The World as it Should Be

It seemed odd to Treris that she had never been in the barrens before. They were after all, right there next to Ashenvale, where she had spent several months. But she never had had occasion to go there, and it was after all, Horde territory, except of course for the stronghold where Theramore's marines were holding out, and the small neutral town of Ratchet.



She had come down out of the Stonetalon Mountains, where she had done some more work for the druids who lived at the top. It had been ok work, mostly clearing out the Venture Trader's who were burning forests. Now she had been asked to go to Ratchet, so get some work there.



This was more what she had been interested in, working outside of the domain of her people, heck in a neutral town, there could be Horde members there, ready to spring up and attack her as soon as her back was turned. It was definitely exciting.



Of course the town of Ratchett was also a connected port to Booty Bay, and that meant, Stranglethorn Vale, a place practically made for a hunter like her, or so she had heard. She hoped to get there soon and see what exotic animals they had there, what different adventures there were.



The barrens though had been interesting to her in of itself. It was hot, with no trees to keep the sun off of her, she found she burned easily, and so wrapped her head up in a spare shirt she had. She saw animals, lazing in the sun or taking over the shade whenever they found it. She had seen a couple of oasis, which had been taken over and fiercely defended by centaur. Now amongst the rocks there were hyenas and other pack animals which would growl at her if she came close enough.



Ripper wasn't particularly happy about this place. He was used to the forest, not this wasteland. She figured Stranglethorn would be more his kind of place, but first she had wanted to see what Ratchet was like.



When she had finally turned down the road and seen the town below her on the shore, she wasn't sure what to think. It had seemed so small. Once she was in it though, she found it to be a busy and exciting place. There were all sorts of people walking around. Night Elves, Blood Elves, Tauren, Orcs, Dranai, Humans, Gnomes, although it seemed that most of them were just passing through, coming off the boat and going straight towards the flight master.



Of course, finding work was turning out to be harder than she had expected. She was turned down because she wasn't experienced enough, because the jobs had been filled or just because the goblins were drunk and surly. Finally she found one willing to give her a chance.



“Northward, towards where those humans are hanging around, there's a bunch of pirates. They're real pains, go and kill a bunch of them for me, and I'll pay you good.”



So now she was crouched behind a rock outcropping, waiting for the next human to wander from his camp and into her sites. She had done well by picking off stragglers and then killing the remaining ones in the camp, who didn't seem to realize that their compatriots were disappearing. They weren't all that bright it seemed. They also weren't terribly rich, but she had so far made a good deal of money from what she found on them, and a few things she could sell.



There was a commotion on the other side of the rock suddenly. People were shouting, shots were being fired. Great, so much for picking them off all day. She couldn't really see what was going on from where she was and realized that she was going to have to step out of her hiding space.



When she did, she found herself on the ground a second later from when he ran smack into her.



A pair of green, glowing eyes were staring down at her in surprise. He had pale pink skin, short black hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He had been running when she had stepped out and was now lying on top of her.



“Oh, excuse me miss, I'd love to but I'm in a hurry,” he said in high elvish. A second later he was up in the air and back on his feet, not through acrobatics, but more because of the surly looking orc who had picked up up by his shirt.



“Trog maul,” she said in her guttural language and then she shifted to high elvish, “Now is not the time for this Deydis, you can't wait till we get back into town before jumping some cunny?!”



Treris sat up and stared at them. The elf was in all black smiling jovially at the orc. She was tall, wore heavy chain armor and had a sword in her hand, and a shield strapped to her back. She looked bald, but when she moved her head, Treris saw a long braid coming down from the back, far past the orc's butt. Another blood elf was running past them in nothing but a pair of pants.



“Can we move?! You've pissed off the pirates and we still have Marines after us!”



He then stopped suddenly and was looking wide eyes in the direction they were going. Treris turned and realized that more pirates had appeared from atop the hill, which she now realized had a road leading down from it. Good one, she thought, way to completely miss them.



