Grim Views

"I was beginning to think that you had succumbed to the dangers of your task," Mohan said gruffly. He took a seat opposite the shaman in a secluded corner of the Filthy Animal.

Jivah made a gesture as though acknowledging a hit. "Mama Jivah t'ink dat she might, once or twice. But it make for a good tale."

The hunter nodded and motioned for her to begin.

Jivah pulled the thick ropes of hair away from her neck and wound them into a knot at the back of her head. The thick air did little to dry the beads of sweat that dripped down her skin and onto the slick, mossy stone beneath her feet. She felt as though she was breathing through a wet blanket - the air in Maraudon was heavy with moisture, and the tomb in which the elemental princess' lover now lay was testament to its life-sustaining atmosphere.

The shaman had lain hidden deep within the caverns for two days, watching Princess Theradras as she continued her constant grieving for her dead lover. A few adventurers who ventured too close were quickly dealt with - suffocating from the poison clouds she unleashed or hurled off the edge of the cliff to be torn to pieces by the lizards in the pools below.

"Waste of time," Jivah murmured to herself in Zandali. She was debating with herself, wondering if this was all Mohan had ordered her to come and observe, when the air in front of the centaur's grave began to shimmer - the tell-tale sign of an impending portal. The shaman ran her tongue over her tusks and watched as a dozen robed figures emerged and surrounded the elemental. Theradras gave a gravelly shriek of outrage at the intrusion.

As she moved to attack, the twelve smaller figures - orcs, Jivah recognized - lifted their arms in unison and shadowy energy slithered from their hands to merge in an undulating, roiling sphere around the Princess. Trapped inside the shadowy prison, she was silenced and rendered impotent as a thirteenth figure stepped through the portal and faced the furious elemental. He leaned on his cane, waiting, as behind him the shadow of a great two-headed ogre appeared.

Jivah stared, wide-eyed, but was too far away to hear the old orc speak. He gestured with his hands around the cavern as he talked, motioning to the grave behind him. He appeared to reference the towering ogre, doing so with respect and deference in his movements. The ground rumbled as the Princess shifted her weight, listening to the orc speak. When he finished, she nodded a reluctant assent.

At a nod from the orc, the twelve shadowy figures dropped their enchantment around Theradras and turned to kneel before the ogre's image. To Jivah's surprise, the elemental bent her stony knee as well, bowing her head. The ogre spoke at length, but though Jivah strained her ears to hear his words, she could only manage to catch a few: ". . . . .- ancient power -. . . . . -emonium -. . . . .- servants -. . . . .- our world!"

The robed figures bowed their heads as the ogre finished speaking and his image vanished. The old orc motioned and turned to limp back through the portal and the others followed him, leaving only Theradras kneeling on the mossy stone as the portal shimmered and disappeared.

Jivah watched the elemental remain motionless for several long minutes. She was turning to go when Theradras gave a low, rumbling groan and lay down prostrate, dragging her body across the platform to lay atop Zaetar's grave. The elemental's sigh shuddered throughout the cavern and she did not move again.

"Hsst - sister."

The shaman nearly jumped out of her skin at the whisper that came from too close behind her for comfort. She was halfway to stabbing a totem of protection into the ground at her feet when she realized that the voice she heard had spoken to her in Zandali. Her blood hammering in her ears, Jivah slinked forward and peered around an outcropping of rock only to come face to face with the grinning face of another troll.

"Sorry to frighten you," he grinned apologetically. "I thought I smelled another troll amidst all this centaur stink and came looking."

The shaman huffed and loosed her death-grip on the wooden totem in her hand. "You get sent here by that dryad too?" the newcomer continued as Jivah stuffed the totem back in her pack. She shook her head.

"She needs some bones recovered. And a warrior's got to eat, so I figured I'd take care of it for her. Though if I'd known how many of them centaur I'd have to cut through looking for them, I'd never have come!"

Jivah thumbed over her shoulder. "I think what you're looking for is down there. That dryad tried to get me to help her, too. I wouldn't risk it - that stone elemental isn't one to trifle with." The shaman shouldered her pack.

"Hey, hey -" The warrior put his hand on her arm and the snake wrapped around Jivah's long throat lifted its head and glowered at the other troll. "What're you doing down here if not to help that girlie?"

"Not your concern, brother. Good luck." Jivah nodded in farewell and left the warrior chuckling at her back as she departed.

