Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2013 4:42:21 GMT
Part 1: Interrogation
Eyes met over the crackling fire at the center of the lodge. Dark orbs in the dancing light took in the defeated warrior kneeling across from him. How many minutes had the other male knelt in uncomfortably manacled silence? Too many, he figured, shattering the calm with a voice of command crackled in the strain of age. "Who are you, Grimtotem?"
The question sparked a prideful fire withint the brave, raising himself to the level the bondage would allow. "A warrior is his deeds, they call me axesinger when I forge the weapons our braves wield. There isn't a spirit that can resist my call when I invite them to enchant our war. Silverhorn because of my barefisted fight with a great silver stag sent by the Mother, it may have taken a chunk from me, but I will win my war with it if it ever shows its face again! And they call me Grimtotem, because I remember what it means to be a Tauren. You may call me any of these."
"Very well then" Used to such bravado, the elder snorted at the Grimtotem the next step of this interrogation "when the High Chieftan saw your assault broken, many of your fellow 'real' Tauren fled into the hills. You were given the chance out of your bonds, but you remained, does that not make you a traitor to the Grimtotem?"
"The Tribe is my family, elder, but you have something they cannot give me." It was a loaded question, a familiar two-edged thing that spread a sly sort of smirk on the warrior's face despite the angry wounds across his blunt muzzle. It was just enough noose to hang himself, almost familiar enough of a thing to make the battered brave laugh "Answers, Grandfather" His hands, manacled since early that morning flexed in a gesture of surrender "Starting with why you fear me so little, but not ending there."
"What do you mean?" Probed the elderly Tauren, glaring at the warrior behind bangs that had long grayed with age, pausing to point out the obvious "You remain bound, Your axes have been broken and cast into the fire, and this lodge is protected by a dozen warriors. I believe enough precaution taken for any warrior's interrogation."
"These manacles were crafted by a second rate smith at best, they have no heart, no spirit." The elder, taken aback at the venom suddenly spat in the tone, nonetheless leant forward as the younger male continued "I could snap them like sticks. As to my axes, they were to be set free when this was done..I have killed many and more without them, I do not require them here, especially not..." the voice trails, head tilted sideways with one eye on the old man across, a grin spreading his muzzle that parted the barely healed wounds at lips and bridge to spur renewed streaks of red like the warpaint still fading on his short fur "when you have seven protecting you. Three who would be a decent fight, a sleeping dullard, two boys, a craven simpering fool, and an elder as old as you."
"Spirits speak to you? Fire and stone?" Guessed the old man, not in the least worried by what was perhaps a more complete description of his entourage then he cared to admit.
"Of course that's what would get a Runetotem's interest." Growled the prisoner Grimtotem "It is my penance for the failed hunt of the Stag. The spirits crowd around me and my forge, dancing, daring me to pull them into the steel of our brave's weapons. I sing them down and fold them into the blades and hammers, and they make our just war all the more powerful.
"You are a shaman then?" the elder male probed
"No, grandfather, I had no skill calling the totems or harnessing the elemental forces. I am just what you see."
"Not a sorcerer either?"
The Grimtotem laughed, shaking side to side a great head in a sparkling spray of red "I am just a warrior, grandfather, I am no Grimtotem"
"In that case, ask your other questions, warrior." The fire popped a gout of embers into the bound male's face, but he didn't miss the teasing tone in those words. The Grimtotem were his family, his clan. They had taught him what it meant to be Tauren, a warrior, a hunter, one others saw as a noble savage. But they had all ran like babes in a thunderstorm before the Bloodhoof assault They had been everything he had known since.... "Who were my parents?"
Part 2: Answers
"Run, Yanna!" Bellowed a Male Tauren with armor gleaming in the noonday sun ""Take the boy, and get out of here!" slowly the scene came into focus. The dead Kodo behind a pair of Tauren, exhausted beyond salvation, the pack left disturbed upon the mucky brine of Dustwallow Marsh. The male was the first obvious sign, carrying a massive axe made specifically for his hands, but the female came in soon after, clutching a babe to her chest with eye wide in fear.
"I know all this" The Grimtotem brave snarled, eyes stinging in the visionary smoke brought forth by Runetotem "The humans of Theramore butchered them and left me to die, this answers not..." Even a battlehardened warrior can quail under the glare a tried and true elder can level across a flickering fire churning herbal memories, bequeathing silence with forefinger to his lips.
Uncaring of stinging eye or rerun complaint, when the brave stared back into the fire, the visions picked up where they left off. Mother, Yanna, running through the briar of half-grown swamplands, spurred on by the heavy sound of pursuers in the night. She had ran almost as hard as that kodo the day before, heaving in panic and exertion, flanks reddened by the bite of thorn and branch. But then, suddenly, Salvation! The warrior grinned into his vision to see the hulking form of a dark-furred Tauren he had known well. The cracked horns, the scar-formed grimace of a man he would come to call father..this is where the Runetotem will see the truth, that Tauren knows how to deal with Tauren!
