The Fate of The Warchief

by The Blessed One

Chapter 3: An Ever-Free Orc

Spitfire had just begun her routine for the day. she trotted into her office and sat down casually at her desk; seeing her gold name plaque plastered onto it never got old. However, this particular part of her day she had steadily grown to despise: Reading her fan mail. This was the part of each week that she could always do without. She wasn't trying to be ungrateful, but even the most gracious of individuals (and she wouldn't say she's near the top of that list) could grow a little sick of the same blind, monotone praise at the end of every week. It was the one thing that could make or break her mood for rest of the day. She used her small company letter opener on the first one, but she desperately didn't want pull it out to read it just yet.

"Why do I have to do this?" She pondered. She was the Captain of the Wonderbolts for Celestia's sake! She had more important duties than this! Could she not just put it off for tomorrow? No, Soarin would come asking her about it and which ones she liked or disliked the most, as he always did. She was beginning to think that this had become a rather unhealthy routine, something that didn't truly feed or satisfy the soul. She decided that she would have to break out of it, one of these days for sure, but for now, she was not escaping this, not today, or any other Friday. She went ahead, bit the bullet and opened the first one. It started like almost all of them did.

"Dear Awesome Spitfire," she started reading. "Perfect, already off to an excellent start...." Sighing, she briefly put the letter down on her desk to rub her already throbbing temples before picking it back up and continuing. "Your moves during your show last month were so --blah blah blah-- Your flight suit really shined that day." The note read on. "hmm, maybe this one won't be too bad" She thought with a glimmer of hope. "Speaking of your fantastic skin-tight suit, your flanks look so......" She almost read that last bit out loud, but caught herself in the nick of time. "Okay no, this is gonna be one of those Fridays." she thought wearily. "Please, Celestia, save me from all this garbage!" She begged of the air around her. After a few brooding moments, and after finding that nothing was going to save her from the increasingly annoying ravishings of her carnal fan base, she apathetically resigned to her fate and began to read the letter once again.

She had just finished rereading that god-awful entry when she was abruptly interrupted by her office door being flung open. Was it coincidence? Unlikely. Her savior and deliverer was none other than her third-in-command and good friend, Fleetfoot, and it was not the first time either.

"Hey Thp-... " Fleetfoot paused to give an exasperated sigh. The poor Wonderbolt had always hated trying to speak around her lisp, but she had gotten saying "Spitfire" down if she wasn't hurrying. "Hey Spit! We've got thome work! Celestia wanth uth at the castle by noon for briefing, and thhe said it'th urgent; are we going?" Spitfire gave the clock on the far wall a quick glance, but not before snickering at the other mares' plight first. Seeing as how it read only 10:00 a.m., she answered her lieutenant level-headedly.

"Yes, go find Soarin, Rapidfire, and Wave Chill; then go to Canterlot ahead of us and warm her up for us, will ya?" She ordered with a crooked smirk, Fleetfoot gave a salute and a confident smile before darting off to fulfill her tasks. "Thank you..." Spitfire whispered up to the ceiling, before rising from her desk, and making her way leisurely down the hall to the locker room where her flight suit was ready and waiting. Hopefully this was a real mission; she felt like giving somepony a real beat-down.

---

Garrosh Brought his left axe down onto the wooden wolf's head, witnessing the green ethereal light that apparently gave these creatures sentience visibly fade to darkness: One down, three to go. He swung his right axe in a wide arc to strike the wolf diving straight for his neck, bringing his left axe out of the first wolf's head and burying both axes firmly in the head of the second one: Two down, two to go. He freed both his axes and spun around to face the remaining wolves. One of them was cowering back while the other was growling and pacing, frothing what appeared to be some form of tree sap from its mouth. He taunted the two creatures, hoping to rile one of them into attacking prematurely.

"Come on, vermin! Daylight is burning!" He bellowed just in time to catch the pacing one charging at him just as he thought it would. Right as the wolf leaped for his face with deadly speed, Garrosh swung his left axe from below and his right one from above with even deadlier speed, all while initiating a side-step maneuver, effectively planting both into the neck of the beast, sending its decapitated corpse careening past his right side: Three down, the last wolf took his brother's death as his chance to cowardicely flee; zero to go. Garrosh gave a victorious roar. "Just another practice pit!" He thought triumphantly.

He had to admit it; he liked this place a lot. Apart from the wooden wolves, he could eat almost anything here. This place was very much akin to Ashenvale, only without the infernal demon and night elf infestations. He had been in the forest for close to a whole day now and had strayed from the train tracks in favor of heading North through the forest itself. "Why stray from the tracks and keep heading North?" One might think. Because just as he caught sight of the forest's treeline, he saw something else far off into the distance and most assuredly across the forest to the North: A mountain with some sort of tower city built into its west side! It was far from the strangest thing he'd ever seen, but it was definitely up there in the ever-lengthening list.

He was by now cutting his way (In more ways than one) right through the forest in a straight line. "Surely that great mountain city must have a blacksmith." He thought, as he chopped a bigger vine in two. He had yet to run into another one of those lion/scorpid beasts. Oh How he wanted to! He could've used more food and another chance to kill something. Garrosh had beheld many an odd creature in this wonderland of potential banquet: First there were those small, round bugs with big, strangely-soulful eyes; they seemed to devour anything apart of the trees themselves, nothing short of parasites if you asked him. Another were the wooden wolves; he assumed that they were merely mindless predators, their bodies unable to be used for anything other than firewood. Still, he knew that they would give very good sport in any arena. Then, of course, there were those lion/scorpid beasts; those were by far his favorite. Their corpses served perfectly for almost anything between food and armor, given the fact that you carried the right tools on-hand. Garrosh didn't have any of the tools necessary to exploit them to their full potential, but he knew he would have to come back here after he was finished doing business with the blacksmith in that mountain city. Other than the local fauna and flora, he had yet to see anything that sincerely peaked his interests.

