So, I figured I should do a thread here, and maybe get some feedback on these. I'm working on a series of shorts based on my World of Warcraft character - she's an OC from that universe, so I didn't think it was fanfic - and kind of want input from people other than the RP community I hang out with there. So here we go. I'll throw one story per post and wait on feedback before posting the next one!

Gloriarn 01 - Pulling a Runner
"You've GOT to be kidding me," the pale dwarf adjusted her red glass lenses, twisting one to focus on the document before her more clearly. She followed along, line by line, a finger dancing over the words and her lips mouthing them silently. When she reached the end, she traced the seal at the bottom of the page carefully, inspecting it for any sign of forgery.

As far as she could tell, it was legitimate.

The dwarven child who was acting as messenger waited her out, his fat fingers rubbing together in the universal gesture for coin. Gloriarn set the page on a squat, beaten wood table and fished in a pouch at her waist. She threw two copper pieces at the dark-skinned youth, who grinned nastily and bit one. "Had to be sure. Your type's been known to short people like me in the past," he intoned, his youthful voice dripping with hate. Not surprising in a Dark Iron, but always a shock to ears not ready for it. Gloriarn was ready for it. Before the boy could react, she drew a stiletto with practiced ease and blinding speed from her boot and spun towards him, grabbing his greasy red hair and pulling his head back sharply. She pressed the point of the blade into throat right below his voice box, causing him to whimper. A rivulet of blood dripped down his neck. She squatted next to the boy, her lips all but in his ear as the boy tried not to breathe hard enough to impale himself on her knife point.

"Watch your mouth, whelp. I've killed people for less an insult than that. Next time I catch you making statements like that one, I won't be so kind as to stop at drawing blood. Now get lost," she spat, removing the knife with the same speedy motion that had introduced it and applying her boot to his backside. The boy fell out of her doorway, landing on the dirty stone-lined path below. He scrambled for purchase and ran off without looking back. Gloriarn watched him go, grinning. If he had any sense, he wouldn't be back her way any time soon. Nor would he tell anyone of his weakness. If he told the truth about why he was bleeding, he'd be relentlessly picked on for the rest of his childhood - kicked and abused for being so unable to defend himself against a woman.

Now that the brief intermission was over, however, Gloriarn had other problems to attend to. Like her latest orders, for example, which made no sense whatsoever to her. She looked at the document again, staring at it intently as if her viewing it again would change what it said. It didn't. The page still had Thaurissan's official seal and the orders for her sapper contingent - they were to report immediately for portaling to the Hinterlands with nothing but enough Seaforium to destroy a small continent and the armor they could carry. They were then to march on the well-defended hold of the Wildhammers, sneak past them, set the charges, get back out and blow the keep sky-high.

In theory, the idea could work. With that much of a charge, it was a given that the whole keep would easily be destroyed and take all the Wildhammers within along with it. In practice, however, the Dark Iron emperor - or one of his many backstabbing, money-grubbing aides who pitched the plan to him - was asking them to commit suicide. There were no weapons called for, nor would anyone with this much Seaforium be able to carry any. They were allowed armor, but again, there was no way anyone would have any and be able to manouver with the barrels. One of his best sapper regiments, up against the whole of the Wildhammer clan with no backup, no armor and no weaponry whatsoever. There was no escape plan for them at all either - no way to get clear before the charges blew. It was as if he wasn't expecting them to come home at all, or that he didn't even care enough to give them a way out.

It was enough to steel her resolve entirely. Gloriarn knew there was no fighting this document - once sealed, there was no way to get Thaurissan to take back what he had ordained; he often said he felt that recinding on any official proclamation was a sign of weakness, and refused to do it. Even if she did manage an audience with Thaurissan, at best she would be ignored and at worst killed for dissention. Given this page, the latest in a string of ordered missions that she had barely escaped from alive, Gloriarn felt she had only one course of action left. She scrambled around her Shadowforge City hovel, grabbing for whatever she could and shoving it in a rucksack. Her library of tomes on explosives, her tools and most of her clothing was left behind - too heavy to move with any efficiency, there was no point in taking any of it. She managed some bandages, a pouch with a few silver coins in it, enough food to last a week, a waterskin and her winter boots. She had a feeling she'd need them where she was headed.

