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Hank “Cuss” Cuthbert, the greenest member of the 7th Legion at Wintergarde, sat huddled by a fire someone had built right on the stone floor of the barracks, along with the rest of his unit save Captain Forgelight, who was in a meeting. The other half-dozen members of the 8th E.U. were swapping stories, about past lovers mostly, and Cuss didn’t have much to contribute.
“Last girl I shagged,” he finally piped up, “she’s with Cobalt Company now.” It was true, if a bit misleading. “Big star. On one of their elite squads.”
“Truly?” said Sgt. Halfmoon. “Which squad, White or Blue?”
“I dunno the name,” he said. “But she’s up here in Northrend. A warlock, name of Averlena.”
“I know to whom you refer,” said Halfmoon. “But I doubt you were any lover of hers.”
Cuss bristled. “She wasn’t always so high and mighty. ‘Was a time she was available to anyone who could cough up the coin, and in those days I had plenty of coin.”
Now he had the squad’s entire attention.
“You mean to say that Lena Coit of Cobalt Company’s White Squad used to be… a courtesan?”
“If you mean a whore, then yeah.”
The squad seemed to take a moment to process this. Somewhere in the back of his mind Cuss noted that the crowded barracks had gotten a bit quieter all of a sudden, but he was too high on the squad’s attention to give it much thought.
“Back at Theramore, we just called her Averlena.” A flash of inspiration prompted him to add, “But I guess she goes by Lena these days because no one’s allowed to ‘av’er.”
Most of the squad, save Halfmoon, burst into guffaws. Their mirth was cut short, however, as a felguard stomped over to their campfire seemingly out of nowhere and seized Cuss by the front of his coat, hoisting him into the air. The other five scrambled backward on their asses away from the confrontation, eyes wide.
Cuss was torn between two finely-honed instincts drilled into him by years of military training. The urge to defend himself ultimately capitulated to the urge not to piss off people who outranked him, because the felguard was followed immediately by its master, a sharp-featured man with a captain’s insignia, silver-touched black hair, and eyes as cold as Northrend.
“Have a care,” said the man, in a poshly accented voice like frozen velvet, “how you speak of a fellow warlock in service of the Alliance, particularly one who happens to be a former student of mine.”
Cuss blurted a strangled “Sir, yes, sir!” and found himself deposited without ceremony back on the stone floor.
“Who is your superior officer?” the captain asked him.
“Cap’n Forgelight, sir.”
“And your name?”
“Cuthbert, sir. Sgt. Cuthbert.”
The man turned away and started for the stairs that led to the officers’ quarters.
“It ain’t slander, Cap’n, sir!” Cuss called after him desperately. “She did used to be a whore, ask anyone.”
The man turned back, and the look in his eyes made Cuss immediately regret his decision to continue speaking.
“I’m aware,” he said. “And you, I presume, used to be an infant. At the time, neither of you had much choice in the matter. But now both of you do, and only one of you has chosen to evolve.”
With that, he turned away again, and he and the felguard marched up the stairs.
“He meant the girl, I think,” stage-whispered Sgt. Miller. “He was callin you–”
“Shut up,” said Cuss, and turned back to the comfort of the fire.