is this the place where monsters hide?

[oldtonew]

Who: Pratt and Kettara 
What: Shaman lessons 
Where: Outside the city
When: February 22nd
Warnings: Discussions of cults, murder, possible genocide. 

It's time. Kettara has spent days worrying over her own choices, wondering whether she has disgraced her ancestors and her master by even considering the action she means to take. She has remembered the lessons Master Muln meant her to learn and the ones she actually took, by blade or her own, uneasy wisdom. She thinks about the story of her own people, and how the Warchief stood as the instrument of their redemption. A slave turned warrior, turned again to become a shaman. 

And she remembers what it was like as a child to know she was small and the world wanted nothing more than to crush her underfoot. 

Preparations were made. And when the time comes, she shows up at Pratt's house dressed in armor and a new fur cloak. It's a crude thing, badly tanned, but even Kettara feels the cold. 

She knocks on the door, then makes herself stand as tall as she can. 

This must be done. And therefor, she will do it with all the honor she can muster. 

Comments

[theweakhavepurpose]

Pratt isn't really sure what all this will entail so he's as prepared as he can be. He's wearing clean clothes and a heavy jacket in case they'll be out in the tundra. His shovel is leaning against the wall by the door should he need it.

He opens the door and looks up at her, only slightly intimidated. "Hey. Uh. Morning."

It's weird, he's almost nervous. He wasn't nervous about police academy or flight school. But man this is making him antsy. Probably because Kettara is only marginally on this side of not wanting to kill him.

[oldtonew]

Kettara stands as tall as she can manage, hands clasped behind her back. She's taken the time to clean her armor and weapons beforehand, and to ensure that her braids are neat. Its important to make a good impression right now, though she's uncertain if she means to impress Pratt or any of her ancestors, who are surely watching and judging. In the end, Kettara knows she will have to answer for her actions and all the things wrought because of them.

Not for the first time, she prays this isn't a mistake.

Nonetheless, the choice has been made. She will not falter in the aftermath.

"Are you ready?" She watches him for a moment, then nods. "You will have to be. Come. I've made preparations.

[theweakhavepurpose]

"Right." he pushes his hair back from his face, zipping his jacket up in preparation to leave. "Should I bring anything?"

He glances back at his stockpile of food that's dwindled considerably after the expedition, and his trusty shovel right by the door. What goes into becoming a shaman? She had said something about talking to fire, and he probably wouldn't need anything for that. Except to stop being flammable.

"I'm ready."

Even though he's convinced he'll be terrible at this, he's determined to see it through. He won't fail. He'll prove he's strong.

[oldtonew]

Kettara looks him up and down, eyes narrowed. After a moment, she shakes her head. It would have been better to send Pratt out into the wild for several months of meditation, but this is not the place for that. Furthermore, the elements would not speak to him. Perhaps in time he would be able to sense them, but they would not speak. They do not speak to her in Hadriel, or at least not directly.

This will be difficult. Most things are.

"Follow me. It's not far."

Then she turns and walks away, without waiting to see if he will follow. Either he will or he won't.

[theweakhavepurpose]

Pratt pulls up the hood of his jacket, deciding to leave the shovel behind. He has his hunting knife, and that should be enough. Jacob would expect him to be able to survive with nothing more than a knife and wilderness knowledge. This shouldn't be so hard. Probably.

He follows along behind her, silent at first because he doesn't know what to say. This situation is already awkward, he's liable to say something to make it worse. There's a part of him that wants to apologize, but while what she'd seen in his memories was pretty true to character, he didn't feel like it was fair to judge him for something he didn't want to participate in.

Especially when he tried to make amends and died for it.

Sighing he speeds up a bit to walk next to her, feeling small and weak when contrasted against how huge she is.

"What are you going to teach me?" Maybe he can mentally prepare himself to not suck at it.

[oldtonew]

"To listen."

It seems like the proper place to start. So much of this is tied to the past, so she might as well make Pratt understand the importance of clinging to honor and tradition. Why it matters and why, when it was abandoned, her own people nearly lost everything. If he understands that, then perhaps he can learn to hear the elements when they speak and interpret their words with honor.

If he cannot - well. Perhaps a human cannot learn these things at all.