Gloriarn flung a black cloak around her shoulders, drawing the hood up over her head. She left her red goggles - standard issue to the army of Shadowforge City - on her table beside the abandoned orders. Someone would figure out what she'd done soon enough. Might as well taunt them one last time. She slipped out of the city undetected, avoiding patrols wherever possible by ducking into shadows and hiding under tables. Leaving the mountain keep she had called home her entire short life behind her, the pale dwarf with two girlish pigtails had but one thought on her mind: Reach Ironforge or die. There was no other option anymore. She had to make her way to the Bronzebeard capital and beg their mercy - it was the only way she'd survive the Dark Iron scouts who were sure to follow her when someone noticed she'd defected.

Alright, since feedback hasn't come yet, I'll just throw down and type out the second story. Maybe I'll get some. And if it doesn't, I'm gonna follow it with the third, and then the fourth - which I think is my personal favourite.

Anyway. Story two incoming!

Gloriarn 02 - In Flight

Coughing harshly into her hand as she ran scrambling over the craggy rock landscape and feeling a strange liquid warmth there that shouldn't have been, Gloriarn looked down at her palm in confusion. A red stain stared back at her and she swore, wiping the blood on her cloth pants. The last patrollers had hit far harder than she thought they had, and judging from how hard breathing was becoming, she had at best broken a rib or two and at worst was now gifted with a punctured lung. She added it to the other recent injuries - a broken finger on her left hand, a knot-sized lump on the back of her head, and easily several dozen assorted bruises and gashes all over her skin. Her shirt was torn to ribbons, partly the fault of her attackers and partly in her somewhat futile efforts to staunch the blood flowing from some of her more serious wounds. She ached all over, felt more than ready to collapse and sleep wherever she could. The only thing that kept her moving was the sounds of more patrollers on the way. Biting her lip to keep from screaming as she inhaled deeply, she took a running start and leapt from a rocky outcropping to a ledge across from it. If only I'd thought to bring a more useful map, she thought, tossing the outdated and worthless scrap she had with her into the wind before her ribs bellowed in agony and forced her to stop moving so much. She crouched behind a boulder and took stock of her situation.

She had been on a rambling run around the desolate burning wastes of Searing Gorge for nearly two weeks, by her count, and things were rapidly going from bad to worse. Sure, it was marginally better than spending her time trying to avoid death while part of the Dark Iron sapper brigade that was now legendary for surviving the completely unsurvivable and thus the brigade that constantly got assigned more and more suicidal missions as time progressed, but what was the point of running for your freedom if you couldn't even survive to hit civilization? There was no shelter from the heat out here in the open, but this is not what bothered Gloriarn. Heat isn't a big deal when you grew up living next to an open magma pit, after all. The problem was the constant hassle from patrols sent to find her and bring her back for Dark Iron justice, which generally consisted of the emperor declaring 'off with their heads' and cackling. The problem was she was forced to leave her food stash behind during one surprise assault four nights back, and the local wildlife wasn't exactly accomidating her need to eat. The problem was that she had not been allowed sleep for two days straight, and every time it looked like she might be able to, the patrols caught up to her and she was forced to run again. She was hungry, thirsty, tired and extremely injured. And lost. A gunshot rang out much closer than it should have been, and she forced herself to her feet again.

Climbing down a sheer cliff carefully and slowly, Gloriarn set her feet down on a path. A legitimate path, for once. Maybe her luck was changing. Steeling herself for the agony it was going to cause, she broke into a full run up the hill. A graveyard - maybe it was the Thorium Brotherhood's outpost, the one none of the Dark Irons had ever made it back from alive. They would help a fellow defector, she felt certain. She ran, her lungs feeling like they were ready to explode, all the way into the center of the encampment and collapsed. Her injuries finally won the fight, and she lost conciousness as a large dwarf looked down at her.

