![](http://cobalt-company.wdfiles.com/local--resized-images/writing:2025-12-15-see-each-other-as-we-are-orastan-in-panda/style="margin:/medium.jpg) |
| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | After nearly a year since the two first met in a dream, and since a confession of feelings in letters, Oranna Stormbreaker and Thalstan Stouthammer meet in Pandaria, this time as a romantic couple, learning about each other anew in a romantic context after so long as friends. On a picnic free of Pandaria's usual (and unusual) danger list, they talk about nicknames, self-perceptions versus external ones, and recent adventures. Thalstan shares more about some of his doubts, and his hopes, and Oranna explains more about how for her there are no absolutes, including even the big things like truths and lies. They get to Dwarven Second Base (beard touching). 14k~ words. Romance RP. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Chain: Orastan
Paw'don village on the 15th of December is an adventure of possibilities of all that Winter Veil can be in Azeroth, with last winter blossom petals flowing by on brisk chill winds, while big, white bushy clouds snooze on the rolling hills of Jade Forest. The apple orchards that support the village are healthier now than they were earlier that year, many replanted in the late fall in the peace brought on by Cobalt Company and the Alliance's efforts, and the village proceeds in at its usual winter pace, slow and patient as curled dumpling steam rising lazily in the cool air.
Only one note breaks the pandaren's otherwise smooth harmony — a dwarven hunter, pacing restlessly around the beautiful decorative fountain of the Jade Serpent (which is only a statue, the dwarven hunter is definitely sure of that), and a more pandaren harmonious in vibe and coloring black and white adult snow leopard taking a nap on the stones far enough away from even the smallest spray of water.
Oranna Stormbreaker is not in her usual armor, which has been carefully packed away in her sturdy bag that she carries with her. Instead, she wears a Winter Veil dress of beautiful soft white with a black ribbon that emphasizes her luscious figure. Her hair has been left half down, only partially tied up with another ribbon to keep it off the ground, and between her pacing and the wind, it flows around her in ways that some pandaren have noticed in an artistic appreciation for a thing of beauty beyond racial differences of hair vs fur.
She's chewed at her bottom lip on and off for the past twenty minutes, which means she waited a whole ten minutes after she arrived before starting to have a go at it. Her brows have pulled in already to make the worry line between her brows a deep line, and she probably should have brought a book or something.
Befound, who is sleeping and napping, huffs at Oranna, who also could be napping! Just as a suggestion. From one definitely napping housecat to another large almost housecat.
"The moment I think ta turn around, that's when he'll arrive," Oranna mutters at her overgrown housecat, staring intently at the portal.
Apparently, portals are not like pots of near-boiling water, because this one does not wait until Oranna has turned her back. Right at the designated time, a familiar form steps through from Stormwind City into the mysterious land of Pandaria.
That figure is Thalstan Stouthammer, who appears framed by the winter apple tree branches above and the cottony clouds behind. He is not in his armor or guild tabard today, instead wearing well-fitted leather pants and gleaming dark boots, and a loose-sleeved, almost piratical white shirt. His own dark hair is thick and loose, and his carefully-styled beard twists in the sudden wind this side of the portal.
He pauses there in front of the portal, his hands full of a basket and a bouquet of wildflowers and a pack over his shoulder, as his deep blue gaze comes to rest on Oranna.
For Thalstan, the portal step probably takes a second or two.
For Oranna, we can only assume from the look on her face that it goes a little bit differently. That somehow Thalstan's entrance is accompanied by a smooth, full jazz band with a deep, soulful voiced singer in a seductive slow groove, as time slows down while the light softens into a sweet, warm rosy golden tinted glow, and the wind strategically blows his beard and hair around him majestically like a personal fan. She's captivated, stopping her pacing mid-step.
She's always looked happy to see him, but this is something else entirely. It's more like she's stunned, her mouth caught open, cheeks turned rosy, and brown eye sweetly rounded and darkened; and not in fear or anxiety — all traces of worry have melted away in the softness of what has swept over her, smoothing even the line between her brows until it’s barely visible. There is no question whatsoever in her honest face, no room for doubt or misinterpretation — that is stunned lust, alongside that unfeigned pleasure at seeing him. Her hands have been frozen in some half-actualized thought, fingers half-curled in a reaching, like a princess caught in a spell, and he seems to have quite literally taken her breath away, with her chest motionless on some held breath.
She has never looked at him this way before, but she is most certainly looking at him this way now. He is the most handsome, desirable dwarf (in her eyes at least); the only cookie in all the worlds.
Thalstan might have been planning to walk over to Oranna right away, but for a moment he is rendered a statue (not jade) by the mere sight of her. One can hope that the pandaren have scheduled ample time in between portal crossings. His lips part slightly as he takes in the lovely dress, the artfully flowing hair, and then his gaze lingers at the new expression on her face.
He has seen Oranna a number of times, but this is certainly new. All the questions and maybes fade away and he takes a step forward, proffering the wildflowers.
"Ye look a dream, Oranna," Thalstan says in Dwarven with a flushed, happy smile.
She giggles shyly, which breaks the spell catching her enough to let her breathe at least, one hand coming up to tuck some of her hair behind her ear as she looks up at Thalstan. There is a distinct possibility she has narrowed her scope on him and everything else has gone a bit blurry. People? Village? Oh, wait, flowers.
"Oh, thank you." Dwarven softens her voice, even in the harsher tones than Common. "Thank you," she repeats, because there were also other words plus the flowers. She giggles again, beaming a smile at him. "I sort of feel like I'm dreaming so maybe that's it." She reaches out to take the flowers and there's a little hitch, not quite hesitation but as if bringing her hand closer to his sends an electric zap straight through her. As she closes her hand around it and his hand as well, she sounds a little more breathless. "That and having some sort of cardiac event, I swear." She pulls on his hand, drawing it towards her chest. "You should feel my —"
This almost gets a lot steamier than Oranna likely intended, as she realizes belatedly what other certain assets are located in very immediate proximity nearby her heart. She course corrects their hands upwards to her throat in enough time to say, "Pulse!" And Thalstan might not have known that was a color red that people could turn, but here she is, inches away now, clutching the flowers and his hand to her near-cardiac event pulse, and possibly casting a faint blushing glow in a sort of festive Winter Veil way maybe.
Thalstan lets Oranna take his hand in hers, with a dazed sort of smile. Then his breath catches a little at the unexpected trajectory, though he doesn't pull away. Then… right, pulse. That's where this was headed. His hand cradles her neck, feeling the jump of her heartbeat. He steps closer and looks down at her, the hand with the basket coming to rest at the ribbon around her waist.
"Mine's beating a gallop as well," Thalstan says with a touch of laughter in his smile. "It's good to see ye, safe and whole."
Oranna's relief is easy to see on her face. "I'm glad it's not just me. A cardiac event shared is a cardiac event halved. Or…doubled," she says with a laugh that does some more interesting things to her pulse and their proximity. "Something." Her color is returning to something a little closer to pretty rosy blushing and less concerning medical emergency, and her smile is a thing of beauty. "I am whole, and safe. And glad to see you, and you whole. And safe, and portalled. Again, I mean. Well, and places, back and forth that I didn't see, but that you made it here, the end of the portals. I'm babbling again. I just don't think I really did you justice in my head at all. I tried, but you're really…here and…"
As she speaks, her one free hand tentatively reaches out to touch his shoulder like she's testing a handhold — zap — and then adjusts her balance against him, pressing closer, head tilting up, the start of the rise up onto her toes to close the gap of their height. To only look at her body language, it could be that she might only be going for a hug, something not unusual for them, but her face is — as always with Oranna — the key. Her eyes search his face, drop to his lips, lingering there for a few, long seconds, then back to his eyes to check again, as she tips up her chin, her own lips parted, a sense of expectation building of a question of maybe.
