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Ripple Recovery	By : wanderingaddict Category: +S through Z > World of Warcraft Views: 5633 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own WoW or even these characters. I have made no money from this and have not profited from this in any way.

Chapter List
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Blearily, the orc rubbed the crust from his eyes, working his
tongue to get the dry taste of morning grit from his mouth. Blinding
pain pulsed somewhere roughly in the middle of his head.

Ugh, his head ached. What the hell had happened last night?
He never let himself get this hungover! Malton was just glad that the
Broken Keel was cheap enough that he didn’t have to share a
room with his Pa. If his old man had caught him in this condition,
the old orc would have gleefully made Malton’s morning hell.

When he moved to sit up, he found another unpleasant
surprise. A painful twinge from the head of his cock- scraping
against the inside of his leg- told him that his foreskin had gotten
pulled back at some point during the night and was trapped behind the
thick glands on the end of his dick. Surreptitiously snaking a hand
down the front of his underwear, Malton peeled the skin loose,
wincing as the semi-glued flesh was pulled apart. The relief he felt
at the slide of the skin over the sensitive head of his cock was more
than worth it though. He hated when the excess skin got rolled up
like that.

Well, it was one hell of a sure sign that he’d gotten
laid last night. Shame he didn’t remember who it was with. He
glanced around the spartan room, seeing no obvious signs of the
person he’d taken to bed.

The orc thought about that for a moment, and then decided
that it was probably for the best. There had been… several…
times… in the past that he awoken from a night of binge
drinking, only to regret it the moment he opened his eyes and
realized just who (and what) it was he’d shared his bed with.
The hairs on the back of his neck started to stand.

Malton, feeling apprehensive, quickly threw back the covers,
just to be safe. The sheets were bare, and cool to the touch. No one
was there either. He breathed a sigh of relief. If he’d really
had drunk-sex with someone, they were long gone.

Standing, he stretched, cracking his thick green neck in the
process. The orc, rolling his broad shoulders to get the last few
kinks out, bent at the waist to pick his clothes off the ground.

The common room of the Broken Keel was bustling with people
by the time Malton got down there. He paused for a moment, glancing
around the room out of habit, and was momentarily surprised to see
that Gilvarin Sunchaser was eating breakfast two tables away.

When he thought about it, however, he realized he really
shouldn’t have been startled at all. The Broken Keel was
the cheapest inn in the port, after all, and if the low price a room
had attracted Dran, it would have certainly attracted Gilvarin’s
father as well.

With a turn of his head, Gilvarin suddenly caught sight of
Malton. He waved at the orc, gesturing for him to come over. Well,
fortunately it didn’t seem like he had made too much of an ass
of himself. The elf was still willing to talk to him, at least.

“So…” he started to say, trying to think
of the best way to frame his question. Malton nervously spread his
hands over his knees under the table. “What uh, happened last
night?”

Gilvarin glanced up at the orc, moving his mouthful of
plainstrider egg to one cheek. “You seriously don’t
remember?” he asked. The elf swallowed quickly, laughing a
little at Malton’s plight. “Well at the rate you were
chugging down those ogre brews, I’m not surprised!” he
exclaimed, “Every time I got you a new one, just-,” the
elf tossed his head back, mimicking the hard move of an experienced
drunk. “Bam, right down the hatch!” He laughed
good-naturedly, his blue eyes twinkling as the orc was almost pulled
into the infectious mood as well. Almost, but not quite. Seeing the
seriousness in Malton’s eyes, Gilvarin remembered himself and
schooled his grin, shrugging helplessly. “I don’t know,
we talked for a while about what the hell was taking so long for
Thrall to marry Jaina?”

That much Malton remembered. The two leaders’
attraction towards each other was more or less an open secret, and
most of the Horde was getting rather tired of waiting for one of them
to make the step towards the other. He must have blacked out
somewhere in the middle of it though; he certainly didn’t
remember the end. “And then?” he pressed, resting his
elbows on the table.

His mouth opening slightly, Gilvarin shook his head, as
though he were having a tough time remembering himself. “Then
these two goblins came by, and I,” he scrunched his nose, “I
think we tried to learn some sort of step-dance with them…”
The elf shrugged again, taking another bite of his omelet and chewing
thoughtfully. “Maybe? I think that’s what it was. A
dance, I mean. Then there were the six or seven games of red-hand
against that five-fingered troll, and that’s about it I think.”
The matter over, he stuffed another few forkfuls of egg into his
mouth.

There had to be more- the orc knew that he wasn’t
nearly so lucky as to not have had something terribly embarrassing
happen to him when he was that drunk! “But after that?”
he pressed, “We really just went back to our rooms?”

The elf shrugged. “As far
as I know, yeah.” Gilvarin’s gaze suddenly snapped back
to the orc’s, the elf leaning across the table slightly. “Why,
what do you think happened?” he asked, with just a slight bit
too much curiosity in his voice.

“Ah, nothing,” Malton said hastily, more than
unnerved by the sudden interest that lurked deep within the elf’s
eyes. “Nothing. Just wondering.” He was not about to- not
for the life of him- admit that he had been worried that there was
going to be some Tauren barmaid winking at him today. Or, worse, some
rotting Forsaken girl.

The thought of that made him wince. There had been this one
girl, once, who had rolled her tongue at him through the rotted hole
in her cheek. Malton grimaced, shuddering mentally.

He’d probably just gotten lucky with his pillow was
all. Shaking the night- and the gap in his memory- from his thoughts,
the orc focused himself back on the present, where an all too curious
elf was eying him hard from across the table. “Nothing,”
Malton yelled, his face heating. “It’s nothing!”