"Yanna Runetotem" The dark one began, limbering axes in each hand as the pursuers caught up with the exhausted female, audible now as hoofsteps in the soft loam "You and your male have been tried and found guilty. Guilty of betraying your race, traitors to the Tauren cause!" Nothing in this pronouncement but cold hatred, Yanna encircled by a warband of Grimtotem raiders, many of whom the bound male knew well. The dark stains on their armor proof positive of what already happened to the heroic male's last stand.
Just as suddenly, the vision seeped away with a horrendous crack of sound and a low of pained howl, the young Grimtotem left dazed, staring into his lap at the ruin of manacles twisted in despondent fury. It took a moment for the elder's voice to register in his ear
"Your name was to be Eyahken, after your father. He was a Stonehoof and the union would have been good for everyone involved. The ambush took place shortly before your naming, between Cenarion camps your parents supplied regardless of which side of the war the food went to. They never made distinction, Runetotem, Grimtotem, Horde, Alliance, they didn't care. For that, your adopted family put them to death." Sympathy warred in the old man's voice, sparred with regret and danced around the so rarely felt rage.
"Kill me" Eyahken growled down at the broken manacles in his lap. The smoke couldn't be blamed for the tears anymore. "How many innocents have they used me to kill? How many yesterday? How many in my life?"
An explosive snort from the elderly Runetotem "Fool, arrogant, insufferable, fool! Just like so many, you claim the whole of this burden? It's not the fault of the Tribe who raised you to hate?" Staring, growling, he reached beside himself to claim a well worn mace, a twist of wooden monster laid sidelong across his lap "Very well. If you would have your death, come take it."
"A Grimtotem is born ready for his death." The quickly snapped reply was out before he could stop himself. It was fuel this wizened old man simply could not pass up.
"You are not born Grimtotem, you still have a chance to be better than they are." The sting of the angry retort did not disappoint, but for all his failure, the brave had no choice but to bravely seek out the release astride the old man's lap.
Focused as he was, he could blame his distraction on why he was suddenly flat out on his spine. Truth be told, the druid moved faster than the warrior had ever seen, pinning the young male beneath a sparkling hoof. The ceremonial mace was all but forgotten, nestled against his calf as he stared upwards at, not a Tauren, but a great silver Stag. Eyes continued up the creature to the rack of antler, a point fractured and broken up high. He remembered that point, dug it out of his thigh...
"You!" hissed the prostrate Eyahken "How long have you watched me?"
"We have other plans for you, Eyahken...No, you have sought his death" the voice in his head dances and sings, trembling with mirth from a throat not so old as the Tauren the elder was born "Lamarun Grimhorn. No longer Grimtotem, no longer Eyahken, but a slate wiped clean, we have use of you."
Part 3: Questions
Another tent, years after the interrogation and death of a young Grimtotem brave. The sound of a voice in deepthroated song drifting from its open flap, punctuating the loud clang clang of hammer on anvil. The Tauren at work, barechested over the fire of forge with the swirl of curious spirits visible to wizened old eye, pretended surprise when his midday visitor disturbed his song "still coercing spirits into your steel, boy?"
Age had caught up with Wiskadjet Runetotem, but his eye still gleamed with that intelligence and sparkling mischievous streak that Lamarun had grown to love in his years at training. Without turning, but catching the old man's face in the stag head he was melding, a topper for the staff of hard wood at his side. "They can listen if they wish and place their blessings wherever it suits them." The song paused to an audible song of longing in the air around. "Greetings, Wisk."
"Hold your greetings, boy! The circle has use for you. " Always to the point, so very direct as any Tauren should be, Lamarun twisted finally to regard his elder with question in his gaze "There are groups, groups you and I share common dreams with. The Circle has picked one out for you, to monitor and listen. Only monitor..and listen." Surprising force in the frail man's tone drew the Smith's smile to a Taut line, but before he could inquire further, the ancient man continued. "You leave in the morning, for Orgimmar."
"Taking that vacation, Shan'do Wiskadjet?"
"None of your damned tears, boy! And take that staff with you..."
Wiskadjet, aged Druid of the Antler, paused halfway out of the blacksmith's forge, a gleam of the old fire in his eye "That name truly does suit you."
Lamarun Grimhorn, whose name means 'Gored-by-Rune', laughed. The joy that comforted an old Tauren's journey to the Ghost Hunt, the joy that survived through the strict inspection at the gates of Orgimmar, and the joy that will guide him for many years to come.