Garrosh needed to make absolutely certain that he was still travelling in the right direction, so he started to climb one of the bigger trees that he knew would support him. After a few minutes of swinging from very large vines, and jumping from tree to tree as his ancestors once did, he bounded as high as his legs would allow. Grabbing a firm foothold near the top of the canopy, he let his head burst through the top of the thick foliage. He took a minute to survey the horizon and found that he was little more than a day's travel to the end of this forest, and he was still on course heading to the city on the mountain. Breathing a sigh of relief, he then leveled his eyes to canopy itself, and his hopes were still kindled when he found nothing remotely huge standing between him and his destination apart from a large hill off to his left. His mission complete, he hopped back down to the forest floor to continue trudging onward.

---

Garrosh Hellscream had finally discovered some semblance of cleared path way through the forest and was now efficiently blazing a trail to the other side. At that rate, if he didn't bother looking for a place to rest, he would be well on his way out of the forest by nightfall. He'd been going for quite some time before he realized that he probably should check the horizon again. He was just about to start climbing one of the greater trees in the area when he took note of something near its roots. Taking a moment to closer examining his finding, he saw that it was a giant footprint, and not just any footprint. Looking intently upon the footprint, Garrosh only had one word in mind: "Dragon." Even though Garrosh had bore witness to the existence of many strange creatures in these woods, he had no idea anything so familiar or terrible as dragons roamed this world, and judging by his finding, it was quite the size. Also judging by the growth in the print and the cracked, eroded state of it, he deduced that it must have been many years old, for no dragon that sizable would of made a print near that shallow, even in dry dirt.

Looking onward to see if he could locate more, he saw not only more of them, but that the entire path he was blazing through earlier had likely been created by the the same monster passing through here continuously almost a century ago. He also saw that the path made a sudden turn in an incline off to the left, towards that same hill he'd seen when last he checked the horizon. His curiosity getting the best of him, he decide to delay rechecking his direction in favor of continuing up the path to see where it ultimately led. However, his exploring came to an end when the extremely vague prints eventually led him to the entrance of a very large cave.

"Excellent! Just what I needed for the night." He thought aloud as he stepped across the threshold into the cave. He was definitely looking forward to spending the night in some form of shelter (Sleeping on the open ground for the past two nights had really started to take its toll on his back.) He was no fool; he knew the dragon might still be lurking within, but it was a risk he was quite willing to take for the sake of a place to stay before darkness set in, before even he found himself overrun with nocturnal horrors due to shear exhaustion. Besides, were he not too loud, he could probably avoid the beast completely.

It was very dark for the most part within the caverns, but every now and again he could see a few phosphorescent crystals protruding from the walls and roof, creating a wondrously illuminated path for him to follow. At the end of the crystal-lit trail, he beheld something he never expected to find here in a million years. "By the ancestors." He whispered in awe as he took in the sight of the huge room. The room itself was large enough to hold two of copies of Grommash hold, With many mighty stalactites reaching down from the high ceiling, and many hulking stalagmites tearing up through the floor in the corners of the cave. The room also had a fairly large tunnel leading out of it off to the far left and a smaller nook of a tunnel off to the right, but it was the center of the massive room that took his breath away.

There, resting in the massive room's core near the back wall, was a treasure trove that could rival that of Orgrimmar's treasury! It was filled with all manner of shining precious stones that Garrosh couldn't even begin to name, and that was to say nothing of the various solid gold items that littered the wondrous trove, or the innumerable glittering gold coins composing armies of the mass. Once again, Garrosh was no fool, for he knew that certain lesser dragons, in their long time of needed slumber, commonly rested atop their gatherings in guardship of what was solely theirs. Between the supposed age of the footprints that led to this cave and the evident absence of an irritated dragon, he was able to come to a very obvious and verbal conclusion.

"It is all mine for the taking!" He proclaimed loudly with glee as he started running up to his new found riches, but just as he got to the foot of the mound, the dreadful happened: It moved. The movement was slight, but it was enough to make him stop in his tracks. The trove then gave a large puff of black smoke as the distinct odor of brimstone began to permeate the air. Garrosh was mistaken; perhaps he was a fool in this aspect, for he had forgotten that the dragon might have been hiding in the enormous trove itself in order to coax out shadowed intentions, and may also have been resting there for as long as it'd last made those footprints. growling to himself, frustrated that he'd been tricked so easily, mentally steeled himself for the coming battle. "Show yourself, creature!" He shouted to the mountainous cache, it swayed a lot more feverishly this time, so much so that its owner emerged from it. Standing before the Warchief, was a giant-dwarfing, green-scaled, fire-breathing, rock-crushing dragon, and never mind the fact that the monster could speak.

"Who dares to disturb my slumber?!" The beast bellowed lividly in a low guttural voice, but Garrosh was anything but daunted.

"I am here to claim this cave, and all therein!" Garrosh growled to the monster, the dragon did not seem intimidated, it only seemed agitated.

