Honour Bound

[Sakinra/Akanra]

Honour Bound



She stood fastening her legplates as those two words rose in her mind. Snorting a laugh, Sakinra earned a glance from a nearby guard at the noise. Slowly straightening up she caught the guards eye, arcing an eyebrow. After a moment she bent down and lifted her chestplate into place. The guard swiftly looked away once more, not wishing to risk a report for leering no doubt.



Her hands smarting, the sensitive new skin not broken in, threaded the straps and pulled them tighter from her chestplate, cutting them into her naked back until it was held firmly in place. The individual pieces hinged just enough to give her mobility she needed. Her gaze drifted towards the tavern. Okram rested within.



Something had changed. Half a lifetime of friendship. From mere whelps. But now something had settled between them. As he had put it, He had "Grown up." She hadn't. Something had changed the day she had pleaded with him to vouch for her, the way he had regarded her, carefully, calmly, his inner thoughts inscrutable as always. Something had shifted in their friendship that day. Although it was never spoken of.



Perhaps he'd never noticed.



She grabbed the backplate from the ground, hoisting it over her head, she looped the straps through the buckles on the chestplate, pulling them in, until they were almost tight at the edges. Her hand slipped on the strap, splitting the skin. She hissed in irritation as blood oozed from the flesh.



He had Scolded her. Scolded. Like some pup.



"You never learn from your mistakes."



She looked at the low embers of the fire, that she had thrust her hands into to retrieve the food.



She had learned wounds healed, starvation didn't. She had learned that flames no longer hurt. Nothing did, not on the surface at least. Anything that broke the skin however, stung like fel.



She picked up the dress she had been wearing earlier, tearing a strip from the skirt, she wound it around her hand, she would rather bleed to death than ask for help and prove him right. She studied her hands in the moonlights glow The scars still showed. Webbed, winding. Fading now,a few years old. They reached to the crook of both arms. Only a few inches on both wrists were spared the deformity. The edges of these sparse clear sections marked by the thick welt that encircled each wrist, typically hidden by her vambraces.



She picked up her gauntlets and pulled them on one by one.



No. Fire didn't hurt anymore.


------------------------------------------


Kaghurk returned just after dawn, his maw still bloodied from whatever kill he had made in the night. He flopped down beside his Mistress, a soft keening growl humming in the beasts throat, before he rolled over in the dirt. The crash of her posessions in the satchels making such noise it was a wonder he'd caught anything.



Sakinra reached down and absently scratched at the fur on his chest.



"You could have at least let me take the equipment from you before you hunted."



The snap of jaws answered as he rolled back over and went to stick his nose in the extinguished fire, retrieving the burned remains of the meat he pinned it with his paw and began tearing chunks from it.



"At least someone appreciates Okram's cooking."



Naratha, A pale frostwolf female walked over at the sound of ripping flesh and snarling. She nuzzled at the male worg before stealing the pieces of dropped flesh from beneath his jaws. Sakinra watched with a smile, slowly flexing her fingers.



Around them, the birds of Stonetalon began their morning chorus.


------------------------------------------


The crack of the mace as it shattered the First-Sergeant's jaw rang through the training ground, splattering blood across the stone.



His heavy plated form crashed to the ground, the jeering crowd silenced as all eyes settled on her. Then it began. The roaring baying for blood, screams and accusations.



The First-Sergeant's insult echoed, voice upon voice until a cacophany of noise reached its peak.



The rush came all at once, hands pushing her to the ground, taking her weapons, twisting her arms behind, bound and secured.



Dragged to her feet, her hair was wrenched, forced to look into the face of who had hold of her.



His jaw swelling, black and blue already, blood oozed from his maw.



"Truth hurts."



His words mangled, likely some teeth shattered, it was a credit to him he could speak at all without screaming.



"Not as much as your Jaw does."



Her sharp tongue earned her a back-handed crack across the face, The plated gauntlet splitting her lip. Refusing to give him the satisfaction of acknowleging any pain. Sakinra focused on the blood bubbling at the corner of the male's mouth with each word. He leaned close to her ear, his voice low and filled with promise of horrors to come.



"You'll learn what pain is, you honourless, gutless, worthless whelp."



He straightened up looking to the Grunts and Scouts holding her.



"Get her out of here."


------------------------------------------


"So how did you come to be here in this tavern."



Sakinra leant back against the barrels. arms rested over her knees she looked over the table at Okram.



"I find myself on leave, albeit perhaps permenantly, and thought I would seek you out."



The orc regarded her with slow patience. Despite there being only a few seasons between them, he exuded an air of age and calm she never did manage to cultivate herself.



"And here was I, thinking perhaps this was a chance meeting."



His blue eyes never leaving her. The pause in the air dragged out, before he simply picked up his ale and swirled it, peering in as if it may hold answers.



"Why are you on permenant leave then."



Sakinra forced the smile, the false reassurance coming more and more easily to her lips these days.



"Well. I might have punched the First-Sergeant."



"You might have punched him?"



"With a mace."



The long, tired sigh would have fit an Orc three times his age.



"Your temper never fails to astound me. So, what did he do to warrent this?"



She leaned her head back against the barrels. Setting her gaze on the underside of the tavern steps.



The lie she spun of the foolish Orc Commander sending troops into a trap was an easy one. Everyone had met at least one officer who should probably have been a Peon.



But not this one. No, this one had been far smarter than that.


------------------------------------------


Sakinra opened her eyes. Both worgs were sprawled at her feet, like overgrown puppies. Dawn had blossomed, but the light had not yet reached the valley hidden beteween the mountains. Sun Rock's chill clung to the stone.



Lok'tar ogar! Victory or death - it is these words that bind me to the Horde. For they are the most sacred and fundamental of truths to any warrior of the Horde.

I give my flesh and blood freely to the Warchief. I am the instrument of my Warchief's desire. I am a weapon of my Warchief's command.

From this moment until the end of days I live and die - for the Horde.



The Blood Oath of the Horde rang through her mind, she'd know the words since she was a whelp, lugging timber in the Gulch.



But you didn't die did you? For the Horde, For your Warchief. You turned tail and fled when the odds shifted against you.



The same argument rallied round her mind again. The First-Sergeant's voice echoed in her memory.



You Traitorous Kor'kron Bitch.



Weeks she'd put up with his shit. She didn't know, why she'd snapped, why she'd grabbed the mace from the crate beside her, seemingly some part of her self preservation was working, beheading a superior officer would have seen a far worse fate.



The sound his jaw made as it shattered.



The way his head snapped back.



The blood pounding in her ears so she didn't hear the roars until she'd been forced to the ground.



Sakinra shoved herself upright, forcing it from her mind. She threw one glance towards the Inn where Okram still slept. Fastening her faceplate she stalked out into the morning.



Scouting the route ahead whilst the Retreat still slept.



Yes.
Scouting.