Grim Views

Flashes. Images. Nightmares.

Chingaso stands before her with his spear held high, tears streaming down his cheeks, before plunging the barbed weapon into her chest.

At a meeting of the Grim, Abric paces back and forth before the assemblage, speaking in a language she cannot understand. Triumphantly, he holds up an orc's eyeball, presenting it to a crowd of faceless shapes that once were her friends.

She stands before the tree, ropes binding her tightly. Lascivious approaches, whispering into her ear, "Your time is up, orc." A dagger is drawn across Ashagga's throat, and the river behind the tree turns red with her spilt blood.

She stands at the front of Sylvanus' black chapel in Undercity, and Varimathras presides. Chingaso slowly walks down the aisle toward her, but when he reaches her and removes her veil, it is the Banshee Queen who stands as his bride.

Lightning storms rage across Azeroth, igniting the dry plains of the Barrens, and Crossroads is consumed in a torrent of screams.

Images. Flashes. Nightmares.

Omens?

A flash of lightning and clap of thunder rudely hauled Ashagga from her tormented reverie. Torrential rains soaked Felwood, and even the corrupted wolves and bears sought shelter from the downpour. The wind dashed Ashagga cruelly against the tree from which she hung, jarring her aching, twisted muscles and strained bones.

Her good eye strained through the darkness of her second night, and she managed to make out the figure of Chingaso, never far, always looking up at her. He'd tried to speak to her at first, but she had not answered, choosing to save her strength, and not trusting herself not to cry.

Now, she faded in and out of consciousness, sucking at rainwater when she could, trying to ignore the gnawing hunger growing strongly in her guts. She tried not to imagine the festering black wound that was her eye, tried not to feel the rain sluicing away the pus and blood from the injury. She tried not to feel the ache of her bonds, cutting into her skin or the weight of her body hanging from her shoulders.

She always failed.

Five more days... Light, she would go mad, if not for Chingaso. He was always there, every time she regained consciousness. He was safety. He watched over her. Sometimes, when she woke, he was bleeding, but he was never far.

Why hadn't she seen the spirits yet? Why hadn't it worked?

Oh, Light, she was going to die here...

by Yichimet

He had tried to comfort Chingaso after so cruelly keeping him from Ashagga during the ceremony. He watched Syreena from afar, who had sat and stared at the river in what he thought was a serene and sad way. He had spoken to Mohan brusquely, afraid to show any emotion to the one shu'halo who knew him inside and out.He did all this and was terrified in his very spirit.As Ashagga had been parted from her eye, and as she screamed, and as she whimpered from the rope tugging her high, Yichimet had seen the tortured spirits swirl around the tree and her. They flashed in and out of view, howling soundlessly and weeping."Have I made a mistake?" he'd wondered. He had looked at the feeble dreamcatchers at the base of the tree and almost cut the orc down. But his sense said otherwise. If Chingaso would guard her body, Yichimet would guard her spirit.When he left, he stopped at Orgrimmar to gather a few things from his banker and went immediately on to the Spires. When he got to the highest spire he could climb, he took out his pouch and mixed a sapta. The height was important. He would watch from high and guard her spirit as he could.Yichimet's unmoving form sat atop the Spire and watched.

One week... it had been one full week, seven agonizing days, since the Grim had hauled Ashagga into the branches of the dead tree in Felwood, leaving her hanging from her wrists in the corrupted elven forest. Seven days since Abric had removed her eye at her request, leaving her open to the spirits of blood and pain that plagued the land.

The only witness to her torment was Chingaso, the orcish hunter to whom she had confessed her love. He was stalwart and stoic, forcing himself never to cut her down, forcing himself to guard the battered and increasingly broken body of the orc woman who loved him. He was the only one who saw her deterioration.

After the second day, she was aching and sore, wishing she could just cease this torment. She was hungry and thirsty, tortured by nightmares and visions of things that had happened, things to come, and things that could never be, and battered by the elements.

After the fourth day, she was delirious, raving and ranting, murmuring about things not there. She would scream at nothing, lapse into hours of silence, or writhe frantically, repeating over and over that, "They were inside her." She drank rainwater when it came, ate the bugs that crawled into her mouth, and bled as the ropes sawed into her wrists.