Unfortunately for him, however, once something had piqued
the elf’s interest, he never let it drop. Like a dog with a
bone, Gilvarin gnawed at him constantly, steadfastly refusing to be
thrown off by anything Malton said. In the face of the elf’s
hard, penetrating stare and intense questioning, the orc was forced
to break down. His face purpled and flushed, Malton finally gave up
and confessed to having had a one-sided relationship with his
mattress. “I got lucky with my damn pillow alright!” he
shouted, having had more than he could take of the elf’s
constant pestering. Realizing he had practically yelled it across the
room, the orc snapped his mouth shut, his face nearly crimson in
embarrassment.

For a moment- when Gilvarin blinked at him blankly, his
long, elven ears twitching slightly- the orc had the niggling
suspicion that his night with his pillow had not been what the elf
was expecting to hear. The immediate guffaw, and the fact that
Gilvarin almost fell out of his chair because he was laughing so
hard, drove the sneaky thoughts from his mind, however. Feeling
awkward and more than a bit uncomfortable, Malton faked a little
laugh, not really seeing the humor, but the elf didn’t see fit
to share.

Instead, the man finally let the matter drop- for which the
orc was more than grateful- blithely moving on to the recount a few
more adventures from the night before. Malton quickly found that the
elf was an excellent story-teller, and by the time their fathers had
decided that particular business meeting was over, he was quite
startled to find himself eagerly looking forward to the next time
he’d meet Gilvarin again. Even if that meant he had to hike his
way through the fucking Vale.

Idly scratching the smooth, green skin of his brawny
forearms, Malton sighed as he trudged along the HighVale road. The
unfortunate addition of the elves to his little one man party more
than dampened his mood. It was just too bad that it wasn’t his
friend alone who lived in the Vale.

Not that it was Gilvarin’s fault he lived in the
prejudiced middle of nowhere. Being the youngest of ten children,
Gilvarin was finally forced to ‘pull his weight’ as his
father said, by taking over the books of their HighVale holdings.
Apparently, with the secession of Quel’thalas from the
Alliance, the leaders of Silvermoon were intent on reigning in all of
the high elves across Azeroth, regardless of whether or not they had
embraced the new ‘blood elf’ ideology. The Sunchasers
were the ones tasked with returning the city of Quel’Danil and
the Vale to the fold, and the Sunchaser patriarch wanted ‘someone
at least marginally competent’ to deal with the situation. Or,
that is, to hear Gilvarin tell it.

So his friend was sent off from Quel’thalas, and away
from any dealings between his and Malton’s fathers. Malton had
originally half-expected their friendship to end there, but was
pleasantly surprised to find a letter from the elf waiting for him in
the mailbox one day, detailing his friend’s first impressions
of the Hinterlands; the great Griffonry in Aerie Peak, the Wildhammer
dwarves, and the journey through the high, mountain passes. The
letter was a few weeks old, of course, but Malton dutifully wrote
back, struggling to find ways to make his response as funny and
interesting as he could. Much to his continued surprise, a month
later he found another letter from Gilvarin as well.

His friend’s responses were sporadic at best, but they
came nonetheless. At first they were nothing but short impressions of
Gilvarin’s first few months in the Vale; the details of the
place, some of the people he had met, and his various duties
throughout the day- most of which seemed to consist of policy review
and the overhaul of the old record-keeping systems.

It didn’t seem like Gilvarin had minded too much. At
first, at least. He’d always been good with figures and it
wasn’t long before the holding’s earnings far outweighed
their expenses. But, all too soon, the tone of the letters began to
worsen. The elves of the HighVale were deliberately obtuse, and
getting them to come to any sort of consensus regarding anything,
anything at all- from the split of Quel’Thalas with the
Alliance to even just deciding on a proper bookkeeping system- was
harder than herding cats. Eventually, Gilvarin’s letters became
nothing more than long-winded rants about whatever elf had slighted
him that day, or how another meeting had fallen flat and devolved
into nothing but name-calling (and though his letters never did say,
Malton was pretty sure that it was usually ‘Varin who flung the
insults first). Malton knew his friend wanted nothing more than to
get back to Silvermoon though. Gilvarin poured out all of his
frustrations with elves of the Vale in his letters to Malton, and the
last one had been particularly vehement. It didn’t seem to
matter to the HighVale elves that Gilvarin was obviously an elf like
them. As far as they were concerned, since he wasn’t born
there, he was an outsider too, and they made sure he knew it every
chance they got.

Still, Gilvarin stubbornly
refused to leave, despite whatever many frustrations he had with his
fellow elves. Unfortunately, that meant that when the orc decided to
actually visit his friend in person, Malton was the one who had to
face the extreme, xenophobic racism of the HighVale elves. The first
year had been particularly bad. The Rangers at the checkpoint had him
stripped to his loincloth and locked him in a cell, tossing insults
and mud for nearly an entire day before Gilvarin showed up, spitting
fire and brimstone at every elf unfortunate enough to get caught in
his way.

Later, he’d find out that his wealthy friend nearly
halved the wages of the entire corps, something that didn’t
exactly endear the orc any with the new patrol he encountered on his
next visit. At least they didn’t keep him in a cage for a day
though.

Over the years, however, as their wages gradually rose again
(although it didn’t seem like Gilvarin would ever forget any of
the slights against him or his green-skinned friend), the animosity
among the HighVale elves had faded somewhat, if only to the point
that it was an open distaste rather than outright hostility. Three
years was not a long time, by elven standards, not nearly enough time
for any real changes to take hold, though. His friend still
complained about the fact that most of the elves he had to deal were
still nothing but sticks in the mud. The minor irritations
they caused were just a lot more subtle, of late.