"Insolent fleshling! You shall pay for your trespassing!" Garrosh was even less intimidated of the dragon than the dragon was of him.

"let's see who this cave really belongs to! Lok'tar Ogar!" Garrosh shouted his signature warcry as he rushed the large ball of scales and flame. The dragon immediately reared back and let loose a yellow ball of fire from its gaping maw, but Garrosh easily rolled to the left of it. He expertly recovered from his roll and continued to charge the fuming behemoth. The dragon next swung its huge clawed hand at the orc with intent of swiping his head from his shoulders, but a simple duck was all he had to initiate to dodge the slow dragon's attack. The dragon surely must have been sleeping there for centuries, for its torpid attacks to the Warchief were downright sluggish.

"This is too easy!" He taunted boisterously as he slashed at the creature's back leg with his axes; the blow did next to nothing. He swore in orcish as he hastily rolled back out of the way of the beasts spiked tail. "These scales are too thick, but the weak point on all dragons are the same: The neck." He reasoned in his head as he dove over an incoming claw, he slowly began to formulate a plan as he continued to dodge the klutz of a dragon.

"Is this all you possess?!" He taunted again to try and enrage the overgrown drake; it worked. The beast roared with fury as he swung his tail at the arrogant orc, only to have it miss its mark by a mile. With every miss the dragon became more and more frustrated; it was exactly what the orc wanted. After a full minute, the dragon roared in pure rage yet again, and in that ferocious roar, Garrosh saw that he had angered it enough for it to make that one amateur mistake he was waiting for.

He bolted fast for the small tunnel to the right and dove inside just in time to escape a concentrated wave of fire. Once inside, he discovered that the nook of a tunnel was, in truth, just a nook, indeed. He preferred it be a means of escape, but he saw then that the only way to escape this terrible beast was to slay it. So without any other mindset, he waited patiently for the dragon's next move, and he did not have to wait long. The monstrosity attempted to stick its clawed hand into the small cavity, hoping for a fatal grasp. However, he would not be touching the Warchief today. Garrosh brought his right axe down on the claw as hard as he could, snapping the whole thing in two. The dragon's roar in pain was deafening, Garrosh was sure that even in the confines of this cave the sound could be heard for miles in every direction.

"YOU WRETCH! The beast derogated furiously in mourning of his severed middle claw. As he had expected, the scaly creature closed its eyes as it reared back its head to burn the small crevice, and all inside; Garrosh by then was ready for his next move. Just as he heard the dragon let loose the blind roar, he sprinted from of the tunnel, around the dragon, and started climbing up the dragon's stash. The dragon then burned the small tunnel with one of the largest waves of flame he had ever seen. Thinking itself triumphant, it turned back to adjourn to its stash of treasure upon which Garrosh now stood; that's when he took his best shot.

"This battle was over before it began!" He announced as he threw one of his axes and embedded it in his foe's soft, exposed neck, causing a torrent of fresh heated blood to spew from the mortal wound. The dragon made the most deafening sound yet as he reeled back in agony, already feeling its lifeblood draining from its jugular. The dying beast slammed his head into both the roof and walls fitfully as he tried in vain to wrench the weapon from its throat. As it flailed helplessly, Garrosh took the chance to finish him off quickly. He slid down the treasure pile and ran towards the howling dragon. He jumped to place one of his feet on the flat of a large stalagmite that had previously been broken in half by the dragon's thrashing tail and launched himself into the air and onto the writhing beast's back.

His launch plan was successful for the most part, as he managed to embed his remaining axe in the creature's upper tail so as not to be thrown off. Slowly but steadily, he made his way up the dragon's back. Through all the pain however, the dragon managed to guess his thinly-veiled goal, and the beast's last and final defense was to smash his back into the cave wall several times, hoping to crush its smaller foe before it fell. Its efforts over-all were for not, for Garrosh had already reached the part of its neck that was hunched over; apart from scraping his feet, the blows against the wall went largely un-felt by the determined orc. The Warchief at last made it to the top of the scaly demon's head, but with each moment he stood atop his destination, the dragon's desperate rapid thrashings made it a monumental struggle to hold on, He needed to end this now, or further risk being thrown off and mauled to death. His mind made up, and being way past the point of no return, he put both hands on the one axe he had left and brought it down on the back of the its skull with all the strength he could muster.

As soon as the deed was dealt, the dragon's thrashing, and all other movement ceased, time seemed to slow, and the only sound was that of the massive beast's legs buckling underneath what was now dead weight. The still moment of slow time undone, the reptile's lifeless form suddenly fell forward and collided with the floor of the cavern with a giant, ground-shaking Thud. releasing himself from the dragon's head, Garrosh let loose a victorious roar as the dragon lay breathless in a pool of its own blood, and for yet another moment had the world gone still and silent..... apart from the small cracking sound coming from behind him.

It took Garrosh a few seconds to realize that he was not hearing things; he turned to look behind him and found to his dismay that a large crater in the cave's wall where the dragon had struck it repeatedly was beginning to expand. It didn't take Garrosh near as long to realize that the cave was going to collapse on top of him... and his treasure! Just as that horrible realization dawned on him, one of the crater's cracked tendrils lurched upward and streaked across the portion of the ceiling right above the kingly trove. As much as Garrosh hated it, he had to make a lightning-quick decision: One, Move in the opposite direction and safely avoid the cave-in, or two, lung forward to gather as many riches as his hands can carry and risk being buried with it. In the split second he had to decide, he grudgingly picked option one and made a mad dash for the far left side of the cave where lay his exit.

