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They’re doing alright, all things considered.
It’d been an adjustment, to say the least- for all of them, though it was hard to argue who had the biggest: Thrall was far afield and constantly on the move, Jaina no longer had any city of her own nor had she any remaining ties to her family save one, and Garrosh- well.
Jaina wasn’t sure what to expect of him, or of this, at all, but she certainly couldn’t have predicted this. What had started as an uneasy truce, based not on trust for each other but on the trust of their mutual friend, slowly building up from unsteady ground, to what Jaina hopes is now a strong foundation, for more reasons than one. True, that her being one of Orgrimmar’s denizens relied entirely on his good graces, but this, oddly enough, had become the least of her worries. She hadn’t felt this safe, or stable, for years.
That’s not to say it wasn’t extremely rough-going, at first. Of course it was. By the time Jaina had reached Orgrimmar’s gates, she’d been traveling through the marsh and through the badlands for weeks and weeks, and she’d hardly felt human anymore. She hadn’t slept, not really, not since Theramore plunged into the sea, had barely eaten, and barely said a word during that time. She and Garrosh had spoken all of once since he’d become Warchief, in the Warchief’s chambers when she had mistakenly believed that Thrall still lived within them, and had to come to beg for sanctuary after the worst hurricane they’d ever seen had toppled Theramore into the sea. She’d already been fraying around the edges, as shown by the unthinking fear that drove her to such measures, but she had still been mostly whole, then, at least comparatively. The second time they’d spoken, she hardly resembled herself anymore- hardly resembled a person at all, driven half feral by stress and strain.
And Garrosh- Garrosh wasn’t doing all that much better. It was months into his reign, and damn near every ally that was meant to have helped him had already made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with him. At the time, she could hardly blame them; any and all brushes she’d had with him prior to this ended with strife, his abrasive personality inevitably leading to arguments, sometimes even physical altercations. She wasn’t too excited to be involved with him, herself.
It was frustrating, and sometimes she questioned why Thrall put forth the effort to put up with him, but she could never say that she didn’t understand why Garrosh did the things he did, even when it ended with him or others (usually Varian, much to her chagrin) having a black eye for their trouble. There was no denying that the Alliance and all its various leaders had the habit of acting demeaningly to those of the Horde, sometimes outright patronizing, even on a good day, so in this respect she completely understood Garrosh for seeing right through all the pomp and pageantry and calling it for what it was.
She can’t even say she hasn’t had the same temptation, nor the same simmering resentment and frustration, especially towards the end of her own reign. It had become practically impossible not to think, what must I do? What will be enough? And sometimes, in her moments of exhaustion, why? Why am I the only one trying? Which she knew, rationally, was petty and fundamentally false- Thrall tried as hard as she did to spread peace and goodwill. And the others- Varian, Tyrande, and the rest- were merely trying to do good by their people. They were trying their best to support and provide for them, in all the ways they should.
But why, then, came the traitorous thought, why must that come at my expense? Haven’t I given enough? Haven’t I sacrificed enough? Selfish thoughts, she knew, impractical at best and outright destructive at worst, but. It had become impossible not to feel that she’d been used, and abandoned. Especially so, when after they’d arrived at Orgrimmar, she and her denizens both, and after months and months of back-breaking effort to ensure that they were taken care of even in this most dire of circumstances, and the people she’d watched over for nearly a decade simply packed up and left the moment they were given the chance. Friends and colleagues she’d known for years- gone. Returned to the same homeland that she could no longer return to, herself.
She couldn’t blame them for taking that chance, and when her brother had made the offer to take them back to Kul Tiras, he’d only been trying to help. And it was a help they desperately needed. They barely had secured stable food, water, and shelter, and they’d been turned away from all other Alliance cities. So when Tandred, the kind-hearted person that he was, had heard of their struggle, his outreached hand seemed almost too good to be true.
It was, in a way; the cost of their return, the cost of being welcomed back into Kul Tiras with open arms, was that Jaina herself could not join them. Held guilty for the things she’d done to protect them in the first place. Held guilty for her father’s sins. That, more than anything else, had stung the most. To know that, despite everything, nothing she had done- or could ever do- was enough to keep them.
She thinks that probably made up a good portion of what ultimately helped she and Garrosh open up to the idea of each other, really. She still loved Theramore and missed it dearly, but the precarity of her position in sitting as its head was something she had to deal with every single day. She worked, and scraped, and just about ground herself right to the bone, all for its benefit, but no matter what she did, whatever action she took hadn’t been the right one, in their eyes. She had her share of loyal supporters, yes, but she could never quite earn the respect of what were first and foremost her father’s men outside of her now-severed tie to his name. It hurt deeply to even think about, and likely would for some time, but there was no denying it, especially now, now that she sat here, exhausted and bereft of all that she had ever worked for.
Well. Maybe not entirely.
Currently, she sat at the desk that, while once belonging to one of her dearest friends, now belonged to someone she never thought would be dear to her, at all. That one lay in his bed across the room, dead asleep while she finished up the last of their paperwork. His paperwork, technically, but the man hadn’t gotten a decent night’s sleep in days, and with her proclivities tending towards being a night owl… She thought she’d do him a favor. It wasn’t quite busywork, but it might as well have been, for all the trouble the city seems to be hellbent on giving Garrosh.