The orc could understand exactly where Gilvarin was coming
from. The pettiness of the HighVale elves truly did know no bounds.
His heel was hurting so bad that every time Amberglade dragged the
hard, rough toe of her foot down, it felt as though she had lined it
with razor blades. She had been particularly spiteful ever since the
blonde Ranger had reigned her and Hawk in earlier, trying to
compensate for the loss of entertainment- and maybe even for some
perceived loss of face- by being especially vindictive. The only
thing that had changed was that she was being far sneakier and silent
about it, so as not to draw the blonde’s attention.

Suddenly, Malton found himself once again on intimate terms
with his old friend, the ground. He had fallen harder this time than
before, and he didn’t doubt that Amberglade had deliberately
waited until he least expected it before she tripped him again. It
was getting difficult for him to keep an impassive expression on his
face but he managed. He’d die before he gave her any
satisfaction.

At least she kept her usual snide comments to herself, this
time. Rather than gloat as she was prone to do, she walked straight
past him as though nothing had happened at all, a self satisfied
smirk on her lips. Well, at least she wouldn’t be able to cause
trouble behind him anymore.

Gritting his teeth, he managed to keep up for a time but it
felt as though burning nettles were shooting up into his leg with
every step. He began to walk a little slower and inevitably dropped
behind, which wasn’t a good thing. It would draw Hawk and
Amberglade’s attention again, he was sure, but there wasn’t
much he could do other than shorten his strides enough so that his
hobbling steps wouldn’t turn into an outright limp.

“Halt.” The sound of the little blonde’s
voice startled him. Glancing up, he caught sight of her striding to
the side of the road, where she dropped her pack and sat down as the
other two Rangers turned to eye her quizzically. “We can stop
here for a few minutes,” she said quietly, as dryly as she had
before.

Sharing a glance, Hawk and Amberglade blinked at the woman
in surprise before they turned and started to argue with her. “What?”
Hawk snorted, raising one eyebrow in derisive surprise. Amberglade
huffed, crossing her arms and asked, rather pointedly, “Weren’t
you the one who was getting all huffy about getting back to camp
quick?” Neither of the other two Rangers ever seemed to be
happy with anything the little woman said.

The blonde, however, remained unfazed, simply staring at the
other two Rangers blankly. “No,” she said, her tone more
than cool, “I’m the one who’s calling for a halt.”
Her voice was as flat as her eyes.

Hawk held her stare, shifting his weight from his right leg
to his left as he challenged her silently. Amberglade simply sneered
outright.

Malton was actually relieved about the stare down
competition. It meant that he wasn’t the focus of attention. He
took advantage of the opportunity to see if he had anything in his
bag to ease the pain in his heel. Walking as unobtrusively as he
could, he kind of half shuffled, half sidled over to the grassy
roadside and eased his hard butt to the ground. Opening his bag, he
thrust his big green hand in and started rummaging around in its
depths, his face a mask of concentration as he tried to feel for the
cool, smooth container that he was sure he had packed. At first, he
didn’t want to move too obviously; he was trying to be
inconspicuous so the elves could continue their little power struggle
and he would get more time to rest. In the end he was forced to open
his bag though. He could, not for the life of him, find the salve.

The mouth of his well-worn traveling bag gaped loosely, and
Malton could see virtually the entire contents that he had carried
with him from one end of Azeroth to the other. Studiously ignoring
the few pieces of old fruit that were starting to look a lot more
like science experiments, he kept digging until he felt a heavy gaze
land on his back. It was all he could do not to groan with
frustration- the orc had been trying so hard not to draw any
attention to himself at all. He looked up and sure enough, Hawk was
glaring at him, and then the elf’s eyes dropped down and
narrowed slightly. Following the direction of his stare, Malton saw
his most prized possession, his journal, was clearly visible in his
pack, floating like jetsam on top of the other sea of mostly useless
junk he carried. Before he could stop himself, Malton shot his hand
down and closed his pack over it.

It was too late though, it had already caught Hawk’s
attention- but rather than immediately diving for the bag and
snatching it away as Malton half expected he would, the elf huffed
indignantly and turned back to the blonde ranger.

“I’m going to go ahead and make my report to the
captain,” he said and turned haughtily on one foot, pausing for
only a heartbeat, more out of habit than real consideration. “Can
you watch him yourself?”

He hardly even waited for her nod before he turned his
attention back to the road. He and Amberglade started walking,
and- to Malton’s relief- neither of them even bothered
to toss a contemptuous glance his way. The orc wouldn’t have
really cared if they had, although he was glad that he wouldn’t
have Amberglade stepping on his mangled heel anymore. Mostly he was
just relieved that his journal had remained safe. He heard the two
elves muttering between themselves as they disappeared down the road
and then the wind carried their nasty voices back or they raised them
deliberately so that the blonde ranger would hear what they said.
Considering what turds the pair were, Malton suspected the later was
a little closer to the truth.

“Probably gonna twist her cunt up about this too…”
Amberglade muttered, though the words were still loud enough to
clearly be heard. Hawk threw his head back and laughed, Amberglade
joining in as they elbowed each other on their way down the road,
eventually disappearing behind a particularly dense stand of pines.
It took longer for their voices to fade though, with an occasional
burst of loud laughter echoing down the HighVale Road.

Malton didn’t bother looking up, too busy eying the
heavily abraded green skin on the back of his foot. He winced at the
sight of the raw flesh and twisted the lid off the jar he held in his
hand and the astringent, crisp smell of pine filled his nostrils. The
orc finished dressing his chafed heel, the cool balm of the healing
salve a welcome relief as he smeared it over his skin. Once more he
felt a heavy gaze on him and he almost rolled eyes, wondering what it
was with these elves and their intense gazes that actually seemed to
weigh something!

The blonde Ranger was staring at him this time and he
stiffened slightly, casting a wary glance in her direction. She
looked pointedly at his heel as though attempting to decide if he had
finished tending his wounds and ready to continue. His jaw almost
fell open with shock and realized she must have forced a stop for the
sole purpose of allowing him a breather. He put the salve back in his
bag and looked at her again.