-----

"Those orcs were likely Twilight Cultists," Mohan frowned. "They have been making trouble in Orgrimmar lately - which means that the ogre you saw is Cho'gall."

"An' what dey be wantin' wit' de Princess?" Jivah mused. "Dey ask her somet'ing, look like, an' she said yeah, look like. Don' t'ink dat be a good t'ing; Mama Jivah see how she deal wit' folk."

Mimbihi sauntered past the table where the two sat. "Joo need anyt'ing, loveys?"

Jivah waved the barmaid off; Mohan shook his head. "No thank you." Adjusting his position on the chair that was not quite large enough to comfortably accommodate a tauren, he turned back to the troll. "Where did you venture next?"

The troll's heavy feet slap-slapped on the stone, her footsteps echoing softly in the long hallway. Her jaw throbbed and ached; she realized she was clenching her teeth together once again. She kept her eyes pointed straight ahead, not looking at the elven carvings and architecture. There was a low rumbling under her feet and a shower of dust fell from the ceiling, but the earth underneath Dire Maul had shrugged slightly, no more. Jivah continued to hear the rumbling long after the small quake had subsided, though - a rumbling that slowly crescendoed to a roar, punctuated sharply by loud, devastating cracks - tree trunks snapping as though they were twigs.

"Mamaaaaaa!"

The troll mashed her hands over her ears and pressed hard, squeezing her eyes shut until the noise in her head subsided. It took a while, as it always did, for her to remember to breathe, then a little while longer for her to remember to move again. She opened her eyes to the unwelcome sight of being surrounded by elven walls...these walls in particular. A light glowed through an archway up ahead; Jivah rolled her shoulders and stepped through into the quiet peace of the Athenaeum.

Thousands upon thousands of books crammed bookshelves that lined nearly every single wall of the massive library. Delicately constructed mobiles hung suspended from the ceiling, skeletons of long-dead creatures had been assembled on pedestals of pride with golden plaques proclaiming their origins in flowing script. The shaman glowered at it all - to her, it was undeniable evidence of destruction.

The soft shush-shush of robes heralded the approach of one of the lorekeepers. His eyes glowed with a soft yellow light from a friendly face lined with age - in his hands was a stack of books, which he shifted in order to give the troll a small bow.

"Visitors to the Athenaeum are rare indeed, and a troll rarer still," the Highborne said in flawless, barely accented Zandali. "To see two in one day is quite an event." The lorekeeper stacked the books neatly on a nearby desk and brushed his hands off, turning to Jivah. "You are not here by accident. What have you found for us?"

Jivah breathed carefully. Unslinging her pack from her shoulder, her hand brushed the haft of one of her maces and she had to refrain from gripping the weapon and pulling it free from its strap. She cleared her throat.

"I found...this," she said lowly, pulling a thick tome from her pack. "The mark on the cover -"

"Ah, yes, yes -" the elf said, moving forward with a preternatural grace to take the book from Jivah's hands. He ran a finger over the binding. "Frost Shock and You, volume three. We have no copies of this book here; I thought they had all been destroyed! What a find," he murmured, rapt. "I must catalogue this immediately; you are welcome to take as much time with it as you like when I have finished." He walked swiftly to a large pedestal in the very center of the largest chamber of the library on which stood a massive book; Jivah followed.

"That isn't - I can't read, but that isn't why I came here." The Highborne dipped a quill into an ink pot on the pedestal and began carefully writing in the tome. Jivah pressed on. "There was - were rumors of an elemental who had first appeared in the east wing. I went seeking it but - "

"Yes, yes, that. That was taken care of some time ago; we didn't know what it was or why it was there, either. A young adventuring mage was able to subdue it and bring a remnant to us here for study."

"Sub-...you mean 'kill'."

"Yes," the lorekeeper said matter-of-factly. "Well, as much as an elemental can be killed." He finished writing in the catalogue and tucked the smaller book under his arm. "Just let me put this one away and I can take you to it, if you would like."

Jivah nodded, her jaw aching again, and the Highborne turned to go. "While you wait, perhaps you would like the company of your friend over there - I assume you ventured into the ruins together?"

The shaman blinked at the elf. "Friend -? No, no, I'm alone."

"Curiouser and curiouser," the Highborne murmured. "Well, then - I shall return momentarily." He swished away from her and Jivah looked over her shoulder to the alcove the elf had referenced.