---

"Lass, get up. We need ta talk ta ya!" Feeling as though she'd not been out more than a minute or so, her head pounding and her body aching, Gloriarn's eyes fluttered open and looked directly into the face of an angry, hairy man. Blinking, her brow knitted in confusion. The angry man yelled something she didn't quite hear, and two riflemen fired several volleys down a nearby embankment. "Who are you, and why are you here? I got reason ta belive yer a scout fer that lot that's gettin' shot down my hill, and I don't take kindly to scouts. Or anyone o' Tharussian's in my home," the voice rumbled through a dirt-stained beard and moustache. Gloriarn tried to speak, but only managed a pitiful croak in return to the allegations. The angry dwarf handed her a waterskin, which she drained greatfully. As her senses came back to her, she noticed that even though they had assumed her a spy, the Thorium Brotherhood had bound her wounds to the best of their ability. Everything still hurt, but it was all in fresh bandages and dressing. She smiled a little. The angry dwarf snatched the waterskin back and tapped his foot. "Well? We don't have all day here!"

"I'm...I'm not a spy. I'm a deserter. That's why they're here. They're after the bounty on my head," she managed, her voice cracked and sounding miserable.

"I don't buy the story, sir! I say we throw her over the edge and show them we mean business!" One of the riflemen yelled over his shoulder as he cocked his gun for another shot. The angry dwarf shook his head.

"Not until we know what she knows!" He turned back to Gloriarn. "I don't suppose you've got proof you are what you claim to be, eh?"

Gloriarn looked into the angry dwarf's eyes, propping herself up on her elbows and wincing at the pain it produced. "Are you kidding me? Do deserters get some kind of identification card now? Give me a break. Do you think I did all this to myself?" She motioned a hand absently at her collective injuries. "I broke my own ribs, beat myself to a bloody pulp, gashed open my own sides and back with my own daggers, all in order to look more credible when I snuck into your little camp? Please. If I'd wanted to, I'd have snuck in and planted explosive charges before you even knew I was here. I'm a sapper, you idiot, not a scout!"

The angry expression on the other dwarf's face melted and he broke out laughing. Gloriarn glowered at him while he did so, the rifle shots continuing in the background. "Alright, alright. So what can we do for you that'll get rid of them? I'm sick of being shot at, and it's been going on for two days now. How do we get you out of here?" Gloriarn's expression faded into one of confusion.

"Two days? I've been here that long? No wonder they found my trail. A blind man could've tracked a bleeding woman with that much time to do it!"

"Yep, two days. We've forced broth down your throat to keep you fed, but you've been out cold most of that time. Where are you trying to get to, anyway?"

"Ironforge. I figure if I turn myself in, I'd at least stand a chance at survival if I can get there. No one's ever breached the Bronzebeard mountain, meaning no Dark Irons in there. Even if I have to live in a cell, who cares? I'll be alive," she managed, grunting as she made her way to her feet. The dwarf with her laughed.

"You're insane. They'll kill you!"

"Not if I can offer them information on a planned assault on Wildhammer Keep," Gloriarn grinned mischeviously. The other dwarf was taken aback.

"Wildhammer? Hm, that may be just the chip you need. Tell you what, we'll get you in the air towards the city, but it's up to you to make your own way in. No chance the gunners over there'll let you anywhere near the city, a Dark Iron on a bird. I can't spare any men to go with you, but once they see you leave, they'll probably bugger offa our hill too and chase you. So it's a win-win! Get on that bird, girl, you're getting out of here!" He ushered her towards a waiting gryphon and strapped her to the saddle before she had any serious chance of protest, slapping the beast on the haunch to set it flying. "You can pay us for this later!" His voice bellowed over the shots as the bird spun out of sight over the mountain range and towards Ironforge.