After the sixth day, she was utterly mad, when she was conscious at all. Most of the time she was catatonic, speaking but little, drooling, her lips cracked and dry and bleeding. When she spoke, it was in fits and starts, sometimes in languages Chingaso could not understand. Once, as the sun's last rays fell below the horizon, she screamed, her entire body writhing in pain, crying that it had come, the Bringer had come, and weeping tears of blood.

On the seventh day, she was silent.

At the end of the seventh day, she slowly and groggily regained consciousness, peering through her bleary, bloodshot eye for Chingaso.

by Chingaso

Chingaso hear stir behind, turn to see Shaggy, and see Shaggy look at Chingaso...

"Chingaso, what day is it?" Shaggy ask.

"Seventh day of ritual," Chingaso answer. "Tuesday on Goblin calendar."

"Thank the light," say Shaggy. "Chingaso, please cut me down."

Chingaso heart leap in chest. Finally, end to torment. Torment Shaggy and torment Chingaso.

Chingaso pull new sword from back and careful cut rope while hold Shaggy with other hand. Gently, Chingaso lower Shaggy and self to ground. Chingaso hold Shaggy light so not hurt.

"He came, Chingaso," Shaggy say. "The Bringer came..."

by Lascivious

Lascivious sat silently on her wolf observing the hunter from up the hill. He did not know if he knew she was there, nor if his worry for Ashagga had dulled his sharp senses to nearby trespassers, but it didn't matter. Today was the final day and so she had come here to see if the orc thief was still breathing.

She had pulled her reigns up when she saw the hunter stir and cut down Ashagga's bindings. Had he cracked? Or was it time. She chewed her lower lip with concern until she saw the thief move in Chingaso's arms.

With a nod of satisfaction, Lascivious turned her mount and started up the trail to Timbermaw Hold. Whatever moment the orcs were having, she would let them have alone.

Ashagga fluttered in and out of consciousness, cradled in Chingaso's arms. She spoke to him, but her words were jumbled... sometimes she spoke as Ashagga, and sometimes as a prophet, sometimes speaking her love for the orcish hunter and sometimes trying desperately to warn him of the fire and blood that was to come.

She dimly recalled resting against his broad chest, held in front of him on a wind rider from Bloodvenom Post to Crossroads, but beyond that, she could only call up dim memories of the trip. They spoke much, and she tried to be coherent, but there were so many images in her mind. Her entire body hurt, and her blood felt like it was on fire.

Worst, she could see the spirits.

They were always present, fluttering around Chingaso, herself, those they passed. She saw spirits of life and hope, of water earth and air, of pain and blood and death, and so many more of the latter. She saw them not with her eye, because when she closed that to keep them away, she could still see them... she saw them with the spirit of the orb Abric had removed. She saw them even when she closed her eyes, and only the leather patch she found could bar them from her sight.

She feared she would go mad. She feared she already had.

Chingaso laid her down on something soft, and she felt food and water offered. She ate as quickly as Chingaso would allow, her body starved of nourishment. She felt sleep trying to claim her, when the stoic orc replied to something her other half had said:

"We can have ceremony if Shaggy want, or not. Chingaso happy to face trials with Shaggy at side."

There was a moment of terror, not at the idea of committing to the hunter... she wanted nothing more... but at a vision she had felt, a vision of a Banshee's face. She started to protest, but her lips moved of their own accord, and she felt a smiling, baneful presence behind her face.

"Aye... a ceremony would do much to bind us. We might need the strength o' a ceremony..."

She wanted to scream. She wanted to beg Chingaso to run, to get away, but she felt the presence, gloating, push her back down, felt sleep overcoming her.

When she woke, she remembered only that she was to wed the Orcish hunter, and that she was glad of it...

Chingaso sit in secret lair, watch as Shaggy sleep. Chingaso think on small ceremony have. Shaggy, Chingaso, priest, witnesses. Some friend Chignaso seem upset not invite, but Chingaso promise party soon, after Shaggy recover.

"Wed." Chingaso roll concept around in mind. Mean Chingaso commit whole of self not only to Grim, but now to Shaggy.

"Wed." Chingaso consider possibilities. Image of orclings make Chingaso feel faint, like need to howl at sky. Bring orclings into life uncertain? Maybe someday...

Shaggy moan and stir slight on pallette. Chingaso brush hair from face with hand. Chingaso never know this feel.

Yet, something different about Shaggy. Shaggy say maybe different after ritual, but Chingaso see same Shaggy. Until murmurs in sleep...

"Th' elves, they'll ruin us." Shaggy mutter in sleep.