Thalstan watches her expression carefully, his hand moving around to the small of her back as she shifts closer. The rise onto her toes, and the drop of her gaze to his lips, appears to answer a question that had been forming in his own mind. The hand on her neck slides to cradle her head gently, as he leans in to close the distance between them.
Despite the intensity of his gaze, his lips are a soft touch on hers, inviting a stronger response but not insisting on one. His eyes stay open for now, carefully waiting for signs of enthusiasm or discomfort, and the touch of his hands are light enough for her to easily pull away, despite the strength of his arms.
There's a caution in her, and something briefly stone tense like she held her breath to find out if something would or maybe // wouldn't// happen when —
And then she is all soft melting in his arms, relief and that safe security he's known in her when she's sought out his embrace in the past, all of that still there now, only with more. There is a bit of spice to both kiss and hug, not just from the cloud of clove and sandalwood of her hair around them. She kisses Thalstan with a soft, exploring enthusiasm of someone not unaccustomed to heading out into uncharted, often wild places having to feel out the way as she goes. She might not have a broad experience with kissing in general, and therefore no broad technical skill for it, but she isn't trying to find out in general — just how to kiss Thalstan.
For Thalstan, Oranna's technical skill or lack thereof doesn't even seem to be a consideration — what matters is that this is Oranna kissing him. His arm around her back is supporting and embracing now, though still not confining, and his fingers tremble as they slide into the soft expanse of her hair. He is there to meet her exploration, with the enthusiasm of one accustomed to diving through portals to unknown destinations.
For all that he seems to notice of their surroundings, he might as well have come through this latest portal into a pocket universe, one where he and Oranna Stormbreaker and this kiss are the only things that exist. His eyes close, as he dissolves into the moment, holding Oranna safe and secure.
The smooth groove band plays on. The strategic wind blows. The lighting is perfect. The moment goes on forever.
Well, almost.
They have something of an audience, and after a certain point, Ju Applebottom can't contain herself any longer. Cui Applebottom tries to put a paw of caution and self-restraint on the younger pandaren, but it's too cute. Look at her! The little ball of dwarven nerves and motor mouth who can carry so many barrels literally her same size has a romance!
"Woooo!! Yeah!! Get it, Orannaaaaa!!" Ju cheers, cupping a paw around her mouth, as she jumps up and down. Cui shakes her head resignedly.
Oranna startles at the sound of her name, breaking the kiss. "Who? What? Get — ?" Who is talking to her? What is she getting? She blinks slowly at Thalstan, still a breath away. This is likely the closest he will ever see of what she would look like drunk, all pink cheeked and a little dazed.
Befound has no idea what Oranna's supposed to get. The cat, probably, and that's why she's here, trying to nose her way into somewhere between them. Hello. Yes, she hopes you saved room for the snow leopard. Oranna, she can't fit. These hips are too close.
Thalstan chuckles good-naturedly, still lost in gazing at Oranna's upturned face, and almost drops his hand to pat Befound. Luckily, he remembers she's a wild and deadly feline force of nature in time, so the hand just drops to Oranna's shoulder.
"Friends of yours?" Thalstan asks in a low rumble.
Aww, almost got 'im. Befound rumbles back, knocking her head into Oranna's hip. She is such a neglected creature. No one has ever been this forlorn and forgotten. She will perish. Does Oranna even remember her name?
Oranna in turn grumbles and shoves her hip back at Befound, which reveals the unsteadiness of her jello knees — and how much the steadiness of Thalstan's hold is doing to keep her seeming steady. "Oh, ye ridiculous creature, yer fine," Oranna mutters in an annoyed Common to Befound.
She laughs a little self-consciously, turning to wave at the pandaren before burying her face in Thalstan's shoulder, switching comfortably back to Dwarven, as she adjusts her hold on him and her wildflowers as well, buying a little time in a hug to cool down the blushing of her face and the shake of her legs. "Ah, sort of, more just some folk I know, and did a little help for. We spent a lot of time in Paw'don. That's Ju Applebottom and Cui Applebottom. They're part of the Applebottom Family that runs the orchard here, and Jiayi, the innkeeper, where I stayed, and there weren't that many dwarves around, still aren't."
"They seem a friendly pair," Thalstan says in dwarven with a grin, shifting to better support Oranna's balance and avoid Befound's potential teeth in the hug. "And it's still mostly Cobalt and those who came with Fallon, aye? Not so many dwarves in the lot. Maybe more as things loosen up."
At that, with Oranna safely against his shoulder, he seems to see the village itself for the first time. He glances over the characteristic brightly-painted pandaren buildings, the finely-carved cloud serpent fountain, and the apple tree branches above them, and lets out a breath in an admiring huh.
"I can see why ye'd spend a lot of time here," Thalstan says in Common, maybe in case the locals overhear. "What a charming place."
Befound throws herself to the ground at their feet, leaning up against their legs with a heavy snow leopard's weight — nice try, Befound, Thalstan's a tank, you know — in a feline pique of mood, while Oranna bashfully lifts up her head to peek again at the nice, charming village and actually see it again.
The pandaren women grin back at Thalstan, Ju with a younger open appreciation for a love story playing out in front of her, and Cui with an older, more indulgent fondness. Ah, young (?) people. They aren't the only ones sneaking a look or two at the dwarven couple in the center by the statue, as they don't call her Watcher Jo Lin for nothing, after all. Teng Applebottom and Lin Applebottom don't have it in their names, they're just on their way to bring more stock to Serenity at the Brews shop, but the familiar dwarven face merits a glance.
"It is, aye. Mostly we stayed here since were workin' down in the…a… a direction from this place at the jin'yu village," Oranna says, gesturing south-east with confidence in knowing where it is if not how to identify exactly what that is on a compass. "An' they're nae so comfortable with strangers, an' already had stepped outside that comfort fer seeing tae the wounded Admiral Taylor. An' aye, we could have camped a-separate out alone, but with the sha, it's a bit of a horror story of slowly turnin' inta a paranoid monster eatin' away at yer soul while ye slowly go mad an' no one knows…" Oranna trails off awkwardly. "Which…is… nae exactly the most romantic talk I could be sayin'." But it is definitely the Most Oranna Thing, so that's fair.
"Right, the water people you mentioned," Thalstan says, back in dwarven, relaxing his grip a little to help her settle back into her own center of balance. "Staying in a place like this is for sure a better choice than getting eaten by sha in the wilderness. You've had the direct proof of that, too, with that earlier Horde group. Much better to stay here and work with the locals, get to know each other, as you have. Learn to be with the place, and not just awkwardly in it."
Oranna laughs self-consciously. "I think the only way I might know how to be in a place is awkwardly, but that's at least honestly getting to know them," she says, and if it's a bit self-deprecating, it's gentle in self-awareness rather than shame.
There it is again as she looks back at him in full — that expression in her eyes, like she's having to get to know his face all over again, his physical form unfamiliar in a way in her perspective, for all that he's a recognized bastion of safety. She knows him, but she's adjusting to the effect of him in person, like coming out of a dark underground into a full bright sunny day. She is also, very obviously, thinking about kissing him again. She is equally obviously, thinking about the pandaren watching them.
"Did you want to…? I didn't think to… make a… I wasn't sure if you would want to… have a … or walk or… stay with… the village and there's… " Oranna fumbles.
"I've brought a sort of a picnic," Thalstan says, raising the basket slightly, but not taking his eyes off of Oranna. He doesn't seem to be tired of looking at her yet, and it doesn't seem like that's likely to happen anytime soon, if ever. "My ma and I put some things together. I didn't know if you'd have eaten already, and if there's any local stuff you'd like to nab to go along with us, that'd be just fine."