Garrosh then did what any other person would likely do: He stopped at the door-way to the exit, turned, and looked with worried eyes to see if the whole room was about to be erased from existence by this calamity. As he did this, his entire body was met not only with an immense gust of wind, but a thick cloud-wall of dust and dirt rushing carelessly through the tunnel, accompanied by a gargantuan rumble of rocky, avalanching earth.

Coughing, hacking, blinking, and spitting, The Warchief made his way back into the cavern's atrium to evaluate the extent of the damage wrought upon his precious stash. What was revealed when the dust eventually cleared infuriated him beyond belief. Dirt covered everything in a thin blanket, even the Dragon's corpse and all the blood surrounding it, but that was not what Garrosh noticed at the time. He saw that only half of the cave had imploded, but that his treasure was in that half! The enraged orc gave a feral, echoing roar as he went to his knees, sending a small puff of dust a few inches into the air around him.

"Why... have the ancestors forsaken me as of late?!" His growled statement swiftly turning into a shouting rant. "Great Mother! Is this world to be my endless torment?!" He let his head hang down low, as if he'd given up, a notion that he seriously considered contemplating. There he sat, eyes closed for minutes that felt like lifetimes. He began to re imagine what his life had been before all this happened; not an orcish leader destined through unimaginable hardship and effort for indisputable greatness, but a genocidal villain bound through these same mind-altering hardships for a cruel fate eternal. He would never admit it, but were he not so desensitized by years of raw warfare and heart-wrenching grief, he might just have shed a tear.

With such a tantalizing prospect laid forever to rest and away from his grasp, Garrosh simply stayed there on his knees, not wanting to do much else for, as far as he could tell, just as long. The cavernous grotto that was once alight with the shining of many riches, now utterly bereft of anything of true value, was now nothing more than another dark useless dungeon meant to conceal decomposing beasts of old. The defeated Warchief saw this when he finally opened his weary, tired eyes. His sight further continued to wander aimlessly around the nondescript mound of dust and rock that was once his gold and jewelry, that is, until it was caught by a feint, brassy glint in the soil next to him; it was one of the gold coins. He leaned over and grasped it as if a soldier in the battlefield grasping at the remains of someone once dear to him. He looked over it indifferently whilst flipping it several times in his hand, and examining it more closely, saw that it had a peculiar label engraved on it: A picture of one of those incessant "pony" creatures adorning a crown, but with some differences. For instance, her muzzle (He was confident that it was a "she") was just slightly more elongated than the others he had seen, and her hair was long and flowing. Jutting out from the horse's hair was a long, spiraled, sharp-looking horn; Garrosh scoffed pitifully at the mere notion of one of these "pony" leaders being a unicorn. This coin must have been from one of their civilizations as currency. He almost cast the trivial discovery aside as some kind of sadistic irony before his eyes started to widen in a hopeful realization: Perhaps this one is not alone! He frantically swept the layer of settling dust away from the ground in front of him, not only to find more of the coins, but some of the gems as well.

"Yes! I knew you would not abandon me, Great Mother!" He shouted unto the heavens through the roof of the cave as he ran his hands over more dust-covered floor. Coin after coin, gem after gem, if he kept this up, he would have plenty of riches to bribe any smith, and anyone else that he needed to. After about an hour or so, his searching finally ended with the result of over forty precious stones and hundreds of coins gathered in a mildly sizable pile; he had even found a gold bar in the mess of settled soil near the end.

With his scavengings through, he sat down and ate the few apples he had left. He took inventory as he ate: Two loafs of bread, five leather water sacks, and plenty of spare room in his main bag were left. He withdrew all of his remaining provisions from his backpack so as not to crush them beneath the weight of his findings. He then placed all of his new currency in it; even though he didn't necessarily have to pay the blacksmith, he'd prefer not to be called a thief everywhere he went.

After he took thorough inventory and successfully packed all he'd earned into the bag along with his rations, he decided that he should move on, for he knew every creature within a fifty-mile radius could clearly make out the dragon's pained roars. With his choice made, he took his sack of food, water, and treasure onto his back after a brief rest, walked back to the corpse of the slain beast, and reclaimed his second weapon from the its throat. Wiping the blood from its handle and blade, he casually traversed the cavern to its exit. With all of his things accounted for, including his direction, he set off North once again. Even though he had to trash his original idea of staying the night there, the bit of loot he had plundered was well worth it. He continued his trek North, intent on reaching the mountain city in two day's time, the place where his blacksmith surely awaited him.

---

Fleetfoot knelt closer to the ground to get a better look at the broken railroad ties, just as she had done to the window at the Salt Block Tavern. It would take a creature that's weight was well over five-hundred pounds. It didn't really inspire confidence in the young Wonderbolt to know that what she was chasing had not only torn a window (frame and all) out of a wall, but now had done all this. Also, if half of the intelligence Soarin had gathered from the locals were true, then this thing was not to be trifled with. "Spitfire, thith thing'th gotta weigh at leatht five hundred poundth, and I think it weighed more." She said to her commander with a rather unwanted amount of concern in her hushed voice. The worry was all but lost on Spitfire however, for the Captain was sitting on nearby station bench, far too occupied with reading one of her many vanity magazines.

