#karduk

Sardı zulasından Karduk torunu,

Dişleri, parmak uçları sarıydı.

İlk tekele sürdüm ayaklarımı, galonla şarap.

Niyaz gecesi, kurulmuş salonda yatak.

Vurulmuş dostu, anlatır gözü dönmüş yasal mermileri…

Soğuk bedeni üzerine örtülmüş yandaş gazeteleri.

Hani Ksenophon’un övdüğü şu çetin Karduk Ülkesi.

Forget “crush,” Percy has a ~boyfriend~. She’s dating Karduk Stonemender, orc shaman of the Earthen Ring, and in all honesty it’s probably a good thing for Azeroth that their jobs keep them separated or else a) nothing would get done and b) they’d be so disgustingly sappy at each other it might be a public health hazard. They exchange letters and chat over communication devices frequently; she thinks he’s wonderful and is prone to bragging about him. So far, she’s managed not to let any really pro-Alliance people know how badly she wants to bang an orc.

Sometimes, Persicaria forgets Karduk’s an orc.

Well. It’s not that she forgets, exactly. She can’t forget when he’s actually standing in front of her, tall and green-skinned and with tusks curving out of the corner of his mouth, when he’s laughing that booming laugh of his, when he takes her hand and his own is twice the size of hers—and she certainly can’t forget when he’s kissing her (often picking her straight up off the ground, in fact, so that they can both get their faces on the same level, and she’s pretty sure that shouldn’t be as impressive as it feels) and she has never been more aware of those tusks. But when they’re separated (too often), and their only connection is ink on worn pages…

She remembers his smile, his rumbling voice, and that’s what she thinks of when she writes to tell him that they rebuilt the park district, it’s all hedges and water now, I took pictures for you. She remembers his dark hair in the sunlight, and that’s the image hovering in her mind when she looks out of her window to Stormwind’s first snow of the season (yeah, can you believe it? I bet you’re warmer than me right now). He tells her about the Maelstrom’s chill, and she writes back without thinking (I’d keep you warm). When she falls in with a group of fellow adventurers who ask her about her social life, she tells them.

“He’s a shaman. He’s really cute and smart and I wish you could meet him, but—”

(oh, right.)

“—he’s super busy. Saving the world, you know?”

They nod and smile, always, but they do not pry. Sometimes she wishes they would, wishes someone would just ask so she could tell them—yes, my boyfriend is very handsome, yes, here’s a picture of him with his wolf—but then the realization drops into her mind like a brick again. The one about war, and politics, and opposing sides; the one that says that they, Alliance and Horde, should never have even met, never mind spoken (or written letters so dense they had to be stapled together, or kissed, or—well. she’s been having thoughts, lately, about beds and sturdy furniture). In some places, she knows, it would be unremarkable (Shattrath, Hearthglen, maybe the alternate Draenor, and now Dalaran as well), but not at home. At home, in Stormwind, and with her not even close to a member of a neutral organization, it would be treason.

And so she keeps her mouth shut, as much as she can. It’s the only bad thing about being with Karduk, but it’s probably the worst, slowest torture she can imagine. She can always talk to Tanryn, and that helps (even though she teases and giggles, and makes comments so lewd Percy thinks she’ll burst into flame), but other people…

She’s never been a decent liar; when her parents write to ask her how she’s been, it’s the hardest thing in the world to stay her pen.

She wants to take him home, she thinks. She looks at him across the table in a little restaurant in Dalaran (he’s smiling as he expounds on something fascinating he’s read in the archaeology newsletter they both subscribe to and which she hasn’t found time to read yet; his glasses are slightly crooked but it’s too cute to point out), and she imagines him in a narrow kitchen in Stormwind, squeezing himself into a chair as she introduces him to her parents. In her daydream, they shake his hand, and her mother immediately starts swapping war stories. She tells them this is the guy I love, and they beam proudly at her for finding someone she cares about. Nobody starts yelling or screaming or calling for the guards, and—as long as she’s dreaming—his wolf even gets along with her cat. She wants to show him around Stormwind’s canals and Ironforge’s dark caverns; she wants to get Orgrimmar dust on her boots and brave the rope bridges of Thunder Bluff. She wants him to meet all her friends.

And then he leans back in his seat and stretches, suddenly taking up about twice as much space, and she remembers why she can’t do any of that.

She’s not sure how she ever forgets, really. Yes, she’s pretty sure she loves him. Yes, he’s smart and kind and funny and handsome and heroic. But because of what he is, and what she is, her dreams and secrets remain.

She dreams of fire.

It crawls over the world, consuming people and animals and plants alike. Even the ground cracks and splits, heaving in pain and protest at the intrusion of things that are purely anathema to it. The air is smoke and haze, and she is afraid. She's never feared fire before.

She is floating above Stormwind. The canals are bone-dry, the ocean receding from the harbor. She knows it won't be flooding back in. Her parents are down there somewhere, helpless.

She has never seen Orgrimmar except in pictures, but somehow she knows this is it, this city of canyons and plateaus. It is a river of blood and fel-tainted lava, and she hears the screams as though from very far away. Karduk's elementals abandon him, and he is overrun.

Hearthglen is a fortress as well as a town, impregnable no more. Demons laugh and stride through the streets; there is no Light anymore to hold them back. She sees Tanryn, a shining wall of plate mail, skewered to the front gate.

No. No. I don't want to see any more.

Stromgarde, a crater of dead things.

Dalaran, falling from the sky.

Silvermoon City, burned and razed again. This time there are no survivors.

The world is shattered, broken. It belongs to the demons now.

She woke up, heart pounding. No. No, it was just a nightmare. I'm fine. There are no demons here. Still, her instincts screamed at her, and she threw the covers off and sat up, squinting against the sudden brightness of the flame she conjured. Her cat sneezed, curling up in the spot left by her head, but she ignored her. "Show me. Show me what will be."

For a long moment, she saw nothing. That wasn't unusual; sometimes hours or days could go by without a vision in the flames. Hers burned merrily orange-yellow, no pictures hovering in it.