Anaril leaned into the deepest, darkest corner of Everlook’s solitary inn and tavern. Or, rather, the second deepest, second darkest corner, because the nook next to her, where the low light seemed to actively flee, was occupied by a large, scary-looking night elf. A woman who seemed most preoccupied with not being bothered, and so, not bothering her was the best way not to antagonize her. Anaril needed no more antagonists in her life, that early winter day.

She reached up to tug her hood down a little further, hiding chestnut brown locks of lazily curling hair in its darkness, doing everything in her power to affect the appearance of an irrelevant, passed out drunk. Someone sleeping a long night’s drinking off in peace, but not someone so out of it as to be an easy target for a light-fingered goblin. Waitress, guard, proprietor, she did not trust a one of them.

The ones affiliated with the Horde, you more or less knew where you had. The ones making their home in Everlook – or Gadgetzan, or Ratchet, or any other supposedly neutral goblin settlement – were much harder to gauge. Or, rather, you never knew when they were looking out for number one, when they had been bought, when you had them safely bought, when they pretended to be safely bought but were actually working for someone else, or any other infinitely labyrinthine arrangement.

Even that confusing maze of mercenary loyalties was preferable to a little squad of the greens thinking they had a leg up on you. Had the advantage. Especially when they were right in that assessment. Anaril let faded, fel-green eyes scan the sullen crowd. Too early in the day for much levity, just perpetually annoyed bruisers keeping order among patrons who seemed to compete for who could move the least. She felt a sympathetic hangover headache creeping on, but blinked. No sign of her annoyingly ardent pursuers, though they had to know where she was hiding from them.

Two weeks ago, Anaril had secured a load of arcanite from one of the local mines, and, enterprising smuggler – discreet trader – that she was, had arranged for her companion in crime to take it south, through Felwood and Ashenvale, to Orgrimmar, to be sold off. Twin problems with that venture, though it stood to make both of them a good amount of profit: One, she had put everything she had, and more besides, into getting the arcanite, and two, while her companion was off getting the stuff sold, she had to lay low, near penniless, in a town all about money.

Only three more days, then she would again have her friend back, and have coin aplenty. The trouble was, the four goblins, and their hobgoblin servant, that she had borrowed from in order to afford the shipment in the first place had, somehow, figured out her predicament. And, while she was alone, it seemed they had realized that the price of the loan really ought to go up. A hundred percent. What was Anaril going to do? One petite blood elf might, with some smarts, handle a handful of goblins. But that dullard tower of meat and fat, the hobgoblin, that one would take more than a whack or a threat to deal with. Too stupid and too strong and too durable, all at once.

Having escaped the attention of that little bloodpack earlier in the day, Anaril had fled into the tavern. Not a place one expected to be able to stay with no money, but she had made her way in while the staff were paying attention to fleecing a morning drunkard. Found a spot near a corner in the back, and played the role of just another passed out patron, sleeping off the drink. As long as there were no other customers, the workers seemed content to let yesterday’s buyers sleep, perhaps not out of benevolence, but rather laziness. No reason to try to throw anyone who might wake up and decide to have another drink out if there was no one to replace them, after all.

Minutes passing, turning into something like an hour. Two? Anaril found it hard to pass the time, constantly having to be on alert, watching for the little green and brown bloodpack near the entrance. And so, she did not really know how long it had taken them to track her down when she saw the first proudly protruding, pierced nose passing through the doorway. Swaggering, self-assured. Proud, even. To be chasing down a hapless victim. That was the central feature and feeling to each of the four, small greenskins, one wearing a ridiculous, wide-brimmed, purple hat with a zhevra-skin stripe around its cylindrical center. To the four, Anaril realized, this was not some unpleasant but self-serving, regretful thing they had to do, it was an outing. Like a lazy picnic lunch, back in Quel’thalas. It was a day, an activity. Enjoyable.

