This is a fanfic from the game World of Warcraft that I wrote based on two of my characters. There's a troll and a human, and they are friends... and well, I think he might think she's a new kind of interesting pet. But here it is nontheless. I don't own the game (but I do own the story and the faults, like the fact that trolls have four fingers, when I think they might have only two, but I don't care that much ;)

*****

Cassandra wriggled out of the leather armour, before discarding it in the bushes together with the rest of her clothing. Daggers and gun too. She needed a bath more than she had ever needed one. Well, at least more than she could remember she'd ever needed one. Sweat and dirt from travelling had already soaked her clothes and she longed for the feeling of being clean.

Like a pale fish she flowed through the water, swimming more under the surface than above it until she reached the little golden bank of sand halfway across the riverpond. Climbing onto one of the larger rocks there she let the sun caress her tired body while shaking the braided hair loose.

The feeling hit her like ice cold water, and almost trembling with fear she turned her head and looked towards the riverbank opposite the one where she had left her belongings.

He stood as still as if he had been cut from stone where the shadows of the overhanging trees danced on the river's surface. She used no more that a second to realise it was too far back to her weapons and at the same time noticing the crude bow hanging from a branch almost within reach of his long arms.

The troll did not move. Even in the shadows she could see the colour of his skin, a bright shade of blue. Within a mane of darkgreen hair the stoic face did not convey a single thing about his thoughts, but she could all too well read the way his muscles were tensed, his eyes darting here and there, watching, and one fourfingered hand ready to grab the weapon.

A moment she thought about trying for the shore. If she jumped into the water and kept beneath the surface she might have a chance, but was discouraged when her eyes came to rest on the troll's slender, scarred arms. There was enough muscle there to send an arrow through a treetrunk if necessary, and the longbow hanging from the branch looked like it might be up to the task.

Terror spreading throughout her limbs, Cassandra did the only sensible thing for a woman to do in this situation. She slowly folded her arms over her breasts and squeezed her knees tight together desperately trying to hide her nakedness.

"No fear, wo'man,"

Shocked to hear the troll speak her own language she turned to look at him again. He waded a little out in the water, away from the bow, but to her dread it also brought him closer to her. Then he lifted the left hand out of the water. In it he held a round, white object, and Cassandra, almost feeling the blow of what she was certain was a stone, closed her own hand around a smooth river rock.

A slightly disturbing laugh left the troll's lips as they pulled back in a grin. Then he shrugged and started washing. Soon the water around him was filled with white foam. When he finished he made a motion towards Cassandra, before throwing the white soap easily across the almost ten meters between them.

She grabbed it, not taking her eyes from him a single moment, ready for whatever tricks he was certainly playing on her. Still not looking away she started soaping her hair, the woman in her refusing to waste the chance of a perfectly good bar of soap, no matter who gave it to her.

The troll still stood motionless, watching her moves with an intrigued look in his eyes.

"Me, Jah'ren," he said after a while. "Me hunter."

Cassandra said nothing for a while, but she soon realised he was waiting for her reply.

"I am Cassandra," she volunteered. "People call me Cass."

"Kas San Dra…" the troll mimicked, tasting every syllable as they passed through his mouth.

Silence fell over the pond again, and it struck Cassandra that it was because the troll was trying to find something to say.

In the end he coughed slightly and said:

"No fear, Kas san dra. Jah'ren no fight."

Cassandra did not know what to reply to this, so she continued washing her hair and face in silence, very careful not to move too much, or to let her eyes leave the troll. Jah'ren was still watching her, curiosity evident in his gaze. In the end Cassandra couldn't keep silent any longer.

"We are enemies," she said, trying to fish out the troll's reasons for not attacking.

He did not answer immediately, and she used the time to study him, first and foremost because she knew he any minute could prove to be an opponent, and secondly because he was intriguing her as well.

She had never been very close to a troll before, except for one or two that had been in Horde gangs ravaging the villages around the coast where she was born. Since she took the path of the hunter she had fought a troll once, but it had been armour-clad and its (she was not certain it had been a he or a she) eyes had burned evilly and fierce.

Beneath this one's dark fringe of hair two eyes burned with the calm fire of the deep, green, wild forest. Watching him, she realised it was all too evident that if she would have to fight him, she would be outclassed. Old, faded scars ran over the slender muscles, bearing witness of a life in battle, and the way he was standing, apparently casually relaxed, told her he would be ready to fight for his life within mere seconds.

"Enemies?" he said, stretching both arms forward till she could hear the joints creak. "Washing. No enemies."

This answer annoyed Cassandra.

"But we are enemies!" she said, wondering why she was deliberately trying to provoke him. "You are with the Horde, I serve the Alliance."

The troll seemed to think this through. His eyes narrowed slightly and moved from her to the bow and back again. Then he raised his right arm into the air, showing a long, red wound down along the ribcage. It could hardly be days old, and while washing he had obviously torn it again, so that a thin line of blood ran down into the riverwater.