Reluctantly, he does look away briefly, to check their surroundings and paths. "We could find a nice, secluded place in the orchard to sit and talk? Or if there's likely to be Applebottoms in and out, somewhere down by coast? You know the area better than I do, so I'll rely on you to choose a spot less likely to be in danger from hozen or saurok or mogu or mantid."
A man with a plan! Thank the Light and the Ancestors, because it is painfully obvious that Oranna has literally forgotten everything she has ever known about any normal person activity in a charming village, if she has ever known them. She's pleased at the thought of the picnic, and his ma's and his cooking.
"Oh, aye, that I — that. I know that," she says confidently with visible and audible relief to not have to be inventing a plan of something to do of how to be in a village like a normal person. Things she knows like dangers of pandaria! "The coast will usually be filled with hozen and… even in places where they aren't actively there, a lot of hozen related things that are mostly related to buried things that are treasure and… not. Treasure." If you get her awkward drift.
"But, there's a place out in this direction," which is more north-east, away from the hozen coast, "a bit past the water mill, and near a shrine that's peaceful, and tends to have some firefly types at all hours. But, mind, when I say a 'firefly type,' I need you to be picturing in your head my picture with the mantid, the smaller one, closer to that ratio of size," she warns. "It's been very quite since White Squad helped settle the farming community out that way with the mogu, and there's no saurok or mantid out this far, and the hozen don't usually wander over this way. We'd be alone."
Yes, we'll all be alone, Befound agrees. Just the three of us. She sticks her nose at the basket. What snacks did he bring for the best snow leopard. She doesn't smell any fish.
"Ah," Thalstan says quietly at treasure and… not treasure, and he may be thinking of something like a natural litter box for a hozen. He carefully shifts the picnic basket away from the perpetually hungry snow leopard. "That sounds lovely, and… bigger fireflies than I'd imagined, for sure, but they must shine all the brighter for it. Let's head out that way, and find ourselves a spot."
Thalstan offers Oranna his arm like they're in a ballroom, and not walking out of a little pandaren village to go have a picnic by a shrine near a farming community. He glances down at Befound and adds in a stage whisper, like that'll keep Befound from understanding, "I did bring some meat bits for Befound, if you'd like them to give to her. It seemed not fair to the lass to not bring her anything, but I can keep it tucked away if it'd not fit in her feeding plan."
Befound loves this man. We're keeping him, Oranna. She only heard the first part, not the part about how it can be kept tucked away if it doesn't fit into a feeding plan. Selective understanding.
Oranna takes Thalstan's arm a lot more familiarly than a ballroom escort. It's probably obvious from her lack of polish that she doesn't have any ballroom training, but she does have other assets that he's probably a bit more interested in for how they interact with his arm as they walk than considerations of her debutante abilities. She's beaming at him in a way that might make some pandaren suddenly call to mind that one story about the time when there was more than one sun. There's only two, not five, but hey, get Oranna a few mirrors and she'll see what she can do.
"Oh, as long as I'm the one that takes them out, it should work fine. That was good of you. All of it's good of you. You're good of you. You're just so…good to see today. I don't think I know how to say it right, and I'm all tangled up in my head a bit trying to say it out loud, and things that feel so… a way I can't get it into a word sound in Dwarven or Common. It sounds almost like — " And she does, indeed, make an actual sound at that, something like a high pitched bashful, happy giggle that catches on a helium balloon squeaking eeeeeeee of joy that travels through her into a body wiggle and ends on another laugh. "What word is that?"
"Delight, maybe?" Thalstan suggests. "Anyhow, I'm for certain feeling a level of delight that's got me walking on clouds. And any way you want to say a thing is fine for me. Sounds or words or walking…"
They are walking, in the meantime, and Thalstan is definitely interested the way that's moving along. The beaming of the Oranna-sunlight, the way the dress accentuates certain curves, the warmth of touch. "The rest of it's vegetarian, and then there's… well, you'll see. I'll show you. Do you like to sit on bare earth or a blanket? I brought one, just in case."
"Oh, blanket for sure. I'm — it's the hair, and the dress. They're a lot more effort to clean than a body, especially if you roll around on the ground direct." Oh? Who said anything about rolling? Oranna flaps the flowers around in the air in an attempt to Etch-a-Sketch erase the words. "I — mean, not that you said rolling, not that we're rolling around, I just meant that with more contact with the ground — " Wait, although on that note, does she…not want to maybe do any sort of rolling around? Does she want him to think that's completely off the table, or the ground, as the case may be? "Not that we can't roll…on the ground… if that was something that…" Maybe she shouldn't have tried to recover that one. She's starting to turn that red color again.
But, when she goes to hide her face with a groan, it's turning into him, not away from him.
"We don't have to plan on rolling or not rolling just yet," Thalstan says with a warm chuckle as they continue on, moving his arm to better accommodate her turn into him. "Either way, it won't be on the bare ground. I do know what you mean, about the hair. Mine can gather all kinds of leaves and grass and things without me seeing, and the tangles. Light, the tangles. Anyway, we'll be safe from all that with the blanket, and if the ground's too cold, you can sit on…" Thalstan pauses, and there's a faint blush at his cheekbones, surely from the brisk breeze. "That is, I can always warm the ground for you."
Befound huffs loudly. Who is this job thief? She wants to speak to her union rep.
Oranna giggles again. "Befound's basically a portable space heater. In the summer, we'll be begging for a patch of cool grass she hasn't turned into a sweltering swamp," she warns, and then catches on the words a little after they're said, as if realizing the assumptions she's made, the talking of the future so definitively, the we. There's a stirring of panic like a different kind of breeze across her face, a gathering cloud over the beaming sunshine of someone about to start backpedaling out of fear she's overreached.
"Maybe by then we won't be in Pandaria anymore," Thalstan nods, as if that's the assumption she's made that might be in error. The other one clearly makes sense. "And I'd say we could put my armor over it, for a dry seat, but metal doesn't do that well in bright summer sun, either. Burning, rather than sweltering. Maybe if it comes to that we can just find a nice place to go swimming."
"I'm not a strong swimmer, and Befound's worse, but it's always nice for a dip…" Oranna tries to smile again. He can see her reaching for it, like she, too, wants to just believe that's where her mind was spiraling. But it wasn't. And the smile fades. "You… when you talked about… in your letters, your past people…Ingria and Tova? The way you talked about them… it didn't sound like you still talked to them now. It was… a break? In the end, when it ended? Both times?"
"It was… a break, aye," Thalstan admits, his own smile dimming. "I don't think that's where I am now, though. Where we are."
He glances to the passing trees as if they might be able to explain past loves, but they're just trees and so he has to try his own words. "I do think if I run into Ingria again, we'd be on smiling and greeting terms at the least. I just —"
Thalstan searches for the words again, and finally comes up with, "I think I didn't know her very well, in the end. We were both young, and fancied each other and I had a set idea of what it looked like to be a lad and a lass in love. Once that fell apart, it was a bit like that's all there was. And Tova, she made the clean break, not me. I would not follow a lass who made it clear she was to be left alone."
He turns to look at Oranna and says, "Every connection is different, and I do know you. I'd like to know more, to understand more — how you think, how you feel. But we've known each other for a good long time now, and nothing the future holds will make that disappear between us, if the choice is mine."
Oranna's open face writes a complex story of relief and a tentative hope, even if fear still plays with a shadow of doubt across her sky. "I… do know that friends drift apart, or break off, too. I've had a few in the past couple of years. But… none like this, with this sort of difference, and I don't know what I'd do if come the summer, there weren't any more picnics, or any more Thalstan. It's special, being with you, and it's also… not something I thought I'd ever feel again. I'm trying not to be afraid of it, or at least accept that I am, and grab onto it anyway. I don't want to be so afraid of losing something that I never have it." Her hold on his arm stays steady, her chest pressed as tightly against him.
