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Thought I'd open my forums account with an old piece of flash fiction, set between the end of Mists and the WoD pre-patch. Enjoy!

***

Lokarn wandered aimlessly amongst the dead and dying. The Valley of Strength burned around him, thick clouds of dust and smoke masking the shame of his nation's capital. Everywhere he went the living price of Garrosh's actions could be heard weeping over loved ones or snivelling their final moments into the dirt. Kor'kron grunts groggily pulled arrows from their armour as they bled out from chest wounds or severed limbs. Dire wolves soiled their muzzles in the corpses of their former masters. It pushed at his control, threatening to drag him back into the hatred and fury that had started everything and left only this. A stinking, wailing monument to the barbarity of the orcish race.

Ahead of him something squirmed along the ground. A thing of blackened metal and broken flesh, painting a red smear on the earth behind it as it moved. Lokarn looked down as he passed it and was greeted by a ripped leather mask, exposing nothing but pain and teeth.

“I know you.” he growled, crouching beside the stricken gaoler.

The dying orc spat blood and strained for the wicked knife strapped to his remaining leg. Lokarn drew the blade and rammed it down through the Kor'kron's reaching hand in one smooth movement, pinning it to the floor and drawing a howl of pain and rage from his victim. His own face remained impassive, displaying more of disappointment and fatigue than of any vengeful inclination.

“You should be here with us, Felscar, bleeding for the True Horde.” The Kor'kron spluttered his final jibes, his fading awareness only maintained by Lokarn's careful pressure on the knife in his hand. “How did you escape their noose, traitor? How did you save yourself from this?”

Lokarn stared down at the orc that he had once called friend. The warrior who had fought by his side in the halls of the Nerubian spider-kings, who had hunted demons with him, who had watched and cheered as he nailed a Silver Hand recruit to the howling banner of the Warsong.

“You made your choice, Basu. The Warchief slaughtered children at Theramore and you stood by him. He sent us to reave and slaughter in Pandaria for no purpose higher than his own bloodlust and you said nothing. He betrayed our people and yet here you lie, dying in the muck for him. I live because I am not the fool I once was. We followed one Hellscream into damnation together, but I will not follow a second.”

“Pious cur. The Alliance has a good, strong grip on your puppet strings, Lokarn. See how fine a weapon you make for King Varian to wield.” Foamed blood bubbled behind his ruined faceguard as the effort of taunting his old comrade began to take its toll. “Go on then, finish it. One more loyal son of the Horde left to murder before you leave what remains of your people here to rot.”

Lokarn stood and pulled the skinning knife from Basu's hand. Leaning down, he slid the broken mask free and took the Kor'kron's hair in his fist, drawing his head back and placing the blade against his throat.

“May the ancestors forgive us both, old friend.”

***

Hi Rhonya,

That's very kind, thank you! I'll be back online in a moment and will find someone for the IC leg.

[Name]

Hello everyone - thank you for taking the time to read this and please let me know if you have any questions! Apologies if the background is a bit long, I may have gotten a little carried away.

***

Name: Lokarn

Class: Monk

Level: 100



Experience:
I've been playing Warcraft since Reign of Chaos but only joined WoW in 2009. My first experience with online RP was on the Sha'tar with the Thousand Eyes shortly after, before swapping onto Argent Dawn when Cataclysm hit. In allI have around five years of RP experience between WoW and other similar MMOs including a series of short-lived guild projects of my own. Lokarn has been my main since the start of Mists but has largely remained a solo figure, barring a stint with the Blades of Gorgrond in 2013. His story's been quite fun to play with the big change-of-perspective transition from a barbaric rogue to a more quiet and withdrawn monk, and I think he could be a good fit with the guild. I'd like to think I'm a reasonably skilled RPer too, if a little flowery with the language!



Background:
Born to Tharum Whitethorn and his mate Kydra in Tanaan before the First War, the young Lokarn was born an isolated and insignificant member of the Bleeding Hollow clan. While Lokarn and his father accepted their low-born status, Kydra was never happy with life on the fringes and was inevitably driven by her ambition into the ranks of the Shadow Council. When the time came to accept the blood of Mannoroth Tharum was hesitant, concerned by Kydra's fervent support for this new cause. As a confused and frightened Lokarn watched on, the pair came to blows over the allegiance of their son. Lokarn desperately rushed to defend his father at the last and was caught by a stray blast of fel energy across the right side of his face. Bleeding and in shock, the young orc turned and fled into the jungle before his mother could stop him.