As she cautiously approached the bookshelf-lined alcove, she heard a familiar voice humming a tribal dance, accompanied by a heavy, plated foot tapping out a rhythm. Rounding the corner, she discovered the warrior she had met in Maraudon leaning casually against a shelf and thumbing idly through a volume.

"Well," he said, grinning. "What a pleasant surprise, girlie."

"You don't sound surprised at all, actually." Jivah folded her arms. "Did you follow me here?"

The other troll closed his book and put it back on the shelf. "I was here before you were. How could I have followed you?"

The snake tightened and relaxed around Jivah's throat. "Just...it's odd."

"Odd indeed, sister." The warrior smiled again and straightened. He was tall for a troll - stooped in his usual posture, he was about Jivah's height, but he towered over her now. "I be Zan'tir," he said, bowing low. "Good time for an introduction, I think, now that we be twice met."

Against her will, the corner of Jivah's mouth twitched in a small grin. "I be Jivah," she returned. She pretended to glance at the book he'd returned to the shelf. "So why -are- you here?"

"Why are you here?" he returned, lightning quick, his yellow teeth showing in a wide, mischievous smile. Jivah rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Fine, I don't want to know that bad."

Zan'tir grinned even wider, then his gaze flicked over her shoulder. "Your friend's coming back."

Jivah pursed her lips, darkening swiftly. "He's not my friend." She turned away from the warrior. "Shango give you strength, brother."

His chuckle followed her as she moved to meet the returning Highborne. "And you as well, sister."

The elf nodded as he approached. "This way, please." Motioning her to follow, he led her out of the center chamber, down twisting and turning book-lined corridors to a smaller room. There, in a corner, quite ordinary amidst the other elemental remnants, was a mote of water hovering in an arcane prison. The table on which the glowing cage was maintained also held an open book and several measuring implements.

"Here we are," the Highborne announced. "As I said previously, we are no closer to determining why the elemental spawned in the east wing than we were when the specimen was first brought to us."

Jivah crouched down next to the table, peering at the swirling globe. "Was it - threatening you?"

The elf shook his head. "No. It was merely there."

"And you wanted to study it, so...you killed it?"

He gave her a slight, indulgent smile. "It was an elemental spirit only, not a living being as you are or I am. No harm was done."

Jivah straightened slowly, her hands clenched so tightly that her fingernails threatened to cut into her palms. "You've done plenty of harm already - what's a little more, hm?" she growled softly.

The Highborne looked at her evenly for a long moment. Finally, he spoke. "If that is all you wished to see, perhaps you would like to continue on your way?"

The shaman bit her lip, tasting blood. She nodded wordlessly; the serpent around her throat flicked its tongue at the elf, who turned away to lead her from the room.

As he began to lead her back through the twists and turns to the main chamber, Jivah reached back and fingered the haft of one of her maces again. The serpent became increasingly active, slithering round and round her throat, tightening and releasing. "I remember," she whispered quietly. "I remember my promise."

"Again, please?" the Highborne inquired, slowing his walk and cocking his ear toward her.

She could restrain herself no longer. Yanking her weapons free from their binds, she imbued them with air and fire - the rushing of energy through the corridor knocked several smaller volumes to the ground. The Highborne spun - a bit clumsily; his scholar's body was not accustomed to sudden movement. His golden-glowing eyes widened at the sight of Jivah hefting her twin maces and he raised his hands to counter her with a spell.

"I remember my promise," she repeated, growling.

She snatched the spell from his mouth with a gust of wind and attacked in a fury. It was a short, fierce encounter, over in mere seconds - the elf crumpled to the ground, his skull and face caved in.

Jivah swallowed, her throat dry. She had little time to revel in her victory - already shouts were echoing throughout the library as the other lorekeepers became aware of the magical disturbance. Swiftly, she knelt and peeled a large chunk of bone away from his skull before probing with her fingers and tearing out a piece of brain matter.

"Knowledge you had. I take it into me, and it be mine, now," she whispered fiercely in Zandali. Jivah took the chunk of flesh between her lips and chewed once, twice, and swallowed as she heard footsteps rushing swiftly through the library.

Then she ran.

-----

"You ain' had much experience wit' elementals if you be t'inkin' dat most of dem be wantin' to harm us," Jivah affirmed. "An' most o' de ones dat mean harm mean it for a reason dat we already done."

