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| Details |
| Author: | Alli |
| Summary: | Thalstan replies to Oranna's letter about the Highlands and talks a little about what he's been up to on another world. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Chain: Orastan
Oranna,
Good to hear you’re on forward squad again – they’re lucky to have you. I never did see a lass with as good an aim, and I don’t think that was just on account of the dreaming. It does explain why I’ve not run into you in Ironforge lately, but then again you’ve probably been back to visit, only we’ve been visiting on different days. Might be I should’ve dropped a note that the Cobalt Blade was sent to Outland, but then if you did happen to visit on the day I was there, you might see me in my ma’s pub and think I was a Nightmare double. I think you’d realize no in time, but let’s not test it. I’ve seen how you handle Nightmares.
I’ve not met Mr. Flintlocke, but he sounds like quite the character. I’m not entirely sure I followed your description of what all happened with him up there exactly, but he does sound a mite rude about explosions. I was always told to never explode unless your partners are expecting it and happy for it. An explosion can be fun, but my pa always taught me to make sure a lady – or anyone, really, but you’re a lady – is comfortable before any happens.
Where I’ve been lately, the whole Horde and Alliance situation seems right far off. Since the expeditions a few years ago, Outland’s been mostly left to the natives, except for a handful of Azerothian outposts that mostly keep to themselves. We worried a bit about the war spilling over here, but it doesn’t seem to have happened yet. Maybe folk are not as eager to fight over a disintegrating world. Still, there is something going on here. A blood elf fellow trying to rally up the fel orcs and the local blood elves to some so-called great purpose. It’s always something, isn’t it? Anyway, that’s where I’ve been mostly, over there with the Blade, trying to figure out what he’s doing and how to stop it.
Zaara’s got her ghosts about orcs as well, so might be she could have a few words to share with your team. She’s a healer and blind, and one of those things is courtesy of the orcs, guess which. You know Tadget, so I think you’ll understand if I say she’s pretty well-pleased as long as there’s stabbing involved in a mission, orcs or elves or ogres or anything. She and Vesyllah get along well, in a kind of edgy banter sort of way. I don’t know if Art has any problems with orcs – he’s fairly quiet and adaptable.
For myself, I remember the siege as well, the orcs penning us in Ironforge. I was not managing the siege, so I doubt our paths ever crossed. But I do know what it means to live through it. The feeling of a place that’s a home turning into a cage, where maybe you wouldn’t have chosen to leave but it matters now that you can’t.
It meant the world to my family, when the helpers came. When the Alliance appeared and we dwarves knew we weren’t holding out on our own any longer. That’s what you are to those people, the Wildhammers. Maybe it’s a good thing to experience being on the other side of it? Even if you had to lie about it at first, which I’ll agree sounds a bit odd. Could be it’s a pride thing for them – friends can help, but being bailed out by some distant and unknown Alliance smacks of charity. The Horde will do whatever the Horde will do with their allies, but it’s good you showed the Wildhammers how the Alliance does it. Helping and asking. That’s the way a hero should build bridges.
As for weddings, no, I’m not a secret wedding planner. I’m not even sure I know all the Bronzebeard customs, to be honest, let alone any of the Wildhammers. Unless the Firststone books got all the details right, and honestly those usually have more of the steamy scenes and less of the weddings. They also usually talk more about curves and less about lumps, but then maybe the books I read are not written by Wildhammers.
Anyway, it sounds hard, all this activity and then the ghosts floating around it of things that might've been. I hope you know it's okay to not be happy, or to feel any which way you feel. And if you don't know what you feel, or you feel nothing, that's alright too. I'll come up to the highlands soon, once I get this whole Outland business settled, or if I can get a few days where things are under control. It sounds like those dwarves are in a right hurry though, so I might not make it before the wedding.
-Thalstan