"Yeah, yeah, but is that where it went? Did it just follow the tracks?" Her commander asked her impatiently; she responded as quickly as she could, taking one last look at the tracks.

"I don't know if it came from thith way, or left thith way; I've never theen hoof printh like thethe before." She answered simply. Luckily for them, the fastly-approaching Soarin carried better news.

"Hey guys! From what all I just heard, we've gotta be dealing with some kind of monster from an old foal's tale." Confused, Spitfire lowered her shades and looked up from her magazine at him; both mares didn't exactly know what he meant by that.

"...What?" The two of them struck up in unison before looking at each other and hearing Soarin continue.

"Yeah, that's what I said. They told me it was about twelve feet tall, and it had brown leathery skin, black tattoos, and no fur!" Soarin paused for a moment, as if trying to remember all the information he'd gathered. "Oh yeah! and they did say it went that way." He said as he pointed a hoof away from the town, down the railroad tracks, towards Everfree Forest. "I talked to the sheriff too, and he said it was looking for something called a blacksmith. What is that anyway?"

Was he serious? "Does he really not know what a blacksmith is?" Fleetfoot thought to herself. She just waited until Spitfire answered him, lest she start insulting him if she tried to answer the dim-wit.

"A blacksmith is a weapons and armor crafter... not many of them still around anymore. Why in Equestria would a monster be looking for something like that?" Spitfire asked, sill confused; the question seemed to remind Soarin of something.

"Oh! I almost forgot; the town's ponies didn't have a blacksmith so the monster asked if they had any kind of weapons for sale, and it left town after he took two lumber axes from the general goods store." Fleetfoot was astounded, astounded that he "almost forgot" the fact that this thing was now armed and even more dangerous than it probably was originally, and that was really saying something. She couldn't take his lack of brain power any longer.

"'Almostht forgot?' 'Almotht forgot?!' That wath one of the motht important pieceth of info you got, and you 'almost forgot' it?!" She screeched at the top of her lungs as she marched up to him, but before she could further deride the simple pegasus, her ranting was halted mid-stride by her superior.

"Don't start it, Fleet; let's just keep focused." Came Spitfire's worn-out groan as she pinched the bridge of her muzzle with a hoof. After a short millisecond, Fleetfoot merely nodded before shooting a dirty look Soarin's way (It had the desired effect: Making him sad.) and trotting back behind her captain. Before the team could bring even more strife and damage on itself, their forth member by the name of Rapidfire returned, He spoke as soon as he landed in front of his leader.

"I have found the creature's name; the locals here say it called itself 'Garrosh Hellscream', but they also say it called itself a 'Warchief.' Perhaps this is some sort of military rank?" The name "Hellscream" was more than enough to make Fleetfoot feel a bit edgy.

"Great job, Rapid. So we've got a name, we know it's armed, and we know it's headed that way." Spitfire said in a positive, encouraging tone while pointing down the tracks; just then, the final member of the team silently alighted behind them and spoke swiftly.

"One of the locals thinks that it maybe headed to Ponyville; if we go there, we may be able to head it off." Suggested Wave Chill in his usual dark and emotionless tone; he was always one of Fleetfoot's favorite to be around.

"Then we head to Ponyville. 'Hellscream' will have to come out of that forest some time, and when he does, we'll be in Ponyville ready for him." Spitfire briefed, her militant instincts kicking in.

"So... we're done here?" Rapidfire perked up, sounding a bit more uptight than he intended. Fleetfoot was almost certain she wasn't the only one to roll their eyes; everypony on the team knew he was never particularly fond of rural settlements.

"Yep, let's move out!" Spitfire ordered as they all took off and assumed formation bound North. When they were once again flying over deserted territory, Fleetfoot finally decided to ask the question on her mind.

"What do we do when we find it, Spit?" She whispered to which her captain gave a light chuckle.

"We make it give back what it stole. Trust me, Fleet, when we find that thing, we're gonna make it wish it never took a crumb from this town!" She determined as she sped ahead slightly followed closely by Soarin and Rapidfire, but Fleetfoot and Wave Chill hung back a few feet.

"You scared?" Wave daunted her quietly, to which she scoffed haughtily.

"I'm not thcared of anything: Not a timber wolf, not a dragon, not a hydra, and not whatever thith thing ith." She stated with a bit of renewed confidence. Luckily enough, he seemed to buy it.

"Okay, if you say so, Fleet." He acknowledged before darting after his compatriots; after a quick check of her inner fortitude and a deep breath, she was the last to catch up to the rest.

"I really hope this thing isn't as bad as all the crap we've heard so far." She recounted dreadfully as she soared with her team through the bright blue sky above.

---

Fluttershy was having a nice and peaceful day so far: Angel had been behaving well enough, Mr. Bear's back had not been bothering him that day, the pigs she agreed to check up for Applejack had not tested sick once, and the spiderlings she had been taking care of had finally grown up (Though it was a tearful moment when they at last said their goodbyes, cast out their lines, and blew away.) All in all, she was having a wonderful day.

She hummed a small tune to herself as she tried to think of a single bad thing that did happen that day. The worst she could think of was having to dig the worms up to feed the baby birds. She cringed recalling the taste, but then again, she had to do the same thing every year all throughout springtime; so that didn't really count. Perishing the very thought, it did not ruin her day in the slightest. In fact, it actually reminded her that she had one final chore to attend to before she had the rest of the day all to herself: Feeding the chickens.