As the four, and their brutish oaf, had yet to spot her, wrapped in a fur-trimmed, nondescript gray-brown cloak as she was, she yet had a moment to figure out what to do with herself. Unfortunately, that moment was spent near hyperventilating, green-glowing eyes darting here and there, to the uncaring staff, then to a slumped over orc, snoring with all the grace and charm of rocks tumbling down a gravel cliff into upset seas. Anaril’s eyes fell on the somewhat indistinct, humanoid mass of shadow within the circular corner booth next to her. The kaldorei. A strange one. Not that it was unusual for them to be quiet, to silently resent a place like Everlook, and its citizens, but rather that she was of unusual size. Half a foot taller than the regular kaldorei, and broader. Sculpted by a much kinder, much more skilled divine hand than the slovenly hobgoblin, certainly.

Could Anaril hope to draw on the ancient ties of their two races, then? Cousin races, supposedly. Bound together by history of old, though recent times had strained that bond perhaps beyond its breaking point. But, what choice did she really have except to try? Besides, she had actually had the opportunity to talk to quite a few kaldorei passing through Everlook, and, once one proved oneself worth the attention, several of them had been pleasant enough. Kind, even, though often stern. And, oddly, a good few of them had been extremely interested in bedding her. An interest she had returned, particularly upon discovering their strengths, their ability to satisfy certain urges and preferences that Anaril had not, until arriving in night elven lands, realized she had. No one in Quel’thalas had the physicality to fuck like a kaldorei.

Eyes darting, yet again, to the four goblins and their loutish servant, then to the still kaldorei-shaped shadow, Anaril ran her tongue over her dry lips. The wintry climate consumed every hint of moisture in the air, and she felt as if she never stopped needing to drink. Did she? Or was that just the product of the pulsing, cold lump of undefined but worrying emotion settled into her stomach? She rose, playing the role of a tired, off-balance drunkard to the best of her ability. Not to be seen was unrealistic, but to be seen and considered irrelevant, at least for a few moments, was possible, and so she stretched. Yawned. Took a stumbling step towards the dark corner booth, trusting that she was only scanned by the goblins in a cursory way.

Another step. No shouts, no pointing, no sudden movements. Another. She made it to the mouth of the booth, and then a step inside it.

Light filtered in only hesitantly, such that the round table and the benches following its curve were really nothing more than more solid masses of darkness inset in the deep gray. The night elf within, a massive figure, certainly compared to Anaril’s measly frame, still did not move. Shadows fled her, though, and Anaril was reminded of the uncanny ability of the kaldorei to gather shade to themselves in a strange way, as if they could make their skin a whirlpool to which the darkness was drawn. Or, perhaps, expel light from their vicinity, somehow. A blessing from their goddess, they insisted, and one that the woman now proved real. Partially. Twin slits of azure light appeared, burning bright in the dim booth. Dispelling the shadow to some extent, revealing part of the night elf’s facial markings. Making it possible to take in her large frame in a more firmly defined way, and though reason told Anaril that she ought to focus on the woman’s eyes, and pay attention to the gang of goblins behind her, her gaze strayed to what she could see.

A heavily muscled, powerful frame. Lean, in that there seemed to be little fat present, but not slender and graceful in the same way as so many kaldorei. This one was built to take, and dole out, punishment in a way few of even the most feral, snarling night elves were – the ones who had never really civilized, who still lived in a millennia old pact with the land, the trees, the sea. This one evoked thoughts of such elves very strongly. Evoked a hint of a feeling of sordid interest, too, in Anaril, though the moment was not right for such indulgences. She swallowed, instead. Refocused. Terribly blue, terribly intense eyes. She stared at them, into them, noting too late the sound of lumbering steps behind her, coming closer.

“Could use ... help,” Anaril croaked. Quietly, offering the kaldorei what she hoped was a pleading look, peppered with unspoken suggestions. Few who spent any time in a goblin town were there without wanting to get something out of it, after all, and though the kaldorei seemed not to care over-much for coin, they did care for people. For spending quality time with those people. Particularly those kaldorei blessed with an extra, massive gift between their legs seemed very interested in Anaril, and, while she was uncertain, the table in the way, she wagered that this one might be just such a night elf.

There was no response, however. Only a slight narrowing of eyes, a gesture so minute that Anaril barely noted it, never mind those closing behind her.

“Found ya.”

A tough finger jabbed against her clothed butt, sinking in just so. A goblin could reach other places, but, four of them, and their oaf, just one of her, who was she going to complain to about their indecency? She took a slow breath, shoulders rising and falling an inch, reached up to push the hood from her head, and turned.