Mohan nodded. "After you saw the remnant of the elemental...?"

The serpent slithered around Jivah's throat. "De elf walked me outta de library," she lied softly, casually. "An' I left. Don' like spendin' too much time 'roun' dem elfies." She grinned.

He grunted. "And then you went to Blackrock Mountain to investigate the third?"

The shaman nodded and continued her report.

Jivah threw back her head and cackled madly. The tauren seated across from her bristled, blowing air through his nostrils. "You are amused, troll?"

"Dese dwarves ain' nevah gonna learn! First dey blew up de mountain, den dey say dat dey ain't had enough and summon dis oddah one!" The shaman regained her breath before continuing. "De kind o' wisdom needed by one wantin' to speak to de elements take longer den one lifetime to come by. Dey ain' nevah gonna learn." She continued to chortle at the folly.

Thunderheart pushed back his carved chair and stood. "The elders say that this spirit may not be content to brood in the mountain. Should it venture forth, it has the power to bring eternal drought upon our lands. I would think, sister, that this is no laughing matter."

Jivah, leaned back in her chair and propped her large feet up on the table. "Den it a good t'ing dat Mama Jivah be goin' dere anyway." She winked up at Thunderheart.

The tauren nodded gruffly. "Few travellers wish to risk it - the ones who are brave or foolish enough to do so never return. Why will you?"

Jivah grinned widely, showing yellowed teeth. "Because Mama Jivah ain' like dem. I'm here doin' a t'ing dat I been doin' for a lonnnnng time, friend, and I ain' near done doin' it. Ain' gonna be stopped by no fire-spirit."

There came a call from outside; the afternoon patrol was mustering. Thunderheart turned toward the sound, but paused. "Do you need a guide to the mountain, sister?"

"Naaaaah. Mama Jivah been all over dese lands many time. I could get dere on a moonless night wit me eyes shut and covered wit animal skin." The shaman cackled again. "You go wander roun' dese parts. Mama Jivah be gone by nightfall." Thunderheart nodded a farewell and exited the common room to join the patrol.

The inn at Kargath was as bleak as the land outside its doors, with only a few much-worn tables and chairs to serve the patrons and a shabby, faded wall hanging by the door. Night would find the common room thick with pipe smoke, but there were few travellers in the inn at this hour - perhaps this was why it was so easy for Jivah to feel the staring upon her from the balcony above.

"Three times, now," she threw over her shoulder, switching to Zandali. "I'm beginning to think you're following me."

Heavy footsteps echoed along the wooden floor and began descending the stairs. "Maybe I am, sister. You seem to go looking for things in so many interesting places, life seems far more fun in your wake than alone." Zan'tir sat without being invited in the chair left vacant by Thunderheart and mimicked Jivah's laziness, propping his feet up on the table as well. "Blackrock Mountain this time, I hear."

"You hear correctly." Jivah tilted her head at the warrior as the snake shifted its weight around her neck. "Tell me true, now - why are you really here?"

Zan'tir chuckled. "You don't think 'following an exciting lady' is good enough reason?"

"Not for a moment," Jivah replied.

"Bah! Fine, then. Couple reasons, actually." The warrior leaned back in his chair, balancing it on two legs. "I've been on a long journey since I was this high," he said simply, holding a heavy hand about two feet off the ground. "Almost gave it up more times than I can count, but Ochosi wouldn't let me rest. He's leading me to the mountain."

"And what's in the mountain?"

The troll gave Jivah a crooked half-smile. "Answers."

"Mmm." Jivah spat on the worn floorboards. "And the other reason?"

Zan'tir smirked across the table at the shaman. "How about you tell me everything about what you're doing here?"

Jivah snorted and made a gesture as though acknowledging a hit. "Didn't think so," Zan'tir grinned. "So - when are we leaving?"

-----

It was a three-day ride to the entrance into Blackrock Mountain; the two trolls covered it mostly in silence. Once inside, another day passed as they made their slow, careful way down the great iron links that spanned the lake of molten fire below them, delving deeper and deeper until they reached the bottom of the mountain.

The sound of picks and whipcracks guided them into the network of tunnels and mines. The dwarven slavemasters who challenged their passing were beaten back with lightning and fire and the force of Zan'tir's heavy mace, and soon they came to the long tunnel leading to the Depths where few dwarves patrolled. As they rounded an outcropping of stone, the reason for the absence of activity became clear.