“Thank you, Ranger.” Malton spoke softly, in
Thalasian so perfect that if the ranger hadn’t seen him speak,
she would have doubted that anything but an elf had spoken.

She didn’t say anything, looking away from him so as
to avoid even acknowledging his thanks. More than used to such
treatment from the races of Lorderan- be they human, elf, or dwarf-
Malton simply let the matter drop. He’d been polite and that
was all that mattered to him.

Everyone else could be as rude as they liked, it was water
off a duck’s back to Malton Droffers. He had his own standards
though, and while he was the first to enjoy a prank or a joke, it was
never at anyone else’s expense. Well, maybe at his father’s,
but that didn’t count- not when the old man was so easily
riled.

Malton began to enjoy the journey again, now that Amberglade
and Hawk were gone. He couldn’t help but appreciate the
richly forested area. He turned his head this way and that,
breathing deeply of the crisp, clean air. A few times he bent
forward and tried to look along a break in the tree line to see where
the forest ended. He couldn’t and assumed they must
extend high into the mountains.   Every now and then they
would pass by a huge, upright stone suspiciously clear of lichen and
moss, and Malton would feel the tingle of ancient magic wash over his
green skin. Runes were carved into the pillars of rock, and they
glowed pastel colors of pink and green and blue. They truly were
beautiful, and he sucked in a deep, appreciative breath every time he
passed one of them, or any of the other strange, but magical, elven
relics.

Before long they reached the Rock River outpost. As the only
building this far out on the only road in and out of the Vale, it was
the main gathering point for any and all of the Ranger patrols, which
formed the basis of the HighVale elves’ true strength.
Even though it was fundamentally a military compound, it was still
beautiful. The HighVale elves had some of the oddest architecture he
had ever seen, though the orc had long since gotten used to the sight
and even come to appreciate the inherent beauty of the long, graceful
curves of the elven buildings.

Set far from the more civilized, northern edge of the Vale,
where stood the city of Quel’Danil itself, the Rock River
outpost was a simple longhouse, built from a heavy, dark wood and an
even darker stone. It possessed a somewhat commanding view of the
HighVale Road, and was the base camp for all the patrols in the area.
The soft, shallow waters of the Rock River skirted fairly close to
the building itself before twisting around and meandering back in the
same direction it came.

Green and brown-clad woodsmen milled about outside the
barracks, some talking in small groups and others moving more
purposefully. More than a few of them turned to stare, however, as he
followed the little blonde Ranger up the road that led to the
barracks itself. Malton hunched his shoulders surreptitiously,
keeping his eyes cast down so as not to draw any more trouble.
He knew from experience that elves like Hawk and Amberglade were as
common among their race as elves like the nameless Ranger before him
were rare. The elves’ chatter started to die down, and in the
quiet there was only the too-loud clunk of his boots on the gray
flagstones for comfort.

He heard the lithe Ranger stop suddenly, and lifted his head
to see why. Another elf, with the same pale blonde hair as the
Ranger, was emerging from the barracks, a book in one hand. This elf
was not clad in simple leathers and forest greens like the other
Rangers. Instead he wore brilliantly layered silk robes, all of them
in shades of blue save for the green bands that signified his high
rank. A mage, Malton surmised, surprised that one of the spellcasters
would have even considered leaving the comforts of Quel’Danil
for the much harder life of the border guards. Well, it certainly
explained why he carried himself with an aura of pure authority.

“Captain Hillfallow?” The blonde ranger spoke as
though she was surprised that the elf had actually come to see them.

The Captain looked them up and down with scathingly hard,
blue eyes. His lips were set in a firm no-nonsense line and, for all
that he had adorned himself as ostentatiously as most elves tended
to, the authority of his presence was unmistakable. The reason
he had come out personally to meet them became apparent as soon as
the man opened his mouth. “Ranger Hawk made his report, and
from such it was my belief that my presence was needed,” the
mage said, taking care to speak in Thalassian as he eyed Malton
suspiciously. “Well?”

Malton thought that it was rather clear that Ranger Hawk’s
report hadn’t been very flattering. The mage’s heated
gaze as he looked him up and down was far more than a little
accusatory.

The other thing that was obvious to Malton was that the
blonde Ranger was clearly intimidated by her superior. She
covered it well though, relying on standard Ranger behavior and stood
at crisp attention to give her report. “Outrunner Farshadow
sustained minor injuries. She and Ranger Dwhier be along shortly, as
well as a wagon bearing all pertinent tribal charms we felt might be
valuable to the negotiations with the Revantusk trolls.” She
glanced quickly at Malton before snapping her eyes back to the mage.
“Dran Droffers’s teamster here happened upon us. It was
he who provided the wagon.”

Provided wasn’t exactly that the orc would have chosen
to describe the situation, but he supposed it was apt enough. Malton
had happened upon the rangers along the road, very close to the
entrance of the Vale itself. They had just returned from raiding the
troll ruins for valuable artifacts, apparently planning to use them
as leverage over one of the many forest troll tribes. The Rangers,
struggling with an Outrunner who had twisted her ankle and packs
loaded with troll fetishes, had looked absolutely miserable as they
trudged along the road.

Always willing to help, even
though he knew from experience that the elves would more than likely
refuse the assistance of an orc, Malton had reigned his wagon to a
slow halt beside them. They hadn’t refused in the end- at
least, not for long anyway- but rather than simply place the injured
Outrunner in the wagon and have Malton take her to the outpost, the
Rangers Hawk and Amberglade started arguing that the five of them
should simply commandeer the wagon and order Malton to walk behind,
while the high elves rode in it back to the outpost. The pair of them
would have almost gotten their way, had the blonde Ranger and Dwhier
not spoken up then and simply decided themselves to have two people
return to the ruins with the wagon and take everything the Rangers
had gathered in one single trip.