Gloriarn 03 - Hard Time
The gryphon that had brought her to Dun Morogh landed gracefully a little ways off the path at the base of Ironforge's majestic mountain, and Gloriarn disembarked rather less gracefully, scrambling a bit before finally losing her balance altogether and falling backwards into the snow. She was immediately greatful for the white stuff, even though she'd cursed the blizzard they'd hit on the way down. The cushion effect of it was enough to keep the fall from hurting more than it would have if she'd fallen off anywhere else. She lay huffing, face-up in the snow mound, as the bird nudged her neck gently before taking off again. She knew she didn't have to go anywhere; Ironforge had a notoriously good patrol and series of watches, there was no way they'd missed seeing that bird drop a passenger. She would just lie here and wait, in the cool comfortable snow. She closed her eyes and lost conciousness again.

---

At the top of the hill, an old dwarf with a grey beard took the spyglass away from his eye and set it down. He replaced its presence in his hand with a large, two headed axe and turned to the other dwarves assembled. "Ye an' ye, getcher guns. We're goin' down that hill now!" The watch commander barked orders while pointing at two of his riflemen, who immediately strapped their weapons across their backs and drew heavy goggles over their eyes to keep the blizzard at bay. The three dwarves trudged down the mountain pass, pushing against the fierce winds and angrily pelting snow, until they reached the base. Trudging through the hip-deep snow, they reached the fallen girl. The commander squinted at her and frowned. "Ach, Dark Iron! Lads, get the shackles out - we're takin' this girl to the prison!"

Immediately and roughly, the two riflemen clamped heavy iron shackles around Gloriarn's wrists. The movement stirred her, and her eyes fluttered open. She smiled somewhat wearily at the men. "Have a drink for a dying woman, mate?" she managed. The watch commander was unimpressed.

"Lass, you are in a whole world o' trouble 'ere. You're now a prisoner of His Majesty Magni Bronzebeard, an' will be held until such time he sees fit ta letcha go again. Which, given yer a Dark Iron, is probably ne'er," he intoned with a professional air, but with a vicious sneer through the last part. "Now march," he yanked her to her feet by the arm with no visible effort and prodded her in the back with the haft of his axe. Gloriarn stumbled forward, but managed to find her footing and trudge up the hill with her captors in tow. Well, at least I made it here, she thought. The rest is up to the information being good, I guess.
---

"An' why should His Majesty believe the likes o' you, ya lyin' bitch of a dwarf?" The dark-haried magistrate with the monocle spat. Gloriarn was chained ankle and wrist, her clothing changed from her shredded and tattered escape outfit to a simple grey cotton shift that came down to her knees. She was seated across a large conference table from three magistrates of Magni Bronzebeard's court who were to decide her fate based on the information she gave them. So far, it wasn't looking good for her. They had been in back and forth deliberation for three days straight, breaking only long enough to get the magistrates a pint or a sandwich every few hours. Despite how much she protested, and through the fact that the story never once changed, none of the beauracratic nitwits seemed to be buying a word of it. Gloriarn sighed and leaned back in her rickity wooden chair.

"Look, I already told ya what's going to happen. Sometime in," she did a quick mental count. "In the next five days, too. I gave you the number of Dark Irons, the methods they're usin', the route they're coming from. If you don't believe me --"

"An' we dunnae, scum," the youngest of the three, a red-haired male with a long, braided beard, cut in. Gloriarn glared at him.

"If you don't believe me, then it's on your head when Wildhammer Keep is erased from yer maps. I done my part. It's all up to you lot now," she waved dismissively - difficult, considering the manacles on her wrists - and put her hands behind her head as she leaned back. The three members of the magistrate council assigned to her case collectively furrowed brows and frowned. Gloriarn closed her eyes and waited as they began to talk amongst themselves again. The Nether with the Bronzebeard fools. If they were just going to sit here and let their precious gryphonbreeding, tattooed cousins have their keep imploded on them, she didn't honestly care. She just needed them to keep her safe inside the Ironforge gates, one way or the other, and giving them the information was a fine way to stall their potential execution plans.