Remembering this, Fluttershy trotted merrily into her supply shack, grabbed one of the many sacks of chicken feed, spread her wings, and did more of a jump-and-glide than actual flight. She landed at the gate to their pen with all the grace of a butterfly, and then proceeded to open the sack and pour some feed into their troughs, thinking about how she would spend the rest of the day. She genuinely didn't know what she could do, but after her final task was done, she just settled for returning to her cottage.

Once inside, she sat down on her couch, and opened an excerpt from the romance novel series that her good friend Rarity had recommended. It was a rather riveting and strange tale partly about a conflicted earth pony mare who falls in love with a self-loathing thestral and their love's confidential place in rural pony society. It was quite saucy at times and a trifle dark at others; it was the epitome of something Rarity would recommend to her, being a stark romantic. Fluttershy could not for the life of her remember the name of the series, but she didn't bother thinking about the name too much at the time; the story was just getting good. Angel Bunny hopped up on the couch and poked at her to let her know that he wanted to sit beside her; the afternoon could not have been going any better.........

Grrraaauuurrrrrggghhh! Fluttershy all but jumped straight out of her skin as she heard one of the loudest, most ferocious roars she'd ever heard in her life.

"O-o-oh m-my." She whispered almost inaudibly in both shock and fear. She then picked the fallen book up off the floor and placed it back on the table next to the others. "I'm so sorry, Angel Bunny." She fluttered apologetically to the rabbit who was now lying face-first on the floor. After her apology, she raced outside and across her creak bridge. The sound's source and direction was easily discovered: It came right from the bowels of Everfree Forest. She didn't want to go anywhere near that far into that place, but she knew the animal that made that noise sounded like it was in unbearable pain.

Galloping back inside, she hastily turned to her companion. "Angel, you're in charge while i'm gone, okay? Be a good little bunny." She spoke in worry to her fluffy little companion who threw her a faithful salute. Like Tartarus she was going that deep into Everfree alone though, so she flew as fast as she possibly could, making a beeline to her friend Rainbow Dash's house.

---

Garrosh's feet (And the rest of his body for that matter) were killing him, for he had been walking for up to three days, he had slain various creatures including a humongous dragon, declined an obviously perfect place to sleep in favor of adhering to his own paranoid suspicions, and it was now nearing nightfall in the depths of a predatory forest! But all things aside, he supposed he was doing quite well for an orc having awoken three days ago in a barren wasteland with no clothing or weaponry, this all after he was given a heady opportunity to escape the throngs of factions all screaming and clamoring for his blood. As a healthy change of pace, he decided not to dwell obsessively on those matters for too long, and chose instead to keep focused on the next task at hand. Using the same method as before, he hopped up tree after tree to finally find one that stood tall enough compared to all the others. He shoved his head through the canopy as he did twice before, this time only to be blinded by the setting sun.

"So I have been walking all day." Garrosh muttered as he winced. He thought about what all that meant as he jumped back down to the forest floor. "That means I can't be too far from the edge of this forest." He said to himself. Even at this rate, he wasn't going to make it out of the forest by nightfall, this and the fact that he didn't even know what lay outside the once he did led him to an imminent mission: He needed to find a place to sleep, and he needed to find it now.

He picked up his pace, keeping a sharp eye out for any places that he could possibly use as a potential resting spot. About ten minutes into his wanderings and searchings, he pulled back a tree branch to reveal a tiki face! "By the ancestors!" He shouted as he punched through the wooden ornament in reflex, splintering it to pieces. "Who would leave this out here?!" He huffed as his mind processed that very question. "Wait..." He knelt down to closer inspect the tiki mask, and upon doing so, his mind started to reach some dreadful conclusions. "Either this world has some very strange.... and familiar nativeness, or--" Garrosh grated his teeth together in fastly-gathering rage. "I swear unto the ancestors! If trolls inhabit this forest, nay, this world, then I shall rip every last one to shreds!" He declared to both to himself and anyone in the immediate area as he marched onward fuming.

Not a minute later when a gust of wind softly rolled past him could the irate Warchief detect something with his ears. It was vague, but it seemed to be some sort of hollow jingling sound that, for some reason, Garrosh found familiar to him. Letting his mind play his flash-back briefly, he knew exactly where the sound had become familiar to him: It was the same sound he used to hear from the porches of houses in Nagrand; the townsfolk frequently hung bottles, carvings, teeth and tusks around there homes in both decoration and to ward off any predators that came too close to the village.

"Someone is near." He though without a doubt as he started heading in that direction. Brushing away a few leaves and bushes, a tribal-looking "tree house" came into his view, but the hollowed-out tree not only had a door carved into it, but masks similar to the one he'd seen earlier and potion bottles of all shapes and sizes that must have been what he was hearing were littering it. However, the thing that meant the most to Garrosh in that moment was the fact that there was light coming from inside the tree house. "This place is clearly inhabited! Though not by any troll; that door is far too small." He calculated more curiously than anything, though this might just have been the perfect opportunity to find a place to sleep. He cautiously approached the door and gave it a few good loud knocks. Inside, almost instantaneously he heard a big, cluttered, crashing sound. "Something else definitely lives here...." He whispered to himself; he assumed a war stance as he heard something walking towards the door.