Eyes met over the crackling fire at the center of the lodge. Dark orbs in the dancing light took in the defeated warrior kneeling across from him. How many minutes had the other male knelt in uncomfortably manacled silence? Too many, he figured, shattering the calm with a voice of command crackled in the strain of age. "Who are you, Grimtotem?"
The question sparked a prideful fire withint the brave, raising himself to the level the bondage would allow. "A warrior is his deeds, they call me axesinger when I forge the weapons our braves wield. There isn't a spirit that can resist my call when I invite them to enchant our war. Silverhorn because of my barefisted fight with a great silver stag sent by the Mother, it may have taken a chunk from me, but I will win my war with it if it ever shows its face again! And they call me Grimtotem, because I remember what it means to be a Tauren. You may call me any of these."
"Very well then" Used to such bravado, the elder snorted at the Grimtotem the next step of this interrogation "when the High Chieftan saw your assault broken, many of your fellow 'real' Tauren fled into the hills. You were given the chance out of your bonds, but you remained, does that not make you a traitor to the Grimtotem?"
"The Tribe is my family, elder, but you have something they cannot give me." It was a loaded question, a familiar two-edged thing that spread a sly sort of smirk on the warrior's face despite the angry wounds across his blunt muzzle. It was just enough noose to hang himself, almost familiar enough of a thing to make the battered brave laugh "Answers, Grandfather" His hands, manacled since early that morning flexed in a gesture of surrender "Starting with why you fear me so little, but not ending there."
"What do you mean?" Probed the elderly Tauren, glaring at the warrior behind bangs that had long grayed with age, pausing to point out the obvious "You remain bound, Your axes have been broken and cast into the fire, and this lodge is protected by a dozen warriors. I believe enough precaution taken for any warrior's interrogation."
"These manacles were crafted by a second rate smith at best, they have no heart, no spirit." The elder, taken aback at the venom suddenly spat in the tone, nonetheless leant forward as the younger male continued "I could snap them like sticks. As to my axes, they were to be set free when this was done..I have killed many and more without them, I do not require them here, especially not..." the voice trails, head tilted sideways with one eye on the old man across, a grin spreading his muzzle that parted the barely healed wounds at lips and bridge to spur renewed streaks of red like the warpaint still fading on his short fur "when you have seven protecting you. Three who would be a decent fight, a sleeping dullard, two boys, a craven simpering fool, and an elder as old as you."
"Spirits speak to you? Fire and stone?" Guessed the old man, not in the least worried by what was perhaps a more complete description of his entourage then he cared to admit.
"Of course that's what would get a Runetotem's interest." Growled the prisoner Grimtotem "It is my penance for the failed hunt of the Stag. The spirits crowd around me and my forge, dancing, daring me to pull them into the steel of our brave's weapons. I sing them down and fold them into the blades and hammers, and they make our just war all the more powerful.
"You are a shaman then?" the elder male probed
"No, grandfather, I had no skill calling the totems or harnessing the elemental forces. I am just what you see."
"Not a sorcerer either?"
The Grimtotem laughed, shaking side to side a great head in a sparkling spray of red "I am just a warrior, grandfather, I am no Grimtotem"
"In that case, ask your other questions, warrior." The fire popped a gout of embers into the bound male's face, but he didn't miss the teasing tone in those words. The Grimtotem were his family, his clan. They had taught him what it meant to be Tauren, a warrior, a hunter, one others saw as a noble savage. But they had all ran like babes in a thunderstorm before the Bloodhoof assault They had been everything he had known since.... "Who were my parents?"
Part 2: Answers
"Run, Yanna!" Bellowed a Male Tauren with armor gleaming in the noonday sun ""Take the boy, and get out of here!" slowly the scene came into focus. The dead Kodo behind a pair of Tauren, exhausted beyond salvation, the pack left disturbed upon the mucky brine of Dustwallow Marsh. The male was the first obvious sign, carrying a massive axe made specifically for his hands, but the female came in soon after, clutching a babe to her chest with eye wide in fear.
"I know all this" The Grimtotem brave snarled, eyes stinging in the visionary smoke brought forth by Runetotem "The humans of Theramore butchered them and left me to die, this answers not..." Even a battlehardened warrior can quail under the glare a tried and true elder can level across a flickering fire churning herbal memories, bequeathing silence with forefinger to his lips.
Uncaring of stinging eye or rerun complaint, when the brave stared back into the fire, the visions picked up where they left off. Mother, Yanna, running through the briar of half-grown swamplands, spurred on by the heavy sound of pursuers in the night. She had ran almost as hard as that kodo the day before, heaving in panic and exertion, flanks reddened by the bite of thorn and branch. But then, suddenly, Salvation! The warrior grinned into his vision to see the hulking form of a dark-furred Tauren he had known well. The cracked horns, the scar-formed grimace of a man he would come to call father..this is where the Runetotem will see the truth, that Tauren knows how to deal with Tauren!