As long as they let her stay in the mountain city - even if it was in a cramped cell with a pile of straw for a bed - Gloriarn was safe from the Dark Irons outside. She knew that much for a fact. There was no possible way for them to get into Ironforge; it was a problem she had been assigned to personally some years ago. Even with all their sapping contingents working in concert, at best they'd bring a wall down on themselves and at worst never even put a dent in the city defenses while doing it. The city was too well engineered - a product of original dwarven construction and defenses with the unknown factor of gnomish engineering thrown behind it. It was uncrackable, something that never failed to enrage His Magesty down in Shadowforge's depths. The problem of Ironforge was why he had turned on Wildhammer Keep instead.

As the magestrates were still deliberating, a runner bolted into the room and came to a stop just behind Gloriarn's chair. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. He was a young dwarf, not even a beard on him yet, with wild yellow hair, tanned skin and bright green eyes. He would probably be handsome in a few years time, if you were for that kind of look. She sniffed as he collected himself and saluted the magisters. "Well, Harlond, out with it. What've ye got, lad?" The female magistrate, a soft-spoken elderly woman, smiled at the runner as she asked. The runner nodded.

"Documents from th' royal information corps, ma'am," he held up a small brown folio and tossed it on the table. "Her information's good, they found 'em a small detachment o' Dark Irons headed fer Wildhammer by the route she give us. Nothin' with 'em but rations and Seaforium, ma'am!" Harlond saluted again and waited for the reaction, eyeing Gloriarn warily, almost as if worried she'd bite him if given the chance. Gloriarn couldn't surpress a snort of laughter at his reaction, and he jumped a bit when she made the noise.

"Y'see? I told you. My information was good. I'm on yer side. Now will you please give me some pants and let me outta that cell? I could kill for a pint," Gloriarn joked as she moved her feet and tipped her chair forward again suddenly. Her chair's front legs hit the stone floor with a thud and she hit the table with her hands, staring across it at the monocled magistrate. "Come on, you great bearded git. What harm can it do?"

The magistrate narrowed his eyes, and without waiting for a word from his fellows, he rang a bell. The guards came back and dragged her off again, throwing Gloriarn back in her cramped cell in the Military Ward's little known prison. Sighing as they locked the door behind them and marched off, she removed a small pair of sharpened metal pins from under her pile of straw and inserted them carefully into the cuffs around her ankles. A few twists later, she sprung them and rubbed at her sore ankles. She repeated the procedure with her wrists, and layed back on the straw pile in the dingy, lightless cell. At least the Dark Irons aren't gonna get to me, she reminded herself.

All she had to do now was wait.

Gloriarn 04 - Marked

Gloriarn Mithrilweave had lost track of time. She had always scoffed when former prisoners for minor crimes against other Dark Irons (those stupid or bad enough at being criminal to be caught) had told her they had no concept of days and hours shortly after being thrown into the cells of Blackrock, but the same thing had happened to her not even a few days after the Bronzebeard guards had thrown her back into the hole they called a cell. She had attempted, at first, to scratch days into the cell wall, but she was fed irregularly and at guard whim and was unsure what the time was when they did so. She was woken up at all hours for a prisoner count, disallowed from a full night's - or any time's - sleep. If she resisted, they beat her and threw her back on her cell's floor bloodied and without healing. She hadn't made it past one in her count before giving up entirely.

She was rapidly considering doing something that would get her killed as she leaned back on her straw bed with her hands behind her head - using her two thin needles to pick her cell door and run through Ironforge to the Deeprun Tram, where she could disappear. Problem was, with the constant watch on her door, there was no way she could pick that lock without her fingers being broken. The whole ordeal wouldn't be so bad, she reflected as she stared at the dark stone ceiling of her cell and watched water drip from it to the floor, if she were allowed to tinker. Of course, that too was an impossibility - the intelligence division in the wretched city called Ironforge had already known she was a sapper. There was no one stupid enough to give her tools in here, for fear she'd build bombs and do something to the city from the inside. At this point, she reflected, that was probably true.