She meets his eyes, letting the cool winter breeze blow back her hair, the soft white dress. "I do wish I wasn't so afraid at all, that it didn't strike me all a sudden, when I was so happy. Sometimes there's nothing to do but confront what my mind will jump at me with the what if. I want nothing more than to just put it out of my head, toss it off, or even pretend I didn't think it. But the truth is, you'd see me thinking about it, even if I tried to act like I hadn't. You'd know something was wrong. Years ago, I might have done it, tried to make myself smaller, hide my face from you. But I'm not that person anymore."
"I hope you don't ever feel like you've got to hide your face from me," Thalstan says earnestly, turning to look at her fully. One hopes there isn't a stone in the path to trip over. "Unless you're hiding it with me, so I can protect you. Sometimes a cloud passes by, and it might dim the sunshine a little. I'd rather see that, talk through it, than just pretend it hasn't happened. This " he nods forward towards her, " you and I like this. It's new, and exciting and exhilarating, and also a little terrifying."
He reaches his free hand to brush a strand of her hair behind her ear. "For me, too. I think we can both of us admit that, right? But I choose this terror and this exhilaration, this being with you. And if you'd just said you didn't much care for my cookies," he grins a little, crookedly, "I expect I still would've come to see you in Pandaria, after all the Outland work was done."
When he touches her, he can see her reaction in real time, a little tremor that stutters her breath, and parts her lips.
"I suppose I could have lied in a letter if I hadn't, and told you that I did, but sooner or later, you'd say something in person, and then you'd have read it true right off my face in the end. I did love them. Really. They were perfect, and the right choices, each one and that there were the both. I'm maybe always going to be someone who wants a little of both things. I like the exciting new thing, but also I want to know I can rest in something familiar and comfortable." Oranna's own smile peeks back out tentatively. "But, it's good that you're all right with it. That's something about me that I know is obvious by now — you know I don't… lie well, or conceal anything, but it's… There won't ever be any thing like it. No pretty white lies, even when I wish I could, to be gentle, when a truth might sting. If I don't like something you've made, or a gift you've bought, no matter how excited I know you are about it, or… or anything, any time, I won't be able to fake it. I'll never pretend."
Befound mostly ignores the dwarves making dwarven noises, because neither one is talking about anything important (feeding the cat), and neither one is really paying attention to where they are going but it is important (the cat's napping spot), but at least Befound is paying attention. It has the best view and the quietest place for ideal napping now that she and Little Teeth have pruned the bug population to proper amounts. It does not have the correct fish population (in Befound's belly).
Thalstan may not be paying proper attention to the snow leopard, or the path, or the napping spot to come, but he is paying a lot of attention to Oranna.
"You know, I think I'd like to know that sort of thing sooner rather than later?" Thalstan says, his brow crinkling with thought. "So that works out. It's not fun in the moment, I confess, finding out you've given someone a gift they don't fancy. But I'd rather find out in the moment than after years of thinking I was gifting you something you'd like, over and over. And there's that," Thal shrugs a little. "I like it better knowing you'd be honest about things you don't like, so I can be sure it's just as true when you say you do. I'll do the same, then."
"It's not just gifts, it's… little things. Sometimes it's the little things you say or do, or hide because it's…to be gentler," Oranna says, wistful, and that sometimes quieter sort of way that might remind him that she's getting close to 100. "I won't get upset with you if do lie sometimes those ways. I know the difference when it's meant in kindness. You know, it's… like… let's say… maybe there's been something like a storm, and we've lost contact with a team of Cobalt Company with a sky ship lost in it. It's terrible, and I'm a mess over it, and maybe next day, you hear something at your ma's that sounds like, probably a sign that none of those people survived, it's almost now a sure thing, the odds are stacked high, not 100% but near. It'll hurt me something awful to know it. Next time you see me, do you tell me it, right then and there? Even if I talk about it, do you still say, I'm sure we'll hear something from them soon, there's still hope, knowing deep down there's something you know that makes it probably not true, knowing that I'm probably seeing something on your face that you don't entirely believe what you're saying?"
Thal's expression grows more serious as she speaks, and he nods his understanding. "I would not want to tell you that, because what about that 1%?And even if they were lost, there's a selfish part of me that just… would not want to hurt you. The storm, the crash, the universe did. But dealing the rumor to you there, when you felt there was still hope, it would feel like it was me hurting you, when I feel I ought to be the one shielding you." Thal takes a breath, and adds, "But if you do tell me you want me not to shield you like that, even for kindness, I'll not. It sounds as though… you'd see through it anyway. And I'll understand that you won't, that you can't."
"I want you to do what Thalstan would do," Oranna says honestly. "Whatever that is, and if that means I see it as a bit of a lie, a trying to believe enough to shield, I know what it is, and I l. like that." There's a little bit of a hitch there, a little turn of her head, a deeper blush of her cheeks, but she's not lingering on whatever thought almost seemed to form. "It's true, I'll also know that you might know something, but if I'm not asking, maybe I also don't want to know 100% either. Sometimes… we don't want to know beyond a shadow of a doubt. Doubt and hope aren't comfortable but I know those roads like old friends. That's why I wish I could say, that I wish I wouldn't come home with it on my face, that I could choose sometimes, for whatever would be better. But, all I can be is Oranna. And that's… like you said… it's… you want… that."
Right? The question is a flash on her face, not in words.
And all Befound can be is Befound, and all this can be is her found nap spot. She pads over to the sunbeam (no relation to the gun), and sniffs twice, before plopping to the ground with a huff. People! We have arrived at Befound's napping place. You may commence with feeding her snacks.
"I want that," Thalstan confirms with a soft smile, drawing her hand in his as they stop at the napping picnic spot. "I would never ask you to be anything but Oranna. Every piece of you, even if there are piece that hurt sometimes. And I…" here his smile turns a little self-deprecating, "And I think maybe my offering to be otherwise than Thalstan is me trying to turn into what you want. But if you just want me, as I am, then I'll try to always be that. Even if… maybe a little bit of acting is a part of who I am, if that makes sense."
Thalstan draws Oranna over towards the cat and her sunshine, looking around for a good blanket spot.
Befound, sunbeam hogger, is unapologetically in the Perfect Blanket Spot.
Oranna's smile is back on higher beam. "I told you, I joined up with Cobalt Company back when Elo was calling us 'Protagonists,' and that wasn't exactly…not a draw to be around someone who talks like that, and thinks that sort of way. It's not something to tolerate or smooth over like a bit foolishness. I… like it, a lot. It's a bit of flair, and drama, that brightens up everything around you, and it's in everything you touch. It's like you're both the biggest thing in the room, and make everything around you bigger at the same time with you as well." That might be something of a compliment a man likes to hear, even if Oranna might not be trying to make it on purpose. He may be able to tell though that she's not deliberately making something salacious, although she does mean it earnestly. Maybe she doesn't hear it. "So, you know. Flourish, and…act a bit or… anything that's also… this Thalstan. I know that you might be a bit different because it's… different. Like the kissing. Or the rolling."
Back the rolling. She's blushing again, and now she's also looking for a blanket spot. Wow, blanket spots! She's thinking about stationary blanket spots. No rolling. There's zero rolling happening in her head (lies).
Thalstan gets a little puzzled, but pleased, expression during part of that description, but then it settles into something more genuinely touched, in an emotional way.
