(2025-12-15) Two Stories and Only One Bed (Orastan in Pandaland Part 2)

Details

Author:	Athena
Summary:	After a wonderful picnic day, Thalstan and Oranna head back to the Lazy Turnip for a romantic dinner to talk about what sort of labels to call each other. As promised, they set aside some time specifically to tackle the histories that affect Oranna's present and create some of the hurdles that are inherently a part of her romance. Thalstan listens, undaunted, and stands ready to take things as slow and steady as his lady needs. There's only one bed. (But two rooms.) Romance RP. Please see CWs for sensitive subject matter. 22k~ words.
Rating:	M for Mature 17+

Chain: Orastan

+ Show additional content warnings

explicit discussion around physical and emotional abuse, descriptions of familial abuse, brief but specific description of sexual assault and consent/boundary manipulation, abuse of student/teacher relationship, description of being girlfriend-zoned, romantic kissing, monogamous couple in romantic relationship, frank discussion around sex/sexual feelings/arousal

It's growing dark in Pandaria, but most of that is because it's winter, and the evening starts earlier than it did a few months ago. Despite the dimming day, Oranna's a brightening glow, practically skipping along, holding Thalstan's hand, talking animatedly about what to expect from the flying kite method of conveyance (no, it is not alive; yes, it seems to know where it is going; no, Oranna doesn't entirely understand how it works).

Befound pads silently alongside them both, offering no commentary. Her harness is her harness. She doesn't understand Oranna's fussing.

The big bellied Pandaren flight master with a bushy brown beard and tight braided mohawk watches Oranna and Oranna's Friend approach with twinkling eyed eager amusement and a full curled up grin. He barely waits for them to get close enough before he says in a boom, "Hey, Oranna! Who's your… friend?" There is a significance on the word friend, emphasized with a waggle around his eyes that move his spiky eye markings around mischievously. "Your… boy." Pause for plausible deniability. "Friend."

"Thalstan Stouthammer of the Cobalt Blade, sir, at yer service," Thalstan says with a smile, giving a polite nod of a bow. He glances to Oranna with a grin, and adds, "Boy friend to Oranna. Are you the master of these kites I'm hearing about? They sound quite an interesting contraption."

Wing Kyo gives off the kind of vibe where you can just tell he's going to edit Thalstan's strategic space between boy and friend out when he tells this story to the others later, and maybe collects a winner's pot of friendly betting. He slaps his belly. "I am! You're in for a wild treat! Don't let this one fool you, our kites are safe and hardly ever drop anyone!" He laughs. An observant person might point out the contradiction in claiming both a wild ride and safe, but Wing Kyo probably has some sort of saying for just these types of people.

"Oh, aye, that's reassuring every time ye say it," Oranna mutters in Common. It's not the first time she's heard it. She gives Thalstan a nervous smile and an equally nervous hand squeeze, before letting go to start working on setting up Befound's harness on one of the kites with a resigned air of someone who has to regularly climb up to the gallows.

"You feel like a mighty blue kite man to me, Thalstan Stouthammer of the Cobalt Blade," Wing Kyo declares to Thalstan, pulling out a sturdy looking, beautiful dark blue kite, sticking it straight up and then setting it down with a whoosh of a pat — where it doesn't hit the ground, but hovers just above it, like magic.

Thalstan squeezes Oranna's hand back reassuringly. Then he heads over to eye the proposed kite and its swishy flying magic with open curiosity, and none of Oranna's trepidation. He might be the sort of person who appreciates a safe, wild ride.

"A blue kite would suit me just fine," Thalstan says in Common, with a firm nod of agreement. "Alliance blue, Cobalt blue. Do we just… climb on top and it goes where it ought? Is there a tie of some sort to the kite, like Befound's harness?"

Oranna secures Befound, and climbs aboard her kite, spreading out to grip it like it's about to take off and do sky loops, and the only thing preventing her death is if she holds on tight enough. Her eyes are barely visible, peeking over the edge, her hair covering her like a huge security blanket. Befound licks a paw. She is ready to go.

Wing Kyo, however, picks up another kite, slaps it down, and jumps up on top, surfing it in example for Thalstan. "Just hop on, flow with it, relaaaax. The kite knows where to go. Feel the wind in your hair. It's a lot of haaair." He grins at Thalstan. "No strings attached. To the kites. Maybe… some strings attached to other things? Hmmmmm?"

"We're going to Halfhill," Oranna says. "Set them to Halfhill, Wing Kyo, please." Peek, peek. "Tell them not to drop us."

"They never get told to drop anyone, Oranna," Wing Kyo says with a laugh.

"Other things work better with strings attached, but I'll give this a go," Thalstan says with a laugh, and hops on his kite following Wing Kyo's example, though he's a little shakier on the balance. He glances to Oranna, and then does drop to his knees and grabs the frame, rather than attempt to air surf.

"I hope that means they never do drop folk, too," Thalstan says, but his good-natured grin seems to say that he assumes the answer to that one is no. He looks over to Oranna. "I'll keep a good grip, don't you worry. We'll be there in no time. Right?"

"Bran practically jumps with a woohoo! as it goes, but… he can always levitate if he starts falling hundreds of feet to his death," Oranna says with a weak attempt at a smile back, as her kite suddenly rises up, making her turn an unappealing but oddly similar shade of white as her kite. Maybe Wing Kyo picked it out on purpose.

"Oranna!" calls out another pandaren in recognition of that style of kite rider as they pass by, waving.

"Hullo, Tender Long," Oranna calls back, and not even her general commitment to waving as a method gets her to pry a single finger off her death grip on her kite.

And meanwhile, Thalstan probably gets a whole kite ride to wonder if that's the guy's real name, a truly fortunate combination of title and surname, or just a really, really flattering nickname.

For Oranna, the kite ride is a terrifying, white knuckle experience she endures because this is the only reasonable way to get from one place in Pandaria to the other without a lot of danger and time, and she knows she probably isn't going to plummet to her screaming death. Probably.

For Thalstan, it's honestly a pretty incredible way to get his first real big look at Pandaria, set against the backdrop of a stunning winter sunset painting the entire sky in a wash of soft dreamy pastels and sharp inky blue shadows. The kites fly up high enough to skim over the trees, showing the ribbons of the orderly but meandering roads of the pandaren, and structured bridges over the many rivers that undulate around the rounded bellied hills of the land. It's a place that sings in sights and sounds as they fly of stories, histories in old trees and ancient brickwork, the glimpses of statues and temples on horizons he can barely make out in the distance.

Here in the south part of Pandaria, it's chilly, but not to Bronzebeard dwarves, and as they leave the apple blossomed winds of Paw'don for the marshier, earthier scents of Halfhill, it grows more humid, the hint of rain in the air. Halfhill is a busier village than Paw'don, with farmers working more fields and handling more recovery efforts over in the west, but not at this hour. Round paper lanterns have been lit, and most are ending the day, plenty joining in at the community area of chefs and farmers cooking and talking and sharing.

The Lazy Turnip has its lights on bright and cheery, as always, with Den-Den at the bar, his trusty wok at the ready, as Innkeeper Lei Lan bustles serenely in expectation of a usual dinner crowd of people for the tavern if not the inn. But, the past few months have kept her busier than usual, especially with these Cobalt folks.

Oranna's kite touches down in Halfhill, and the dwarf releases her death grip finger by finger with a groan of relief, a little green around the gills.

Thalstan's dark blue kite touches down shortly after hers, and he hops down from it, landing solidly on the healthy brown earth of the Valley of the Four Winds. The kite whooshes its way back over to the local kite master, it's dwarven delivery complete.

"This place, Oranna," Thalstan says, his blue eyes bright. "It's so much bigger than I imagined — did you see those grand mountains in the distance, the rivers, the little houses, and everything so green and living! I mean of course you have, you've been here months. And here, I thought we were flying closer to the ground, but then I noticed the size of the houses… they've got turnips the size of gnomes, haven't they?"

Thalstan reaches out to take her rigid hands in hers, to gently massage some relaxation into them. "And this place, it feels like they've set out the welcome, but maybe that's how it always is around here."

Oranna takes his hands like a lifeline, scrambling awkwardly back up to her feet, and back into his arms, solid ground, solid Thalstan.

Befound shrugs off her harness, licking briefly at her shoulder. Of course they set out the welcome. The most important visitor, the cat, is here.

"Oh, aye, it's mostly always like this," Oranna says. And then she laughs. "If you think they have turnips the sizes of gnomes, though… some of these would be gnomes who've been playing with those Enlarging Rays turned on 'I'll Show Those Goblin's Who Can Make The World's Biggest Enlarging Ray' Mode.'"

"Those were the small ones?" Thalstan asks, his eyes widening. "Here I thought I'd spotted the prize winners from the sky. How do they do it, do you think? Different breeds, or something in the dirt…"

"Something in the water that gets into the soil," Oranna says, shifting out of the hug to once again to take up his arm, pushing her hair out of her way.

"Huh," Thalstan says, looking down at the ground with a faint crease of his brow, then back to Oranna. "I hope it's nothing unhealthy, whatever it is."

Then his attention shifts to the inn ahead, the glowing lantern lights against the darkening sky, the first scents of Den-Den's dinner preparation wafting out gently.

Thalstan takes a step in that direction, and then pauses before ushering them further, turning to Oranna more fully. "I don't want to make assumptions. I'm definitely staying here in Halfhill, but I'll let you say how close."

Oranna also stops, her hair moving along with her in a swishing, soft cape. Surprise, and then a quick confusion - comprehension - a brief tangle of some feelings and thoughts so complex it might be difficult to follow, especially in the light, but it doesn't really matter, but within a half second after they're on her face, they're coming out her mouth. She's gone all rosy again. "Oh, I didn't really — I mean I knew you'd be — here. I did think of that, of staying, I guess I just didn't… picture the whole… steps of… logistics all the way. I saw us sort of talking and together and then… I didn't, uh, I guess I sort of faded to black like a book chapter?" She gives a weak chuckle, drawing a little circle in the dirt with a foot. "But that's not… you can't really do that in real life. That would be … that would actually be sort of terrifying, if that really happened. Just lost time periodically."

She clears her throat.

"I — I would like… if I'm being totally honest, a part of me would like a lot having you close, in a… I have feelings that are very… desires of…" Oh, she's starting to turn colors of red that begin to worry a person. She doesn't look at him, but at the ground, which is a lot easier to make eye contact with. "Not… but I'm not ready for… there's things I have to… we need to — that's complicated. I'm… complicated. I'm sorry." Whatever it is, it throws a shadow of shame on her, and she has to swallow hard, breath slow and steady, gather herself back together and let her mouth keep talking as she does it. "And so. Rooms. Two. But, I'd like it if you'd come back to mine to spend the evening? For… time and talking. And then for a sleeping, then, it's rooms. S." He gets it, Oranna. "Is that — is that okay?" Now, she does look back up at him, a quick shot, like now she's braced herself to catch sight of Disappointment or Forced Smiles.

Thalstan's expression brightens at the feelings and desires, but he also sort of steps to her side to shield her from local eyes. They can't understand dwarven, most likely, but everyone understands that kind of blushing. As she concludes, Thalstan looks like someone receiving more pieces to a picture that's slowly starting to take clearer shape in his mind. That is, he looks deep in thought and a little curious and makes no effort to hide it.

"Aye, that's okay," Thalstan says, patting her arm, and then he grins a little and adds, "And also aye, that'd be right alarming if parts of my life faded to black like a storybook — sleep aside, that is."

His smile warms as he looks down at her, trying to catch her gaze again, and continues, "In any case, I remember we've things to talk about, and I'll be happy to join you in yours for that, before I head back to mine. As for the rest…" he glances briefly up at the sky. "When do you normally wake? I've sort of started waking with the sun, but I'd like to join you downstairs for breakfast in the morning."

Oranna doesn't flinch away from the touching — if anything, she seems relieved, and the shame uncurls a little out of her body language. She tucks her hair back behind her ear, as Befound sits against her legs. If they're doing some sort of Hide Oranna thing, Befound isn't going to be left out. Oranna shoves at the snow leopard with her other arm. "That's — my dress, lass, get yer big cat butt off the…" she mutters in Common.

Befound gets her perfectly proportioned cat butt off that part of the dress and sits it…on another part of the dress, lifting a paw to lick at it.