Scattered on the stone were a number of long-dead bodies, all burnt and broken beyond recognition. Moving slowly among them was a great spirit of flame, almost twice as big as Thunderheart had described. His shape was ever-changing - fiery arms stretched themselves, flexing clawed fingers before disappearing back into the body. Stunned, the two trolls watched the spirit's patrol as it floated away from them down the corridor.

As it passed close to one of the iron walkways spanning a chasm of lava, it paused, stretching an arm of fire out toward the molten rock. Licks of heat wafted up from the lava and drifted toward the elemental - as the flames merged with its body, it glowed brighter and swelled with energy before dimming once again.

"What's it doing - collecting?" Zan'tir breathed in a hushed whisper. Jivah stared hard at the elemental as it resumed its patrol.

"Growing. It got bigger when it did that, did you see?"

The warrior nodded, turning Jivah incredulously. "-That's- what you been sent here to kill?"

The shaman pushed some damp hair back from her forehead and frowned. "Looks like it." Zan'tir continued to stare at her as she answered his unspoken question. "No, I don't yet know how we're going to do it."

The elemental paused by a crack in the stone floor from which steam belched and roiled. "Well, we better come up with a plan soon because that thing's just going to keep getting bigger from the looks of it," Zan'tir grumbled. Jivah just continued to stare at the fire spirit.

The ground beneath them lurched suddenly and a crack snaked up the wall to their left. A cascade of pebbles and dust pattered down on them, followed by a loud rumble.

"Move!" Zan'tir threw himself out from behind the boulder, but Jivah slipped in the rubble under her feet and fell. As a chunk of the wall began to crumble, the shaman scrabbled in the debris and heaved herself out of the way. The rocks crashed to the ground where the two trolls had been hiding but the rumbling continued as they lay prone in the hallway, hearts hammering in their chests and the skittering of falling pebbles and tiny stones in their ears.

There was a great crackling roar as the quake subsided and Jivah lifted her head to see the elemental bearing down upon them. Drawing upon the chill in her bones at their sudden danger, she shocked the fire spirit with frost, but it shrugged the cold off effortlessly and raged on.

Zan'tir leapt to his feet and charged the elemental, swinging his great two-handed mace with enough force to shatter stone - but fire was yielding and the weapon merely sliced through the creature before its two halves merged once more. It reached out with a flame-clawed hand and Zan'tir swung again, this time cleaving through the arm. The smaller licks of fire were too insignificant to thrive on their own and were quickly extinguished by another shock of frost from the shaman. Diminished but still burning fiercely, the elemental latched onto Zan'tir's torso and flung him bodily against the wall before turning back to Jivah and raging forward once again.

The force of the fire was too great to be stopped with frost - there was little enough of such a spirit to draw upon in this molten heart of the mountain. The air around the elemental shimmered with the heat as it was consumed - wind would only strengthen it. In desperation, Jivah reached out her hand to one of the steaming fissures in the rock and beckoned a tiny lick of flame to her.

It was all she needed. She fed the flame with her spirit and it roared into a curtain of fire in front of her, blocking the furious elemental's path. She felt her foe try and snatch the flame from her control but she kept an iron grip on it as the angry elemental bore down upon her.

The shaman and the great elemental remained locked in a stalemate for what seemed like years - the raging fire-spirit pressing forward but was blocked by her shield of flame; Jivah fought to push the elemental back but its strength was too great. All she could see in front of her was fire, she was certain Zan'tir had been battered to death against the wall until she heard his battle-cry from the other side of the burning barrier and felt the elemental falter slightly.

The fire-spirit shrugged off the warrior's attacks - it sought union with its own; that was all that mattered. Little by little, Jivah felt the elemental shrink behind her barrier as Zan'tir kept up his assault. Her eyes stung with sweat as she began wrapping the sheet of fire around the raging elemental until, with a last great push, she enclosed her foe completely.

Zan'tir burst through the sphere of flames, sputtering curses and hurling himself to the ground to extinguish the licks of flames that had caught his hair and parts of his armor padding alight. The shaman barely noticed as now she had to fight twice as hard to keep the elemental contained within her fiery prison. It quickly devoured the small amount of air trapped with it and, with no more to consume, slowly but surely began to falter.

