PLEASE READ:

This is a continuation of the story about Cassandra and Jah'ren (go find it if you haven't read it;) But you don't necessarily need to read the first story to understand everything.

I would like to dedicate it to all those wonderful people who likes my works, those who reviewed my first story and made me want to write more, and especially those who took the challenge of drawing Jah'ren for me. Thank you for making me want to continue!

Disclaimer: All the usual stuff. Blizzard owns WoW, blah blah. And I just own my head, thank the gods for that, and my head is filled with stories that has to be told.

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Cassandra curled up with her arms around her knees and listened as the remaining gusts of storm howled outside the keep. The cell where she was meant to spend the last days of her life was below ground level, without even a small window to let light in. A weak glow from down the corridor where the guards had a fire burning to keep out the cold was the only light in the entire prison.

The cell floor was stone, and the walls of stone too except for the slim iron bars which were set in the wall to the hallway to function as a door. Cassandra had stopped freezing a long time ago. The guards had forced her under in a huge waterpail, the only kind of torture the city's Lord allowed for women, and she had been cold, she just did not feel it any longer.

Outside the wind roared again as the storm regained strength for one last struggle before it died, like the deathhowl of a giant.

Cassandra did not need window to sense the storm, she had learned to trust feeling, smell and intuition more than her eyes lately, a result from training with someone who only had one functioning eye and did not need that too much either.

Laying in the dark and cold she imagined him beside her, forcing her mind to focus on other things than cold and pain, remembering.

They had been in the cave, the storm screaming in rage against the rocks, but they had been safe, warm and secure. She could feel the touch of the fire's warmth on her skin when concentrating, taking away the frost that ate its way into her body. Then came the memory of careful hands, stroking her hair, her face, loving their way down her body.

She heard her own voice; murmuring in the glow from the flames, his voice; soothing and soft. His lips were at her cheek, tasting her skin, when she jumped to her feet. Her mind could no longer take the torture of remembering and not being allowed to have what she longed for. She threw her body against the iron bars, screaming in rage. Screaming his name, until her body gave in and fell to the floor again, hands bleeding from pounding on the wall.

The guards laughed of her outburst, and the sound made her weep in desperation.

"Live," she gasped between sobs. "Please. Live."

Three days passed. Although to Cassandra the only difference from day and night were the faces of the guards that fed her when they had the bother. On the third day they made sure to remind her that she had only one night left before the execution.

Cassandra spent the day in silent thought, trying to find a way to escape, trying to cling to the hope that something would happen, a miracle of chance or fate.

And then it came.

Her miracle was in the form of a beaten, seemingly lifeless shape thrown in the cell opposite hers.

The moment the guards were gone Cassandra crawled over to the barred door and her eyes searched in the dark after what she was certain had been the body of a troll. Focusing her hazy brain she found the few phrases she could remember, and whispered them towards the darkness in the other cell.

There was no answer for a long time, but in the end there came a whisper back across the hallway. Cassandra recognized a couple of the words, but not enough to make any sense of it.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I don't know much trollish."

"Human?" a female voice asked.

"Yes. My name is Cassandra."

"Hetar," the voice said. "I'm Hetar."

"You speak common?" Cassandra was surprised. There were only few trolls who ever bothered to learn any language beside their own.

"Yes," the answer came. "I have been slave with the humans one year. I have learned well."

Cassandra felt the sting in her conscience as she so often did when humans acted stupid and barbaric.

"I'm sorry," she apologized on behalf of her race. "Humans are not really evil, it's just…" she stopped, finding her own need for explaining it idiotic.

"Yes, just like every race," Hetar whispered. "Not evil, but stupid and small."

"Yes," Cassandra agreed, immediately taking a liking to the troll.

"They put me in here," Hetar continued. "Say they will kill me in the morning."

"Me too." Cassandra felt almost relieved. If she was about to die she would at least have company. "What did you do?"