Oranna rolls her eyes, turning to Thalstan instead, swapping back to Dwarven. "I… well, 'sunrise' here right now is sort of…almost 8am-ish? On account of where we are, and the season. A little afore it, really. Which isn't… so bad? I'm not much of a see the sunrise type of person in a general way. I - I like it, I do, for a pretty thing of the sky. It's just that usually if I try to wake up early enough to see it, I'm mostly blinking at it blearily through squinty eyes and foggy tea steam trying to stop nodding back off." She demonstrates this look, in an attempt at the unflattering sleepy not-a-morning-person way, but she might be playing to the wrong audience for it, because what she's also doing is giving Thalstan a little peek at a hazy, dreamy eyed, lashes fluttering, early morning, just-woke-me-up Oranna.

By the captivated way Thalstan is staring at her portrayal of early-morning Oranna, he does not find it unflattering at all. He's silent for a heartbeat or two before he swallows, and says, "Not so bad, but maybe then let's meet… an hour after sunrise? That way it'll give the hozen chef a good amount of time to put the tea kettles on and fry up some… whatever they traditionally eat for breakfast in these parts. Enormous turnips?"

Since that seems settled, Thalstan starts to move back towards the inn, but he pauses before taking a step, glancing at Befound. He does not want to tear Oranna's skirt via snow leopard.

Oranna laughs, and hip-bumps Befound off her dress — the snow leopard grumbles, but obeys — as she walks with Thalstan up towards the inn.

They get some attention once more. A pandaren woman ambling unhurriedly down the lane towards the market square with a basket bundle takes notice of the unusual sight — oh, dwarves! — and then the familiar sight — oh, Oranna Dwarf! — waving a paw. "Oranna!"

Oranna half-turns, and waves back. It's not a long exchange, just that, a call, a wave, before they're inside the inn. And then she's again, immediately recognized.

Lei Lan's bright green eyes are bright in friendly recognition when Oranna enters, and while the pandaren's features are a little unfamiliar, the body language of her shoulders suggests hopefulness, as she bustles towards the couple. After all, the way they're linked up, at least they'll be eating two plates worth of food, if not adding another room's worth of money to her inn, but a pandaren can hope.

"Oranna! And Oranna friend! Welcome to the Lazy Turnip!" Lei Lan greets politely. Her pink dress is festive and beautifully designed with lovely details, but Thalstan might notice that's been mended more than a few times and not as well kept as the tavern has been — business has struggled in the past year, and this is not just her workplace, but her home.

More than many who come into the Lazy Turnip, Thalstan might also see more of the clever attempts to hide those struggles, and evidence of the struggles themselves — cheaper chairs so the food quality can stay higher, mended rugs so they can replace the plates so the guests eat off good surfaces, more of those rugs and banners to hide where wood has started to wear thin and can't be replaced, as more and more tough choices have to be made to keep the place afloat.

There's a soft affection in Thalstan's gaze on Oranna as they pass by yet another local who greets Oranna in a friendly manner and by name. One might make a guess about the pandaren culture of hospitality, about small communities that make knowing one another a priority. From his expression, Thalstan is clearly making another assumption, that it's only natural all of Pandaria loves Oranna Stormbreaker.

As they move into the inn, Thalstan catches all the little hints of a business struggling, but also the signs of a proprietor who is trying her hardest to hold things together, to present warm hospitality to their guests even as they have to find ways to cut corners elsewhere. His eyes soften with sympathy — there have been lean times for the Thirsty Dragon, too, over the years.

"Thalstan Stouthammer," he introduces himself to Lei Lan with a friendly smile. "I hope you've a room available? I'll be staying here at least tonight, and I hope we can take our meals here as well?"

Lei Lan might love Oranna Stormbreaker. She's too well composed to cheer, but she has that heavy breath out of relief of someone who just answered a question how are we going to make That Payment this month with Oranna Stormbreaker's friend, Thalstan Stouthammer and a Room. "We have a room available, just across the hall from Oranna here. We'll start getting that ready for you, and you can pick up the key at the desk when you're ready. We have a daily rate, and check out in the afternoon, unless you decide to renew your stay," Lei Lan says, "We serve meals available throughout the day. Den-Den can make you anything by order, and we have a bar of the local beers and spirits! Please, feel free to grab a table any time, get off your feet. Welcome to Halfhill."

Oranna waves to Den-Den, whose jumpy bouncing makes him seem like he's listening to some sort of peppy music only he can hear as he hop cooks his wok — the flips that catch some of the fire reveal a peek of mushrooms, onions, and some kind of red beans — and the smells of ginger and garlic aromatics waft through the sharper notes of fresh fire.

Befound growls.

Wait, no, that was Oranna's stomach. Befound was falsely accused.

"That sounds lovely, thank you, ma'am," Thalstan says courteously, breathing in the scent of cooking with an appreciative smile. Then the bopping of Den-Den himself takes Thalstan's attention, and he stares for a moment in open fascination.

"He's the hozen, then," Thal says, and there's nothing in his tone but the pure curiosity of one who has, up until now, only ever heard of the species through letters. "I've never met one of their people before. I'm new to the land entire, so everything's new. Anyway, I expect I'll be staying a while, but I don't know exactly how long yet." He glances to Oranna and asks, "Would you like dinner before conversation?"

"Oh, ach, I think I'll take it upstairs, as usual," Oranna says a little uncertainly, in Common for Lei Lan's benefit, one hand on her stomach. Lei Lan is nodding, already heading off to go arrange the room situation now that everything is decided that she needs to immediately worry about. Den-Den can handle the rest. "Sometimes I eat breakfast down here but…"

"Oranna Nana! You wanna the shroom shrooms?" Den-Den calls from across the room, filled with the hozen energy. That is, indeed, the hozen. He's the only one who fits the Monkey description.

"Ah, oh, shore! That's — did ye want ta jus' try what I usually have or — they do have meat here, some fish mostly? An' chicken, if ye wanted? I dinna mind if ye did, I can always pick it out. They do a lot of.. uh, like a whole sort of dish together, fry thing. Everythin' is good. They jus' have a lot of vegetables options so sometimes I just let Den-Den — " Oranna is saying as Den-Den spins the wok again.

"Den-Den send noods?!" Den-Den calls.

"Aye, I'll just have what she's having," Thalstan calls back in Common with a smile, barely coughing back a laugh. "Shroom shrooms! Up to…" he looks to Oranna for confirmation, "…Oranna's room?"

"Oranna Nana room good noods, best noods!" Den Den confirms, banging several pots on the stove. Several curly noodles spill over the edges. His tail whips around in another curl, opening up a jar filled with a pungent black-red spice.

"Noodles! Aye, the noodles, send the noodles to Oranna's room, of the usual. Thank ye, Den Den," Oranna says with an embarrassed groan, covering her face with both hands for a moment, and pulling Thalstan with her towards the other side of the inn, where a set of wide, deep stairs lead up to a second story. "He — he is really passionate about cookin' if ye get downstairs earlier than me tomorrow an' have a mind ta chat with him. The hozen sort o' talk different, but he really loves what he does. He's fair mid-aged fer a hozen, about 13 or 14 he thinks." She might be babbling a bit to try to burn off the blush as she walks.

Thalstan laughs. "I did get what he meant, about the noods. It helped that I could see the noodles in the pots. They've have got a way of talking, don't they?"

Thalstan lets her lead him up the stairs towards her room as he continues, "But thirteen or fourteen — wow. I was not an expert chef at that age, that's for sure. I might talk to him, if I'm down before you. I bet they have a really different perspective on life than we do, and it'd be interesting to hear. I'm glad you met some that aren't all fightin' the jinyu or teaming up with the Horde and all that. It'd be a shame to have this whole new species here and not get to talk to any of them as friends."

Befound slinks past them, bounding up the stairs in perfect cat silence, her first, her first.

"They've apparently always been like that. They're not evil or anything, even the ones who are doing sometimes terrible deeds," Oranna says. "But, that's the same with the Horde. I've worked with orcs who have worked to gently right the wrongs of a forest. Trolls witch doctors putting their lives on the line for dwarven lands. And I've watched some of those brave people lose their courage in the face of going against a huge army headed by a leader they don't agree with. The Horde has always had a bit of that problem, of once you start following, you can't stop. It doesn't let you leave by any other way than death." It's easy to see and hear the sadness in her about it.

"The hozen here get violent and love to kick up a fuss, over fish or treasure or bananas, and they're a menace to the jinyu too, but often it's a case of a people with sometimes terrible leaders and poor oversight for consequences to come. A lot of them have good hearts, same as any person, turned just as easily following their whims, and the crowd. I'm not so sure they realized when they joined the Horde in an excitement of winning and power, maybe, what it was going to mean for them."

Oranna's room is fairly deep into the inn — she's taken a room at the end of the hallway, with an easy sight straight to the stairs, and when she opens the door with an old fashioned strange iron key, it reveals that she really isn't much one for spending in luxury, whether or not the inn has it to offer.

It's a simple room meant for a traveling pandaren. That is to say, it has a huge, rounded bed tucked neatly against western side of the room, while the south facing wall is taken up by a beautifully placed round window (currently obscured by a rice papered shade) that would let in good light throughout the whole day. A table of rounded off edges and curled decorative legs, with two modest pandaren sized chairs takes up the other side from the bed, with a lacquered box against the wall that might contain some sort of game within. A black wood with red paper folding screen marks off a corner of the room with a large wooden bucket, a towel folded over the top — a makeshift bathing area — and a string above is where Oranna has probably hung laundry to dry in the past, though it's empty now.

Two bags rest on a trunk to the side of the bed along the wall that must belong to the room, as it matches the coloring and carvings, maybe meant to hold a guest's belongings, but Oranna has kept hers outside the trunk. On the other side of the bed, is another bed — the cat bed, a large rounded pillow, made mostly gray from the accumulation of Befound's fur.

All round are the lanterns, only one lit, by the door, and there is another smaller clearly dwarven-make oil lantern that Oranna brought with her, as well as a contraption that has been folded up that sort of resembles a desk-top.

The room has the scent of Oranna's hair, the clove and sandalwood, and underneath a hint of gun oil, and still below some deeper scent of the inn itself.

Thalstan pauses just inside the room, looking around the cozy room, taking in the details of pandaren furniture and rustic hygiene arrangements.

"I bet you've good light in here," Thalstan remarks, as he walks over toward the table and two chairs, the most likely destination for dining and talking. "And it looks nice and comfortable, if a bit oversized. But so many places are, all the big folk in the world."

Thalstan looks back to Oranna for permission before he sits at the table. "I've not had the opportunity to have conversation with such diversity of folk as you have. Before the Blade, I was all in and around Ironforge. I don't know much about what is or isn't going on inside the Horde, but at least for the hozen… they must not be so organized. It's got to be only a part of them caught up in the crowd."

Befound slinks through the room, sniffing a few things, before plopping on her bed, her own tail as her pillow, staring at Oranna and Thalstan.

Oranna smiles at Thalstan for permission, and leaves the door partially open, glancing at it twice to make sure it stays that way, before she goes to where the other bags are to drop of the one she brought with her to add to it. As he speaks, she lights the other lamps, and the coziness of the room makes it light up nicely.

"I'm sure of it. I don't think 'organization' is really a thing the Hozen do in general. It's a lot of 'follow the leader' and 'the leader is the leader because he's the leader,'" Oranna says. She shakes her head. Hozen.

The table is immediately obvious that isn't an especially comfortable fit for Thalstan. For Oranna, a good seven inches shorter, it's even worse. When she sits down across from him, he gets a view of…the top of her forehead. She sighs heavily. "Ach. This is why I eat up here. I usually use a desk that Bargrimm made for me, but that's only the one… I can probably…" She puts both hands on the table as she adjusts, getting her legs under so she's kneeling, adding more height, and then rising up a bit more. It's still kind of awkward, but at least she's cleared the table edge. "There's just nothing my size downstairs and I don't want to make it awkward to have them have to bring out something made for pandaren kids or something."

Thalstan maneuvers himself around so that he's kneeling on the seat, so at least his own head and shoulders clear the table, even if he still looks a little out of place.

"I see what you mean," Thalstan nods. "I get used to everything being normal-sized in Ironforge. Even in Outland, I was able to get some pieces that I think were designed for Sporelings."