Hawk and Amberglade shut right up, then, obviously not
wanting to be the ones in the wagon, not if it meant more time spent
on patrol. It had seemed remarkably petty, to Malton, that anyone
would even think of doing such a thing, but that’s what elves
did to those who were from the ‘outside,’ he supposed, so
it probably wasn’t all that unusual. Still, it would have been
nice if the blonde had at least put a slightly more realistic spin on
Hawk and Amberglade’s actions.

“I see. Thank you for
your report, Ranger Evantide. You are dismissed.” The mage’s
rather impatient voice snapped Malton out of his musings. He
obviously hadn’t paid much heed to the Ranger’s report.
It seemed that he was intent on singling out what Malton had to say,
if the hard stare the mage was giving him was any indication.

Evantide nodded curtly, only giving the orc the briefest of
glances as she headed towards the door of the outpost barracks,
negotiating her way through the almost constant flow of elves that
wandered through the entrance.

Malton felt their curious- and mostly contemptuous- gazes in
his direction, but he was rather used to their hostile reactions to
the presence of ‘outsiders.’ Captain Hillfallow flipped
the large, hard-bound journal open. It was laced with the
curved designs that the high elves tended to favor, and Malton heard
a faint sucking kind of hiss sound as the magic that enabled the
journal to record each and every spoken word was activated.

“You are trading with the
Lodge?” The captain spoke with a bored tone as he repeated the
standard, obligatory questions he’d obviously asked more than
hundred times before.

Malton gave a nod in answer, to the question he had answered
a hundred times before.

“And you’ve been here before? You know that we
do not allow outsiders to set foot in Quel’Danil itself?”

Malton smiled and gave a congenial nod. Of course he knew
the rules. He also knew that how strictly they were kept largely
depended on the elf who was assigned that duty of enforcing them for
the day, but it almost invariably fell to the hands of some nosy
hardass. The orc was more than content with simply staying outside
the city itself when he came to trade, since avoiding the elves was
far easier than actually dealing with them. He just wanted to see
Gilvarin, not any of the other xenophobic pricks that lived in the
Vale.

“Name?” the mage barked, glancing down at his
book.

“Malton Droffers,” The orc supplied promptly.
“Although sometimes Pa calls me Chowderhead.”

Captain Hillfallow ignored Malton’s answer but the orc
saw the muscles in his jaw clench with irritation. The slight
movement was just too much. He simply couldn’t resist. “…
sometimes he calls me Meathead too.”

The mage lifted an impatient eyebrow, steadfastedly ignoring
the orc’s last comment, and simply glared at Malton.
“Occupation?”

The orc had been having a bit of fun but he found it hard to
resist squirming under Hillfallow’s intense scrutinly. He gave
the mage a blank look.

  Hillfallow raised his eyebrows and his eyes flared.
“Job?”

Malton managed to keep his expression blank for a few
moments more, before his face suddenly lit up with excitement, as
though he had finally understood what the mage had said and was quite
proud of himself for doing so. “Oh! Job!” he exclaimed,
“I have lots of jobs! It’s my job to sweep the store most
days. Oh! I also get to be the one makes sure that all the stuff on
the shelves is nice and straight and orderly and like.” The orc
started counting his fingers as he listed all the jobs that he could
possibly think of- struggling to keep from grinning as he added the
last one. “And make sure that all the rat traps are set so that
we’ll have something for dinner in the evening!” The orc
frowned suddenly, his face sagging as he sadly added, “Sometimes
we don’t get anything though and I have to go to bed hungry.”

The Captian’s face was
rather perturbed, and a little consternated. “Your job…”
the captain shuddered, forcing out each word, enunciating it so
clearly that- as though by doing so- he could bring himself to
actually comprehend what Malton had said. “Your… your
job is to… catch the… catch the rats… for
dinner.”

“Yep!” Malton puffed out his chest, beaming
proudly.

“I… I see…” the elf said faintly.
He swallowed hard a couple of times and his lip curled with disgust.

Ever helpful, and with a wide, eager to please look on his
face, Malton kept talking. “Sometimes Pa gets real drunk-like
too, and bellows up and down the street and scares away all the rats
in the area, and then the neighbors come by mad because they don’t
got no food neither, and then he yells at them and they yell back and
then it usually ends with someone hitting someone else until someone
dies.” The orc grinned and leaned a little closer to the taller
elf, as though he were about to impart some great secret. “That’s
why Pa let me drive the wagon this time,” he said, his eyes
shining as though it were an honor that Malton was one of the
privileged few to have received. “Because he was the winner
this time and accidentally killed the Two-tusk Grib, the big
kodowrangler, but he was also our only kodowrangler and no one else
really knows what to do with all the kodos that’re wandering
all over the city now and it’s getting really really bad, like
so bad that you can’t even walk around without runnin’
into two or three of the dumb things so Thrall said that since
Pa was the one who made the problem Pa was the one who had to fix it,
only Thrall didn’t call him Pa, he called him Dran, because
Pa’s not his Pa, he’s my Pa, and instead he called
him-,”

“That’s enough, thank you, THANK YOU,”
Hillfallow said, lifting his free hand as his voice got louder and
louder until- at last- Malton stopped speaking. “Fucking Dran
Droffers,” the elf muttered under his breath, shaking his head.
“Cheap bastard, sending his idiot son instead of coming
himself.” The man obviously was very aware of the Sunchaser
business dealings, even if Malton had never before dealt with the elf
himself.

It was clear to Malton that the Captain had been trying
to make an effort at keeping his muttered thoughts under his breath,
and had failed miserably. That the elf was unsuccessful tickled
Malton in a way that he had never quite been able to define. The orc
only knew that there were a great many times that he took a rather
perverse pride in being as difficult as he possibly could.

