Golden Eyes

4 - Back to Stormwind

"I'm going to check the perimeter. Do you want to come?" Lothar asked Karandra.

She nodded. They started walking in the dark in silence.

"You don't talk a lot," he said after a while.

"I only talk when asked to," she replied with a shrug.

Another silence fell upon them as Lothar didn't know what to say next.

"I could easily run away from you right now," she told him a few minutes later. "Go back to them".

He stopped and looked at her.

"Will you?" he asked, his voice nearly a whisper.

She could sense the concern in his voice. Even a bit of sadness.

"No," she honestly answered. "There is nothing but death for me back there".

"I won't let that happen," he said quickly, taking her hand.

She stared at him a few seconds and slowly pulled her hand free. They walked back to the camp. The soldiers were asleep. Garona was lying not far from the fire, and on the opposite side was Khadgar, eyes lost in the fire as he was taking his watch.

She sat against the mountain, Lothar went to take a piece of meat and then sat next to her.

"Well, at least you're not reading," he teased Khadgar.

"He wishes to lie with me," Garona said.

Karandra chuckled and Lothar looked highly amused.

"Beg your pardon?" Khadgar asked, baffled.

"You would be injured," Garona continued.

"I don't want to lie with you," he retorted.

"Good. You would not be an effective mate," Garona said bluntly.

Karandra was trying her best to hide the beginning of laugh she was having, and Lothar was smiling widely as he was eating, enjoying the show, chuckling now and then.

"Why do you laugh?" Garona asked him.

Lothar didn't know what to answer, looking back and forth between the two.

"I can't see how you humans survive such a thing. No muscles to protect you. Little bones that break".

"You don't look that different to us," Lothar replied. "How do you survive?"

"Broken bones heal stronger. Mines are very strong".

Karandra's jaw clenched tightly. Garona and her knew that better than anyone. Lothar looked away, embarrassed.

"I'm sorry," he told the green half Orc.

"Don't be. My name, Garona, it means "cursed" in Orc. My mother was burned alive for giving birth to me".

"They kept you alive though," Lothar said, somehow trying to comfort her.

"Gul'dan did. He gave me her tusk, to remember her".

She lied back in her blankets. Karandra then spoke up, looking into the fire.

"My mother died giving birth to me. Gul'dan gave me her necklace, not even her tusk. Repeating me every day how weak she was, and what a shame she and I are for Orcs. Reminding me all the time how grateful I had to be because they let me live and were keeping me alive. They allowed me to survive all these years..."

"And how old are you?" Khadgar gently asked her.

She counted on her fingers as she remembered what the soldier taught her earlier.