"Maybe we could get some thick cushions, or something…" He adjusts a little, resting on the heels of his boots. "Really thick, they'd have to be. You should use that desk, though, even if theres only one. That way we'll be as comfortable as possible, collectively."

Oranna laughs, but she shakes her head, her hair sending the soft waves all around her body in certain dwarven enticing ways. "No, I think I'd rather share the experience with you so we could laugh about it later, remembering it laughing here together, than me over there comfortable, and you over here by yourself," she says, smiling at him warmly. "And aye, we could source some solutions if we need to. Depending on how many days you might want to stay here… to visit? I'm not in a rush to leave in a days sort of way, though weeks is probably stretching it too far. But, I wouldn't mind lingering a little while longer for the holiday for you to see it, really see it, I mean."

Thalstan is briefly mesmerized by her laugh and the movement of the waves of her hair, until the sound of her voice pulls him back to the present.

"For the memories, then," he says with a smile, tucking his beard neatly off the table. "I admit I hadn't planned anything as to how many days or an itinerary or anything. It was just… it was Winter Veil, and I wanted to be with you, and you were here. I expect it'd be good if we could stay a few days, to support the Lazy Turnip, if that works for what you'd like. I don't know if you have anything scheduled already for Befound?"

"I've been in contact with another trainer out nearabout Ironforge who has a male snow leopard of around the right age, a bit younger, but who might be right. They'd need time to spend with each other, hunt together through a good portion of the winter, and see if they approve of the other. It's the female's choice, so…" Oranna says, looking over at Befound, who blinks sapphire eyes at her hunter. Of course it is. Everything is.

Including that she is choosing to let that person come near their room.

Her attention to the door alerts Oranna, who turns to look even before the pandaren knocks lightly and finishes opening the door, carrying a tray with a large platter still heavily steaming and actively sizzling, as well as two stacked stone plates, and two sets of chopsticks. "Oranna, I have your — oh! You have a guest!" The pandaren woman seems younger, or at least shorter, than most of the others. Her smile has an extra curve, as do her hips. "That explains the two plates!" Her eyes are twinkling with merry zings, and her nose twitches. She can smell a romance from five feet away.

"Oh, hullo, Deidan," Oranna says with a wave, turning a very, very rosy color. "Aye, this is my guest, my Thalstan. I mean, he's my …" Wait, is she correcting that? The rose color shades over to red. "Eehhhh…"

Deidan pushes into the room, watching Oranna's Thalstan eagerly for what he's going to do about that, as she brings the tray over to the table.

"Aye, her Thalstan," the man in question nods agreeably, turning to look at the pandaren woman with a smile. "I'm visiting for a few days, to see the sights here. I have to say they're positively lovely," Thalstan turns to look at Oranna as he says this last, and maybe his eyes do have a little bit of a romance-cover smolder.

Turning back to Deidan, he adds, "Thank you for bringing up the food — it smells delicious." Then, he notices the chopsticks, and peers at them with a faint crease in his brow. "Oranna, are those our… forks?"

Oranna gets a little different sort of blushy at the smolder, and the soft giggle makes its reappearance.

Oranna does a little one handed wave with a headshake at Thalstan, trying to convey don't mention it. Unfortunately, the only way for to do this means she very obviously also conveys it to Deidan.

"He doesn't know about chopsticks?" Deidan asks in horror the way someone might ask about a person not knowing about things like chairs or doorknobs.

"I told ye, we dinna really have things like — " Oranna starts, waving her hands at Deidan, who sets the tray down to put the food in the center.

It's a giant slightly sloped bowl made of some stone that may hold some tangential interest in a dwarven way for its strong thermal properties of holding the heat of the food, where Den-Den has timed the cooking just so, as the last of the cooking is finishing right in front of them, so everything will be crisp and hot here at the table. The colors of the vegetables are still bright, the noodles yellow tinted, and the needle mushrooms pops of white and soft browns.

"I can teach you," Deidan offers, clearly not for the first time, and picking up one of the sets of chopsticks.

"Thank ye, it's very kind of ye, I — I just… another time, mebbe, aye?" Oranna tries awkwardly, uncomfortable and growing more so with every minute. "It's an interesting sort of thing, ta do, I just… like… to already know how ta eat…the food I'm hungry… fer eatin'…"

Thalstan notices the headshake a moment too late, but he definitely also notes Oranna's rising discomfort and awkwardness.

"We'll manage on our own for tonight, thanks," Thalstan says, with a warm smile to offset any sting of the words, as he reaches over to reclaim the chopsticks. "I'm sure ye understand, it's been a long day and we're ready to settle in for dinner. I expect I'll take you up on that another time."

Oranna gives Thalstan a grateful smile.

Deidan pouts, but hands over the chopsticks. "It's not that hard!" she claims. "Even cubs learn how to use them."

"Righ'." Oranna's face telegraphs both awkwardness and the thought that Oranna has never been and never will be a pandaren cub so that probably won't help her in any skill issue. "Eh…Thank ye, Deidan. An' thank Den-Den fer us."

Deidan waves it off, gathering up her tray with a practiced twirl, and she doesn't hold any resentment with it. "Don't let it get cold making too much eyes at each other," she warns teasingly, as she slips out the door, pulling it closed with a grin.

Oranna blushes enough to steam as much as the food as she slides towards the floor with a muttered, "I'll…get…the forks…I have some in my bag."

"Forks would be nice," Thalstan nods. "I'm not sure how to eat with the 'chopsticks' — they look all smooth, not ideal for chopping. Maybe if you sort of dangle the noods… anyway, forks."

Thalstan breathes in the delicious steam, and then looks over to where Oranna is retrieving forks. He doesn't seem to be blushing, but he does notice her reddened face. "Does it bother you, when people say things like that? About making eyes at each other and such?"

Oranna giggles at the chopsticks chopping, as she fishes for forks, and brings them back with her to the table. They're simple dwarven forks, likely brought with her out of a camping gear set. She hops back up onto the chair, and clambers up high enough to lean over the table, some assets on display on the table for a bit as she slides one of those forks over to Thalstan.

"Oh, only the… getting caught at it, I suppose? It's the… wearing my thoughts on my face, you know. Every person with the slightest bit of ability to read an expression will know exactly what I think about you, every time I'm thinking about it, and it's a bit like… not being able to close a door to have some privacy," Oranna says, bashful, but there's no trace of shame. "I'll get used to it again, I'm sure of it. It's just…it's new. I — I don't mind you making eyes at me. I… I like you making eyes. I'd rather you make eyes. I think I've said 'make eyes' too many times and now it sounds…weird."

Thalstan was definitely making eyes a few moments ago, when that fork was sliding across the table.

"I could see that, then, the frustration of not getting to choose if a person sees it or no," Thalstan says, taking up his fork and stirring through the noodles. "Should I downplay for now, or… that's another question, really. We like each other romantically, and we're getting to know one another. People like to have words to describe — and that gets a little bit back to the names we were talking about before, but now it's more labels. I'd like to call you my girlfriend, but if that makes you uncomfortable, we can do without the labels."

Oranna looks too happy about it immediately, grinning a beaming smile down at her noods, twirling her fork through her noodles less effectively.

"No, no, I — I would like that. I'd … it's a good word. For it. A friend and sort of word, and a modern one that people recognize. And there are few Dwarven words that I don't think translate well into Common, or people'll get the wrong idea if I call you 'my lad,'" Oranna says with a squished eye wince of a wink and a laugh. She peeks over her food at him, biting down a little on her bottom lip, as she pushes a mushroom cluster around.

"When I panicked earlier, and called you 'my Thalstan.' I was — some of it was just… a bit of a slip of the tongue, and some maybe from the 'yours truly' of your letters, and maybe a little… hoping. It's not really a label to use, but… you agreed?" The ask is a soft confirmation, and he can see the earnest hope, that little touch of fear of rejection in the tight corners around her eyes, like maybe he only did it to back her up in a moment, but he'll let her know now it's a bit much.

Thalstan's own smile brightens and gains a degree or two of heat at Oranna's reaction, and he nods agreement.

"Yours truly," Thalstan confirms to her question, and a little wink back at her, as he spins up some noodles on his fork like spaghetti. Then he looks at her with a touch of earnestness, of vulnerability of his own, and continues, "I know it was a bit of a slip of the tongue in the moment, but I was also kind of hoping you meant it. Boyfriend, then? Your Thalstan. Better than lad, I think, for sure."

Oranna's warm smile could heat a man's blood with that sort of look, easy to see free of doubt, matching his vulnerability with nothing but sureness of her own that it's exactly what she wants, without pretense. "Aye. And in reverse, too. Yours truly, Oranna."

And then she does chuckle a little self-consciously. "I think you could get away with things like, 'my girl,' but me, with anything like, 'my boy,' or 'my lad,' with something around 65-or-so years a gap… I could mean it like… 'my son,' and — " She looks up at him with that mild growing horror of when her mouth train goes and hits a point and now she's trying to pull every lever to make it stop. "I mean, not that it's that much of a gap, or that there's anything wrong with — it doesn't bother me. I don't think it bothers you. I don't think of you like a son. Obviously. Or that I think someone will think you're my son. N-not that I don't think it wouldn't be flattering if someone thought you were my son, I mean, it would be very, you're obviously a good son — " The thought that, if certain things perhaps play out certain directions between the two of them that there could be a future, in fact, where Oranna could have, for example, a son who does resemble Thalstan, shoots across her face like a giant flare. She goes supernova in color. "No, no, I just need to — " She puts her head almost into her plate of noodles, putting the food into the mouth, so the words will stop.

"I know, you said before you didn't mind… younger, and I don't mind — that is, we're both adults," Thalstan says, and maybe there's a hint of pink on his own cheekbones now. "And my ma was in her later hundreds when I was born, so I dont think anyone would mistake — you know what I mean."

Thalstan pauses for a mouthful of noods, a good way to pause and reset the topic and his own mouth a little.

"Gap aside, I'd like to call you my girl," he says finally, raising his eyes to hers. "The other way… maybe fellow wouldn't have the same read in Common, or something else similar?"

Oranna is still nood for a bit longer until she stops resembling a red dwarf sun, and then has to get up and fetch all three of them water from her bag — cool, clear containers likely bought from the local pandaren market — after she tries to reach for one and realizes she never put them out earlier, a bit thrown off all her routines. "Knowing me, the simpler I keep it, the better," she admits as she returns. "Otherwise, I'm likely to start explaining to someone how when I say 'my fellow,' I don't mean like 'my fellow-ship of the dwarven community' but my 'bed-fellow-like' and then I'll start over-explaining exactly what I mean by that, and then I start breaking out my emergency oranges again, because if I keep eating, I can stop talking."

She doesn't slide the water across this time — she's already up, again, and has to stop to fill up Befound's water bowl, and she's already had one motor-mouth incident, and so with a bit of bravery, she uses the opportunity to walk over to Thalstan's side of the table to drop off the water. And since she's here, rises up on her tippity toes for a kiss to his cheek, a bit more lingery than casual.

Thalstan draws in a happy breath at the contact, leaning a little towards her to prolong the cheek kiss, and then he reaches out to trail one hand down her shoulder and arm as she drops off the water container. From the light in his eyes, it looks briefly like he might go for more kissing, but no — there are noods to eat and his sitting position in the pandaren chair is a little awkward for a makeout session.

"Then probably best to use words that need no explanation," Thalstan nods, as she returns to her seat. "Boyfriend, girlfriend. And you know, I like how your thoughts just kind of spill out into words sometimes. That is, I don't want you to feel embarrassed or anything, but it's interesting hearing the tram of thought. Sometimes it goes directions I'd have never guessed. If you do feel like you're overexplaining a thing to me, I'm good with just following the tram to its endpoint and then looking back on the route. If you're comfortable with it, that is. If you'd prefer, I can stock up on oranges."

Before she clambers back up to her seat, she takes the bottle of water for Befound — with still a decent splash in it — and, oh the little bouquet of wildflowers that was wrapped up in her bag, that she unwraps now to set in the glass, and puts it on the table.

"I think… it's why you've become so much easier for me to talk to than I get with some people," Oranna considers, as she heaves herself back up onto the chair meant for an entirely other species of being. "Even from the start, you never seemed to get… embarrassed for me, or like you wanted me to stop talking. The only one who is sometimes hoping I will is me, really." She laughs a little, and it's not unkind, even at herself. "It's not a bad way to describe it though, like a tram. When I'm just talking aloud to myself or Befound, sometimes I get on tracks I don't want to be on all the same, and I know I have to stop them, too."

