Rathsin opened his eyes to a light, but insistent thumping on his chest. For a moment, senses dampened still by a sleepy haze, he wondered if he had been in danger, and that it was by the grace of the Light that he was waking up at all. But when his eyesight focused it wasn't the concerned face of a medic staring down at him. Just Faiza, and she seemed very cross with him.
He grunted and sat up, and Faiza tumbled into his lap. It was hardly even dawn - the sun was still mostly under the horizon, only brightening the slightest bit of sky at the moment. They usually didn't wake up for hours, but he wasn't getting back to sleep now, not with his raptor hatchling still drumming her feet against his stomach.
Vaguely, Rathsin could hear the sounds of movement in the distance. Nothing too unusual; the forests of Pandaria were filled with life, from creatures to villagers. He wasn't aware of a village closeby, but he wasn't an expert on Pandarian geography yet. It sounded like a woodcutter, short grunts followed by the heavy sound of metal thunking against wood. Except no Pandaren would be up at this time. It had to be someone from an Alliance or Horde camp. Only one way to find out.
Rathsin stretched and wiped the remnants of sleepiness out of his eyes. He stalked towards the sound, movements growing slower as he neared the source of the noise. The woodcutter didn't seem to be moving, at least, which was unusual, but fortuitous. It certainly made tracking much easier.
As he drew closer, Rathsin decided to climb up a tree. That way he wouldn't be caught flat on the ground, and if he really did stumble on an Alliance camp, he'd be in a much better position to scout it out. Anyway, Rathsin always liked the vantage point from the trees better. Made him feel sneaky, like a rogue, and he peeked through the branches at his quarry below.
They were facing away from him, so at first Rathsin couldn't exactly pinpoint what they were. Certainly Horde, though - besides the Draenei, the Alliance didn't comprise of any races that could reach that kind of size, and he didn't see a tail. But were they... Tauren? Orc? Trolls and Undead tended not to be as bulky in stature.
Rathsin leaned forward a bit more, looking for hooves. He rustled a few leaves, but a small wind was blowing through at the time anyway, and his query didn't seem to notice. No discernable hooves or horns, so almost certainly an orc. Good, that was one mystery solved.
What wasn't a mystery at all was the fact that this was clearly not a grunt sent out to collect wood. The orc was training, swinging an axe at a rudimentary training dummy. But... training? This early in the morning? Who would get up this early to train? Faiza was curious, too, craning her head out of Rathsin's loose grip in order to get a closer look.
He waited until another breeze swept through the small clearing and then slunk to the branch of another tree, then another, traveling with the cadence of the wind in a semi-circle around the orc's small training circle.
To Rathsin's disappointment, he couldn't see the orc's face. Not that he expected to recognize him, anyway; Rathsin much preferred the solace of the wilderness to the bustle of the cities, but he was very curious about what this hardworking orc might've looked like.
Regardless, he stayed perched there, watching the orc train from above. The sun was over the horizon by now, but Rathsin wasn't worried about being discovered. Nobody ever looked up, and anyway the orc was preoccupied with his training. Sometimes, it was nice just to be an observer. The orc's fighting style was... well, unique, at least. He was certainly leaving him open in favor of strong arcs, and seemed to be putting his entire weight behind each swing. It would certainly hurt to get hit by that, but that was assuming you didn't just step out of the way. And he also seemed to have a hard time recovering after each attack; those heavy swings almost seemed to throw him off-balance, just a little bit.
Below him, the orc grunted and buried the axe deep into the dummy's side. Then he threw the helmet off and let it land beside him with a heavy thunk. In the tree, Rathsin's activated his camoflauge again, being sure to stay perfectly still. No reason to give himself away so easily, especially since he was doing such a good job of going unnoticed until now.
"You gonna say somethin', blood elf, are you just gonna keep staring?"
Rathsin was already still, but now he froze. No way, there was no way.
"Yeah, you. You're not being sneaky, you know."
Embarrassed, that was his first reaction. Humiliated, but really to no one but himself. He didn't have to face the orc; he could leave now, and he'd probably never see this orc again. Rathsin broke camoflauge and turned to jump into a lower branch of another tree, which would eventually deposit him on the forest floor.
Faiza had different plans, though; she wriggled out of Rathsin's grip and jumped down completely the other way, landing on her huge feet with a soft flump. Rathsin reached out to try and grab her, but when his feet were going one way and his shoulders the other, well, that wasn't too conducive to balance. He slipped and tumbled out of the tree, felt like he managed to hit every single branch on the way down (though he must have missed SOME), and landed ass-first on the ground.
Rathsin groaned and sat up. Maybe, before climbing up the tree, it would've been a smart idea to remove the heavy mail armor. But it was too late for regrets now. He had bandages in his pack, but that would require removing his leggings, and he wasn't about to do that in front of a stranger.
Faiza had her tiny hands covering her eyes, as if she was embarrassed now by him, too. Rathsin couldn't blame her. Of all terrible first impressions, this had to be one of the worst.
The orc was just staring, though his expression was unreadable. Rathsin wobbled to his feet, and was pretty sure that the backs of his thighs were bleeding from the impacts.
"H-Hi," Rathsin said, and held out a slightly bloody, scratched-up hand. "Rassin."
The orc looked between his outstretched hand and his face. "Kareck," he finally said, though he didn't take the hand. "What were you doing watching me?"
"Er, just, uh, curious." Rathsin admitted, and let the hand drop to his side. "Not many up at dis time to train."
Kareck snorted. "Well now you know," He said. "Gotta practice my form somehow."
There were much better ways to practice form than with a training dummy at the crack of dawn. Most notably, the training dummies didn't fight back, and bad habits would tend to stick. Rathsin didn't consider himself a master at martial fighting, but he was trained, and it was rare to find someone with this kind of dedication.
"Need..." he paused. "Need a sparring partner?"
The orc looked between them, an impassive look on his face. The size difference was, well, in a pure match of strength and bulk, Rathsin would've gotten stomped flat in half a second. "That doesn't seem fair."
"More to fightin' besides just strenff," Rathsin responded. "Probably better den beating up on a dummy, at least?"
Kareck looked him up and down again, doubt still written on his face. "You must think highly of your combat abilities, blood elf."
Rathsin attempted a smile, though his legs were still burning. He was going to need to find a healer soon (or right now, really, right now would've been even grander) or even just a secluded area to bandage up his legs. "No harm in trying it out? Er... Later?"
"Sunset, then. Here." Kareck said, with a tone that clearly implied he didn't expect Rathsin to show up.
Rathsin simply nodded and picked up Faiza from where she nudged his ankle with concern. "Sunset. See you den."
He could've walked out of there with some semblance of grace. He was sure that he could have. It would've been one foot in front of the other. An exit that may have been able to redeem how he crashed in on the orc's training session. Instead, Rathsin turned around, took two steps, and with a resigned groan, passed out cold on the forest floor.Â