Sagefish a la Crème

Okay, I promise to all of you, this WILL be finished by... uh, August 6. Why? Well, I'm putting in some vacation time at work (yay 21st birfday), and coupling that with my muses working at the blazing pace of a cement truck mired in a tar pit, I had DAMN WELL better be able to get this wrapped up in a week and a half.

Fawnheart: You might be waiting for a minute. I still don't get why people can find my whimsical dramatis personae interesting, but I don't complain too loudly.

tanahi: Thank you. I try not to bore the audience to tears too quick. >_<

dragon85: Glad you like it. This will get to the naughty bits next chapter, but as anyone who keeps up with me knows, that might take a bit. But it will happen, I swear!

Horde FTW: Hehe, it's because I focus on little nuggets like that I fail to get broader descriptions across more otfen than not... d'oh! Still, I'm a nerd through and through, so I feel the need to explain all the little inconsistencies that Blizzard misses.

And to anyone else concerned: Please don't murder me if this bit seems cliché. The Big Nine must've gotten cross with me or something, so I just had to wing it.

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Leonora smiled to herself, placing the last of what must have been several dozen fish into the large runecloth bag she carried, and glanced back over at Itinahua. They'd fnally exchanged pleasentries over the hours, bantering back and forth in hushed voices, but never went back to the War. The paladin wondered over the fact for a handful of seconds while the fisherman lit a campfire.
"Hey," she said, dropping the sack with a wet, fishy squelch and sitting down. "Mind if I ask you something?"
The tauren looked up for just a moment, careful not to singe the short beard he was sporting.
Leonora pulled her legs up, resting her chin on her mailed knees. "Did you meet anyone else during the War?"

He had been expecting that question, and loaded a round of his own back at her. "Only if you tell me what you were doing during it," he replied.
She shot him a look of disappointment, then looked out at the lake with a shrug. "I stayed in Stormwind. When the Scourge pushed southward from the ruins of Lordaeron, many of us paladins stayed to defend it, but..."
Leonora sighed, closing her eyes. "Arthas' betrayal, coupled with our immunity to the plague, left many of the people suspicious of us at best. Some of our number were even fool enough to try and take the fight to Northrend..." The young woman spat to the side, bitter and fuming. "If they came back, which was more often than I'd like to admit, they came as his servants. Death Knights."
Warmth washed over her as the campfire at last caught. "Hmm. So the stories were true, then," the tauren rumbled, pulling the fish toward himself and gathering a handful of skewers. "I've never seen one, myself," he admitted, "though I suppose it's for the best."

Leonora remained silent for a while, staring into the flames while the tauren set the catches to cook. The flames jumped and crackled, popping every now and then when a piece of fish would fall into the heat and be consumed in an instant.
"I'm sorry, Leonora," the fisherman said. "It wasn't my intention to..."
But the paladin waived a hand absently, forcing a half-smile onto her features as she shot back, "Oh, I know, Itina. I mean, it's not like anyone ever does, right?" She let out a nervous giggle which died on her lips, and turned, sullen-faced, back to the fire.
Well, crap. Nice one, Itinahua, now how do you plan to fix THIS?!
Frowning, he pulled the cooked fish off and set them aside, thinking.

Lost in her dark musings, Leonora didn't pay much attention when the tuaren began preparing more of the fish; she was too caught up in her memories of pain and betrayal, worrying over the little family she had left, wondering if anyone she knew was-
Splat.
The human flinched, then looked down. A sagefish had landed in the odd crook her legs created against her armored chest. She picked it up, looking at it-
Splat.
The next one caught her full on in the face.
Splat. Splat splat splat.
Oh, that's IT!