"Yanna Runetotem" The dark one began, limbering axes in each hand as the pursuers caught up with the exhausted female, audible now as hoofsteps in the soft loam "You and your male have been tried and found guilty. Guilty of betraying your race, traitors to the Tauren cause!" Nothing in this pronouncement but cold hatred, Yanna encircled by a warband of Grimtotem raiders, many of whom the bound male knew well. The dark stains on their armor proof positive of what already happened to the heroic male's last stand.
Just as suddenly, the vision seeped away with a horrendous crack of sound and a low of pained howl, the young Grimtotem left dazed, staring into his lap at the ruin of manacles twisted in despondent fury. It took a moment for the elder's voice to register in his ear
"Your name was to be Eyahken, after your father. He was a Stonehoof and the union would have been good for everyone involved. The ambush took place shortly before your naming, between Cenarion camps your parents supplied regardless of which side of the war the food went to. They never made distinction, Runetotem, Grimtotem, Horde, Alliance, they didn't care. For that, your adopted family put them to death." Sympathy warred in the old man's voice, sparred with regret and danced around the so rarely felt rage.
"Kill me" Eyahken growled down at the broken manacles in his lap. The smoke couldn't be blamed for the tears anymore. "How many innocents have they used me to kill? How many yesterday? How many in my life?"
An explosive snort from the elderly Runetotem "Fool, arrogant, insufferable, fool! Just like so many, you claim the whole of this burden? It's not the fault of the Tribe who raised you to hate?" Staring, growling, he reached beside himself to claim a well worn mace, a twist of wooden monster laid sidelong across his lap "Very well. If you would have your death, come take it."
"A Grimtotem is born ready for his death." The quickly snapped reply was out before he could stop himself. It was fuel this wizened old man simply could not pass up.
"You are not born Grimtotem, you still have a chance to be better than they are." The sting of the angry retort did not disappoint, but for all his failure, the brave had no choice but to bravely seek out the release astride the old man's lap.
Focused as he was, he could blame his distraction on why he was suddenly flat out on his spine. Truth be told, the druid moved faster than the warrior had ever seen, pinning the young male beneath a sparkling hoof. The ceremonial mace was all but forgotten, nestled against his calf as he stared upwards at, not a Tauren, but a great silver Stag. Eyes continued up the creature to the rack of antler, a point fractured and broken up high. He remembered that point, dug it out of his thigh...
"You!" hissed the prostrate Eyahken "How long have you watched me?"
"We have other plans for you, Eyahken...No, you have sought his death" the voice in his head dances and sings, trembling with mirth from a throat not so old as the Tauren the elder was born "Lamarun Grimhorn. No longer Grimtotem, no longer Eyahken, but a slate wiped clean, we have use of you."
Part 3: Questions
Another tent, years after the interrogation and death of a young Grimtotem brave. The sound of a voice in deepthroated song drifting from its open flap, punctuating the loud clang clang of hammer on anvil. The Tauren at work, barechested over the fire of forge with the swirl of curious spirits visible to wizened old eye, pretended surprise when his midday visitor disturbed his song "still coercing spirits into your steel, boy?"
Age had caught up with Wiskadjet Runetotem, but his eye still gleamed with that intelligence and sparkling mischievous streak that Lamarun had grown to love in his years at training. Without turning, but catching the old man's face in the stag head he was melding, a topper for the staff of hard wood at his side. "They can listen if they wish and place their blessings wherever it suits them." The song paused to an audible song of longing in the air around. "Greetings, Wisk."
"Hold your greetings, boy! The circle has use for you. " Always to the point, so very direct as any Tauren should be, Lamarun twisted finally to regard his elder with question in his gaze "There are groups, groups you and I share common dreams with. The Circle has picked one out for you, to monitor and listen. Only monitor..and listen." Surprising force in the frail man's tone drew the Smith's smile to a Taut line, but before he could inquire further, the ancient man continued. "You leave in the morning, for Orgimmar."
"Taking that vacation, Shan'do Wiskadjet?"
"None of your damned tears, boy! And take that staff with you..."
Wiskadjet, aged Druid of the Antler, paused halfway out of the blacksmith's forge, a gleam of the old fire in his eye "That name truly does suit you."
Lamarun Grimhorn, whose name means 'Gored-by-Rune', laughed. The joy that comforted an old Tauren's journey to the Ghost Hunt, the joy that survived through the strict inspection at the gates of Orgimmar, and the joy that will guide him for many years to come.