"Speaking of, I better get that blanket out, or we'll never get all this out of our hair," Thalstan says with a laugh, giving her hand a little squeeze and then settling the basket down to pull out a picnic blanket. He's probably just talking about sitting, not rolling around. Probably. He finds the best suboptimal sun spot, seeing as the snow leopard has claimed the best for napping and cannot be moved. As he starts smoothing it down, he says, "Sir Ference has that way about him, doesn't he? Theater man, storyteller. I'm not surprised to hear it started that way — the Cobalt Blade was something similar, the goal to make local heroes, to inspire those closer to home when a lot of Cobalt had gone off to the campaign in Northrend. I can't really help that bit of flourish, but I'm glad… glad to hear it can boost other people up, too. I mean for it to."
Oranna has to first tuck her hair to one side, and then tuck her flowers into her dress, so she can start helping to pull the blanket into the second best sunbeam. "It does. It really does. I don't think Cobalt Blade would have worked without you and it, the Flourish. Elo's got that kind of eye for things. Cobalt Blade was always a little different from the rest of the Company. I did a lot of the early requisition paperwork, and there was a whole section for marketing. If you're going to put someone out on a center stage, he has to be someone who can handle it when everyone turns and looks at him, no matter what happens, and keep his head.
"And he's got to make sure the whole team can handle it, too. They all have to… feel good when they can feel the audience staring at them. That flourish reminds them that they're heroes, and it lifts them up. And… it works on me too, even if I'm not really a hero, hero, or with an audience or books. But…I feel a lot more like one when I'm around you, or when I read your letters…it inspires me when I'm feeling low. Even someone like Lord Springblade likes to think of it when something terrible is happening." Oh, the sappy smile is back on and dialed up another notch. "That's — you did ask about that, the names. And the nicknames."
Thalstan spreads out the blanket as she speaks, making sure no stray burs or grains or whatever else Pandaria has to offer will trouble their picnic.
"I'd say you're definitely a hero, audience or books aside," Thalstan says, seating himself, settling the basket, and reaching a hand up to draw her down. "All the things you done here, and Dane, Bran, Shine and Florande with you, not to mention everything before. But then — names. I think I've mentioned before, that was one of the first things we did in the Blade, give one another nicknames. Mine's Valor, and the others were all something that made them feel powerful and special. Lord Springblade's is Mayhem, so you can see there the different sorts of names she's got for different people. Do you like that? Or would you rather everyone calls you Oranna?"
Oranna sits, and she's either what someone might call friendly close or what someone might call not friendly close, more than friendly close if you will, tucked up against him, getting close to spilling a little over into his lap, head on his bicep (her hair most certainly dipping over lap lines), checking his body language and face repeatedly as she positions herself to make sure she isn't overstepping his comfort zone. Her comfort zone seems to be called, Thalstan, and her trust level of him not to push any line she doesn't step over very high.
"I liked it when Bargrimm called me, Sunbeam," she says, and there's an audible combination of soft, old pain and grief still in the words. "It was… especially nice because it was something I didn't really… see myself as, especially back then. I sort of pictured myself as a broken… storm cloud, maybe, is the right picture. I called him, 'Rocks,' because when he first came down from the Hinterlands, he was starting back up his engineering, and he needed rocks and ore, and I was mining to keep myself busy and making a little money, and I sent them along, and they just reminded me of him. I-in a good way. Not like a, 'dumb as a bag of rocks' way, but… steady, capable of sparks, and versatile. Rocks." The tears make her eyes dewy, but she keeps talking, letting the grief slowly ebb away the same way it flowed in.
"So it's like the Cobalt Blade's a bit that way. Dane calls me 'Ranna, but usually off the field, and that's not a representative one. Bran calls me 'Boomer,' for my old gun, 'Boomstick,' and well…the noise. Oh, once Finnegan J. Sharpgear called me 'Wildflower,' after he said I was like them when we met in Arathi," she says, looking down with surprise at her bouquet of wildflowers. No… no way he predicted that. Coincidence. Then again… No. She shakes her head to clear it. "I… think I might like it if you had something you called me? If something just felt right to you.
"Most of the time, I call a person what they ask me to call them. Like 'Lord Springblade.' I know most people call her other things. When we met, she asked me to call her other things, but when we were out having salads and I was interviewing for a position to work with her," is that what she was doing? "the serving person wasn't sure if she was a she, and assumed a sir, and she didn't correct the person, so later I asked if she preferred one way or the other. She said she, but we talked about titles, and that she did like the idea of lord and that she'd like being called, Lord Springblade, and she's never told me not to call her it since, so." Here we are. Four years later.
"With 'Thal,' I…tried it, but it reminded me of another person. I know a 'Thaldor.' And he's…" Her eyes slide to the right, and a darkness shadows her face, a paleness around her mouth — fear. She's afraid of this Thaldor, whoever he is, or was. "Lord Springblade knew him, a while back. I…owed him a favor. I paid it off. It's done, and we're done. I haven't seen hide or hair in over three years now. 'Thalstan' doesn't ring the bell of it, but sometimes just, 'Thal,' does."
Thalstan's comfort zone seems to be 'as close as possible' where Oranna is concerned, and he moves to help tuck her in next to him. He curls his arm around her, so that she can more easily rest her head on his shoulder, and tilts his own towards hers to listen. There's definitely a risk of her having a trailing beard in her own lap, but Thalstan's not looking at that. He's watching Oranna, gauging her own comfort in reflection of her care for his.
"So you've got… aspirational nicknames, like yours from Bargrimm," Thalstan muses. "Lord Springblade maybe falls into that category, too, for Mayhem. And then familiar nicknames like Boomer and the shortening of a name. I'll think on it, see what might be specific to us, familiar, uplifting… when I've got an idea I'll run it by you and see if you like it."
"As for me, we can stay away from Thal, then. That doesn't sound like a person I want to be reminding you of, what he was for you," Thalstan pats her shoulder gently, comfortingly. "I suppose there's still Stan, if you'd like to call me something shorter. Or if there's anything… familiar or particular that sticks to you, for me. I've not had a lot of nicknames, myself, aside from the Blade one."
As he muses on it, and maybe because thinking of Thaldor is not a pleasant memory lane, Oranna does take note of the proximity of The Beard. She starts tentatively at first, a little outline touch at first, gauging his reaction like a, well, like a sniper testing a shot. When he seems, if anything, pleasantly interested, she continues. It's obvious she knows her way around a man's beard, and she probably knows a practical touch, something meant for getting through the Book of Beards complex ideas in reasonable times.
That's really not how she's touching his beard. She's not looking to braid it — she's touching him to feel him. Her fingers are trailing down along the soft relaxed curls of his beard in curious explorations that sends color back into her cheeks, where he can see her wondering what it might feel like against other parts of her skin besides her fingers.
"Stan?" she says out loud, which might distract a little from her face, testing out the name. She wrinkles her nose, shaking her head though. "I don't know. I think that's…" Stroke, stroke. "Maybe that's another thing like afore? I like how big you are. I don't need to make you any smaller to fit you into something for me." It's certainly a flattering sentence for a man to hear, especially when on dwarven second base. She keeps going, and it didn't really sound like she was flirting. Her hands might be flirting, though.
"Maybe that's also something about why I let people tell me what to call them? I've never really thought about it, but… something about the power of it being theirs of deciding they get to decide who they are? Not something I impose on them. Not — not that you do that, or that it's always a bad thing. Like with Bargrimm and Sunbeam, aye? Or Valor. But… if I were to give you a name, it would be because I was really just… saying out loud a name you were already to me, not trying to make you something I was hoping you'd become or be. I don't know if I'm making any sense at all."
Thalstan's beard is smooth, clean and untangled, except for whatever the wind has done in the walk since the portal, and the hair still carries a faint scent of vanilla and coconut. Oranna's gentle exploration of it, together with her consideration of his size and fit, certainly does something to Thalstan's focus, though the faintly amused smile beneath his mustache reveals his understanding that she probably didn't mean it quite like that. He has read her letters, after all.
