Honor, Oath, & Blood

Chapter 13

Gylledra woke still feeling tired. She'd gone to bed and sometime later heard Varok enter the room. He stood for a long moment before undressing and getting in beside her. He did not move close to her and gather her in his arms like he usually did, and it only served to make her feel more wretched. Now there were two things to contend with in addition to trying to ensure the celebration was a success.

The long hours she had put in working on the planning had paid off when she found that there was relatively little to actually do the morning things were to begin. Varok had been gone already when she got up that morning and again, she felt disappointed he'd said nothing to her. She didn't believe he'd been going through her things intentionally, but that didn't change the fact that he had. He had a great many things lying about pertaining to Orgrimmar and the Kor'kron which she never looked at, though she wasn't particularly curious about them.

"Pava, everything is done, why did we get up so early?" Gylledra asked, trying her best not to sound as though she was whining.

"To get ready, of course..." Pava stared at her.

"Get ready? Everything is ready..." She glanced around the Valley of Strength where vendors were setting up their booths and some last minute decorating was happening. The sun had not risen yet above the cliffs that surrounded the city and it still felt shadowy and cool. The patrolling guards were still carrying torches even.

"No, I mean for us to get ready for the celebration...what do you plan to wear?"

"If you speak of clothing too loudly, Nasorya will appear out of nowhere and..." Gylledra stopped as she heard the familiar elevated chatter and laughter from afar. "See? I swear she can sense such discussions. The monster she becomes with clothing makes her dragon form look like a kitten." The dragon in question spotted them from across the valley and waved enthusiastically.

"You've planned nothing?" Pava looked bewildered.

"I didn't realize I was supposed to..."

"I figured as much. You're very fortunate, you know, that I was clever enough to plan ahead for just this very thing."

"You what?"

"Come on." Pava took her by the wrist, gesturing to Nasorya to follow as they headed toward Gylledra's own house. "It's a big day, we must look our best."

Her own physical appearance was something Gylledra only rarely ever considered. It wasn't until knowing Varok that she thought with any regularity about how she appeared. He'd chuckled at her before when she had mentioned her lack of knowledge when it came to the orcish sense of beauty, making it seem as though there wasn't one. Pava demonstrated otherwise as she gathered clothes from a chest Gylledra hadn't even noticed in the corner of her bedroom before.

"Lord Saurfang allowed me to conspire to get these here." Pava explained before she could even ask how they had gotten there, then tossed them down on the bed. It was strange having anyone in her bedroom that wasn't Varok, it had become their quiet, private sanctuary where none could invade or interrupt their sleep...or anything else.

It wasn't an extravagant house, orcish architecture primarily centered on practicality. It was big enough for them to live comfortably, the library was probably the most frivolous room in an orc's opinion. The bedroom itself was fairly large; the ceiling was vaulted and there was a fireplace. The bed was expansive of course, it had to fit an orc after all. There was a simple wooden armoire with Gylledra's things kept within and one of the adjoining rooms was where Varok kept his armor and various clothing items. The other adjoining room was the bath chamber, Gylledra's second favorite room. Downstairs, in addition to the allegedly frivolous library was an entire armory where there was more armor as well as what Gylledra thought was a nearly inordinate stockpile of weapons. Though some were things that belonged to warriors who had died in battle.