Befound makes a cat smug expression. Someday, you will be on her level, Thalstan, of Oranna conversation partner. She stretches over to lick at the top of her butt.

"The only conversations I never have any real practice with are when I say something, to someone not me, and I realize only after I've said it how someone else, not me, might hear it, or if you hadn't just had the same exact thought I did interpret it, and then I try to — " She maybe is demonstrating pulling levers? It's either that or the three-hundred-fists in a barrel technique. "And it's a tram, so I can't really turn off anywhere, and it's a lot of screeching, and I can hear it getting worse, and I still can't seem to stop. That's when I start wanting an orange, or…help." She turns those big brown eyes up at him, with a shy smile. "I like that you never want to stop me to stop me, and that's a good thing, I think. But, maybe if it's my choosing it, like if I had a signal atween us? If I called, tram! and I could pull the secret emergency lever, and get off at Thalstan Station?"

Thalstan smiles at the wildflower centerpiece, the final touch on a lanternlit dinner. He reaches out to touch a petal, and looks over at

"Aye, that works," Thalstan nods, bringing his hand back and up like signaling a stop. "I'll know it means you got on a track you didn't want to, or at least a track you realized looked different than you meant from someone standing on the other side of it. Since I'll know that, you won't have to explain the hows or whys unless you want to. We can just hop on another car at Thalstan Station, turn down another track, and not have to worry about it. Sounds good?"

Oranna smiles warmly. "Aye. And if I did say something in it that was confusing or you did have a question, we could talk on it, just a-purpose. I don't always know how to explain everything in my head, but I am a tracker, and even if I've run my head straight off wild into a mess, I can walk it back and see every which way I went in retrospect. Sometimes while peeking through my fingers and groaning, but," she says with a shrug and another self-conscious small laugh. She twirls up most of the last of her noods, washing them down with the pandaren water (guaranteed to not be life-stealing!).

"And I'm not a tracker by trade, but I am pretty good at seeing all the things around me in a moment and making sense of how they fit together," Thal says, finishing off his own noods and taking another sip of water. "So when you show me the path, I should be quick on the uptake of seeing how it all fits together."

He looks down at his empty plate, and then back up at Oranna. "I know we've still things to talk about tonight. Would you like to do that… abed? And thats not me trying to push things — just so we're closer to one another in case there's need for hugs."

Oranna's cheeks get that rosy glow, but she nod-nods, and for a moment it's clear she's sweet eyed on him, happy and comfortable still. This is a good feeling thought, of cuddling up together. "I — I was thinking the same thing. It's — the Elo Three Prong Method, it calls for a 'comfortable chair' for talking, and I… that's… really not…" She pats the pandaren chair. "It's too big for either of us, and too small for us to squeeze in a-one, and… as long you don't mind the — " Something intrudes, an awareness of that particular sort of set up, and she glances away at the bed, and then at him again.

"I know that with the romantic atmosphere and romantic everything that it might seem like if invite you to a room, and to a bed, and into your arms, and kissing and things, that I might be trying to — to — " She starts to sound strangled, and there's something worrying about the way her shoulders are curving inwards, and away. The rosy glow is fading as well into a paleness, her eyes darting away from him, downwards. Shame, but also like she's trying to fight that shame, and it gives her a tremor.

Befound rises up from her bed, watching Oranna intently.

"But, I'll be saying it now, clear in words," she says, a little shakily, gripping onto the table with white knuckles, face pale but she's trying to keep herself calm and she offers a shaky smile with it. "I won't imply anything when it comes to sex. I'll be straight and clear. Words. You won't be guessing or reading into something as invitation. And this isn't that invitation right now. But I'll be glad of the rest. I really want to be with you, and I'd like it if you held me now, actually."

Thalstan unfolds himself from the chair, and comes over to wrap his arms around Oranna from behind. Not groping or anything like that, just holding her gently, resting his cheek against her hair.

"I'll listen to your words, I promise you that," Thalstan says, his eyes serious. "Whatever things might seem or implications might feel like they pop up. You and I aren't anyone else than you and I, and whatever might seem like… like romantic custom doesn't matter. All that matters is what's right for us, beholden to nothing and no one else's expectations. And what I want is for you to be happy, and to that end I'll always listen to what you know you want. And if theres a thing you realize you don't, in the moment, you don't need to explain. Just say, and I'll listen, if I haven't already noticed, which I'll try to…" this time, Thalstan is rambling a little, a touch of vulnerable nervousness creeping into his voice. He pauses, takes a calming breath, and says, "So aye, let's go to bed, and hold one another, and talk."

Oranna immediately lets go of the table in favor of Thalstan, gripping onto his thick forearms with at first what might be an uncomfortably tight hold that slowly relaxes, as does the rest of her, the longer he holds her, the more he talks, until she is resting against him rather than rigidly held in place.

Befound pads over for a drink of water, and then back to her bed, where she settles into a loaf, tail wrapped around her, eyes closing like she's taking a nap, but her ears are pricked forward. She's listening.

Oranna turns in place without stepping much away from Thalstan, smoothing her hands over her hair a few times in a nervousness, and then her dress a couple times for good measure. "Right. So… I just need to be able to see the door. We've talked on that afore, so you know I don't mean it…badly. And since bed's against a wall for taking a side of who goes where, I'll…uh, tuck in first, and you after? Just to be clear so you're not a worrying about any… caution or not crowding. I really don't mind it at all, or think of getting squished up. I sort of maybe like it a bit, even the thought of having you between me and a door, or if it's you with me up against a wall." She hears what sort of other context a person might imagine with that particular sort of set up just a few seconds too late.

Well, she's rosy again now instead of pale, so there's that.

"I like the sound of that," Thalstan says without clarifying which part, and kisses the top of her head. There's so sign of drowning, but it is only a light kiss. "And aye, I remember about doors, so I know how you mean it. I'll just… let you tuck in."

A little reluctantly, he lets go, stepping back to give Oranna room to climb off her chair and over to the pandaren bed.

Oranna clambers ungracefully off, swinging her hair around and gathering it up on one side. It's accumulated some starts of tangles here and there from wind and hands, and she tugs off the ribbon holding it up as she walks over towards the bed, running her fingers through the loose waves. She picks up another bottle of water from her pack, setting it by the bed, balanced on a curved bed post, as she takes off her sturdy, practical boots, and warm woolen socks, her back to Thalstan in an innate sort of trust of the intimacy of truly letting her hair down, putting her feet on the ground.

The pandaren don't set their beds extremely high up at least, favoring the reverse if anything, of a lower center of gravity for their size, and Oranna kneels on it and does a scoot and slide into the deeper part of it, letting the natural curve of it settle her into the center. It's a bed meant for a single pandaren, but even with Oranna's generous Dwarven curves, there's more than enough for Thalstan to fit in comfortably, and she isn't hoping he'll leave room for the snow leopard between them.

Thalstan leans back against the oversized chair, pulling off first boots then socks of his own. As he moves over towards the bed, he runs a hand through his hair and then beard, maybe to rakishly dishevel them.

He slides in after her, following the natural curve of tea bed to settle just by her side. He casts quick glances at her to assess comfort as he slides a hand around her shoulders, encouraging her to nestle up against him.

"I know there's stories for this evening that you don't like to tell, and I'm glad you trust me for the telling," Thalstan says quietly. "If there's any you'd like to know of me in return, they're there for you, for the asking."

She scooches in closer, and there's those zaps again that he can see happening in real time as she touches him, reactions to the effect he has on her. She settles a hand over his beard on his chest, breathing in deeply in a way he can tell she's savoring the scent of him, shifting a leg a little more so she can comfortably rest in a better appreciation of the closeness of the weight of him, relaxing in the holding as a comfort because it's Thalstan.

"Aye, and there is. I've got questions, a lot of them are small ones and maybe a few of them are bigger, and I've been told I'm the sort who always ends up with questions that lead to more questions, but I hope it's more of a good, learning way in this case. Sometimes I think on them a turn or two, but if there's anything that's something I need to know right then, you can be sure I'll have a question mark floating above my head so loud, if I don't ask it, you can be sure Befound'll bat it out of the sky anyway."

Damn straight, Befound rumbles.

Thalstan meets those little zaps with a radiated contentment as they settle into each other's arms, and he breathes in the scent of sandalwood and clove, trailing a hand through her loose hair.

"I'll keep an eye out for those question marks," Thalstan says with a smile. "Or for Befound batting over your head. Maybe tonight, then, we could take turns? Then, if you need some time after a harder tale, or I do, we can listen to the other. Where shall we start?"

Oranna nods. "That sounds… like a good plan." She clears her throat. "I suppose, for me, it's… at the beginning, maybe even a bit afore, because like a lot of stories, I'm not only mine, but a part of someone else's, too." A nervous chuckle proceeds a nervous swallow, but she musters a bit of a smile.

"So here we go. Irona Stormbreaker, my mother, was born into the Stormbreakers, a long, strong line of warriors, legends already, and she set the bar to a whole new height. She never met a weapon they could invent that she couldn't master. She was talented, and I've seen enough now to know also that I think she told herself a bit of a… story about it, too. She had this…theory, in part of how she was what she was, that it had to do with how women were naturally better warriors, because we could take more pain than men, channel it better, that men got angry faster, while women would dig deeper." Oranna's words run together a bit, and he can see old, tired grief and pain that's run long tracks of tears she no longer cries now, but they've left marks on her that show even in her dry eyes.

She sighs heavily. "I don't think when she had my eldest brother, Silvano, that she was disappointed, exactly, not that one. She was young, and he was the first. But I think even by my second brother, she was annoyed at the world a bit. She had already got into her mind how she'd train up the Stormbreaker women to her image. My father had taken her clan name, and all she needed now to prove her theory and her training were daughters. And then she had yet another son. And then a fourth.

"I… I didn't see it. I was — it was what I'd known, and I didn't know better, to see the anger and resentment my mother turned on them. I see it now, and it only makes the next part worse. Because, at that time of life when a woman stops being able to have any more children, my mother had a surprise — me. That daughter came after all." Oranna's eyes narrow, in a sort of pain, and she clenches a hand in Thalstan's beard, steadying herself, which might seem strange, to be bracing when she's describing a moment of being that miracle, much hoped for daughter at long last.

"I can sort of still remember, if I try, that sense of it… like I was precious for a little while, something exciting, and… that I really believed I was going to be… great. Amazing. The most amazing warrior in the whole world. She started me young. I was no more then eight when she had me working on stabbing things with knives and short swords, and axes. I think… that was some of it, too. She'd been waiting for hundreds of years for me, literally.

"She was out of patience from the very start, if she'd ever had any, and I don't know that she did," Oranna says, and her voice is harder than he's heard it. "I won't give her what she didn't have, because I've seen others now. Irona Stormbreaker was a legendary warrior trainer, and I grew up believing that, but she's no longer the only warrior trainer I've known. Lireen Cloudskimmer has as many years as Irona Stormbreaker did when I was went into that training ring with her the first time, and I know no force through all the years could ever make Lireen do to a person what my mother did to me."

The tears well up, and Oranna doesn't fight them, as her breaths start to shift into those even pulls in, hold, outs, and her fingers tremble on him.

"Take your time," Thalstan murmurs, stroking down her shoulder in pace with the even breathing and then slightly slower, trying to draw her down with him. His whole form is calm and solid, with the dwarven patience of stone.

Oranna blinks slower with it, though her breathing stays in that cadence, a learned response from another time.

"I was fourteen the first time she put me in the training yard. Too young, and I knew it was young even then. She'd trained all four of my brothers, and not a one had started full combat like that before sixteen, and not with full force at that. I hardly even remember it. The concussion blurred it out. I don't think she was disappointed the first day. Surprised, maybe. That I wasn't some sort of prodigy, like she had been.

"But that changed quickly. I didn't get better, not at all. What's worse? The things I was worst at was with pain. I flinched every time. I cringed worse with every charge from not just the pain I would be in, but the memory of the pain from the time before. I wasn't just failing her training, showing all the flaws in her technique, but I was undermining — the very — the very core of the theory of Irona Stormbreaker's great big theory itself." She shudders with the sob in chest, but she keeps talking.