“And you’re here because…?”
Hillfallow clutched his journal to his chest and stared hard at
Malton.

Feigning confusion, Malton blinked at the elf-captain
quizzically. “Um, because I rode the wagon here?”

“No, not ‘how’ did you get here, ‘why’
are you here!” the Captain snarled, his elegant poise cracking
for a slight second.

“Ooooh,” Malton said, stretching the word out
long and nodding in understanding. “Because Pa told me to be
here.”

Hillfallow froze and then all of a sudden, his eye began to
twitch. His mouth opened to speak, but he quickly snapped it shut.
The elf took a deep breath and tried again, lifting a finger as well,
he was obviously serious about whatever it was he was going to say.
Malton nearly laughed when the mage gave up and pressed said finger
to the bridge of his nose. He could hear Hillfallow counting under
his breath as the mage tried to collect himself. Truth be told, the
Captain needed to work a little on muttering to himself- at least,
muttering low enough so that no one could actually hear what he was
said.

  “… and why
did Dran tell you to come here?” the Captain asked slowly.

“He said,” Malton paused and scratched his chin,
his face a study of concentration as he searched his memory. He
nearly scratched the crown of his head too, but he thought that could
have been a little over the top. “He
said “Now Malton, since I got all this dust to sweep up and
since I don’t want no elves sniffin’ around my arse,
digging for gold or whatever they like to do, I’m going to send
you to the Hinterlands this time.”

Captain Hillfallow blinked at him, his mouth opening for a
brief second. “Elves sni-? No, forget it, don’t answer
that,” he said, snapping his mouth shut when he realized it
probably wasn’t really something he wanted to hear in the first
place. Straightening, he held out his free hand and gestured. “Hawk
mentioned something about a book. Give it to me.”

For an instant Malton came awfully close to loosing his
bland, amiable stare and scowling outright. Only for an instant
though; the initial surge of emotion passed and allowed for logic to
kick in. Not giving the man the book would only get him in trouble
and then his journal would be confiscated anyways.

Masking a resigned sigh, the orc slipped his pack from his
shoulders and dug down until his hands closed on a leather case. He
pulled it out, slipping the protective leather covering off and
handing the thick volume over to the elf. The mage took hold of it
with his free hand, expertly slipping his thumb through the middle
and paging through with the use of one finger. As awkward as it
looked to hold two books open at once, Malton was still very
impressed at the man’s dexterity. He watched with vague
feelings of apprehension as the elf’s blue eyes scanned pages
filled with careful notes on soil preparation, weather observations,
and vine cultivation. “Plans for a vineyard?” Hillfallow
looked up from the book rather quizzically, his sharp eyes searching
for any hint of treacherous intent.

This wasn’t the first time that Malton found himself
silently praising the wisdom of the Ancestors for making him write
the journal in Thalassian. Originally, the reason he’d written
it in the elf-tongue was so that his father’s prying eyes
wouldn’t read it, but apparently that decision held an
unintentional bonus here. The orc shrugged, feigning disinterest. “Is
that what it is? Pa only said that the Sunchaser elf guy wanted it.”

“Why-,” The captain gave him an inquisitive look
but stopped himself from pushing the issue and handed the book back
to Malton.

The orc took it from him, a little too quickly even though
he tried to continue to feign indifference as he put it safely back
into his bag once more. It struck him as odd that Hillfallow had
given up on prying into the issue but considering he thought it was
the private business of the single richest elf in the Vale, it
shouldn’t have been that surprising. He caught the mage looking
staring at his bag and didn’t doubt that it took all the mage’s
will power to resist the urge to ask to see it again.

In the end, the captain simply shook himself lightly and
continued the regulation string of questions that no one really
bothered with too much. “Why
are you here again?”

Now that Malton’s treasure was safe and the crisis
averted, he decided he may as well continue testing how far he could
go with the mage’s temper. “Were you not listening? Or
did I speak too softly? I thought with those big ears you would have
heard me but I guess-,”

“What did Dran send you here TO BRING BACK?” the
Captain interrupted, raising his voice as he fought to control his
visibly mounting irritation.

“Um…” Malton paused, biting his knuckle.
“Um, what, um, he said, um,” he started again after
another sloppy chew of his finger. ““He said, “Now
Malton,” he said, “I need you to get me some of that
there…” um,” Malton stopped again, scrunching his
face up in concentration, “Honeyarse wine? Arsehoney wine?”
The orc shrugged, scratching his head. “I don’t know why
Pa would want wine that comes from an elf’s arse though. He
just said to bring him a hundred bottles full and that I should be
sure to taste the wine beforehand to make sure it was fresh, but I
really don’t want to do that because I don’t want to
stick my tongue anywhere near your arses, not if you’ve been
sticking grapes and bees up them to make honey or wine with or
anything,” he said, almost petulantly, shuffling his feet as
though afraid that he would still be forced to ‘test the
freshness.’

From the corner of his eye, Malton could see two of the
Captain’s subordinates were gaping at him in outright horror.
Hillfallow’s expression was far more amusing though- if he had
been small and green he wouldn’t have look much different to
the goblin waiter that Dran and Gilvarin’s father had offended
when he and Gilvarin had first met. Disgust, indignation, irritation
and no small amount of disbelief twisted the Captain’s
otherwise handsome feature in ways Milton would have never thought
possible. Each emotion that flowed over his face was accompanied by a
varying shade of red. Watching the elf struggle to control himself
was one of the most spectacular things Malton had ever seen. He was
rather disappointed when it finally became clear that the veins in
the Captain’s forehead weren’t going to burst after all.