“Found what?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, lady,” the goblin in the absurd, purple hat said.

Rexil. That was his name. Anaril kept her eyes half-lidded, lips pursed just slightly, as she looked down at him, standing very close. Too close. His three companions right behind, the hobgoblin next to them. The oaf’s eyes were alive, perceiving, but none of its slack-jawed demeanor suggested that it understood what was going on, or being said. Perhaps it simply did not care. Knew enough to keep a hand hanging limp near the handle of a huge club, looking more like a crude tree branch torn from its host than a weapon made with purpose. With or without purpose, though, one hit from that thing would break half the bones in her body. She focused her attention on Rexil, again.

“Listen, you’ll get your money in three days. What we agreed on,” Anaril said. She breathed in, dispelling the attempted careless demeanor in favor of trying to play for more time. Negotiate. “I’ll throw in five percent extra, even.”

“You’ll throw in the hundred extra we told ya to,” Rexil said. He jabbed her left thigh, looking up at her all the while. “Either that, or we find you another way to earn. There’s always ways.”

“I’m not here to be one of your cheap floozies.”

“Won’t be cheap, Ana. You know exactly how much you owe us. Most expensive in this whole town, actually. Give it a few weeks of work, though, we’ll be square.”

“A few weeks for you to decide that I owe you even more, right? We agreed on what I’d pay back, exactly. And I will.”

Mock surprise distorted Rexil’s face, eyes widening as he turned his head left, then right, raising a hand to settle behind one pointed, slime-green ear. “Yeah? Youse think you’re in a position to make demands? You and all your friends? Where’re they at?”

Anaril wrinkled her nose, sneering down at Rexil. At his three grinning compatriots. At the still blissfully unworried hobgoblin, its eyes shifting from its goblin masters to Anaril. Somehow, though there seemed to be little emotion and not a trace of malice in its attention, she still felt the threat in its dimwitted eyes. Unintentional threat, surely, but as long as it could be directed to throttle her by the four goblins, it did not matter how dull it was.

Play for time. Anaril’s eyes darted around the room, but found no prospective savior. The staff clearly did not care for some minor altercation, and certainly did not care for her. If any of the patrons were awake enough to hear, they were not in an intervening mood. Play for time. What time? How?

“You really want to make an enemy of me, Rex?”

“Enemy implies you’re some kinda threat. Is that what you’re doing? Threatening me?”

In a flash, he’d drawn a vicious, terribly unclean longknife from his belt, reaching it up so that its point hovered a few inches from her nose. Suddenly, it seemed, reaching higher than her ass was not a problem. She drew in an involuntary breath, eyes moving to focus on the brandished blade. Tried to back off, but found the table of the corner booth in her way. If she managed to move at all, Rex followed her without issue.

“Maybe you’ll sign an indentured servitude contract, out of the goodness of your heart, Ana? I sure would l—”

Something flashed by Anaril’s head. A solid lump of glass, an inexpertly made, heavy stein, something that would have made the floor sorry if it ever fell rather than be destroyed upon meeting it, nevertheless exploded into multiple fragments against the hobgoblin’s thick forehead.

The kaldorei was faster than Anaril. Somehow. Despite having been sat behind the table, further away, she was faster. Anaril was still in the process of translating the automatic, reflexive raising of her knee towards Rexil’s jaw into determined action, her leg just beginning to move, when the massive shape of the kaldorei, purple-skinned, black-haired, terribly silent, hammered knee-first into the hobgoblin’s gut, fist-first into its jaw. The oaf, still stunned from the stein, staggered backwards from the force of the kaldorei’s impact, already in the process of toppling before it could even begin to react. Blows raining relentlessly down onto its mud-like facial features while it had yet to hit the floor.

Anaril, perhaps not quite as mind-bogglingly swift as the kaldorei, nevertheless outdid Rexil just enough for it to be the decider. Before he could move the weapon – not that she was convinced that he would actually try to hurt her, but you do not gamble with someone holding a knife in your face – her leg swept up and cracked into his jaw. Rather than stay around, she used the momentum remaining from that movement to roll backwards over the table, a remarkably clean one, not littered with empty bottles, burned out candles, or really anything, until she bumped against the worn padding at the back of the bench.