#tazari

Mothan sighed, letting his feet go where they pleased once he reformed. Dalaran had become an unfortunate familiarity to the assassin, and by now, Mothan knew the layout like the back of his hand.

The stables came into view soon enough, and when he stopped at the door, one of his feet tapped impatiently.

Tazari was busily tending to a yak in the far left corner, brushing out its fur. There was a pair of large scissors hanging from her finger, and as Mothan walked in, Tazari swung the shears up into her hand, and began trimming some of the fur over the yak’s eyes.

“‘Ello, spearmint,” Mothan chirped, hiding his exhaustion behind a broad grin. Tazari didn’t look at him, but her eyes were wide, nose scrunched, and cheeks dark with blush.

“I be busy, licorice!” she whined, glancing at him while brushing more of the yak’s fur, “don’ you be comin’ in here, bein’ all distractin’!!”

“Tazari I literally just be sayin’ hi,” he teased, chuckling when she jabbed him in the chest with her elbow, “careful dere~”

She pouted deeply, “go– go sit down!! Ovah dere, till I’m done!”

“Okay, okay~” Mothan walked over to the bench she had pointed out, smiling to himself. He sat, and settled for watching her go about her remaining tasks.

His mind replayed the moments of the day. Since early that morning, to little over thirty minutes ago. Mothan tried to focus on something else - anything else - but his thoughts were determined to twist and stretch every event, trying to decide if he could have done something better.

Truthfully, he could have. He was nothing like Trigon: not as intimidating, nowhere near as confrontational, and valued compromise over absolution. Trigon got results. If he wanted something changed, it would be changed, but Mothan didn’t have that sort of confidence.

That, and Azeroth’s issues - as Trigon had told him - weren’t Ether’s problems. They were here to route the Bane, nothing more, nothing less. Mothan sighed; Tazari moved on to a bat.

For a split second, he hyper focused on her. She was slim, but well built. Her soft musculature implied that she spent her days doing heavy labor, and while many wouldn’t immediately assume that stable work was “heavy labor”, stable master did more than just take in animals. They had to clean up after a variety of beasts, prepare a variety of food for different diets, feed those animals, groom the animals, and in some cases, care for animals in their care that wound up sick.

Quickly, Mothan averted his gaze. His thoughts reeled before settling back on meticulously deconstructing his way versus his brother’s way.

Mothan nudged, Trigon forced. Mothan was gentle, Trigon was harsh. Mothan chose safety, Trigon took risks.

He leaned forward against his knees, staring at his hands.

Mothan has always been better at killing. Za’hal always told him he’d make an excellent monk, especially given his natural inclination toward balance; toward mediation, but that would put the troll in the spotlight. Mothan chose to be an assassin so he could hide in the shadows.

But here he was, with that monk that Za’hal had seen in him rearing his head. He should have listened to Trigon. He should have gone with his brother to hunt down the Bane commanders, and their portals. He should have been with them because Trigon had twisted not only Jaina’s arm, but Khadgar’s, and Aethas’. The ultimatum was either they come help Trigon, or Azeroth would have another invasion on their hands, and this time, it wouldn’t be the Burning Legion. In Mothan’s experience, the Bane was a hundred times worse than the Legion, because at least the worst the Legion would throw at the Horde, and Alliance was the twisted spirits of the dead. They could free those dead, let them finally find peace.

The Bane threw civilians - children, mothers, fathers, the elderly, the lame. When the United had first realized it, they’d lost many, many of their soldiers. How could a tranied, honorable combatant fight someone that didn’t know the sharp end of the spear from the harmless butt of the spear? And the thought had always been lurking in the back of their minds, that the most heavily armored, largest soldiers were not properly trained - given their sluggish movements and incapability to use their huge weapons - but never once had any of them imagined that children were inside.

The Horde, and the Alliance would never be able to deal with that; both sides were too honorable in their own ways. Mothan doubted that even the supposed ruthless forsaken would be able to pose much of a threat. The Bane Commanders were ridiculously powerful in their own right, and the Elites were nothing to sniff at either. Based on the knowledge he had, Mothan could confidently say that only a handful of the leaders from both sides would even stand a remote chance against an Elite, and only a couple could stand toe-to-toe with a Commander.

Then again, both of those factors depended solely on who the Commander was, because–

“Mothan?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you be awake?”

“Mmm.”

Tazari was quiet. The hum in Mothan’s mind stalled at her voice.

He didn’t want to admit that she was the type of distraction he needed, just so he could stop thinking. He knew it when he hyper focused on her. He should have just kept watching her, it would have stopped him from thinking of how bad the situation on Azeroth could get if the Etherians didn’t do something.