She stood up quickly and knocked her bow, a little unsure about who she was trying to kill first. The pirates grinned maliciously at her, and she figured that they were more of a threat than the Horde members who had knocked her down.



They were surrounded by pirates, and Treris heard more cries and armor clanking. Marines the other elf had said, the Theramore Marines, she realized. Great. She couldn't fight them, but she was going to have to work with the elves and orc to stop the pirates. Oh this was going to get ugly.



One of the pirates charged her and she let loose the arrow without thinking. It buried itself into his chest and he fell to the ground, not moving. Ripper growled at the remaining pirates who decided to charge her all at once. The cat jumped in and tore at the throat of the first one in the group. Another raised his sword at her pet and she let another arrow fly, this one landing squarely in his side.



She didn't have time to get the next one who was running at her in a rage and she was about to drop her bow and pull out her sword, when a knife appeared in his throat. The elf, Deydis was standing next to her and had drawn two nasty looking blades.



“Keep shooting,” he said and spun around as the pirates closed in around him, slicing two of them in the belly and throat. He then quickly thrust another blade into the belly of another pirate, who fell to the ground. Treris could see the ones he had hit earlier were all convulsing, with a sickly green foam coming from their mouths.



A sudden loud bang grabbed her attention and she saw that one of the pirates had tried to shoot her cat, and had missed. Without a second's thought, she loosed another arrow at the shooter who went to the ground, gripping the arrow buried in his belly painfully. Ripper was making short work of the remaining pirates, as was the elf, who tore through them with amazing speed.



Behind her, she could here the clanging of metal on metal, and grunting of the orc. She turned and saw that though she was surrounded, none of her opponents could get close enough to get a good hit off of her. She swung her blade effectively, while blocking any attacks with her shield. Meanwhile the other elf was defending himself as best he could with no weapons.



Treris took out one of the pirates who tried to move in on him, seeing him as easy prey. Ripper, finished with the pirates at the rear, moved in to clear out this group. Deydis had gone back to the orc and was busy finishing off the pirates that surrounded her.



“Well,” Deydis said, slapping his hands together, “that was great fun, what next?”



Another loud bang answered his question. They looked and saw that a number of marines were coming up the beach towards them.



“Oh yeah, of course, those guys.”



The other blood elf was already off, and the orc was following behind him. Deydis stopped to get his throwing knife off the pirate, but stopped before following them. He suddenly grabbed Treris by the waist and pulled her into a deep kiss. She yelped in surprise against his mouth and was really too stunned to do anything. His tongue was teasing her own while he sucked gently on her lips. It was a good kiss, if brief.



He parted from her and winked, before letting her go and dashing off with incredible speed, catching up with his friends in no time at all.



Treris stood there absolutely dumbfounded. She wasn't entirely sure what had just happened, but that last bit had been rather nice.



The Marines ran past her, swearing loudly as they came to a halt.



“They're in Ratchet, we can't stop them now.” one of them said with anger.



Another, a young woman looked at her, “What were you thinking helping them?”



Treris snapped out of her reverie and said testily, “Excuse me?”



“Those were Horde!” the woman yelled, “helping an escaped prisoner!”



“Well,” Treris said, “sorry but I was a little more concerned about not being killed by pirates!”



The Marines looked at her coldly before moving on.



“Adventurers,” one of them spit on the ground in front of her, “you have no sense of loyalty!”



Treris stared at them in anger. What was she supposed to do? Fight them and the pirates? Pull back and let the pirates kill them? The elf had helped her, it didn't seem right to then attack them for the Marines.



She watched them go back to their fort and thought about the other side. They had helped a prisoner escape. What if he was dangerous? What if she had just allowed a hardened criminal escape to do harm to the alliance? She just wasn't sure.



Sighing in frustration, she turned and headed back to Ratchet to collect her reward.





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Note: In case some of you are wondering, Deydis was in another of my stories "Native Tongues" which you should totally read and review. I just had to reuse the snarky manwhore (elfwhore?) of a bastard.



While you're at it, please review this little story too! My ego loves a good stroking.