Leonora hauled the fish back into her own hands and leapt to her feet, hurling the fish back at Itinahua as fast as she was being pelted with them. They both began to circle the campfire, throwing the wet, floppy missiles back and forth, hardly caring now if they landed in the flames or too far out of reach to find.
One of the tauren's throws managed to lodge itself in the neck of Leonora's armor, sliding down into the cleavage when she lept back in alarm.
"AAIIEEE! Oh, you're gonna get it now, jackass!" she shouted. The returning shot she offered was unusually accurate, bowling the fishing hat from Itinahua's head.
"HEY!" he bellowed, sprawling backwards to try and catch it, then losing his balance, teetering for a moment, then falling to the ground.
"Gotcha now!" the paladin shouted, throwing her full weight on him and forcing the air from the tauren's lungs.

"D'ouhfffff!" was a close approximation of the wind being knocked from Itinahua by numerous pounds of muscle and metal. He might have been a fighter and a tauren, but with some two-hundred-plus pounds dropping on your gut all at once? The only things that could keep oxygen in that situation would be things that don't even need it.
The tauren tried his best to recover, sucking in a large breath to replenish his depleted resevoirs, when his hat was placed over his face, and the paladin removed herself from his chest.
"Good gods, woman," the fisherman rumbled, trying to sit up, "did you have to hit me so-"
Itinahua froze when he heard the sound of chain hitting the ground.

"Leonora... what are you doing?" he asked.
The human paused, blushing. "Uh... Well, I'm getting this, uh... fish out of my... um, armor," she stammered, "'cause you... ah, threw it in, and... well, I kinda f- forgot there was somebody... else... here..."
Was it a lie? She wasn't too sure, she knew he was there, but... then, why did she...?
Flop.
Oh, right. That.
The human removed the fish from her shirt, skewered it, and set it over the flame, turning the others for good measure. "Hey, I do still have a shirt on, bug guy, you can take the hat off," she called over her shoulder.

The tauren pulled the hat up just enough to peer one-eyed from it, saw that Leonora did, indeed have clothes still on, and gave a relieved sigh before moving his bulk to sit within fist's reach.
"You plan on keeping your end of the bargain?" she asked, glancing aside at him.
"Trying to think of names," he replied, gazing at the embers before picking up some of the cooked fish.
"Obviously, I met a few orcs as well, but Fronai Thamau had to be one of the stoutest soldiers we had... too bad he couldn't figure a way past the language barrier. He and Sampre got along rather well, though... the boy learned orcish just to get a chance to talk with him. Now, putting Fronai and Nichol in the same room was considered a very bad idea."
Leonora cocked her head. "Bad chemistry?"
"Competitive," Itinahua replied. "Some kind of... I don't know, unspoken warrior code or something, but those two would go full-on berserk in the battlefield when they got near one another. I get bad flashbacks just thinking about it."

The fisherman thought for a moment, munching on the fish, then snapped his large fingers loud enough to startle his companion. "Elrett!" he cried out.
Leonora felt her breath catch in her chest. "P- pardon?"
"Elrett Cymande! Gods, that one was insane!" Itinahua laughed. "A good man, to be sure, but kodo-shit crazy!"
The paladin remained silent, half-watching whilst trying to force her body to resume proper respiration procedures.
"I think he was just born to damn optimistic for Azeroth," the tauren continued, "too light-hearted for war. Or maybe he was. Hell, that might have been why he could keep fighting. He had that sort of calm, cheery outlook on getting killed... somebody could point out his mortality, and he'd just shrug and smile. Never thought he was invincible, never thought he couldn't die, he just... rolled with it, I suppose."

The human managed to draw a shallow gulp of air and struggled to form, "Did he talk about anyone?"
"Yeah, his sister," the tauren responded. "Worried about her all the time. That's about the only thing that could keep him up at night, he told me, wondering if it was right to leave without her."
"Lemme guess," Leonora said, "he said something like, 'I fight so I don't die. Screw the gold, the glory, and the girls, I just don't like the alternative of laying down and croaking,' right?"
Itinauhua gaped at her for a moment. "Life's no fun when you let it get complicated. And when it's no fun, it's just not worth it," he recited in a hushed tone.
The paladin stifled a girlish giggle but couldn't hide her blushing. "He's always been like that."