"I kill humans," Hetar confessed. "Stupid humans. We tried to escape from slavecamp, and I did not get away. So they put me in prison and tomorrow I will die. If they get their will. Why they kill you?"

Cassandra closed her eyes, even though it made no difference from the darkness in the prison. She let her mind circle around the painful memory of how they were discovered. They should have known better, they should have been more careful.

"I am a traitor. Or so they say."

"Why?"

"I have befriended a troll. And in their eyes it makes me a traitor."

Hetar did not say anything to this, and the silence made Cassandra talk even though she did not want to think about it.

"We had made camp, and lit a fire, because of the storm. The soldiers must have hunted us a long time, waiting for the moment we were too tired to notice and felt safe enough to find shelter and warmth. My friend was shot."

She had though about it afterward, how careless they had been. In the glowing light from the fire his back had been a perfect target. Sitting embraced in is arms she had barely been able to hear the whine of the arrows through the air before he had flinched with a small gasp. Now, as she touched her forehead she could feel the small cut from where the tip of the arrow had punctured her skin. At first she had not understood what had happened until she looked up and saw the silvery metal triangle protruding from his shoulder.

He had turned quickly, his eyes ablaze from the pain of the two arrows in his back, but still upright and soon he had his weapons. Cassandra had killed the fire with the soggy blanket, and then the darkness had been filled by sounds of fighting.

She had fought long, her dagger and hands slick with blood, until someone had hit her over the head.

Shocked, she sat up when she realized Hetar was talking to her.

"What?"

"I say: Your friend get away?"

"I don't know. They hit me over the head, and everything went black. They will not tell me when I ask. He had two arrows in his back, that is all I know."

"But he is troll? Trolls are very strong."

"Yes, he is very strong," she sighed into the dark, hearing herself how much her voice conveyed of worry and pain.

Hetar coughed in the other cell, a rasping sound which worried Cassandra.

"Are you much hurt?" she asked. "That does not sound good."

"Troll is strong," came the answer, but the voice was full of pain. "I will live. At least until the morning."

They sat in silence a long time, and Cassandra had almost fallen asleep against the bars when one of the guards came. He squatted down beside the doorway and looked at her before he put a cup of water and a small, round bread in front of her.

"I though you should have something before going to the gallows," he explained. "And I will leave the light for you."

He did leave the candle and as he walked away, Cassandra looked across the stone covered floor and her gaze met two glowing eyes in the opposite cell. Hetar was bloody and bruised, but there was something very strong and decisive over the troll's expression. She nodded silently, acknowledging the other prisoner without a word. Cassandra split the bread into two pieced before throwing one of them over to the other woman.

There was a brief smile in Hetar's face before she bit into the bread with eagerness. Cassandra studied the female while she ate, having learned to rely more on intuition than things like race and kin when deciding who were allies and who were enemies.

Hetar was blueskinned with red hair, some of it in the carefully done braids of someone who wanted to look feminine and still needing it to be practical. She had small tusks, bent upwards, at the edges of her mouth. Her eyes were kind, but also hard, telling whoever looked into them that she might as well kill you as be your friend.

Cassandra picked up the cup and swallowed some of the water. As she did the troll looked longingly at her, eyes telling of hunger and thirst better than words could. Cassandra stretched an arm out towards her, and with their joint effort she managed to get the cup into the other one's bloody fingers.

"Thank you," Hetar whispered. "I need strength in the morning."

"Do you have a plan?" Cassandra whispered back, straining to keep herself from sounding too eager.

"I have a mate," was the troll's answer. "If he not come, I will fight and die fighting. I will never let them hang me." She spitted in disgust. "If they want to hang me they will have to hang my dead body!"

Cassandra had thought the same earlier. If there was no chance of escape, no chance of salvation, she would go out kicking and screaming. She would not die on the gallows, silently keeping her head down.

"Maybe they are alive," she said, trying to comfort them both. "Our mates. Maybe they will rescue us."

Hetar looked shocked at her, and after feeling that intense gaze at her for a while, Cassandra suddenly realized what she had said.