Tentatively, he begins to run his own fingers through the edges of her hair, pausing to see if there's any negative reaction or sudden warning of possible suffocation.
"Hm," Thalstan says, taking a moment to re-gather his ability to be articulate. "Maybe, then, you should choose a nickname for yourself, and I choose one for myself? If we want them, of course. Oranna and Thalstan are perfectly good names to be moving on with for now. Then, if we do come up with nicknames, it'll be to describe what we are to each other, not to pretend either of us is something we're not."
Oranna looks up at him, brown eyes so clear and deep, like sweet lakes of mountain reflections shining in the winter afternoon sun, where he can see both a mirror and into the depths at the same time, of being this close to someone with her heart right there laid so utterly bare. She does not have a shield herself; she needs his.
"I think… if you're picking a name for yourself that's for everyone, I think you can do it, because you're telling the world what you know about who you are to you. But… I don't know… that it can work for something that… I don't think I could ever really tell you who I am to you. I don't think I could look through that scope," she says hesitantly, and apologetically, like some part of her still cringes back from disagreeing so directly, a muscle jumping in her left cheek, even if he can practically see something in her reminding herself that it's okay to speak her mind. She twirls a finger around one of the edges of his beard expertly. "Although I do try, especially when I need to believe in myself when I've…sort of stopped. I… I did that just the other day. It wasn't all me, some of it was ancient mogu ruins celestial trap magic." You know. Just Saturday afternoon things.
"But, I don't think any nickname I'd choose would ever really…be right for your eyes on me. For me, just getting to see myself as 'Oranna Stormbreaker,' has been a victory."
Thalstan doesn't show any sign of concern that she's disagreeing, just nods gently (so as not to dislodge the beard goings-on) and considers this new information, how it informs his understanding of the situation. He lets her hair curl around his fingers, careful not to pull, as he looks deep into her dark eyes like he'd read the book of her soul if he could.
"Then I wish you could see yourself as I see you, because the Oranna Stormbreaker I see is extraordinary," Thalstan says, his blue-eyed gaze softening. "For so many reasons — everything inside you that adds up to the woman you are. So we're back to… if I think of a name that speaks to how I see you, really see you, then I'll offer it as a nickname. And you…" he pauses, seeming to flag on something she's said. "Mogu ruins celestial trap magic? You weren't caught in a jello mold, were you?"
Oranna moves her hand up through his beard closer to his jaw and thinks about that maybe a moment too long for comfort where she's actively wondering if she was in jello and didn't realize it at the time. "Noooo, not a jello mold, although I'm not sure time was entirely normal either. I don't think it was coincidence that we all seemed to have some time in our memories. I…" She glances off to the right, lashes flickering, and this close, paying attention, he can catch it — as if he can sort of see that Oranna slides out of the present and somewhere else for a moment in her head, before she slides back to being there with him. It's oddly smooth, like a trip she takes so often that it goes without a hitch, but it shouldn't be a thing that's normal. It isn't a thought. It's like a memory seizure. "It happens to me often. But not the way it did, and I know it doesn't for most people. It's sort of… a long…story? Maybe…you might want some food?"
Food? Did someone say the Magic Words? Food? Are we feeding the cat? Befound lifts up her head from her nap.
"Not ye, lass," Oranna says in Common to the cat.
Befound huffs poutily, head back onto her tail. No one ever feeds the cat. She has never been fed in her entire life. She has to nap to conserve energy through this great starvation.
Oranna rolls her eyes at Befound's antics, and turns an inquisitive look at Thalstan. It might be a bit easier for him to think about food and if he'd like to get up to set up a picnic for story time if he didn't have an almost lap-full of warm, attentive woman who thinks he's incredible wonderful and attractive, stroking her hand through his beard like she's thinking about how it will feel on her skin, fingers right near his jawline, rosy cheeked face tilted up towards his. Yeah, Thalstan, how are those lunch thoughts coming along?
Thalstan's brow lowers as he watches her slip into memory and back, but he doesn't press just now, doesn't ask where it is she'd slipped to. Time enough for that over lunch. Which is going to happen any moment now, Thalstan knows, as he feels Oranna's warmth, the touch of her hand, sees the dark pools of her eyes…
He leans down slightly to kiss her again, just the lightest peck this time, an expression of casual affection that doesn't ask for anything more, and then nods, "Aye, let's get the food out, to enjoy with the story."
Very reluctantly, he removes his hand from her hair, and pulls away slightly, just to open the picnic basket and start setting things out.
There are cookies, because of course there are cookies — this time some of chocolate chip and some of grizzleberries and cinnamon. But there's also food of a more savory variety: a potato pie that smells a bit like basil (pre-sliced), several different kinds of bread and cheese, a selection of fresh-cut vegetables (carrots, celery, cucumbers), and a pale brown paste for dipping. The dried meat does not make an appearance, since that's for Oranna to give the cat at the right time.
It's always the right time, Oranna.
It is not. Creating a sense of separation of timing of the food from the people food helps establish separation of people/animal food for not training the animal to beg for people food at meal times.
Befound has never been so offended in all her life. Beg! Her! She is a queen among cats.
Oranna watches Thalstan with the sort of interest that happens not because someone is doing something inherently interesting, but because someone inherently interesting is doing something. She makes oohs over the food that are entirely authentic, and she's happy to see the food that does appear, with no expectations in either direction.
"So, to start with," she starts, "the whole thing began with an idea that we could repair the poor Jade Serpent statue that got broken in that scuffle a time back, and maybe do a bit with mending a bit of other broken rifts in the doing. We had some of all the dwarven clans with us, as a bit of experts for ore and precious stones, you know, as we are. And the pandaren'd thought to make it a bit of a game, as that's something of what they're like to be, playful like, so there was a contest game for gathering the most jade.
"As we were strategizing, Yu'lon herself showed up, but — but not as, you know, the — the Jade Serpent Yu'lon, because that — everyone would have — " Oranna makes some gestures in the air that… might be maybe an attempt to demonstrate a flying serpent. It looks a lot more like two someones who have lost control of a tandem-pogo-stick unleashed on an unsuspecting crowd, but here we are. "But in her little pandaren form, and so only Bran and I recognized her, and she did a little shh and wink at us to keep her secret, and went, 'oh, who me, I'm just a wee little pandaren girl, oh, by the way, did you know about this old wee place out of the way forgotten temple that's said to have a hidden stash of jade? think maybe you are up for seeing if it's true?' which probably should have been our first clue."
"The Jade Serpent herself sent you somewhere, then?" Thalstan says, pulling out a couple of small plates and little forks and knives. "She seemed a good sort back at the temple before, though. Surely she wouldn't have sent you into a jello mold kind of situation."
Thalstan selects a few of the items at random — a slice of potato pie, a bit of bread, a few carrots — maybe just to get Oranna started, and offers her the little plate. "But wait, all the dwarven clans? You'd Dark Irons with you? I know that was a bit of a… that is, not just with Cobalt's history, but they've been fitting in a little uneasy in Ironforge, haven't they?"
Oranna accepts her plate gratefully, and adds more to it as she talks, piling on a bit of everything, testing out the paste curiously and cautiously before adding a good plop. She's a hungry gal.
"They have. It's never sat easy with me, how they've been treated over the years. I've been talking about it to anyone who would listen, Bran'll tell you. At this point, I might be a bit nervous that I'd be a bit of some sort of dark figure to them, but I don't think I ever hit much name recognition to anyone outside Moira herself, and Jo made sure we smoothed that out. No more 'Orlivia Stormliker,'" she says with an awkward, but relieved laugh. "And at this point, they have more experience with deep undergrounds than any of the clans combined, so if you're going somewhere deep or forgotten, there's no one with better skills or more tools or a higher comfort zone for the job than a Dark Iron, just like a Wildhammer's more likely to be ready to reach for the sky. But, even if not, a Dark Iron is just a dwarf, like any of us. The Dark Irons are just people. Always have been, always will be."