"Four legs, another one of those damned horses." His weary head groaned with dread. Just then, the creature that opened it was not precisely what he had predicted. It looked like a zhevra of the Northern Barrens, only it had no horn, it was striped black and white with an erected mohawk atop its head. It also had big teal eyes that seemed to be trailing tentatively up his body to his face. Also, from the long eyelashes that guarded said teal eyes, Garrosh was able to quite easily guess that it was a female. The zhevra's expression to him was the most surprising, for it showed little more than slight initial shock. The last thing about her was that she was sporting large golden rings on her ears, neck and right forehoof in a tribal fashion.

"Greetings, zhevra. Do you know of a place I can sleep for this night?" Garrosh asked as politely and as un-intimidatingly as he probably could, naturally assuming this creature could speak as well as the horses could. The zhevra on the other hand, seemed taken aback by the fact that he himself could actually speak.

"I have a place for you to sleep, I really do. But I'm not sure if it will suit one such as you." She answered impressively calmly.

"Did she just rhyme?" He wasn't sure if she did or not. He also noted that her accent was very similar to that of a troll; it would explain the tiki face he had run into earlier clearly, but he decided that given her positive reaction to him, it was not something worth killing or even threatening her over. He didn't bother thinking about it too much though, for there was no way the two could possibly be connected, if it was supposedly a different world that is. He continued talking as he knelt down, flipped his bag in front of him, and pulled a fairly large-sized diamond from it. "I'll pay you handsomely for letting me use it." He said as he brandished the shiny gem. "I also wish to know if you have any tailoring materials I could purchase from you by chance." He planned to extend his offer. She put her ringed hoof to her chin for a second before smiling and speaking again.

"Our transaction will not be bleak, for I believe I have what you seek." She said before turning to go back inside.

Had that one been a rhyme as well? He wasn't paying close enough attention; he decided to wait explicitly for her third sentence to try and find out. When she came back out, she was carrying a large saddlebag-like basket filled with not only an array of cloth, but leather (Or something that looked like it), buttons, and straps as well. All were things he desperately needed; as proud as he was of the creation of his current apparel, the curtain he had used to make them was undeniably starting to chafe and itch. After setting all this down in front of him, she donned a small smile and spoke for the third time.

"These here are for you; I hope they will do." Before the Warchief could muster anything say in return, she spoke a fourth time. "If I may say, you are a creature of uncommon looks. I've not seen anything like you, not even in my books." Now he was irrevocably certain she was rhyming, but he ended up brushing it aside in favor of a coherent response.

"I'm not from this place, as you can plainly see; I am an orc of Nagrand, and my name is Garrosh Hellscream. Now, I shall pay you three more precious stones in exchange for that basket and all of its contents." He stated his planned offer. To which she replied honestly as she took a close look at the four diamonds he held in his hand.

"Just one of these gems would be worth my land. Do you have anything of less value to... hand?" she asked, suddenly bewildered by the appendages at which she was now staring.

"That's going to get old, very fast." He though as he merely tossed her two of the stolen rocks. "I have more than enough currency to do as I must," He said to her casually. "but I do thank you for your sense of fair trade. Many would have taken the four gems without the slightest question or hesitation." He spoke the truth. He was legitimately surprised at how fair she was being with him, but he still had two more questions. "Now, where is this place where I may sleep?" He asked once again in a polite tone, and not with an impatient one. She waved a hoof for him to follow, and she lead him to a nook in the roots that was well big enough for him to sleep in.

"The flat ground under my home's shade is the best I can do, but I will fetch some quilts to make it comfy too." She said with a kind smile. He had to admit that, despite his previous premonitions about her accent as well as her perpetual rhyming, he actually liked this zhevra a lot more than those annoying horses.

"Thank you, and if I may ask, what is your name, Miss?" He asked, again with his best polite tone. She gave a light chuckle before responding.

"I am Zecora, and as you now see, I am the only native zebra of the Ever-Free." Only native... zebra? He may have been miss-pronouncing the name his whole life, and he didn't really keep on the odd word as he spoke either.

"It is an honor to make your acquaintance," He said unto her as he bowed. "And thank you for the supplies and place to rest." He stated. Somewhere in the pit of his heart, he could almost feel something smiling down on him; he didn't know if he liked the feeling, but he definitely didn't mind it. As the "zebra" returned with a large blanket, she gave her goodnight to the orc.

"Kind souls must inhabit where you're from. In my home you are always most welcome." She chanted warmly. "Now that an accord has been reached and all is right, I must bid you a very good night." Zecora then made her way back into her house.

Garrosh had to admit, her way of speech would be very hard to master, and she wasn't wrong about the kind souls; Nagrand was a place that was good to the orc, the folk ever kind to there kin. He sat down on his blanket, made himself comfortable, and grabbed one of the loafs of bread out of his bag. "I could really use another one of those lion monsters." He thought disappointed as he scarfed the bread down to his heart's content. After he was finished, he dragged the basket he had traded for to his side, and began to construct some real clothing.

Hellscream was no tailor, by any means. He knew how to work a needle and spool from his days as a youngling in Nagrand, but he simply hadn't willed himself to sit and study a pattern long enough to actually remember how to make anything. Though, his teacher, an older orc named Mathar G'ochar, had tasked him with learning to create at least five things with the tailoring supplies he had failed to sell at the end of each month. Garrosh failed in the quest, as he had predicted he would when Mathar had first given it to him, by being unable to learn the fifth pattern he had been given. Garrosh stroked his chin as he attempted to remember what it was that had defeat his younger self.