"It stopped being training long before I ever realized it. I couldn't see that back then at all. I couldn't see much of anything beyond the blood in my helmet. Now, it's clear through the scope. She was angry, and disappointed, and she wouldn't admit she was wrong. So, she hurt me. She did worse, and she hid it under 'training' to justify it. Buckets of ice water thrown on me any time as punishment for errors. Dragged out a place if I let my hair grow too long to be a liability in a fight — it wasn't allowed to be past a grip," she says, clenching a fist in some long ingrained old habit.

"And isolated. I was told I would be allowed this or that 'once I finished Basic Training.' And then more and more was taken away the longer I didn't. I wasn't allowed off the property. Then, no books, distractions. Once, she caught me in the Ironforge Library, and I — " She twitches, her arm moving like a livewire jolt before she steadies it. "Even Irona regretted that one, for how much damage it did, for how long it took me to recover. I was allowed nothing but training. I was punished for the slightest infraction or disagreement or disapproval. Backtalking, my mother would call it, and it was…something you weren't allowed to do to Irona Stormbreaker if you couldn't take her in combat.

"My brothers, not — not Silvano, he never joined in. But, the others, they'd been pushed down and hurt themselves in the name of training, even if they'd managed to form into something she'd made them into, and I'd been held up to be this… great ultimate thing, and now they could tear me down because I wasn't pure Ore either. So, they'd try to do it, goad her into hurting me. I learned not to talk back to my mother direct, but my face would still say my thinking, so my brothers would sometimes draw attention. Look, Ora thinks you're full of shite, that sort of thing. I learned to be even quieter. Smaller. As uninteresting as possible," she tells him, a hollowness in her voice, her hand coming up to her left cheek for some reason, lingering over it.

A long inhale and exhale, and a shrug. "After thirty years of that. I broke," she says simply. "I don't know if she had heard or just had some sense of things, or if coincidence matched up, but my Great-Aunt Nettie had been getting old, and needed help on her farm, and had sent word to her nephew, my father, asking if one of us could come help, and after another day where my mother sent me into the dirt, beat me down yet again, screaming at me. I broke. And I knew I couldn't be there any more. So, I left."

"Thirty years," Thalstan says in a low half-whisper, his arms tightening around Oranna protectively. That may seem like an entire lifetime to him. "That's not — if I could go back in time —" Thalstan seems to be struggling with words, and there's a faint underlay of anger suppressed in the words, but it isn't direct at Oranna, and he's holding her with the same warm comfort as before.

"I'm glad you got out of that," Thalstan says finally, and there's a faint hoarseness in his voice that might hint there's tears in his own eyes. "And you're right, Lireen would never. She helped train me, for a while after I joined up with Cobalt. For her, it was always about her helping with what her student needed to learn, and that's how it should be. Not about trying to turn a person into someone else."

Oranna nods, and she strokes a hand down his beard, and then gathers him closer to her as much as rests herself against him the way a person might after finishing a marathon, even one she's trained for, learned how to run, that still takes it out of her every time. "Aye. I've also seen warriors like Dane, and Lireen, and you. I thought my brothers were great warriors, trained by the best, but… I look back now and I see brittleness I didn't afore, didn't know how to see through the shadow of Irona Stormbreaker legend. I know now that when Irona had forged them by breaking them down, and making them so much in her image, that she never cared how much it meant that she'd melted them in ways that left them with these… pieces that would never be right ever again. They weren't better for it.

"And Lireen… and Dane, Ben, you — none of you would have ever kept going if I. Even if I'd asked you to, that all I'd wanted was to be a warrior, and you saw how I couldn't get my shield up no matter how we approached the problem. How — how I flinch when something comes at me, even when I can tell you, word by word, what to do in a melee what I should do, but I can't do it, that something in my instincts doesn't line up. When any of you saw it, not a one, would have kept trying to force me into that box.

"It's not something a person with any kind of caring does to another person. It's not training, even if the person thinks that's what they want because it's what they've been told they should be. It's something else. It took me… a long, long time to see that. I thought I failed something. I never did. My mother failed me." Oranna closes her eyes on it, letting the tears come out cleanly, as they trickle out along her face, soaking into the pillow gently. They're not so painful, these tears. When she opens her eyes again, she smiles at him, through the sadness.

"Your mother failed you," Thalstan repeats in confirmation, resting his head against hers. "But you continued. You're here now, and eventually you found a way back to the part inside of you that needed to grow." Thalstan squeezes her gently, closes his own eyes and says, "It's the farthest thing from failure."

"I can tell you for myself — I'm not from a long line of warriors," Thalstan says. "My da was kind of a burly, strong sort, but he was also a researcher, an explorer. I liked learning things, but he never pressured me down the same path. And then, I learned to fight because I chose to, joining the Ironforge Guard, and then later, in Cobalt. It's a cruel thing, to carve a path for a child so sharply defined that it leaves no room for who that child is. For you, and for your brothers."

"And you're right, if I were training you," Thalstan says, and his voice shakes a little. "If it were me, I'd have leaned into the things you were strongest in, found ways to sharpen those. Built confidence by finding where you shone, and helping you shine the brighter. A person who cares ought to want that, to want you to shine, even if it's not the same shine they have themselves."

Oranna does shine for him, nodding with the words. "You do. That's exactly what you're like. It's who you are with everyone, all the time, everywhere you go, as natural to you as breathing. And then, it's like you took breathing and decided to help with it. I… I really like it about you, Thalstan," she says and it's almost a lie, if only for that choice there of degree, to say she likes it, to avoid another word charged with context that maybe feels too soon, too strong.

"You're everything I've learned a warrior really should be, everything I've come to admire most in people like Dane, and Lireen over the years, and truth be told, you're…" She pats his chest lightly, not to push away, as she settles her hand over his heart. "Healing to know, just by existing, all as you are."

Thalstan rests his hand on top of hers. "I'm glad of it. I'm sure I'll make missteps sometimes, but the intent will always be there, because I…" he's not using the L-word just yet, not on the first evening of boyfriend-hood, "I care about you, very much. And I'm so sorry you had to endure through all that, that it caused you pain for so long after the hurt was inflicted. That it still hurts you some now."

He pauses to take a long breath, squeezing her hand in comfort. "Your Great-Aunt Nettie, then, she was your way out of all that?"

Oranna breathes out her own heavy sigh, and makes a nnn sort of sound. "Aye, and… ach. I wish I could tell you that I left, and I never went back, and everything got better and stayed that way," she tells him sadly. "But like Elo says, 'no one's story is one unbroken line,' and mine's… no exception.

"I went to Great-Aunt Nettie's farm. Something… had happened to her, a long, long time back, and she wasn't… right with people. Like me, like I do sometimes, she'd go away in her head, but longer. Sometimes for days at a time, and we mostly talked in notes. That's when I started learning Common, because she'd do trading in markets through the other farmers, by notes, and I learned how to read and write in it to help with the book managing. I always a decent head for it.

"We were well isolated out back at the farm, but for the first time, no was hurting me all the time. I could grow out my hair, or sleep without keeping one eye open for ice water. For about thirty years, I was a farmer. I had no love for it, but it was safe, and quiet, and that was what I needed," she says. "And then… Great-Aunt Nettie passed. And I found out the hard way that… she'd been a good place for me, but I'd learned how to help a farm… not trained to manage one. I — within months I was drowning. I tried, I tried to learn fast enough, but… it hit that point where it was sell where it was, or lose everything when it was all dead.

"And that's when my mother sent Silvano to bring me back, and I…didn't have anywhere else to go."

"Oh no," Thalstan says quietly, and there's a thread of pain in his own voice, on her behalf. "Oranna, I'm so sorry. I'm glad you had a chance for rest, for quiet, with your Great-Aunt, but then… going back into it, knowing what was coming." Thalstan draws in a shaking breath. "Knowing the pain ahead and knowing you can't brace hard enough for it."

"It wasn't… the same. I wasn't the same, and she knew it, too. We had a…" Oranna shrugs, but she rests more heavily on his chest. "I kept my hair, and my books. In exchange, I would manage the books for the family business of warrior jobs, not quite mercenaries, but they did work around, and my mother did train others. I couldn't leave the grounds, and I wasn't allowed to go with them on the jobs, still. I didn't have to go back to 'training,' yet, but we both thought I would relent, any day, accept my fate to get back in the training field. And of course, if I — 'misbehaved' or disobeyed or backtalked or when —" She jolts again, that livewire through her, but grips onto him tighter, like he might shield her from a blow that's already landed a hundred times over. And then, she exhales a hard breath. "That's… another story. But, this one…

"We were at an impasse, basically, my mother and I. I didn't believe I would win, not against Irona Stormbreaker. But in the end… neither of us saw what was coming. Because what happened was… the Horde came. And you know that story. We ran for Ironforge, and in the end, I wasn't a warrior. When Irona Stormbreaker chose who would hold the line for the civilians to make in, she put me with the civilians, and so I lived, and the rest of them died, bravely and heroically. For all that, my mother wasn't evil. She was just a person, who made choices, good and bad. That day, she chose to die, to make sure Ironforge could close those gates safely for those who couldn't fight to make it in.

"And so one last Stormbreaker carries on, even if she's not a warrior like her ancestors, even if she's broken a time or two."

"Aye, I know that story," Thalstan says sadly, his strong arms holding her tight, as if he can protect her from the past that's already happened. "And you are a Stormbreaker, whatever that looks like for you. And your ancestors ought to be proud, if they can peek back into the land of the living, to see you live through all of that and still find your way to healing."

Thalstan resumes stroking her hair and her shoulder as he says, "This is where you go sometimes, when you look away at the thought of family? To the first training, or the impasse?"

"No, not… or, aye, sometimes. It can come on strong. The first training's too blurry, but I'll remember a training, or a lot of the same moments all piled into one. The impasse was more of…gray slog of years of tenseness, broken up by sharp moments where we'd clash. But, it's hard to describe in general, to say if I go a place. I… it's more that I just… go places. I don't even know if the… 'training' is what started it. If learned something I shouldn't, or…" Oranna shrugs helplessly.

"They're memories. A lot of them are from the Second War, the Siege. Some of them are older, some of them are newer. It used to be worse. I used to not be able to talk about any of this without slipping in and out so much it was like being back there with half my foot there, and half here," she says with a deep shudder, like she's felt a sudden gust he hasn't. "But, I got into a practice with it, with Bargrimm, for the Three Prongs. I told it, more than a few times. And… the more I told it, the easier it got, and… like any story, I heard it differently, too. I saw it differently, when I could see it as more words and not just flashes of everything happening. It's like the other story, I… the more I wear it down, the less it hurts, but it doesn't… change the story."

"No, it can't change the story," Thalstan agrees with a touch of sadness. "But if it wears down the edges, and if it helps you to see it in a… maybe not a better way, but a clearer way… then I'm happy to listen to it as many times as you need."

Thalstan breathes deeply, letting the rise and fall of his chest reach Oranna, and thinks aloud, "Maybe that sort of… snagging… is just a thing that happens to people, when memories carry past a certain kind of weight? Like you were saying in the celestial temple place, the others got caught in their memories and — it sounds like it wasn't the same exactly, and it was magic, but there's a reason folk got caught in the memories they did."

Then he looks down to catch Oranna's eyes. "You've mentioned it a few times before, but what are the Three Prongs of Elo's method? You've said talking, and a comfy chair for it, but that's only two."

Oranna laughs, startled into it, and it clears some of the clouds around her, as she snuggles into him a bit more, catching his gaze and her eyes snag, but not on a memory so much on the blue of them for a few seconds. A few noticeable seconds, where she really is just… staring at him.

"Oh! Aye, the Three Prong Method. It's… well, it's a method of Healing, really. I went to Elo after I realized I wasn't… I'd spent some near twenty years in the mountains after the Siege and I'd still somehow never fully… stopped being in it. And he had some knowledge of that kind of thing, so. We talked about how I might try to get past it." She sets her hand against him to hold up a first finger.

"First Prong — Finding Joy, inspiration, happiness, some kind of passion for life. It's not about a one thing either, sometimes its about lots and lots of little things and a big thing. You have — you have to be careful not to put everything into one thing, because if you lose that thing, or that… that person," Oranna says, choking on the words, lips trembling as her whole face crumples with it, as her eyes fill up. "Aye, well, you understand where I'm going. Even if you do connect it all to that person you lose, sometimes that why you start back at Prong One again, and you… you build it back it up. You… find joy again. You find happiness again." Even through the tears, she smiles at him.