As the Horde prepared to march on the Draenei, Lokarn left his clan behind and moved from camp to camp, stealing to survive. After weeks of fighting with other orphans over rotten scraps of meat he was taken in by a band of Warsong raiders, feeding their wolves and washing the blood from their fur as the Draenei civilisation fell. By the time of the onset of the First War and the Horde's incursion into Azeroth Lokarn had become a skilled cutthroat in his own right. Fighting as an outrider with a band of seasoned Warsong scouts, he spent the next five years putting his talents to use on the innocent humans of Stormwind and Lordaeron. With Orgrim's defeat at the end of the Second War, the orc now known as Felscar for the glowing marks on his face was bundled into an internment camp along with the rest of the captured Warsong, there to sit out the rest of his days in lethargy and squalor.

Lokarn's freedom came with Thrall's liberation of Durnholde and along with the remnants of his old warband he gladly followed his Warchief to Kalimdor. Reunited with the rejuvenated Warsong in Ashenvale, Lokarn and his companions quickly developed a taste for hunting Night Elves and fought to secure his adopted clan's control over their new lumberyards. However, after Grom's death Lokarn began to lose touch with the rest of the Warsong. With the founding of Orgrimmar and the consolidation of Thrall's Horde Felscar became a blade for hire, working loosely under the aegis of their new red banner on Azeroth until the young Garrosh Hellscream was brought back from Outland.

The Warsong Offensive represented a new lease of life for Felscar and his companions and they happily pledged themselves to Garrosh's service, gutting their way from Agmar's Hammer to the Wrathgate with relish. When the time came to return to Azeroth they did so as honoured veterans, enforcing the new Warchief's will at the point of a jagged knife. With the cataclysm and the escalation of Garrosh's anti-alliance sentiment came the opportunity to hunt night elves once more, which the group took to with no small amount of glee. It was as the leader of this band of murderers that Lokarn would take up the call to travel south at his Warchief's command, to hunt Alliance invaders on a newly-discovered continent for the glory of the new Horde.

Felscar's warband met their end in the southern wilds of Pandaria, ambushed and slaughtered by Alliance scouts as they attempted to secure the jungle around Domination Point. Lokarn himself struggles to remember anything about their final moments together or how he survived other than the sight of his friends being punctuated with arrows and dumped into the Krasarang river. In any case, he was to wake up far to the north in the care of Master Xhui at the Tian Monastery. The pandaren nursed his charge back to health entirely against Lokarn's better judgement, spending the orc's more lucid moments reading with him and discussing their races' differing histories. As his strength returned, Lokarn began to learn more and more from the tutors and healers of Tian. Quite apart from the warrior that decades of butchery had made him into, the secluded valley in northern Pandaria offered the chance to become the orc that he might have been before the Legion came to Draenor â€" a keen student and a careful fighter.

Lokarn remained in seclusion until the desecration of the Vale. His time in the monastery allowed him the opportunity to reflect on his own life, the nature of his people are the dangerous road that Garrosh had followed. The brutish survival skills and violent temperament learnt during his flight from Tanaan began to give way to a considered way of speaking and a penchant for moody introspection, coupled with a growing disdain for his own people. Reluctantly, the initiate monk left the Jade Forest and travelled home to fight in the Siege of Orgrimmar, which would go on to number amongst the most painful days of his life. While the vanguard of the Alliance and Horde breached the Underhold Felscar remained on the surface, fighting desperate brawls with Kor'kron loyalists in the dirt. His hands ran with orcish blood by the end, and as his warchief was led from Grommash Hold in chains the last of his respect for his bloodline finally broke.

Since the conclusion of the Siege Lokarn has travelled as much as possible, unwilling to spend time with his kin and disillusioned with orcish society. He continues to practice and learn, furthering his skills as a monk and collecting together the histories and legends of his people on his journeys. Whilst the reopening of the Dark Portal and the chance to travel to an alternate version of his homeworld was initially welcomed, he has found himself once again surrounded by a horde of orcs in search of bloodshed and conquest. For the time being he wanders both worlds alone - a tired warrior growing old before his time, looking for something to restore some pride in his race and for somewhere to call home at last.