroth isn't safe, not anymore." His eyes looked past Oranna, and she saw that he carried his own ghosts, little slinking prowlers who stalked him from behind trees and shadows. Oranna’s shoulders relaxed.

"I know that there's danger out there. I've seen it with my own eyes. Farmers chased out of their homes. The earth salted. Dwarves unable to mine because gnolls and kobolds come in the night and take over. Orcs," her voice faltered on the word, but she took a breath and steadied it. "Orcs wandering the hills near settlements, eating livestock and threatening the helpless." Oranna looked at her hands in her new gloves. "But just because it's dangerous doesn't mean we can just walk away and hope it stops. It won't. Someone has to do something. Someone has to try."

She looked up at the innkeeper. He was frowning still, but there was a glimmer of something in his eyes. Oranna felt her lips quirk up into a crooked smile as she picked up her water and saluted Firebrew.

"I'm someone."