Thalstan's there with her for the stare, as caught in the gaze as she is, and then he nods along, listening to the explanation. When she gets to losing that person, all he can do is hold her as the tears return.

"Aye, joy's a good thing to find," Thalstan says. "All the little things — a sunset, or a picnic, or stories, or work with good people. Or maybe some tasty hozen noods. The big ones matter, but the little ones do, too. So that's the first prong. And the next?"

Oranna giggles at the hozen noods and the phrase right after. All Hozen noods sizes are valid. She beams a smile at him, sniffles, and sets the second finger in place. "Second Prong: Talking to people, telling the stories, to wear down the edges. That's the pulling up a comfortable chair part. It's doing it on purpose, and… like we talk about, telling it as a story, a — a true-true story, not a 'true' true story, not even like a Nnnn ELAnnnor Steelbloom," she says definitely very smoothly like someone who was going to say Elanor Steelbloom that whole time, and not someone else's name first, "story of something, you know as I mean? It has to be real. But, you tell as you mean to lay it all out when you go to do it.

"The point is to also tell more than just one person the same one. It's to learn how to… not be so afraid of being judged, because even those might judge you badly can still help, because maybe you'll think about why they see it so differently than you do. And to not be afraid of crying or being seen crying. I — I struggled with that at first. My mother… viewed crying as a weakness, and I never got any better at not crying, but I learned that being seen doing it was not good. I… hugging was another one I just didn't…grow up with, at all. We weren't really… held, any of us. I didn't know it would help until I tried it."

That fact is probably less surprising now than it might have been completely out of the blue an hour ago. Now, it likely just makes sense with everything else he's learned about Irona Stormbreaker and how she ran her household.

"And I found from experience that… having other people share their own stories of things, helps me sometimes, even if it's nothing the same. It doesn't really matter to measure by anything, of if there was pain or not or anything like. It just helps it feel like… I shared something of me, and they shared something of them, like a book exchange of a story club," she says, fumbling for the right words.

Thalstan looks down at Oranna curiously at the stumble over Steelbloom's name, but doesn't seem too concerned. Maybe she was about to say another author's name that she's too shy of right now.

"My parents were always free with affection," Thalstan says, snuggling a little closer. "Which might mean a hearty slap on the back from my da, or a big hug where you might wonder if you're about to be crushed — but he never went too hard. Tears… I don't think anyone did it a'purpose, but I did grow up believing a lad is not supposed to cry, for all lads have all the same feelings as lasses in their hearts. I try not to let things like that stop me, these days."

"But also I can see that, with the stories," Thalstan nods, his beard shifting with the motion. "If you just tell one person, then that person's reaction becomes all-important. If you tell a lot of people, and one person responds in a way that hurts, you can at least say — right, well, most people don't see it that way. So that's the two prongs, joy and talking, and then there's another?"

And she was on such a roll, too. He can see the thoughts going along, as she perhaps mentally peruses some internal journal, reading off the next — oh.

Her face twists, shies away, panics a little, considers how to prevaricate without being able to really lie or dodge from here, while her mouth motors along. "Oh, aye, the… Third Prong of the Three Prong Method, which is the name that I have called it this whole time," she agrees, the least suspicious introduction ever, off to a great start. "Not that a Two Prong system isn't effective all on it's on, like a good…two prong fork. That's a good… prong. If it was a Three Leg Chair System, it'd — it'd really need a third leg at least, because a Two Leg Chair is… a-although you could have a Two Leg… Ladder, and that's… A Healing… Ladder."

Oh, she's in full blown babbling mode. That's not a good sign. She's also in starting to pet and stroke his beard like a calming fidget, the way she usually uses her own hair, but even as she's talking, her thoughts are racing around, and she's coming to another conclusion that leaves her with slumped shoulders.

"And… and the longer I avoid it — the, the worse this is going to — I'll — " Deep breath. "It was always the one I had the most trouble with. Elo… saw the world a certain way. It's… the Third Prong is that you… 'Have Someone Who Loves You Unconditionally To Value You When You Can't, Or Won't, Love or Value Yourself.' He… he was talking about people like his daughter, or someone like that, of family and you know now with mine, I don't have that base of — aye. Unconditional." The tears come back, tiredly, and Oranna lets them. "And then, for a little while, I suppose I had something like, and then — " She slumps forward, resting her face against Thalstan with a defeated sigh.

She never holds up a third prong finger.

Thalstan obviously notes the panic, and the tram of thought going wildly off-track. Still, she doesn't say tram, so he listens, and follows along, and nods agreeably. Yes, a two prong fork works. No, a chair doesn't, but one might heal up a ladder…

And then, oh. There's the destination, and he can see why the route has been difficult.

"I reckon there are always people who love and value you, so maybe leaning on one, its a bit like the joy," Thalstsan offers. "Cobalt, they keep putting you on the forward teams. Here, in Deepholm, up in Northrend. And you know your team values you, and your friends. The folk you went into the celestial place with."

And he pauses, thinking of what he can say, when they're still too early for certain words.

"You know how I see you," Thalstan says finally. "I've written it, many times. The heroine, the one who endures. Beautiful. Valuable. Strong, but open-hearted, despite everything. That's not conditional on anything. My vision will improve, as I know you better, but none of that will go away."

He can see the words warm her, and they have an effect, because something in her believes them, too. He also might notice that the effect isn't only something purely emotional, as her hand stops holding a number up, and reaches up to sink into softer hair, while one foot slides up along a calf like she's climbing up a Thalstan ladder a bit.

She raises her head, and searches for the right words to try to explain. "I do. And I think — I can see it and feel it, because of where I am now. I don't — I value myself in ways that… I haven't ever, in all my life. What Elo was trying to give as a cornerstone is more about when it's all…gone wrong. When you really don't see yourself as worth anything, you don't believe it when someone looks at you the way you're looking at me right now. You — you can't trust it. Your mind lies and lies, that it's lies, they're lying. And… so, you need this… a bond of something, a bond that you can trust in that holds when everything else breaks. It's… not an easy trust to give, and I don't even know if it can be given a-purpose, of it's something that you can only feel deep down, decided for you. For most people, it's been there all their lives, with their mother or father or it started with their child.

"I never had it. Not once. I don't even know what it feels like. After Elo and I talked, I knew I'd have to rig something up, something else. I thought if not Unconditional Love of One Person, what about… if I could get… Unconditional Support from Many People, friends who care, who maybe if not love or through anything, but could each value through a hard time, and could take it in shifts…" Like a little Oranna Crisis Factory! Look, much like Oranna, it's a Work In Progress, okay.

"It's not only about caring deeply. I care about a lot of people, and I know some of them, they care about me, too. But trusting people is…harder. And trusting someone enough for…if not Unconditional Love but Unconditional Support?" Oranna shakes her head. "I… I can count on one hand and have fingers left over. I don't know everything it is that makes me feel what or how I feel about people in romantic way the way I do, or why it happens the way it does, as if one day I wake up and suddenly, it's like a magic spell, but I do know that it's not possible if I don't trust that person with all my heart." Oh, it's the big shiny eyes making eyes, the wide open doors straight down to her soul — of someone who has no natural guard, except for the one holding her.

Thalstan is perfectly fine to be a ladder. Climb him all you want, Oranna. He helps out a little by curling his leg around hers.

"I hope nothing goes that badly wrong for you, not ever again," Thalstan says, and his own eyes are unguarded and sincere as he meets her gaze. "I'm honored to be worthy of your trust, Oranna Stormbreaker, and I'll do everything in my power to never betray it."

"I'm sorrier than I can say, that you've not had that sort of bond, that sort of trust, from the beginning — it's not fair, that the people who ought to have given you that twisted it all around, whether they meant to or no," Thalstan says, and there's that touch of anger — though everyone he might be angry at has perished in the Second War, so there's nowhere here to place it. The anger is just here on principle, on her behalf, and then it fades. "But that's the past, and we're here now, the future ahead of us. Never having had a thing doesn't mean you never will."

Anger itself doesn't seem to bother Oranna — she appears to know well when it's directed at her versus something else. There's no flinch at its appearance in a general way.

Oranna nods. "And… the past five years, I've done and seen more and met more people than I have in near all the years afore it, excepting the year of the Siege in Ironforge, and that was… not the same at all. I've met people like me, who have that same… not right beginning. And they've found better stories, happier ones. Even — even if there's been tragedy, and loss, too. As long as it keeps going, there's second chances and sometimes third ones," Oranna says with a shaky breath, reaching in to press herself up against Thalstan's chest, laying her face to his heart.

There's that sense again that she's resting on him after a hard journey, and he's the safe bed at the end of the day that she can come back to, and finally collapse in an ungainly heap. Well, an ungainly heap with a lot of lush curves and a cloud of still-fresh hair crowding around him, and a dress riding up a little exposing some well muscled calves. It might be a matter of perspective.

"Maybe… afore another one of the Second Prong for me… we could… have one of yours?" she murmurs into his chest.

Thalstan's perspective is certainly not of ungainly, as he gathers her close and lets her rest where she can feel his breath, hear his heartbeat.

"Aye, alright," Thalstan says, and falls silent, thinking for a long moment. "I suppose… I told you I'd tell you about Tova, in the last letter. It's not a long-distant story — five years or so ago — so maybe I don't have the same distance. I might not be able to tell it right. But I'll try."

He breathes slowly for a bit, as he sorts out where to start. "We were together a year and some months, all told. I met her at a party, and things seemed to be going really well at first. She was… well, at first it felt like I had that unconditionalness, when she looked at me. Like we just got each other. But then she would get angry, and she wouldn't tell me why, and I… straight truth I still don't know why. 'You should know', she'd say, and then not talk to me for hours."

"I know it used to irritate her, the things I did for looks," Thalstan says, considering. "The… the shampoos and such, the skin treatments. Like she thought I ought to just have been born a cover model and stayed that way natural-like? I'm not sure. And then we'd fight over other things. If I didn't meet her exactly at the minute expected, like if a shoot ran over or the next guard shift was late."

Thalstan shakes his head. "Then we went to a party together, and she ignored me the whole evening. And then at the end she tells me we're done, and to never contact her again." He draws in a breath. "And so I haven't. And that storm's gone, whatever caused it."

Oranna is a soft listener, although he might be surprised by the surge of protective anger on his behalf of a past she also can't do anything about, an anger more readily rising for him than anything she showed at all on her own behalf. "Ach, Thalstan… I'm sorry. That's terrible. Not just in the feeling in the moment which must have stung something awful, but… I can tell and I know that the not knowing is it's own thorn that sticks in, and lingers," she says, soothing a hand through that mane of well-treated cover model hair that takes effort to maintain.

Befound raises up a paw and licks it loudly, with a brief wet chew, and another lick. Lick, chew, lick. Standard de-thorn procedure. You're welcome. You may thank her in meat.

"It's…hard when it's not really a thing you did. If it's… something that the person saw, and…" Her gaze slides to the right, and she's somewhere else for a second, and then back with him, her focus on him. "I don't think she treated you fair at all, not any of it, no matter her reasons, whatever they were, that she had in her head. I don't know them either, and… I've not any enough experience that I could help untangle them, except in one part, of your friendship, and knowing you, I don't know what she'd find that sort of fault in you about.

"And… Not that it's a competing or drawing a line atween her and me, but those things I was talking about, those little ways of bumping into old tracks left by someone else?" She deliberately picks up a lock of his hair bringing it towards her face, to breathe it in, brush it over her mouth and lips in a way she might not actually be completely aware of how sensual it is.

Or, wait maybe she is? That is starting to look Oranna Deliberate, a bit of dwarven second-base seduction.

"I like how you take care of yourself, and I know that it takes care. I do it myself with my own, and I'm under no illusions of how much effort it is. I — I also don't think there's anything wrong with you caring about how you look, or knowing that you look stunning, anymore than knowing you're as tall as you are, or that you're big and strong, and have black hair, and I won't ever ask you to pretend that somehow it happens behind a magic curtain."

Oddly, Thalstan does not seem to take Befound's excellent dethorning advice to heart. He does, however, enjoy the look of that hair, brushed over Oranna's lips.