"Orc," he said, touching the barely healed wound with the left index finger. "I kill."

"But the orcs are with the Horde," Cassandra said puzzled. "Why would a troll kill an orc?"

"Human!" he hissed and let his arms fall, splashing into the water and making the girl jump in shock. "Dumb human!"

She did not understand his meaning, but she had a sneaking suspicion she was the human who was being dumb.

"Me hunter," he explained, the sudden rage gone. "Orc kill … animal …Hunter-animal."

"He killed the animal you were hunting?" She proposed, finding it hard to keep up with the troll's bad language skills.

"No. Orc kill… animal. Not enemy animal. Jah'ren's animal!"

It dawned on Cassandra that she was not the only one who had chosen the path of the hunter, and that to the troll it was much more than a job description.

"He killed your pet! Not enemy, but friend."

Jah'ren nodded slowly.

"Pet. Friend." He tried out the words. "Kill Jah'ren pet, say good eat. Me kill orc."

"And now you're not part of the Horde anymore, because you killed him." Cassandra was enthusiastically filling in the story, feeling this was the way it should go. "You are outlawed!"

Again her ears were filled with this strange, coarse sound of laughter.

"Dumb human," he said, showing a row of pearly white teeth. "Troll go where troll go. Horde, no Horde, no matter. Hunt, live, forest, sky… Jah'ren happy."

Cassandra though about this for a while. In a funny way it made her feel safe in his presence, knowing that they had something in common, although she still knew they should be enemies. She did not realise she was looking at the pebbles around her feet until she heard the splash as he threw himself into the river. Panic spread through her when she saw the bright blue shape speeding towards her just below the surface. Seconds later she was looking into those green eyes again. This close she noticed one of them had a white membrane over it and had she dared she would have shook her hand to see if it was blind.

Jah'ren was crouching in the water on the sandbank, a mere meter away from her. His head bent towards one shoulder, his face showing uncertainty. After a while he held one hand out to her, like trying to tame a frightened animal.

Not knowing what to do, and trembling with doubt, Cassandra placed her little hand on the palm of that large, blue one. The troll laughed again and pointed to the soap.

"Jah'ren's" he said, indicating he wanted it back.

Blushing, she quickly put the soap in his hand and gasped as his other arm shot up. To her surprise the grip around her wrist was gentle, and she would have been able to wriggle out of it if she wanted. A rough finger ran over her skin.

"Human, like water," he said, and she understood the meaning from the tone of his voice.

"Yes, I guess my skin is soft…" she smiled, still shaking from the strange terror she could not escape.

"Kas san dra smell fear." Green eyes met her a moment, before he put his nose against her skin and sniffed it. "Like animal, fear in hunt."

Now she was trembling so he could see it, but she could not stop it no matter what. All the warnings from when she was a child; all the fear they had built into her, all the stories, all the songs, adults whispering in corners, blood on the walls, evil eyes in the night, it all found it's way into her body and made her hand quiver in the grip of the troll.

Do not go into the forest, old voices whispered as she looked into two green pools, one whitened like fog through a forest. They took the farmer. The children was not there! Hear the songs of the wild people, they come with fear, they come with death, they come with evil in their eyes and hatred in their blood… Do not go into the forest, they hunt!

"Fear," Jah'ren said, his eyes focusing on her hand. "No fear, human hunter. Jah'ren no kill. No hurt."

He circled around her, still managing to keep half submerged, and ended up behind her. She could hear the sound of his naked feet on the sand, but could not turn. The moment he had let go of her hand she had curled up on the stone, arms wrapped tightly around her body in an attempt to protect herself from whatever horrors she was certain would come.

Fingers touched the brown hair at her shoulder. It was still covered in soap and the sound of the troll smelling her hair made her insides scream in fright.

"Only fear," the calm voice said beside her ear. "Jah'ren friend, Kas san dra."

"No!" She screamed so suddenly she almost scared herself. "You are evil!"

She lunged at him, hands clawing at the face behind her, and then rapidly rolled into the water. While swimming towards the shore, lungs aching, she expected to feel the sharp pain of arrows in her back any minute. As she drew her tired body onto the bank she risked looking back and was surprised to see the troll sitting where she had left him on the sand, calm eyes resting on her, his look curious and kind.

"Evil," she said, just because she needed to convince herself.

She rushed to dress behind a bush, still keeping an eye on the motionless shape in the river. With her things hurriedly slung across her back she started running downstream, silently cursing trolls and everything they had ever done.

When night came she made no fire, but she could still see the burning houses when she closed her eyes. She ate nothing, because she was not hungry, her stomach filled with the hot rage of hatred and sorrow.

****

Hope you liked it. There is more somewhere. I just have to figure it out.