"A bag, a nether weave bag, if I'm not mistaken, but with a trick to it..." Hellscream shook his head, a small grin on his face. G'ochar had still been proud of him, though the old orc had teased him for weeks afterwards about his failure.

"The great Hellscream, defeated by a satchel!" Mathar would jest. Garrosh's grin stayed with him as he set to work with his new supplies. The four patterns he had successfully learned, were that of a linen belt, brown linen pants, tan overalls, and a course thread-reinforced foot wrap. He had quickly found that the overalls were the most difficult to create, but offered the best form of protection from the elements. Garrosh searched the basket, and gathered up everything he would need to construct the overalls. He then gathered up all the balls of material from the basket to stitch together a few pairs of feet wraps.

Garrosh was rusty, there was no doubt about that, but as minutes turned to hours, he began to find his old talent had not been lost to time. It was long into the night by the time Hellscream was done sewing his new clothes, and it took ever ounce of energy he had left to don the overalls and foot wraps. He didn't bother with anything else after that, all he could be bothered to do was lay upon his back and close his eyes.

Still, as tired as his mind was, he found himself thinking of Mathar G'ochar, and how proud the old orc would have been to see him now.

---

When Rainbow Dash found whatever had killed that miserable dragon, she would make sure it suffered as much as it did. Not because she liked the dragon for any reason (in fact, she actually hated most of them), not because she felt sorry for the hulking mass of decaying scales, it was because her nice, relaxing weekend hangout had been abruptly ruined when a worried and rather adamant Fluttershy showed up at the door to her cloud tower earlier that afternoon. Fluttershy had begged her to accompany her into the Ever-Free Forest to try and find out what had caused the beastly roar they'd all heard.

Rainbow did hear the roar, make no mistake, but she was not near curious enough to exert as much effort as to fly out of her house into those Celestia-forsaken woods in search of the culprit. Now, at the end of all this, having discovered the macabre scene in the depths of some confounded cave, she was having to let her traumatized, animal-loving friend sleep over at her house for the night. Even though Rainbow knew that Fluttershy was pathologically afraid of dragons, she also knew that Fluttershy would never in a thousand years want to see one hurt, let alone killed. A third thing Rainbow knew was that judging by how sorrowfully she mourned for the magnificent beast, she was liable to need some kind of therapy. She flew up to the door with the weeping pegasus in tow; once inside, she laid her hysterical friend down on the couch and placed a blanket over her gently.

"It's fine, Shy, we're gonna go get the others tomorrow and we'll find out what happened; for now, you just try and get some sleep, okay?" She soothed. Fluttershy just weakly nodded as she continued to silently shed tears for the unfortunate, fallen creature they had found. Rainbow gave her a look of mild uncertainty before gingerly nodding back to her, turning, and beginning to hover up stairs to her bedroom; it was just about when she'd reached the foot of the stair case when a whimper stopped her cold. "You say something, Flutters?" She asked as she turned mid-flight back around to face her. She could already tell Fluttershy was trying to tell her something.

"Rainbow, could you-- could you s-stay with me? j-just until I fall asleep?" She asked between sniffles in a just barely audible voice. "Please?" pleaded the trembling caretaker. Rainbow sighed as she touched down on the clouded floor, trotted over to the living room chair, pulled it up to the couch, and plopped down in it.

"Don't worry, Flutters, I'm not going anywhere." She said in the best caring voice she could offer. Fluttershy cast her dear, long-time friend a meaningful smile before sniffling again and pulling her into a desperate hug. It had been a long time since Rainbow had seen her this distraught; it was the least she could do to hold the embrace for as long as she wished. Eventually, Fluttershy broke off and gave a small nod goodnight before turning off to her side and trying to get some rest. Contrary to some belief, Rainbow was not dumb; she wasn't about to take any chances with her friend in this state, so making herself comfortable, she resolved to sit there all night with her, just in case she woke up with nightmares. It seemed to work for the most part, but Rainbow fell asleep in that chair long before sleep finally welcomed her poor, crestfallen friend.

Author's Note:

I'm sure the book Fluttershy was reading was a better love story than Twilight. :-)

I'm also sure you all have heard this from every other author, but writing Zecora was one of the biggest pains my *Beep* has ever had to endure. And no, I did not use Google for the rhyming... I'm serious; I did however use my brother. He loved writing this garbage...

as usual, here is some illustrations of Garrosh's new clothes, in case my descriptions were lacking.

Comments

[The Blessed One]

Break news! No, not really, but I will be going back to Chapter 1: Siege of Orgrimmar and adding a part to it very soon. I have very much fallen in love with writing this story and I hope all of you guys are enjoying reading this as much as I enjoy writing it.

[Xzaves]

4176861 Haven't played much with a horde character.
Still like it more than my space goat.

[Greatmane]

I'm kind of surprised he didn't see the masks, think 'Troll' and immediately start breaking things.

[The Blessed One]

4232403 I am putting a lot more character into him then world of warcraft did. So he will have more personality then just SMASH! But he will be his normal angry self.

[muffinator]

You will makke more oor ii shal through rock mufkfins at thou

[muffinator]

4260375 Sorry bad keyboard. I meant to say cong long bing chung foo shoo new. Ya feel me hem hem no homo

[Europa]

I now ship!

GarroshxZecora.

[verypeeved]

he loved doing it...

*snicker*