There's a sudden heat in his eyes at the appreciation, and he shifts to be able to kiss her gently.

When he pulls back, he says, "That is the hardest part of it, that I hardly know how to even talk of it. Not knowing what exactly went wrong, or if I did something I didn't realize. It's a reason I appreciate the talking straight about things, and not guessing around or taking hints. If I'm doing something wrong, I'd like to know what it is."

Oranna appreciates the kiss, deeply, and when he pulls back to speak, that's not only sympathy in her eyes — that's fellow feeling, empathy that comes from experience. "Aye, I know it. I think… that's one thing we both have a… maybe it's a hard one to avoid, because it's a — we've both been on the other side. I — I might do something… wrong that might …" Her eyes dart away, and her shoulders start to pull in. "I can't control it as a… something I do without meaning to, or knowing how to not do and can't read, but I think. I think you're not the type to — " She's stuttering out a bit, but she takes a few breaths, resettles herself on him rather than spins out.

"I think of you as someone if something — anything — was coming at me, you'd step in. I — ever since the Nightmare, the Dream… I've only been more sure of it. I can't imagine you ever getting so angry at me, that'd you ever do anything to… hurt me. You're… safe." Saying it out loud only reinforces it, loosens her body language, reminds her, and she sinks deeper into him, relaxing a tension that had started to build into the early warning signs of shame. "So, even if someone misread me, and thought I was doing something I wasn't intending, and you got jealous, I think you'd step atween us, and you'd shield me. You'd… you'd protect me, before and after, and that wouldn't ever change, and I just believe it. Without any doubt at all. And that's I… I suppose I… that's the other story."

"I would, always," Thalstan says, and there's a note of certainty in his voice. "I'd shield you, from anyone or anything. And… if anything comes up that hurts me, I wouldn't leave you to guess what it was. I'd explain, and I'd trust that it wasn't meant to hurt. I trust you, without question."

Thalstan looks down at her then, and says carefully, "The other story… the next second prong?"

Oranna nods, and hides her face in his beard. "Aye. It'll… the sooner you know, the less guessing and it will explain a lot of — a lot of things. And I… need you to know sooner so you can also know if maybe… I might not be the right fit for certain… needs you might have," she tells his beard. Well, probably Thalstan. The beard is just the immediate recipient. Oh, needs. She's talking about… "It's about sex."

Oh, well that's direct. She did say she would be.

"Ah," Thalstan says, and it takes him a few seconds to find a more coherent response. "I could talk on the subject, and what it is to me, but maybe I'll listen first."

He starts to settle back, ready to patiently listen, but then maybe some pieces of things she mentioned finally coalesce in his mind, and he adds, "Actually, let me just say before you start — sex is a part of romance for me, but not even the main part. So whatever it is, just know sex is not the… the end goal, for me."

He gets a gusty wind in his beard of relief. "It's — I'm the same. Or… a similar. I…It's… a complicated, a bit. I want. To. Not in a general way, but with you, very specifically. I want to. Which is, great. I wasn't even sure entirely if — but then I saw you again today and I was very sure, there were all sorts of feelings in places, just looking at you, not to mention kissing and touching, and I was having thoughts and…" Thalstan might also be starting to having feelings in places, and thoughts.

"But." Ah. The classic stopper. "It's the… it's the but that makes it… not so, follow through on those thoughts and feelings easily, and I haven't really… I've only done all this once afore, and wasn't really planning on refining that conversation and that… method and process to have again, so…" She clears her throat awkwardly.

"I don't think I can… I — I might just stay here to talk and…" She means tucked under his chin, not making direct eye contact. "There's two stories. The first one is…back a little. During the impasse, with my mother, when I wasn't in training, but she was taking on others."

Thalstan tucks her in securely under his chin, his beard curling around her and his arms holding her safe and warm. He tries his best not to have particular feelings in places, or thoughts, because this is a serious conversation and he has at least some idea of the shape of what might be coming, if not the details.

"After the farm," Thalstan nods, only slightly, not to dislodge Oranna. "When you'd been kept a bit… isolated, except for maybe those who came to train."

He falls silent, waiting patiently for whatever might come next.

"There was one lad. Clyden. He'd come from far out away outside Ironforge, and had apprenticed to some of our neighbors to help pay for the lessons, and so while my mother was out on the jobs, he did work at our house, too, and I was… there. Too. Without my mother, and not in a training yard, and he'd be out working on the house jobs, and I would tend the garden, because now I could do that, as another thing. I thought… we were friends." Thalstan might already see where this is going. "I was, at least. I swear to you Thalstan, I didn't… ever see him anything other than that. I have no idea what it was he saw. I — I don't know if sometimes I'm showing something that I don't feel. Or saying something and being misunderstood." All those times she overexplains, tries so hard to clarify. It's not all from one place, but it adds into it.

"And I — I didn't see anything. For as long as I can remember… I don't know when I started seeing people like I do of — I've had an easy to read face, that I know. But I've thought people are easy to read, too. I didn't realize that it wasn't like that for everyone until I got older, and people would ask me, 'how do you know that?' or 'you act like you know what they're thinking,' and it just seems obvious to me. But that… when people are attracted to people, or me? I have a — a blindspot. A big one."

He might have a thought of it. A picture of a young Oranna, learning hypervigilance in her youth, to watch for every flicker of a thought on her family's faces, for when harm might be coming her way, for every emotion. But also, isolated, among a family with not only so little affection for her, but so little amongst themselves. With so little love, and so few people outside her family, where would she have seen those expressions of romantic feelings to train that eye on? Add in a nature not inclined to strong sexual feelings, and is it any wonder?

"And one day, we were talking, just talking, and out of nowhere — he kissed me. I — I didn't want him to. I didn't say anything or wasn't thinking of it. So I pushed him away. And he. He got angry, and he started yelling about how I'd been spending all summer leading him on, and." She makes an uncomfortable sound. "He grabbed me, and I was… me. I didn't… up close fighting. But, I was lucky. My mother was home, and she heard the shouting. I don't think he even knew what happened exactly. She had him off me and up against the side of the house so fast, I bet he heard the wind whistling." Irona, the hero! "I know I had in her hands." Oh, right. Well, Irona, the mixed bag!

"She told him that if he ever came there again, he'd face her in combat, and it was basically a threat that she'd kill him. I never saw him again." Pretty heroic of Irona. "But then she… she wanted to know what I'd said to him, what I'd done to make him think I'd wanted that. And I…still have no idea." Yeah, pretty shitty of Irona.

There's another rising of thwarted anger as Oranna describes the situation, and his arms circle her more protectively, as if he can shield her from this Clyden who is already long, long gone from her life.

"I'm glad… glad she chased him off," Thalstan allows, though he follows with, "though I wish she'd have laid the blame on him, where it belonged. I think sometimes fellows… if they want a person, they can make a whole thing up in their own heads. All you've got to do is… exist, and be civil enough that they can keep their daydream going. And nobody's going to go around being vicious to people just on the off-chance they might be attracted, that's not a reasonable thing to expect of anybody."

"I wasn't there, and I don't know this Clyden," the disapproval in his tone is clear, "but knowing you, I'd guess that was he was on about. Just a made up story in his own head that he never ran by you to check for truth, and then he got mad when you didn't play along with a script you'd never seen or agreed to. Nothing you did or didn't do."

Oranna might not have any answers from Clyden, but she takes consolation in Thalstan's response all the same. "Aye, maybe. I'll… never really know. And I think it's… some of it's that it was the first time it happened, but… not the only." That's ominous. "And that was years later. By that point, I'd also been reading a lot of books, and starting to realize that I wasn't… reacting a certain way. I hadn't felt anything that the books talked about it.

"Then the Siege in Ironforge in the Second War. I was talking to more people. And people would talk about… you know. Romance, gossip. Ask me didn't I think this person was attractive, or that person was beautiful, and so on. And I felt like I was always giving the wrong answer.

"It was like… talking to people who all saw a color I didn't, and they kept acting like… they'd say, 'Haven't you ever seen Blendetretch afore?' and I'd say, what's Blendetretch? and they'd look at me askew and then point to something like, blue, and say, you know, Blendetretch! And I'd be there, relieved that I had seen it, and so oh, aye. Blue, er, Blendetretch, a'course. And then, they'd point to brown, and say, and Blendetretch. And I'd go, oh, wait. That's… that's also… Blendetretch? And then they'd keep going and, it's a aquamarine or something, and say, and when it's really Blendetretch, and I'd realize, I definitely don't know what they're talking about." It's a metaphor. She clears her throat.

"So…anyway. When I started shooting as a sniper for the defense of the wall, like I told you afore, I'd not been some sort of soldier already, I was just a girl, who knew a bit. There was… a man who knew a lot about guns." Her voice changes, grows withdrawn, and she grabs onto him tighter, like she might be already trying to put him between her and something. "He'd lost an eye, and that had changed how he’d shoot himself, but not how he could train a person to do it. And he took — he took special notice of me. I thought — I thought at first just on account of spotting talent. Maybe… maybe at first that's what it was. Or maybe even from the start, there was something… else. Another reason. I — I don't know. I couldn't — if there was… I couldn't see it. My blindspot."

Thalstan cuddles her closer, already guessing in broad detail the direction this might be going. Quietly, he says, "Not your fault. Sometimes, the same problem with more than one person just means… its a bigger problem, and still not your fault."

Thalstan falls silent again, giving her room to continue but not loosening his protective hold on her.

"Aye, well. It's… if you're shooting off into a fog, and can't tell where it goes, you can't correct it either. I don't know what it is I'm doing. I don't know if it'll happen again."

Oranna speaks haltingly, reluctantly as she continues, but she fights through it, the urge to stop talking, or maybe at times, tell it another way.

"Towards the end of the Siege, I wasn't well. In mind, and other ways. I'd started to go… numb. Everything got strange, sort of far away, and I felt disconnected. The… man who trained me. Khaz. That's what he went by. Khaz," she repeats, like it takes extra effort to say his name, but she says it. "I told him about it, because he was… the one who I went to about problems to fix about things, so. He told me to come to his house, and he'd… make me feel good. Better."

She shifts her head against him, turning her cheek. "I wasn't simple, or 'innocent,' however people say it. I knew what he meant. I didn't know what attractive felt like, but I'd read novels with sex, and I'd been on a farm for thirty years with goats, chickens, helped with breeding several generations of cows, for Light's sake. I've had people think I'm clueless, just because I don't pick up on when someone's making eyes at me clearly or… don't seem to feel a way, but I got what he meant. I knew what I was agreeing to, it wasn't like with… afore where I was surprised out of nowhere.

"I didn't think anything at all like about Khaz. Not once. I just thought… maybe I'd get there and it'd… happen. Or… he said he'd know, so maybe it was like how no one in stories got guns right, but he knew all about them so…" Her voice shakes badly, and then, she shakes with it, but she keeps going. "It didn't. He. It was like… being a doll. He was touching me, and moving me. Laying me down, and more, and I felt… nothing at all. He kept telling me to relax, and. Then. He got some clothes off, my pants. And started to get a finger in. And it. Hurt. So I. I said, stop, it hurt."

She clears her throat, holds onto him tighter, breathes him in like a talisman. "He… scolded me, truth told, of the word for it. Told me off. I was the green one. Didn't I trust him? He was teacher. Lie back. Relax. Trust him. Stop tensing up. And I — I doubted myself. I — I'd learned to trust him. I believed it. I didn't think at the time that… there was a difference in trusting his knowledge of guns. Versus. That he wasn't an expert in Oranna. I was. I am." There, a little touch of anger herself, but it fades back, into something a little worse, hollow and still shaded in shame.

"So I let him. He got… more. Fingers more, I don't know how much, enough that I — it broke things. Ripped through hymen and bit of. There was blood. A lot. And it was. I've never been good with pain, and it. Snapped me out of — I shot up. I hit him, hard, on his blindside. Got my clothes. I barely remember getting dressed, but I must have. And… that was. The first experience of … that. It… left a mark, and I found that out the hard way, later, when I went to… when I to… when it was finally something that should have been good."