She leads him to a fire pit, carved out of the hard earth and circled by stones. There are several logs in the pit, along with kindling, though the pit itself is cold and there are no ashes to show it has ever been lit. Kettara sits on the ground, motioning for Pratt to join her. "The elemental spirits are everywhere, in everything. Even in this place. Without them, there would be no life. And as with all life, these spirits have their wants and their games. They battle each other for supremacy, for resources, for no reason at all. It is the duty of a shaman to intercede and maintain balance between the elemental spirits, so that life may continue."

She tips her head back and waves her hand at the pit. Fire blooms. The kindling begins to smoke.

"In the old world, it was a shaman's duty to advise their chieftain and their clan. It was a great honor to hear the words of the elements."

[theweakhavepurpose]

Listen? He knows how to listen. He's had to listen to speeches and sermons and manifestos and Jacob's little slide show more times than he wants to remember. He's real good at standing there and soaking up information. But he goes along with her anyway, sitting cross legged nearby.

Then the fire manifests from nothing and he tries not to startle. Even knowing she was going to do that doesn't stop the initial shock of seeing magic, real actual magic, occur right in front of him. It seems real enough and he puts his hand out to feel the heat.

"What do they say?" How does one converse with the spirit of a fire? What do you talk about? And how? He has so many questions but doesn't want to interrupt.

[oldtonew]

"They are like any living thing. Some are wise. Some are cruel. Others simply want to tell their stories, or hear your own."

She almost tells him it won't matter what she tells him, that he'll know when his time comes, but such answers always frustrated Kettara when she was in training. It's best to be honest, she thinks. Kettara holds her hands out and lets the fire curl around her fingers, nipping at her wrist guards. The fire here has teeth. It likes to nip.

"I'll get to that. But first, I am going to tell you a story. So you understand why I am doing this."

[theweakhavepurpose]

He watches the fire, trying to see something beyond a simple flame burning in a firepit. Maybe he's waiting for it to turn into some sort of humanoid sprite, or have a face like he's seen in movies. None of that happens, but he does notice she's able to hold her hand into the flame and seemingly not get burnt. Something is happening, he just can't see or understand it.

Which is frustrating.

"Okay." He pulls his own hand back, looking at it, where it's reddened from being too close to the heat. The fire is real enough, maybe the magic is real too.

[oldtonew]

Not for the first time, Kettara wonders if she can actually teach a human. If anyone could. Would Master Muln even have tried such a thing? The question worries at her like the fire does. But she is committed now, and there is no turning back. She has never been one for half measures.

“I was born on a world called Azeroth, as was my teacher and many of the other shaman in the Earthen Ring. But this was not the place my mother came from.”

Kettara is quiet for a long time, watching the fire. She has never needed to explain this to anyone before.

“She came from a world called Draenor. But she and the others, they had to leave. The world was dying. Many of the clans had already starved to death, or killed each other over what was left. The elements were…weakened. Unable to answer when the shamans called on them for aid. The clans feared they would not have the strength to do what was needed. To take this new world for themselves.”

Kettara doesn’t justify it. She understands the reasons, just as she knows they were dishonorable. Desperation does things to people.

“Azeroth was fertile. Good, strong land. But there were people living there already. Humans, and others. We - the clans had nothing to bargain with. Nothing to trade or offer in exchange for land. Only their warriors. The clans banded behind a single leader, their Warchief. And he had an advisor, who proposed a solution. The orcs would abandon the elemental spirits and the traditions of their ancestors in exchange for a new power. All they had to do was drink the blood of a demon.”

Kettara spreads her hands wide, indicating her green skin.

“Most drank. My mother did. It made her skin green, turned her eyes red. Made her taller, stronger, harder to kill. But it made her angry, as well. Quick to kill. And the Warchief said, now we are strong. Now we will take this world. And we will slaughter any who oppose us.”

She’s quiet again, watching Pratt.

“There is a reason we have few elders left. The shaman who would not submit were executed. And so the first Horde was formed. They abandoned the elements in exchange for power.”

[theweakhavepurpose]

Desperation does things to people.

If there's anything he can understand, it's that. Starvation. Torture. People desperate to survive who will do anything to cling to life. They'll kill their friends for a drink of water when dying of thirst. Betray their beliefs and ideals. It doesn't take much. In fact Pratt was shocked how little it took to turn people into monsters who forgot themselves and became exactly what the cult wanted them to be.