Hillfallow suddenly realized, somewhere between the
mercurial shifts in his mood, that he and Malton had gathered an
audience, and he wrenched his mortified eyes from Malton to glare at
the two elves whose were staring at the orc in with obvious distaste.
“Don’t you two have anything better to do than stand
around looking as imbecilic as this orc?” he snarled in
Thalassian.

The elves- startled by the sudden shift of their superior’s
attention to them- cowered, muttering a few ‘yes, Captain’s
under their breath as they hastily set off on their patrols.
Hillfallow stared after the two Outrunners, looking almost as though
he wished he could go with them.

“You can get sick from doing that to.” Captain
Hillfallow’s startlingly blue eyes snapped back to him,
outright shock that the orc was still talking written across
his face. “It’s true!” Malton exclaimed, shuffling
slightly as he tried to defend himself. “Sticking things in
your bum is really bad! Especially if it’s food because the
rats will take anything lying around and one time the orc living in
the tent behind us was hiding a whole bag of nuts in his bum to keep
them safe from thieves while he slept but this big black rat stuck
it’s head in there and started eating all the nuts and when it
stopped eating all the nuts it was too big to get back out and the
guy didn’t notice for a week or two and just thought he had
really bad indigestion but it turns out the rat had been pregnant
too, and give birth inside him, and they were all living off of the
nuts for a while until he went to a witchdoctor who hexed him with
the runs, and that cleaned out his bowels right well.”

Reaching the end of his story, the orc fell silent, keeping
what he hoped was a friendly, helpful look on his face. The
elf-captain’s face, meanwhile, seemed to be caught in a strange
mix of appalled disbelief and outright horror. Malton stayed quiet
for a few more minutes, twiddling his thumbs until the silence
started to stretch on interminably. “He kept the rat,”
the orc added helpfully, when the mage continued to not say anything.
“He named her Jaina.”

Captain Hillfallow blinked at him, his blue eyes a little
glazed over. “I… I see,” he said faintly. There
was another long moment of quiet as the elf struggled to collect his
thoughts. It was only after a faint breeze from the south rustled the
pages of the magical logbook in his hands that the mage stirred.
Hillfallow shook himself, his eyes narrowing once more as he glanced
from Malton to the pages of his journal, now covered in curly
Thalassian scrawl. His long, pale eyebrows suddenly narrowed as he
reread some of the orc had said, and his head jerked back up.

“Hawk!” he bellowed, snapping the book
shut. The dark-haired Ranger was at the barrack’s entrance in
an instant, so quickly that it was obvious he had been listening to
the entire conversation, but, judging from the way he casually
sauntered over to meet them, decidedly less than aware of his
superior’s mood. Malton had to admire the Ranger’s gall-
if only because it made him immune to his captain’s piercing
glare. Hillfallow give him no reprimand, however, simply saying,
“I’ve heard enough to make my report. Take the…”
he paused, eying the orc and switching to Thalassian, “…
creature… and escort him to Master Sunchaser.” Sniffing
disdainfully, Hillfallow turned to go, but stopped and turned partway
back towards the dark-haired Ranger. “Make sure you give him a
thorough wash too, no telling where he’s been putting his
fingers. Or what he’s had in them,” the captain added,
under his breath, though still loud enough for Malton to hear.

“What?” Hawk cried, his spine straightening in
anger. His fists clenched at his side. “Why am I the one who
has to wash the filthy beast?”

Really, it was a very inappropriate time for the Ranger to
try and argue with his superior. The high elf mage rounded on him
with such fury that even Hawk’s cool demeanor was shaken. The
dark-haired elf instantly realized his mistake the moment he saw his
Captain’s face, but apparently even the Ranger’s sudden
cringe wasn’t enough.

“Because you are the one who called me out
here, saying that you had found a potential threat to the
security of the Lodge, when all I see is a half-brained, orc mongrel
who poses even less of a threat than your own incompetence,”
the Captain hissed, his eyes almost crackling with electricity.

Hawk breathed heavily through his flaring nostrils and his
cheeks were heated but he remained silent- for once. Malton wasn’t
surprised. The Ranger had been chastised quite harshly, and the orc
would be forever grateful that it had happened in front of him. He
was careful to keep his expression neutral though. The elf was still
going to have to supervise his bathing, after all.

Glaring daggers at Hillfallow’s back, Hawk made a face
at his Captain before he looked rather matter-of-factly at Malton,
gesturing for the orc to follow as he headed down the hill towards
the riverbank. Eager to be rid of these elves and their constant
harassment, Malton followed quickly, nearly smacking into Hawk’s
back when the elf stopped at the edge of the riverbank’s weeds.
The Ranger turned back to face him. “Strip.”

Malton blinked rapidly and his
previously neutral expression dissolved into one of gaping shock.
“What?” It took him all of two panicked seconds to
figure out that Hawk was just going to make him bathe in the river
beside the lodge.

Hawk’s eye twitched slightly and he lifted an eyebrow,
speaking slower, as though the orc had had trouble understanding
plain Common. “Strip. Remove your clothing.”

Malton, really, did not want to strip. Especially not
in front of the lodge and the constant stream of elves flowing in and
out of its wide entrance. These were not the public baths in
Orgrimmar, these people were not his fellow orcs, and there was no
aspect of this ‘bathing’ that was anything short of
intentional humiliation.

Thinking quickly, the orc relied on his tried and true
method of defense – trying to shock the elf into forgetting
what he was doing. “Oh no!” Malton cried, backing up as
he held his hands out defensively. “I’m not taking my
clothes off! Pa told me not to! He said, he said, “Hey
Meathead! If those flittin’ elves stop ya, you make sure that
you don’t let them strip ya, okay? You never know where their
hands will wander! The last time,” he said, “The last
time I was in HighVale and took off my pants I found a whole brigade
o’ queers stickin’ their hands in my holes,” he
said.” Malton spoke loud and quickly, desperate to drive the
malicious elf away. “Then he got mad because he thought I
wasn’t paying attention and instead looking at the two dogs
humping each other outside when really I was paying attention and
heard every word but he wanted to make sure that I didn’t let
any of ‘them flittin’ elves’ stick their fingers in
my bum-”

“Enough!” Hawk’s
eyes blazed with anger. “No one is going to be
sticking their fingers in your ass, orc,”
he hissed, his eyes crackling with almost as much ire as Captain
Hillfallow’s had before.