Panting with exhaustion, Jivah pressed closer and closer around the elemental as it shrank until she felt it shudder desperately before dissipating entirely. Only when she was absolutely certain that nary a spark of the elemental remained did she relinquish her grip on her own flames, guiding them back to the chasm where it lived. Where the elemental battle had raged, now nothing remained. The fire-spirit was gone.

"Look like it was gettin' itself ready ta venture outta dat cave. An' den outta de mountain. An' den -" Jivah shrugged. "Ain' no way of knowin', but Mama Jivah guessin' dat it ain' ta be good."

The shaman uncrossed her long legs and pushed herself up from the bench. "An' dat be it. Dat all you ask me ta do, pretteh." She winked at Mohan as he stood also. "Anyt'ing else you be needin' of me?"

Mohan nodded gruffly. "There is," he replied, looking at her evenly. "The assignment was given months ago - you took so long to do it, without any word sent to me or the High Inquisitor. Why the delay?"

Jivah ran her tongue over her bottom teeth before biting down on it gently. Her eyes unfocused; her blood cooled and she stood carefully, as though time only moved on with her own movements and she could stop it if only she tried hard enough.

"Delay?" she repeated.

-----

Jivah blinked the sting of sweat from her eyes, panting heavily as she finally loosed her grip on the power. Her muscles ached, as though she had physically wrestled the fire into submission. She took a quick, staggering step forward toward the space where the elemental had been - and pitched forward onto the rocks at the crushing blow on the back of her head.

The words she tried to speak came out of her mouth as low, drawn-out groans. She forgot speech, she forgot movement - there was a warm stickiness under her cheek and the hand she moved to push herself up, but the strength had drained out of her and all she could manage were slow scrabblings on the stone beneath her. There was no time. There were no surroundings. She felt blindly back with a hand and pressed her fingers almost curiously into the newly soft area of her skull.

"Been a long time, sister." Zan'tir crouched beside her and rested his mace on the ground. "I didn't believe it until I saw you," he sneered. Jivah groaned again - the sound bubbled wetly from her mouth where it was pressed into the growing puddle of blood beneath her head.

"I was almost afraid I'd forget you after so long.Thought you'd be too different for me to recognize." The warrior pushed some of Jivah's hair away from her face, now slack. Her breath rattled in her throat. "But you know, sister - after forty-seven years...you don't look any different. Not a touch. Why is that?"

Zan'tir reached for the crimson serpent coiled around the shaman's neck. It tensed as he pulled it away and stood slowly, holding the animal tightly as it writhed and twisted around to bite feebly at the plates of his gauntlet. "And I remember you, too." He watched the snake for several moments, murmuring an apology to Dambala. "I'll risk it," he muttered, flinging the serpent to the ground and crushing it under his boot.

The troll at his feet was finally quiet. Still. Zan'tir prodded her with his foot, then crouched beside her once again, pressing his fingertips to her neck and feeling for the life pulse. He waited for several long seconds, which stretched into minutes until, finally satisfied, he pulled his hand away. She was dead. He retrieved his bloodied mace from where it lay and strapped it to his back.

"It wasn't just about justice, sister." Jivah was large for a she-troll, but the stronger, heavier warrior lifted the corpse with ease. "That was easy enough. Now it's about the questions I've been asking myself all my life since I last saw you. Since you did what you did to me. To us. And I know that your bones'll tell me everything I want to know."

He shifted the dead weight in his arms and withdrew his hearthstone from his pocket. In a flash of green light, he was gone.

"Jivah?"

The shaman blinked. She tilted her head as her eyes refocused on Mohan where he stood in front of her, waiting. "Why de delay?" she repeated again. Mohan nodded.

The snake lifted its head from where it lay coiled around her throat. It flicked its tongue lazily at the hunter; Jivah stared evenly at Mohan. Finally, she shook herself and shrugged apologetically.

"Sorry, mon. Couldn't be helped."

Mohan narrowed his eyes slightly; the shaman met his gaze quietly, saying nothing further. As the snake re-settled itself around Jivah's throat, Mohan snorted softly.

"I will make my report, then. Hunt well, sister."

Jivah cackled, eyes bright. "Mama Jivah always do dat, pretteh. Don'choo worreh!" She was still chuckling to herself as Mohan nodded to her in farewell and turned away.