"Did they? Take what they wanted and slaughter all who opposed them?"

He doesn't sound judgmental, he sounds resigned. Because of course they did. The strong always conquer the weak - that's the way of things. As it should be. But for as much as Pratt has had that beaten into him he still can't fully turn himself over to that mindset. Because deep inside he isn't that person. He wants to help others, to protect, to serve.

This reminds him so much of Eden's gate, we will drink from the Bliss and be strong, we have seen the path to righteousness and those that oppose us must be destroyed. For their own good. At least the Orcs were doing it for themselves and their people, and didn't think that they were murdering others for their own good.

Or he's pretty sure they didn't anyway.

[oldtonew]

"No."

Kettara looks away, back to the fire

"They fought hard. No one denies that. Some of them even fought honorably. But this new power, the demon's blood, it made them cruel. Made them so eager for blood they forgot their tactics. And in the end, that power abandoned them entirely. The Horde was defeated."

Crushed underfoot. The humans rallied the other races to their cause and the war became a matter of honor. Just not for the orcs.

Kettara exhales slowly. This time, she meets Pratt's eyes.

"When the demon took his power back, it made the warriors sick in their minds. They had no spirit. Barely any life. Most of them just....gave up. Let the humans kill them. A few escaped and went into the wilderness, to hide. The others were captured. But the humans - they were cruel. They had no honor in their victory. They took prisoners."

Her voice is low and hard, hands clenched tight.

"There was a human who found an orc child, a boy. Just a baby, his mother killed. And he thought, what a chance I have. These beasts have no free will, but if I build them a leader, mold this child in my own image, then they will be my warriors."

She bares her teeth.

"He had a name. He was a Frostwolf, like me. Go'el, son of Durotan and Draka. But the humans called him Thrall."

[theweakhavepurpose]

"Is taking prisoners bad?" An honest question. He was following her up until now, and suddenly he feels like he might have lost what's going on. Maybe it's because he's the bad guy in the story or maybe he just doesn't understand her version of honor.

"So the orcs were cruel, the humans were cruel, and then someone stole a baby to raise as their own?"

He frowns, he thinks he sees where this is going, but there's still an innate confusion in who exactly he's supposed to be rooting for here. The orcs who invaded and merged with a demon? The humans who defended their land but then stole a child? Everyone seems to be in the wrong.

[oldtonew]

Kettara frowns at him. "Denying your enemy an honorable death, condemning them to live a half-life in a cage? That is cruelty. Nothing more."

It's better to die in battle, or surrounded by family in one's old age. Not locked away as a prisoner. That is not life.

She exhales slowly. "Yes. It was - not a good time. Time passed. The human raised Thrall, trained him to be a gladiator. Even then he was a great warrior. The human kept him in chains when he was not fighting. But he had some freedom. He was taught things. How to read, how to command troops. The history of Azeroth. Things like that."

Not the traditions of his people, or even their language. But it was something.

"I was born after," she adds. "In one of the camps. I don't remember it well."

This is a lie. She remembers it with terrible clarity.

"Thrall was wise, even as a young man. He questioned why he was named, why he had to fight. And in time, he decided to escape. This was not an easy thing. Certainly he was a great warrior, but the other orcs, the ones who had survived, lived far away in the wild. Thrall did not know how to survive alone. He did not know the woods or the traditions of his people. Not even their language. Why would they take him in?"

Kettara's voice is soft and proud. She loves Thrall, or at least the idea of him. What he represents.

"There was a human who helped him get away. A woman. I don't know her name. I don't know why she did that. I think she died because of it. But this human, she helped Thrall get away. And so he went out into the wild. It nearly killed him. But he found what was left of the clans."

[theweakhavepurpose]

He shrugs, concentrating on the fire, "Some people would rather be alive and caged then be dead."

Some people meaning him. There are absolutely fates worse than death, but simply being imprisoned isn't one of them. At least not to someone who was tortured on a daily basis.

"Camps?" It's drifting away from his understanding again, wondering if maybe she doesn't mean prisoners and cages the way he's thinking of. "Like a labor camp? I thought they were prisoners not slaves?"

Perhaps in her world they're the same thing. There's so much he doesn't know and is struggling to understand.

"She died helping him escape but he didn't tell people her name?" He snorts. Of course not. No one cares about people who help others when it doesn't directly effect them.