"Aye, just people," Thalstan echoes, and starts gathering up food for himself on his plate. "I'm glad we smoothed out the whole Shadowforge City situation, that we were able to help there. The whole Ragnaros thing wasn't their fault, after all, or at least not most of their fault, the ones around today. That was hundreds of years ago. And you're right, they've always been the deep delvers. Do you think it helped, though, having some of each of the clans work together? Or were they all at each others' throats?"
Oranna's face gives some of the answer before she does. "Bit of both? I'm maybe not… the best person to say what we need of how to… stop fighting… like a family a bit. Mine was — " There she goes again, that look to the right, and it lasts longer this time. She's visibly gone for two or three seconds, and then back, continuing. "Not a great example and it didn't end anywhere useful to say how it might turn out. But, I do know that we're never going to get back together by staying apart, that's just… obvious I think. The more we work together, the more we'll see each other as we are, and not as we think we are, or even what we imagine someone else thinks we are, so we act more like it around them. Bit of a theme of today, aye?" she says with a little laugh. "Like a story."
Thalstan laughs gently in answer, settling back with his selection of food. He dips a bit of bread in the paste and has a bite before he answers, "Maybe some progress, then, helping people to see each other as they are."
He pauses again, munching on a carrot, and watches Oranna with concern and curiosity. Carefully, he asks, "Is that… where you go, when you slip away like that? Memories of your family? If it's not a story you'd like to tell, not even a little, then just say so and we'll talk of other things."
Oranna's expression says it loud — she doesn't, not even a little, a large dark cloud that snuffs out the light of her laughter in a such a way that he knows without a shadow of a doubt that whatever that story is, it isn't a good one. She looks down, paler and quieter, clenching a bit of bread in one hand.
Befound rouses from her nap, not yet on her feet, and watches Oranna with sapphire eyes.
"I… I don't ever really want to tell that story," Oranna says honestly. "Not in that sort of way. It's not a nice story. But, it's a story I… need to tell you, and I want to tell you." She looks back up at him, her eyes sad and old, years stretching back. "Not here. Today, though, maybe, I think. Tonight? At the inn. I need…privacy and… once I tell you about it, and another… thing, it will change how you look at me. Don't — don't say it won't. It will. It does. It's okay that it does. That's… what learning about a person does, and it's not bad, I've learned that. Just… a part of me still gets afraid of what I'm going to see when someone knows, and it gets a bit of a war in here in my head, to trust in you more than I'm afraid of looking in your eyes and seeing me a broken thing reflected back. Maybe some of it's that I'm not so afraid of breaking, either. I know broken doesn't mean…can't be repaired. I used to think broken was the worst thing. But, I still fear it, seeing someone looking at me, and that's what they see me as, 'Broken.'"
"Later, then," Thalstan says, watching her with concern. "Once we're back safe and sound in the inn. Whatever it is, though, whatever happened, I see who you are now. I won't claim nothing will change how I look at you, but… it doesn't change who you are. It just means I'll understand more of what… what affects you. Like we said in the letters, things to know, to not hurt each other on accident."
Oranna's breathing is metronomic, inhale, hold, exhale. He's seen her do it a lot of times, a way to keep her calm when she's doing something with the verb panic (going to panic, panicking, just panicked, etc). She offers him a shaky, wobbly sort of smile. "Aye. It's… it's just part of the Oranna Stormbreaker story. Like this past Saturday one, and that might change how you look at me, too, but that's… just… how it all is." She clears her throat and reaches for her bag, pulling out her water, pausing to take a long sip.
Befound settles back down on her tail, but doesn't close her eyes.
"The — the memory thing, that's… I didn't realize it wasn't a thing everyone didn't do until a few years ago. Bargrimm and I were talking about it, and — I thought everyone sometimes just… sometimes you're here, and then, you're in a memory piece, usually a bad one, and you can't really get out, it just… has to play through, and then it releases, and you're back in the present. Or that people don't always… hear things all the time, voices and phrases of people all the time in their head. I do. A lot. It's… why I say, I carry around a lot of ghosts with me.
"But, I also have a lot of memories I sometimes slip into in snaps while I'm awake and talking, here and then there, and here again. Less these days than I used to afore I started Elo's Three Prong Method. The more I talked about them out loud, and shared them out as stories, the less they seemed to snag me into them walking about in the present. It was like I would talk about them, and talking about them would paint them bright colors, and I couldn't stumble into them so easily somehow. Some though I can't ever seem to quite… dodge or wear down all the way.
"When we went down into the old place… it was like near all of us found a particular snare trap for a memory, even those of us who never have them like that."
Thalstan listens patiently with his brow still furrowed, trying to understand.
"There's a lot of questions I could ask in there, but aye, I can say my memories don't snag me that way. I do have, sometimes, things that'll bring back a dark feeling, sharp. Like… it was a while past when I lost my da that I could walk into the Hall of Explorers and not feel it. Maybe that's the closest I've come to feeling what that's like, and I know its not quite the same," Thalstan pauses, then continues, "Maybe there's time yet to wear down the worse ones, get them to quiet down to ghosts and not traps. But then… the temple dragged you all into one. For a few seconds, like here?"
"Not all at once, aye. We sort of stepped into traps both literal and personal. I'll give you specifics, it'll probably… make a lot more sense that way," Oranna says. "And it felt for me like a lot longer, but from the outside, what it looked like wasn't that long. So, the first time it happened, we were headed down and we came to a mogu statue that made one of us, Carrick, a Wildhammer, go somewhere in his head that wasn't… a good place. He hit a memory from afore with the Dragonmaw, and he started pummeling the statue enough to hurt himself, and he wasn't hearing or seeing any of us. He was shaken up from it, but after… he was able to get the statue off, and we could move down into the temple.
"Later, we were going through, and Lireen and Kendrig got caught behind a door that came down, trapped them darkness on the other side. Nothing we did could open it. It was me and two dark irons, Marja and Fenella, and Fenella's golem, Koveth, and Bran, and we weren't even making a dent. Meanwhile, Lireen and Fendrig, they both went somewhere, into old memories. Lireen… went to Grim Batol, and Kendrig somewhere else, and when they came back, they knew how to open the door, like they could see it clearly, and we got through back to them, and onwards deeper into the temple. The whole place was telling an old story of how the mogu once didn't only take the pandaren and enslave them, but got to the celestials themselves, too. Broke them down, each of them. The place was still saturated with it.
"Mine was…" She shudders, as if in a cold wind. The winter's air is still brisk, but it's no Dun Morogh winter; it's practically balmy short sleeves and shorts weather for the dwarves. "We went into a room filled with shale spiders, and I was trying to get a line of sight and I backed up and a wall came out of nowhere. I was shooting and then I was — the walls — I was — " She's remembering it very clearly now, that exact moment. He can see exactly how badly she was panicking, because she's beginning to do it again, here in the open air.
"Oranna, you're not there, you're here with me," Thalstan says gently, and he reaches over to put an arm around her shoulder, trying to pull her in closer as if to warm her from the cold she seems to feel. "Please, don't go away there again. Here's our picnic, our little blanket, our sunshine, Befound keeping watch. You're telling the story of it, that's all, but you can stay here where it's safe."
He's watching her carefully as he gently rubs her shoulder, trying to gauge if this is helping to soothe the panic of the memory, of that moment with walls and spiders, and whatever came next.
If he had any doubts about how she sees him, or perhaps what role he plays in the story in her mind, if things had shifted as friendship becomes something else, those might be starting to fade as Oranna turns whole bodily into him, both arms reaching up around his shoulders to pull herself closer against him, her plate sliding a little precariously to one side (recoverable, in a picnic way), as she eagerly accepts the offer of his comfort with relief of someone who can find her way back out of those woods herself, but is grateful she doesn't have to with him there.
