Foreboding

[Qabian]

((This is a one-off for TNG's August prompt.))

Qabian stepped up the gangplank onto the Banshee's Wail, giving Dazar'alor's great pyramid over his left shoulder a smirk as he set about leaving it behind for another day. The Troll essence pervading everything wore on him. There was enough to it to keep him interested for a short time, but the longer he spent there, the more he wanted out.

Despite the Amani's presence in his backyard, Qabian had never been entirely anti-Troll in his past. He knew the sheer duration of their civilization--if it could even be called that, but it was ancient--held secrets that even he could not easily dismiss. Yes, those secrets had left him with a useless, impossible-to-kill cat, but still. Unlike the humans, who had stolen a gift they did not deserve, and the night elves, who had turned their backs on the magic they should have guarded, Trolls actually knew things, important things, held them close, and could use ancient magic imbued with powers that could not simply be denied.

But Qabian found himself tiring of their aesthetic easily. It took good, vibrant, powerful colors and threw them into right angles and crude faces, no curves, no sweeps, all boldness with no subtlety, no grace whatsoever.

The isles of Kul Tiras were objectively worse, all dead trees and gloom, dreary stone and unpleasant sea creatures, more grey than anyone should have to look at for any length of time, but there, at least, he found no push to appreciate anything. All anyone asked from him in Kul Tiras was fire, and he supplied it with deep contentment, even when it cost him hours in the company of healers later.

As the Banshee's Wail set off to bring the day's adventurers to Plunder Harbor, Qabian leaned over the starboard bow and breathed in the salty air. It had memories in it. He had never been particularly naval minded, but the ocean held memories of Quel'danas, and horizon lines brought to mind all those hours spent in honest prayer to the Highborne the sea had swallowed, the Highborne who he had found still lived, the Highborne whose queen he had abandoned for reasons he could not remember.

The words of the shark loa floated through his mind. Azshara's motives are hidden behind a vast darkness. She reaches into a place from where she cannot return.

Hasn't she been in that darkness for millennia? Qabian thought to himself. Aren't the naga the living proof of that darkness? Did Gral think he knew something different? The blood elf wondered if he would ever find out. The loa had departed with an expressed intention to learn more, but made no promise to return.

Qabian was still considering the subject when the ship arrived in the port, and Qabian made his way through a town full of mutineering humans where no one complained when one or a dozen of them were found shivved, floating face down in the water.