World of Warcraft: Journey of the Huntress

Chapter Three

Larraine had been nine years old when she first found her faithful wolf. He was just a cub, and one of his back legs had been caught in a trap set up by Ma Stonefield in one of her many attempts to be rid of Princess the pig. Larraine freed him from the trap, bandaged his broken leg, and begged her father to let her keep him as a pet. Being a devoted parent who gave her everything he could to make her happy, her father had easily given in to her request with the stipulation that she would have to take care of her new pet herself. She was more than happy to comply, and made sure to feed and care for the pup every day. She also started training it to do tricks and taught it to play fetch, and soon the two were inseparable.

One day, not long after her tenth birthday, her father took her to Stormwind with him to deliver an order of new weapons to the barracks of the military. Since he usually spent some time afterward catching up with his former comrades-in-arms after dropping off his goods, Larraine found herself alone in the park district of the city with her pet. The two of them played fetch with a ball she had fashioned out of some old rags, and each time she threw it the pup would bring it back to her. Except one time, after a throw which had gone particularly far, he didn't come back. Larraine called for him, but he still remained out of her sight and so she decided to go investigate.

She came up behind a boy with blonde hair who was kneeling down and talking to her wolf, scratching him behind his ears. To her surprise, the wolf rolled over on his back to expose his stomach – which the boy promptly began to rub and scratch as he laughed and told him what a good boy he was. Larraine drew closer in curiosity, calling out to the boy to alert him to her presence, then gasped in shock when he turned his head to look at her.

"Y-Your Majesty!" she greeted the young prince, who had recently been named King of Stormwind after his father unexpectedly disappeared while on a diplomatic mission. She gave him a deep curtsy, her eyes cast downward in shame for not having realized sooner who he was.

"Is this your wolf?" he merely asked her as he continued to rub her pet's belly, and Larraine nodded, running her hands nervously along one of the braids her father had fashioned her hair into that morning before they left their small home near Goldshire.

"What's his name?"

"Fang, Your Majesty," she answered, continuing to keep her eyes averted from his gaze. She saw him stand up out of her periphery, and he took several steps closer to her until he was directly before her.

"And what's your name?" he asked her, bending down to look up at her.

"Larraine, Your Majesty," she quietly told him, meeting his eyes briefly before averting her gaze once more as she began to blush.

"Anduin," he corrected her.

"I know your name, Your Majesty," she told him, the color in her cheeks increasing.

"My name isn't 'Your Majesty,'" he reiterated. "It's Anduin. You can call me that."

"O-Okay... Anduin," she complied with a small nod, and Anduin smiled brightly at her.

"Much better. So, I'm guessing you named him Fang because of his missing tooth?"

Larraine finally raised her head to look at him properly, blinking in surprise at how easily he'd figured out the origin of her pet's name. Fang had been missing one of his top canines when she found him, and it had yet to be replaced by one of the larger, sharper ones adult wolves had.

"That's right, Yo- Anduin," she quickly corrected herself. Anduin continued to smile at her, and with a nod he handed her the ball she had made for her pet.