"Mate?" Hetar croaked after some time. "You say friend. Not mate. Troll mate?"

"Well, yes," Cassandra answered, a little vexed at the reaction she had gotten. "He is my mate. And I know everyone thinks it's horrible."

Hetar seemed to think about it, then she said:

"No. Just weird. Not horrible."

There was another silence, both of them thinking of the ones they hoped were still alive and well out there somewhere.

"What are you and your mate doing here?" Cassandra asked finally. "I mean, I know you were taken slaves, but where is the rest of your tribe? Have they been killed?"

"No," Hetar said, looking sad for a second. "We come here to find my brother."

"Your brother? I did not know trolls even had that expression. Your bonds seem so different from the human ones."

"Not all troll, but Hetar have little brother, not seen for long now. When I was young I was sent away for training, and he was left with the tribe. He was young and stupid and did not want to listen and then he left the tribe. Many, many years later I heard about him being here and I went to find him."

"That is sweet of you," Cassandra smiled. "I am sure your brother will be very happy when you find him."

Hetar smiled back and asked:

"Your mate, how did that happen? I have not heard about trolls and humans too often. Not like that, not love."

Cassandra told about the meeting in the riverpond, where she had lost all sense and reason because of two green eyes.

"We are hunters both," she explained. "And that is a part of who we are, it is very difficult to explain. My mate has this way of saying it, it probably sounds better in trollish; Hunt, live…"

"Forest, sky," Hetar finished.

"So it is a troll thing," Cassandra exclaimed. "You know it."

She smiled at the troll in the other cell and got nothing but a strange look of disbelief in return.

"It is not a troll thing," Hetar said eventually. "There is only one troll I know who would say that. What you say your mate's name is?"

"I didn't." Cassandra could see something in the others eyes she did not like, and when she spoke it was partly against her own will. "His name is Jah'ren."

Before Cassandra could react the troll threw the remains of her bread in the human's face.

"No," Hetar wheezed. "You are lying."

"I am not," Cassandra protested. "You know him?"

When the other one did not answer Cassandra took out the necklace she had been given. Jah'ren had told her it had something to do with the tribe, something about how the beads were placed, something about the material. He had worn it around his arm all these years, and then he had given it to her.

Watching the troll across the corridor she could read her face, and knew Hetar recognized it.

"Jah'ren," the troll moaned, looking at the beads. "That belongs to my little brother…"

Cassandra ignored the hand that tried to reach out for the necklace and put it back under her shirt. She thought of how Jah'ren had carefully stringed the beads back together when the string had broken, rotted away by the years. Then he had turned to her, placing it in her hands and telling her to wear it.

"He never told me he had a sister," Cassandra said, feeling slightly relieved that they were family and nothing else. "But he does not like to talk about…"

She trailed off when she noticed the troll in the other cell was weeping quietly.

"I have not seen him since he was young," Hetar explained. "He was a youngling, barely ready for trying to tame a pet for himself. Always fighting the other trolls, always running around, playing and laughing."

"Sounds like him," Cassandra smiled. "He's always so full of laughter."

"And then I returned, they say he was dead to the tribe, told me he had gone. When I got the chance I went to find him."

Cassandra pictured Jah'ren as a young troll, she had no problem seeing him as a silly youth, set in his ways and not about to let anyone tell him what to do.

"It is strange," she told the troll. "I can't imagine him being anyone's little brother. He's not very little."

Hetar looked up at her, eyes turning soft, and dried the tears on her cheeks with the back of her hand.

"Tell me," she begged. "Tell me of my little brother."

***

Cassandra talked the better part of the night. She told Hetar about Jah'ren, how they had met and how he looked. All the stories about fights and hunts that he had told her. She described his scars, how he had gotten them, and they laughed about his hair, both having tried to do something about it when it refused to be anything but tousled.

When the guards came to get them, they were both half-asleep against the wall by the door in each cell, both hiding inside their own little world of thought and memory.