"I'm so sorry that happened to you," Thalstan says again, which he's already said tonight, and he might be beginning to feel a sense of futility in the words, as seem to be applied constantly to things he can't possibly help without the aid of bronze dragons. "You are the expert on Oranna, and no one else. And maybe Clyden had his blind spot, making up feelings that weren't there in his head, but Khaz… that seems like he can't have not known what he was doing. He had to know you weren't well, that you needed help and not…"

Thalstan cuts off, overwhelmed with feeling, his arms flexing and then deliberately loosening. "…not that. I'm glad you hit him. And I promise you, I will never try to do anything with you that you don't want. That you don't say out loud you want, or start yourself. No fog and no confusion."

Oranna finally lifts her head back up, and she's a greenish-shade of pale, and sweaty, but she's not frightened of him at all, only the stress of the memories, and she offers him a shaky smile, reaching up for him to bring herself closer. "I — I know it. Deep in my bones know it, Thalstan. It's not who you are. You… I don't know how long you might have had… an interest. It doesn't… necessarily matter, because you waited until I was ready afore you ever did or said a thing, and I — I needed that. You never pushed a single line, and I don't think you ever would.

"And it's why I said afore — I'll never leave you guessing, or hinting, aye? It's just not… a good place to start for me. To try to figure out if I'm showing I'm ready or if I even am enough. Sometimes, I'll also not be as… there will be times I don't seem to get a certain… mood. I don't know why. Even if I do all the same things. It doesn't mean I like you any less, or that I won't want another time. But no matter what, I'll be clear. Direct. Use my words.

"And — and we found that… we were going slow, and taking things… that the best is… if I'm the one to be the initiator? I guess is the word. Especially a new thing, me do the thing first, even though I'm less experienced, because it's… the. Putting the context of a teacher, teaching, and me the one who — " She cuts off, and perhaps a bit unexpectedly given the subject matter's tension, closes her eyes, and with lips trembling, says, "If you — you could, I'd — I'd like it if you'd kiss me now. And to stop talking for a bit."

"Aye," Thalstan says, and he has no problem fulfilling that request. He kisses her tentatively at first, gently exploring and inviting her to do the same, ready to stop at the first sign of discomfort. His arms still hold her, and his body is still pressing against hers, but he is careful not to push any boundaries. His hands stay where they are, and there is no sense that he intends the kissing to ever lead into anything else.

There's a bit of a trembling in his own hands, but not from fear, rather other strong emotions — the feeling he is holding someone very precious.

Oranna has her own tremors to calm, but the kissing seems to help, and her own hands are not still — she touches him freely, much as she did earlier in the day, that soft exploration of someone curious and still figuring him out, but with a desire to do so. There's a little bit of tension when he's not as much as active in body, but the kissing seems to put it to rest, and for long enough for Befound to actually start to doze off into a cat nap, all Oranna does is slowly show Thalstan that she might not be ready for more, and her body might be sending her certain memory stress signals, but other parts of her are all Thalstan Giant Blue Fireworks.

When she pulls back, breathless and glowing rosy, and much calmer, she looks up at him, that little zap again of having briefly pulled down the curtain of her eyes for a moment, and now, seeing him again, once more, shocked a little by the reality of the whole package in person with the new overlay of new feelings, new experiences. "You — " She clears her throat again. She sounds a bit hoarse. "You said you had some things to say, about your own… talking on the subject? I'd like to… hear them. And your voice."

"Talking…" Thalstan says, like that might be a foreign concept. Kissing, that is good language right there. And then he blinks, and tries to come back to the present, his smile still a little dazed and dreamy. While Thalstan was giving her zaps and blue fireworks, she can see the powerful effect she has on him as well. "Aye, yes, aye, I can talk."

Thalstan takes another moment to gather himself, which might make that assertion sound a little suspect, until he says, "What I was getting at before is that, there are folk for whom… sex is the main goal of romance. All folk are different, of course, and one way of being is not better or worse than another, so long's they treat people with respect. But for me, like I was saying before, it's just one part of it."

He pauses, and then continues, "That's what I was getting at before, when we were talking about cookies. It's a thing I'm interested in, aye, but as an expression of love. And the love, the caring, the trust, the person, those are the most important parts. To me, sex is one thing two people can do together, if they both want it, but there are so many other things. We can hold one another, we can kiss, we can try whatever game's in that box over there, we can talk, we can travel and sightsee together… there are so many things I'd like to enjoy with you, and that's just one of them."

"So I guess I'm saying… it doesn't need to grow bigger than it is," Thalstan says, and then winces a little as he reconsiders that particular word choice. "That is, I can wait as long as we need. And sometimes, later on, if I want to and you don't or the other way around, we can just choose to do something else, something we both want."

She did glance down. She couldn't help it. Bigger than it is? As in… already? He can practically see the question on her face, or above her head, as advertised.

"I — Aye. I know what you mean, and I'm glad, so glad to know it. I had a fear that maybe… you might have some expectations that could follow a certain way, and I'd never be able to match them. I suppose it really is the… clarity of knowing it's not… not a bad thing to have to sometimes say no, not now. It's not about feelings? For me, for sure it isn't, and if you say for you, I'll trust that, too. It doesn't mean I'm upset with you, or that you did something wrong the last time. And I promise you that you'll never have to guess, or that I'll leave you wondering if you were supposed to somehow 'know' or read it off me. None of that. Although, aye, sometimes, even as the… Oranna Expert, I have no idea what it is. I just… my head will be sometimes raring to go, and my body lagging behind, and I have to… stop and listen to it. I can't make it. It doesn't go well.

"Kissing always seems to be nice, I like any time. Touching most ways, also, but not… the sex kind. That is a whole process of warming up and testing waters. I'd gotten up to good on hands and," she clears her throat, blushing a shade of red that's Winter Veil festive, "mouths. I… might have to start over with it. What worked was with me going first. So, me on you, and… just me, in control, first. And see how that goes. I still haven't… gone further than that of hands, mouth. So. That's… a thing to know now, to set some expectations and also. Going further than that…That it's something I do want. It's wanted. I… thinking about it with you is a good thought. I'm not… ready for it, certainly not tonight, ready but… I like it, when I think about it, and it's easy to think about with you in a way I didn't expect it would be," she says, lighting up Pandaria, possibly blinding Thalstan up close.

"Hands and… mouths…" Thalstan nods, returning back to that dazed look for a moment, and then he nods. "Not tonight, definitely. Someday. Whenever you're ready for it, and I won't ask, alright? I'll just wait, and whenever you're ready, you can go first. And I'm… most likely to be a yes, I think. But if I'm not, it's not going to be because something went wrong before. I'll tell you why, and it'll be honestly why. Like maybe I've a muscle cramp, or I'm just too worn out from… fighting an apocalypse, probably. That seems to happen a lot."

"But whenever it's a no, not now, that doesn't mean we can't kiss and cuddle like we are tonight," Thalstan says, giving her another little squeeze. "There is no destination there's just, what we're doing now."

Even before she says the words, he can read it on her face, an easy one — she's happy. "I'm happy," she tells him, squeezing back. Well, a hunter's squeeze back. She's not a strength based class, and her dwarven heft isn't as naturally impressive when weighed against his own, but it's the thought that counts. She laughs, a bit hoarse still from the tears and the stress, but her beaming sunshine of an expression after passing through reliving of the horrors of her past is its own thing of beauty.

"You make me really happy, Thalstan. And…" She searches his eyes, bouncing from to the other, checking the blues. "I told you that… what I had to tell you would change how you saw me, because… well, aye, you know why now. But that it would hopefully be in a learning about, not in a… a seeing as a broken now, an old fear. And I… I don't see anything like that," she says, nearly a whisper, but he can tell, she believes it's true. She trusts him, that in the end, he knows her better, but he doesn't see her as less.

"Oranna," Thalstan says, losing himself in her eyes again. "Looking at you now, you seem so strong. To live through all that, to endure those decades, and to heal. More than once. I feel like I know you better now, and everything I learn about you only makes me admire you more."

"I'm happy, too," Thalstan smiles at her fondly, and leans over to kiss her again. He murmurs again, "You make me happy."

The kissing goes over just as well again, although it's more obvious that the telling of the stories has taken a toll, she's a bit slower, a softer, heavier weight in his arms. "I… I don't know if I can see… strong any more than hero," she murmurs back. "It's hard to see it. But. I used to see myself as… someone broken or just about, and trying desperately to not show it.

"And what I've learned is that it's not… who you are. It's a state of being, and you can change it. You can heal, and grow. And I've learned that… maybe on the hard flip side that happiness is also a state of being. You can't just get it, and then you have it forever. You can't…tattoo it on yourself. Well — I — " She looks down at her own forearms. "No, I — I guess even in the metaphor and sort of reality, you can. But, like both, you can also lose the limb. And maybe, you can be like Bargrimm and make yourself a new limb, or maybe you just get used to not having it, and you get a new tattoo in a new place, in the metaphor, but… I'm trying to say that.

"For all that I've been around for a long time, I've not had a lot of that time living, and I… I'm doing that now. Whatever that brings, and I'm really glad that for all the worst of everything, all the things I didn't choose, and wouldn't have, all those things I know you wish you could…erase for me too, that I… ended up here. With you. I really want you to know that. It's hard to find the right words for it." She reaches down for his hand to hold, and she tries. "Mordecai always says that grief is complicated, and it is. I'll always love Bargrimm, and I'll always wish he hadn't died. But he did. And it changed me, and it changed everything. And who I am now means you can't snap him back and it'd all snap me back, too. So, what I'm trying to say, what I've been trying to say today is, you're not a second choice, even if this is like a second chance at a happiness for me. You're everything I want. I want you, Thalstan."

Thalstan looks at her forearm when she does, and may be about to ask a question, but… there have been a lot of questions already tonight. Then at the last his expression softens with honest, vulnerable desire.

He says, "You can tattoo a thing, but yes, even that's not guaranteed forever. And for all the ways I wish I could've softened your road, for all I wish you didn't have that grief, I am happy you're here now, and we're facing this living together. If it isn't clear to read, from my face… you… the Oranna you are now, you're the one that I want."

Then he pauses and smiles, and says, "But tonight, it's starting to get pretty late. Breakfast, right?"

"Breakfast, aye," she agrees. "I wish I could have you stay. To — to sleep. Sleep stay. But, I really do… have trouble with it, in the best of times. It's from the Siege. The sound of someone else breathing, just that, and it sends me back. It can fade in and out. I hate it. I'm comfortable." She truly doesn't look like she wants him to go, but sometimes maybe this is what it will be like — Oranna having to make the call for what she needs, against what she wants.

She stretches up to kiss him again, the sweet sort of kiss he did before, the start of something of a casual, regular affection that doesn't start anything, simply marks a moment. "If you notice anything really strange in your thoughts, sudden…fear or doubt or even anger, that creeps in, you come talk to me, aye? Straight away. Middle of the night, bang on my door. Please."

Thalstan answers the kiss without hesitation, and then begins the detangle himself in preparation for leaving.

"I will — I promise," Thalstan says, and then he pauses, considering. "Any unusual anger, that is. I might have some of the usual sort, towards wars and folk who cross lines should never be crossed. But…" he smiles at her again, "…sleep well. I'll be waiting for you, in the morning."

The worry line pops back more visibly between her brows, but that's Pandaria for you. There's a reason she says it's not the most restful place for her. "Aye. Sleep well."

He gets also the demonstration of what it means when she says she can't help a level of honesty on her face, a certain involuntary peek into her head, that really does wish he could stay, that she already misses the warmth and weight of him, and she's thinking she about how she doesn't like the way she is, the way if she wasn't like this, he wouldn't have to.

Befound is right behind him, almost right up against where his knees will be if he tries to back out of the bed, looking at Oranna. It's not a trap.

"Lass! Ye'll trip him!" Oranna scolds sharply, sitting up abruptly. "Stop that, right now."

Befound is falsely accused! Who, her? She has never tripped anyone in her life, Oranna. If anyone might have tripped over her, it would have been they who would have kicked Befound like the football!

Thalstan pauses in the process of backing out of the bed, at Oranna'a scolding of Befound, and looks back to see the totally-not-trap. He navigates around her carefully, with an amused smile.

"Watch out for her, lass," he says to the leopard, entirely unnecessarily. "Till the morning comes."

Oranna's face softens again, as she brushes her suffocation risk hair to one side.

Befound sits by the bed, innocently licking a paw with a cat's confidence of being utterly sure of her place in the world. It's the changing of the guard. Till the morning comes.