A snort of laughter left him when Tazari tried to pick him up. She wrapped her arms around his waist and hefted, huffing in his ear. It flicked.

“I be up,” he said softly, standing. Tazari’s face was pressed against his chest. She kept her arms around him.

“You um…” she tilted her head up to look at him, “you be lookin’ distressed…”

“Do I?”

“Yeah…”

“Mmm,” he wasn’t sure what to do. Should he hold her? His arms hung down by his sides, lifeless. He tired to think about the meetings again, but once again he found himself hyper focused on Tazari.

“Do you… do you be wantin’ to come over?” she asked, “I mean… it be a long day, for me, and looks like it be a long day for you… I can make you–”

“Okay, but only if I be getting to help.”

“But I can cook for you,” she grumbled, and Mothan wrapped his arms around her. She blushed.

“I don’t be doubting that, but your work be way more physically demandin’ than what I be doing,” he gave her a crooked smile, “so~ Let me be helping~”

Supper was easy. Tazari’s home in Dalaran was quaint and comfortable, and now the two sat on the one couch in her living room.

She told him how she’d grown accustomed to how the humans, and elves in Dalaran liked their homes, though sometimes she would still sleep on the floor. He couldn’t say he knew the feeling, because the reason why he disliked plush beds and furniture had nothing to do with how he was raised.

Mothan opted to change the topic of conversation before they could get into the more gruesome details of his childhood.

“So? How be your day?” he asked, grateful that he’d all but forgotten every thought that had been plaguing him just an hour before. Tazari tapped a finger to her lips.

“Hmm… not too bad. I be up since six, started with cleanin’ out the stables. We had a lotta’ birds in this week, so I had to be doin’ a loooot of scrubbin’. I didn’t be finishin’ that until nine, then one of the others be needin’ my help with a nervous warp stalker. Tryin’ to corner a warp stalker be hard, mon!” she exclaimed, waving her arms around animatedly, “he kept on warpin’ here, then warpin’ there, and so I had to be gettin’ another warp stalker to be helpin’ us get the nervous warp stalker!”

Mothan chuckled, “those ones be sounding like a handful.”

“They be!” Tazari huffed, sitting up more on the couch while Mothan shifted to lean his side against the back cushions. He kept his eyes on her face while she continued: she’d had to groom more yaks than she wanted to count, clipped the claws on several large cats, filed the claws on wolves, brushed so many different kinds of animal teeth that she had tried to brush a macaw’s beak, and spent the better half of her afternoon ferrying hooves on hippogryphs.

At some point during the conversation, Mothan’s eyes slid to her lips. Her voice became a lullaby in the background. She was telling him about one hippogryph in particular - a rare arcane one, brilliant purple in color, overflowing with such raw magical power she wondered how difficult it had been to tame. Shed hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to the hunter about his beast, because he’d come and left faster than she could say ‘good evening’.

And then, she stopped. His eyes noticed first, ears second. He continued to stare at her lips for several more seconds, in case she continued, but when she didn’t, Mothan refocused his gaze on her eyes.

Which were staring down at his mouth rather intently.

“Tazari?” he asked, unsure of why his voice was so soft, or why he sounded unsure. He didn’t know why he processed her movements so slowly either, and before he could react, Tazari slipped between his tusks and pressed her lips against his.

Out of reflex - when his mind finally processed what was happening - he leaned back. She followed, lips just shy of his, and Mothan was putting his weight against his arms seconds later. Tazari kissed him again, and again, and he raised one shaking hand to sweep into her hair.

Too soon - or perhaps, at the perfect moment? - Tazari pulled back. She looked dazed, and Mothan could hardly see through the golden haze that seemed to settle in his vision.

Thank the Great One his Vice was wrath, and not lust.

Tazari bit her lip, looking off to the side. A shade of guilt came to her face - and Mothan wasn’t sure why, he had never made it explicitly clear that he had an aversion to more romantic displays of affection.

Then again, Tazari was a stable master. Like him, she had to be able to understand body language, and Mothan didn’t doubt that Tazari perhaps understood it far better than he did.

‘In that case, I be supposing that I be makin’ it obvious.’

So he pulled her back in before she could say anything. He closed his eyes. Allowed himself the chance to enjoy it.

“I forgot,” Mothan mumbled against Tazari’s lips, “how much I enjoyed this.”

Tazari sighed contently, raising her hands to cup his face. The kisses never went past lips; Mothan was fine with that. He recalled lying down at some point. Tazari was on top of him. Her hair fell like a curtain around his face. It was nice not to think about anything, except her.