Stirred from her mental ruminations by the sound of the key clanking into the heavy thorium lock, Gloriarn quickly locked herself back in her manacles again, both hand and foot. Her ability to open those was the only reprieve she got from the harsh life now being imposed on her by the Bronzebeard guards outside. She clacked the last one shut just as the door opened, and winced in pain as the light streamed in, hiding behind her hands as best she could from the burning pain in her eyes. "Agh, do ya mind? Some o' us have been living in the dark here, an' that's a wee bit blinding!"

The lead guard ignored her protests and pulled her to her feet, cuffing her purposely in the back of the head with his gauntlet as he did so. "Shut it. We're goin' fer a walk, 44501. Yer gonna get some o' Ironforge's hos-pi-tal-i-tee taeday," he said as he grinned with great malice and stood to one side before he shoved her at the blinding doorway. She stumbled forward into the light, her manacles disallowing fast movement as much as the fact that she walked with her eyes closed. The guard exited behind her and grabbed one of her arms as the guard outside the cell grabbed the other one. The two dwarven men dragged her where they wanted to go, her feet scraping and skipping along the hewn floor. She refused to give them the satisfaction of bitching about the pain it was causing her, so she kept her mouth and her eyes shut until she was thrown onto another floor in a somewhat warmer room than she was used to. The sound of a coal fire was near, and she smelled hot iron. Warily, she cracked one eye.

"Welcome ta th' pain house, 44501," a deep voice said. She looked up, following the sound. Before her, a dwarf stood dressed entirely in black leather with a hood drawn over his face. "I dunnae know why they let ye linger in tha' cell so long 'fore I got to ye - usually I get 'em on th' first day. An' they REMEMBER me," the deep bass rumbled from the hood in the form of laughter, after which the male spoke again. "Lock 'er in!" He nodded to the guards who had escorted her. One popped her wrist manacle on her left wrist, holding the rest of the arm stable with a firm hand while the other held her right arm to make sure she couldn't do anything with it once she was freed. Gloriarn didn't have the strength to fight them anyway, but put up the expected feeble token resistance none the less.

Her struggle was instantly met with force, her left arm slammed palm up against an anvil surface. Three leather straps were drawn from either side of the anvil, and her arm was locked into position with them. She tugged against them, to no avail. If she wanted to move now, she'd have to drag the hunk of metal with her. She looked at the hooded dwarf. "Is this supposed to hurt, Bronzebeard?" She quipped, her face tired and worn, but still defiant. The hooded one laughed again.

"Nae, wee Dark Iron. But THIS is!" Without ceremony, he withdrew a white-hot branding iron from a nearby brazier and thrust it into her wrist. A shower of pain exploded behind Gloriarn's eyes, her body lurched violently as the branding iron was held in place, and she heard screaming. A woman was screaming somewhere nearby, she was sure. The realization dawned, just as she lost conciousness, that the screaming was her own.

She woke up some time later, back in her cell. Her brand had woken her, the skin an angry mass of red under the manacles - the pain was finally lessened enough to allow the return of conciousness, but definitely not less enough for her liking. Whimpering, she fumbled in the dark and managed to unlock the cuff on her left wrist. She stared at the brand - a small hammer, it looked like. The Bronzebeard crest. She touched it, but withdrew her finger in pain. The skin was still far too tender. Gloriarn sighed. This was going to make any semblance of normal life she might be able to find when she got out of this hell hole a mite harder. No one hires a criminal, let alone a Dark Iron one.

Gloriarn 05 - Saved

The door to her dank cell flung open and light assaulted Gloriarn's eyes. Not for the first time, she wished they could adjust to light at least as well as the Bronzebeards or Wildhammers, but when you're born underground like the Dark Irons and spend all your time in bad lighting, you're better adjusted to that than anything else. So she was blinded again. Wincing in pain, she shaded her eyes with her manacled hands before snarling at the guard who had committed the offending act.