She lets her head stay on his shoulder, breathing those sometimes strangely too-perfect-timed breaths like she's timing shots between them, but the rock tight tension of her body releases against him. "I'm here," she tells him, when she's sure it's really, really true again. "I… get a bit claustrophobic in the best of times. My mind will tell me, 'the walls are closing in on you,' and I usually have to argue to myself that we both know stone doesn't move like that on its own. And then, when the walls are really closing in on me… not really the sort of 'I told you so,' you expect to have with an irrational fear on a Saturday afternoon."
Thalstan holds her close, arms closing around her back as if to shield her from any danger, present or remembered. He doesn't speak for a while, as Oranna breathes and calms.
"Aye, not very comforting," Thalstan agrees, trailing his fingers down her back to soothe her. "But you got out in the end. Is that when… you got pulled in, like Lireen, Fendrig and Carrick?"
She nods. "We all had a sort of…trigger of some sort, like the sha, but this wasn't the sha, I checked. Ken-Ken's mask didn't do a thing. But it was the same emotions. Carrick, he got caught by anger. Lireen and Fendrig, fear. Me, it was despair," she admits, shame and resignation both audible. "I went back to the day my family didn't make it into Ironforge, and I did. It was a hard memory but… I didn't let it keep me. I had more than the bad though. Bargrimm was there, too. He kept me from sinking into the mire, until I could get my feet back on the ground. When I came to, I could see the path with Chi-Ji, enough to get back to the others.
"Fenella had to sacrifice her golem, but we got through to the deepest part of the temple, where we got to the truth of probably why Yu'lon wanted us there to see it. The story of it all. She endured… a lot. A hundred years of a slow dying after believing that she'd failed, only to almost not make it, and then at the end, reinvent herself back in jade to start over again. The Celestials and Pandaren never had it easy under the mogu, but they never stopped trying, and never let those moments of despair, anger, fear, or doubt be their endings. And those emotions that enslaving brought out in them…those were written down just like that in their scrolls, and those are the same sha we've known. There's no way it's a coincidence."
"I'm glad Bargrimm was there with you, to keep you from sinking," Thalstan says seriously. "I wish I could've, but even if I'd been there, I'd not have been in your trap, I imagine. I'd have been on the other side, or in a trap of my own, maybe something like—" suddenly, there's a faint tremor through Thalstan's large frame, and he continues with, "It's hard to imagine what Yu'lon lived through, then. Dying for a hundred years in despair, but still finding a way to be reborn. I think you're right, it can't be a coincidence, the sha and the feelings."
Thalstan sits there in silence for a moment, thinking, and then says, "Do you think the whole thing might've been… to help against the sha? Showing all of you how the feelings can creep in, but also that you don't have to give in to it."
"Lireen said something like that, like a test. Not — not like a, 'are you good enough,' test she said, but more like a, a 'test run on a gryphon in training' test maybe. Like something is coming, where maybe we'll need to know how to manage, and pass on what we're learning…" Oranna trails off uneasily. She lifts her head, big brown eyes meeting his. "You were there, in a way, in my head. Not quite the same way. I… I saw Bargrimm, which I've never done afore. It was… strange how real it was, actually. The more I think about it, the more I wonder at it." The line between her brows grows deep, as she looks off to the side for a bit, not somewhere else, just in thought, and then back to him.
"But there was two times where you were there in my head, not a ghost I carry, just regular memories. I was sinking down, and I saw this statue of Chi-Ji, and I was… a mess. But I thought of what you wrote in your letter, about getting a gold for every time you heard 'Khaz Modan Mountain's and your ma's tavern, and… I laughed. I was slipping off somewhere awful, and I laughed because I was thinking of you, and I held on just a little longer," she tells him, those dewy tears in her eyes. "And there was a dark moment when I was in my memory, and a ghost of Bargrimm, and I had that weak thought of… what if I stayed. And I… couldn't. I knew I couldn't, because of you. I thought of you, and I couldn't stay there. You were out here. I had to come back to you, for this."
This seems to be a small word for a lot of things encompassing a lot of everything, all that's happened since he stepped through the portal, and all that will happen, the potential, the maybes, the hopes, the dreams, the stories to write. It's all in her eyes. She may have been his dream girl, but he's her dream guy, too.
Thalstan smiles, resting his cheek gently against the top of her head and breathing slowly, thinking of this. The possible future, and all the different branches and paths it holds. The joys and the sorrows. The story still to be told.
"I'm glad, then, like with the novels, that there was something of me that brought you happiness, in a dark place," Thalstan says, closing his eyes for a moment. "As for the rest — it makes me wonder. We've wrote a few times about the mists clearing here, and all that's happened since. Whether it was all on account of us coming, or whether things were happening and we were meant to help. If the celestials are trying to teach you like that, maybe to face the sha, it could be they've decided we're the helpers. That we need to be trained up to face whatever it is that lurks in this land. And the Jade Serpent herself sent you there, so it was intentional. She must've known what you would face, and she sent you in there to face it. She must've thought you'd come through alright, all of you."
"I'd like to think she was watching some sort of clock, too, that if we went missing for a few weeks, she'd have nudged another search team," Oranna grumbles. "But, I think you and Lireen are probably right. I think we're being talent spotted, and trained up, and tested a bit, for something… bigger. Something that's coming. So, aye, no pressure or anything."
Befound huffs. If they really wanted to train up a master, Yu'lon should have made sure Befound was there. She is not only a master, but she has proven that she is also a master trainer! Just look at her apprentice, Little Teeth, the Adventure Tanuki!
She tips her head up again so she can see his face. "I think… I have to get off this wall for a bit though, so to speak. I need a rest, or I'll end up burning myself out to a breaking point. A few months, back at home, time to see Befound through a cubbing I think, and then… I could come back, ready to face something bigger, if that is what happens. But I think if I tried to stay through, I'd break either just afore or not long after. It's beautiful here, but it's not… restful."
"I can see that, with all the sha, and everything else," Thalstan nods. "I'd say, a nice restful time helping out with the statue, but then… seems it comes with its tests and dangers. I'm not sure what's next for the Blade, but we're due a good break after the long mission in Outland. I should have time to be around Ironforge, or wherever you're with Befound. It'd be good to spend some time together in a place restful, without either of us being on any wall."
Thalstan looks over at Befound, likely thinking less about the Adventure Tanuki, who he has not yet met, than he is imagining Befound with a litter of little snow leopard cubs.
"And who knows?" Thalstan says with a smile. "Maybe the next big thing, we'll both be fighting, with a big team. There's no telling what the future might hold."
An entire squadron of Little Teeth, Adventure Tanuki Snow Leopards, Thalstan.
"Maybe a really, really big bug," Oranna suggests, but her eyes are sparkling. "I don't know about the far off future. But… I have some ideas about maybe the very near future and what it could hold." She's talking about kissing her. She might as well have held up a sign over her head from how obvious it is in the expression on her face, even if she hadn't giggled immediately after her words, or how she twirled her hand like that in his beard. When she's flirting, it's as clear as day. Maybe clearer.
"I think you and I might be on the same page, at least for the near future," Thalstan says, and just like that the darkness seems to be behind him as he pulls her closer and lowers his lips to hers. This time, it isn't a quick peck, it's a long, lingering passionate kiss, as he sinks one hand into her hair and the other holds her close. The picnic plates are forgotten, hopefully not upended on the blanket, but if so there's more food to be had. Thalstan seems in no rush to get back to tests and sha and bad memories, the wonderful present is far too appealing.
Time enough for those things to have their moments. For now, Oranna and Thalstan have theirs.