Malton wasn’t really that convinced, and while he had
made Hawk angry, what he really wanted to do was exasperate him
enough so that the elf would simply go away. Hopefully just
passing him off in the process so that the orc would be someone
else’s problem and he wouldn’t be forced to strip out in
the open like this. He decided to try again. “Really? But Pa
said-,”

The fine hold Hawk had on his
rage finally snapped. He thrust his furious, seething face into
Malton’s. “I don’t
give a fuck about what your Pa said! Strip the fuck down right now!”
Leaning close, the Ranger’s face was a mask of hate as his eyes
narrowed and he started to hiss once more. “You’re going
to clean yourself before you set foot in HighVale, orc. I
don’t want you bringing in any sort of foreign disease,”
he said, snarling as his lip curled in disgust.

It occurred to Malton to try one more attempt at putting
Hawk off, but considering that the elf was so angry that spittle was
flying from his mouth, he decided that this was one time he would
have to concede defeat. He shot the elf a sheepish glance but Hawk
was glaring at him with his arms folded over his chest and he jutted
his chin forward as if to say ‘get on with it.’

Malton had no choice but to strip. He did it slowly though,
taking his time in unlacing his shirt before pulling it slowly over
his head. He folded it into a neat square and placed it carefully on
the ground, fussing over the wrinkles in a vain, last ditch attempt
to exasperate Hawk so much that he would forget about the captain’s
orders. No such luck. Nervously sliding the dark-green tips of his
fingers across the hard ridges of his abdomen, Malton hesitated for
another moment, trying to stall for time. He felt his cheeks heat
when his thick green fingers closed around the tie that held his
pants up but there was nothing for it.

He had to do what he had to do. Sighing, the orc tugged at
the leather ties and slid his pants down, his long, chunky green dick
bouncing free and then flopping over his heavy balls. They swayed,
brushing against his thighs when he stepped out of his pants. He left
them in a puddle at his feet. Malton thought about bending to fold
them up as slowly as he had his shirt, but then he would have to
stand around naked for longer, with every elf in the barracks gaping
at his butt.

He looked up and did a double take at Hawk’s
expression. The elf’s eyes were wide. When Hawk realized Malton
was looking at him, he sniffed rather huffily and tried to look away,
but couldn’t resist having another look at the monster between
Malton’s thighs. His lips pressed into a thin line and if
Malton wasn’t mistaken, Hawk looked… jealous? He
nearly laughed out loud. He would strip again, just to rub it in
Hawk’s face that his dick was obviously much bigger than the
elf’s own.

Unable to resist the opportunity to grind some well-deserved
salt into the Ranger’s wounds, the orc tried to cover his
bouncy jewels protectively, turning to the side like a shy maiden.
“Hey now!” he chastised, “Don’t you be
getting any ideas, Pa says-”

Hawk snapped, his blazing anger back in full force. “Shut
the fuck up about your goddamn Pa you filthy fucking
orc!” he screamed, throwing up his arms and stalking away,
his whole body bristling. “Gahh!”

Malton stared after him a moment before he chuckled- on the
inside- as Hawk stalked back towards the barracks, feeling relieved.
At last, he’d finally driven the Ranger away. Left alone, with
most of his family jewels in hand- most, because the head of his fat dick
was still poking out from between his fingers- he hurriedly clothed
himself and slung his bag over his shoulder, more than eager to
escape at last. The orc was keen to get away from the outpost before
any other mean-spirited elves decided to take their frustrations out
on him.

He walked quickly past the road that led to the military
headquarters of the Vale, the salve from earlier having worked
wonders on his heel. The pain was little more than an uncomfortable
tingle now and he was able to move far faster than he had when he’d
arrived at the lodge. Malton almost wanted to run past the barracks,
but to do so might have drawn unwelcome attention. Thankfully, he
made it passed the lodge’s entrance, and the Rangers passing
through it, without being stopped.

As soon as the building was out of sight he straightened,
his stride losing his customary shuffle and lengthening now that he
was free of any malevolent elven eyes. After a while, he came upon a
dirt road that branched off to the left, just before he reached the
farmlands that surrounded the city of Quel’Danil itself. At
first the road was nothing but heavily trodden dirt, but a little
further along, neat, new cobbles filled the path, and the glowing
lanterns that the elves favored were set along it at regular
intervals.

The thick, towering pines started to fall away, thinning a
little as the road started to climb into the high foothills that
bordered the valley. The orc knew that- rich and lush though the
vegetation was- the pine needles still turned the fertile ground
slightly acidic, just barely enough to add a subtle tang to whatever
crop was grown in them. Were it grapes, the wine they made would
contain a natural taste quite unlike any other beverage in the world.

Shaking images of terraced vines from his head, Malton
pursed his lips and crossed his arms as he hiked along the road,
immediately uncrossing them again to reach behind the sturdy frame of
his pack and feel for his journal. Nearly two whole years of
carefully collected notes lay in there- he was always a little
nervous whenever he brought it along anywhere with him.

The orc sighed. Why he even brought it with him this time,
he didn’t know. Nothing would ever come of it. Sliding his
fingers beneath the leather straps of his backpack, Malton paused,
twisting around to look out over the Vale one more time.



--___---__-__---___--

*tsk* those elves. such troublemakers. yeah, if you like it, you know the drill! review!
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Ripple Recovery