"Hey, what's the idea? Count couldn't have been three hours ago, aren't we entitled ta some rest?" She grumbled. The guard stepped forward, brandishing a small axe at the ready in case she made a move. Glori never even considered it - she'd heard the screams the day one of the prisoners down the hall had tried to make a run for it; the guards were trained where to hit for maximum crippling damage, and she liked her legs where they were. She reluctantly held her chained hands before her and squinted into the bright torchlight. "Not even gonna tell me where we're goin'? You guys finally decide ta execute me then?"

The guard grunted and grimmaced at his prisoner. "I wish, Dark Iron. We are nae bein' given th' satisfaction o' killin' yer sorry hide. The king's ordered yer release ta a man o' the kingdom," he explained as he prodded her in the back to get her moving. They were joined at the end of the cell block by two more guards, and she shuffled her way to the king's chambers.

---

She stared at the human male, a curious expression on her face. They had been sitting across the table from one another for some time now, guards on the door of the antechamber to ensure she stayed in line while there. The man had known everything about her before she'd set foot in there, putting him at a great advantage during their little talk. It really didn't matter though. The situation as he had explained it was simple: He was now in charge of her life, effectively having taken over her prison contract from the city of Ironforge. She worked for him. And if she ran from his watchful eye, if she made an attempt against his organization, if she so much as looked like she was working to sabotage anything Alliance owned, he'd drop the hammer on her - literally. It was a big hammer, too. Solid looking.

It was, however, up to her. She could stay here if she couldn't agree to his terms, and rot in Bronzebeard custody forever. He didn't really care either way. But he didn't want her unique talents - as he put it - wasted on a prison cell when she could be so much more useful to everyone in the field. The work wouldn't be easy, and the pay wasn't good, but being outside Ironforge was preferable to this situation, wasn't it?

Glori regarded the man with a final nod. She stretched her manacled hands across the table, offering the human one in a gesture of willingness to shake. "Alright, Griffonclaw, you got a deal. I'll wear your tabard, anything is better than this thing," she said, tugging at her loose prison shirt. "When do I leave?"

"Immediately. Guards! Unshackle her! And bring in her clothes, would you? We're leaving Ironforge, and wearing just that shirt would be indecent," Griffonclaw nodded to the doorguards. One of them set down a folded pile - pants, a shirt, boots - as a second one fumbled with his keys. Griffonclaw must have held a lot of sway, the way the guards jumped to his orders. It was obvious he was held in high regard already, given he could order a Dark Iron prisoner set free, but to see the reactions to his direct orders was a good reinforcement to that fact. She would have to remember this. As they took the manacles off her wrists and feet, Gloriarn rubbed at them. The paladin gently moved her fingers aside and looked at the reddened areas, as well as her brand. His palms glowed with an odd golden light and the pain in her wrists disappeared. Skin knitted where it was broken as Gloriarn watched in wonder. By the time he was done, she was only left with the brand. This didn't really surprise her - it had been magically permanenced to her with some old dwarven Justice sigil or something; she hadn't exactly been coherant when they had done it, but had gathered that she was stuck with it.

When the healing was finished for both her ankles and wrists, he slid the tray that was in front of him across to her - cheese, bread and the first tankard of ale she'd seen in what felt like years stared her in the face. She blinked and looked at Griffonclaw, who smiled. "I figured you'd have been craving some real food. They don't feed prisoners well," he barely managed to finish before Glori had picked up a loaf of bread and shoved the entire end in her mouth, attempting to guzzle the ale through it. She was never one to look a gift anything in the mouth, especially not when it came from someone she was certain wasn't going to be poisoning her anytime soon. She watched him as she ate. He smiled back at her. The paladin was an odd man, making a deal like this. But she'd play along with it for now - as she had told him, anything was better than being stuck here. Even working for a man she didn't know.

-SUBSCRIBES- .. Psh. Why buy novels when you've got Byaggha!? ^_^

Now all I need to do is actually write more of her life. XD She's gone from level 35 to level 80 in game since I wrote that last one. >.>

Uh. Dang? O_O