Lynesse

To the Fjord - Part One

The ship had, unsurprisingly to everyone but me, arrived half-a-day early into the port at Vengeance Landing. Strong tailwinds hand helped push the cargo ship and no serious storms had waylaid our travel. I didn’t ask what the rest of the crew was heading up for, small talk when I’m on a mission really isn’t something I focus on. Also, frankly, two and a half days on a ship with people I don’t know and food that’s not mine might as well be torture. I was friendly enough, so were they, but I think we could all tell that none of us really wanted to be going where we were going. 

We disembarked in the early morning of the eighth day of the month; A wagon was waiting for me, I guessed that ZJ had either sent word ahead or this was just so common a thing that they’d gotten used to it by now. The driver was a Tauren woman with a neatly kept Horde tabard. The dye had faded out, red was always the first to do that I’d noticed, but it looked like black silk had been freshly stitched around the edges and the symbol emblazoned right in the center had been repainted. 

She helped me load up, her tawny fur seemed to help keep her from feeling the early-spring chill of the place; I say “chill”, it was fucking cold. So much so that I could feel it through my thick, fur lined cloak. She must’ve seen me shivering because she quickly signed to me that the winds had been coming from the glacier lately. It was interesting watching her hands and fingers move to make the words, they didn’t have as many fingers as we did, but I understood her. 

I answered her back in kind, my hands and fingers a slow way of communication to how I usually spoke. Icecrown is colder. 

That got a silent, raspy laugh from her and a bright eyed nod. It didn’t matter how close you were to a fire in that gods forsaken place and we both knew that. It was the kind of cold I still had nightmares about. Compared to that this was tropical and, as uncomfortable as I was, I’d survive. 

The wagon itself was hitched to some… I won’t say tame, but fairly docile shoveltusks. They were the best way to move things up here and I knew there’d been a program to catch them and start using them while the major land conflict had been going on up here. She told me she was going to give me her name and then spelled out E-L-O-D-I, then apologized for her upcoming silence – She had to hold the reins, you know? 

Getting everybody and the wagon into the Lift was harrowing. Then again, being in an ancient cage that slowly pulls you up hundreds of feet on a rusted chain is practically my definition of harrowing but Elodi seemed unruffled. She’d done this before. 

It’d take the full day to get there without any issue. I signed Vrykul? and she laughed a little again. 

Not on this route.