To be fair, it wasn’t all that different when Thrall was in charge, but Thrall was a workaholic anyway, and pretty unanimously had the adoration of the entire Horde and all its members, whereas Garrosh was. Polarizing, to say the least. Now, it wasn’t as if the man was perfect; obviously he had a temper on him, one that reared up at the worst of times, and obviously when it came to leadership of this scale, he was lacking in practical experience. But so had Thrall, when the title of Warchief was thrust upon him, and the Horde’s love for him was downright absurd. An enviable absurdity, yes, but no less perplexing, or unfair to Garrosh. And Garrosh, she thought, had made it more than clear that he was willing to do whatever it took to take care of Thrall’s Horde in his absence, that Thrall had been reasonable, even wise, in his choice as Garrosh as steward of the Horde.
Somehow, this still wasn’t enough.
Now, Jaina had her doubts at first, as any rational person could have for someone new filling such a large role, and yes, it wasn’t as if she could say that she’d had any warm feelings towards him before this (and he towards her), but it’d been well over a year, at this point. Any remaining doubts to his ability to ward and caretake Orgrimmar (and the rest of the Horde) were beginning to border on downright ridiculous. She knew that this, at least partly, was due to cultural nuances she wasn’t privy to, and probably couldn’t be, at least not to the same degree, but still. It was so, so frustrating to see her friend’s name dragged through the dirt based on the actions of his father, a man he barely even knew . Jaina doesn’t even know if Garrosh had ever properly met his own father, let alone learn from him enough to mirror his long, storied list of sins and virtues. That part, at least, she understood, far more than she’d ever like to.
There was a loud snore behind her. Perhaps it was time to call it a night; it was well past midnight, after all. Sighing to herself, Jaina quietly gathered up the remaining papers and stacked them neatly on the desk, bidding the little ball of light she had conjured to go out. She’d use candles, normally, but Garrosh often complained about the smell of the smoke and burning wax waking him up. Privately, she thought with a smile to herself, he seemed fascinated by the little glowing orbs, and once, under his breath, likened them to stars. The urge to tease him for it was incredibly strong, but she managed to resist, knowing how hard it was for him to be vulnerable.
It wasn’t out of ill-will, mind- no, never. Honestly it’s something of a marvel that she somehow became close enough to him to want to do such a thing in the first place, let alone to be doing what she was now. She stood up and stretched, popping stiff joints back into place, and was struck by the compulsion to yawn; a peculiarity for her, usually. She’s pulled later nights than this, but Garrosh, rather insufferably, got up at the crack of dawn every single day regardless, and he expected her, as his advisor, to be up as well. She suspected this was his way of being “subtle.” She was an adult, he couldn’t order her to bed, but the moment her less-than-stellar sleeping (and eating) habits became known to him, there was no shortage of grousing about it from him. Few knew of Warchief Hellscream’s motherhennish tendencies, and those who did only knew because they were the target of it, herself included. Maybe if Orgrimmar could somehow see this side of him- though how they haven’t already is a mystery to her- its citizens and staff would be less inclined to judge him so quickly. In her heart of hearts, however, she doubts that there was any choice of replacement that would’ve been accepted, hand-picked by Thrall or not.
Her eyes adjust quickly to the dark, and having long since changed into her nightgown, she quietly pads over to the large bed. She hadn’t really thought that this would be a habit that carried over from when Thrall yet resided in these rooms (and the thought of such matters was still painful to all three of them), but to be fair, it hadn’t really been planned, or even deliberate. She and Thrall had done this first out of a mutual agreement of support- both she and Thrall slept notoriously poorly, nightmares and visions afflicting them in pretty equal measure, and so it only made sense to hold each other through their moments of blind terror, as the other seemed to be the only other one who understood what it meant to be Favored in such a way by the wind and tides- and then, it slowly became the only way they could spend time with each other at all, in the dead of night where no one else could see or hear them. She tried to spin it as two friends having sleepovers, to make up for all that Thrall had missed in his tumultuous childhood, but it didn’t really take the necessity of their secrecy out of it, nor the sting of having no other options to see each other. That sting was becoming more and more painful in those last days of his active reign, and only continued now, but hopefully, hopefully, they were nearing the light at the end of the tunnel. Jaina doesn’t know how she could keep going otherwise, and tries not to think about how this wasn’t much of a choice, either.
Garrosh, however, was a much different set of circumstances, and not one she had entertained the thought of even happening, let alone planned for. This had started when, after another long night in a string of long nights, Jaina had been obviously, visibly too exhausted to get herself safely back to her tower on the north side of town. Garrosh had opened his mouth, and instead of his usual growling about her not sleeping enough or not taking care of herself, what came out was the rushed offer of having her stay here, in the hold. It would be foolish, he reasoned, to have her struggle home or to put her up in an inn at this late an hour, when they had perfectly adequate lodgings for their guests right here. He had a point, and it was reasonable enough, so she stayed the night in the guest quarters, had enough energy to eat and bathe before bed, and when she awoke there the next morning, Garrosh remarked how pleasant it was to actually have her “be there on time, for once.” Jaina chose to take the jab like an adult, because unlike Garrosh, she could actually take a bit of teasing.
Besides, she thought, despite himself, it was quite apparent how pleased he was to have her there so early. They were actually able to sit down and eat breakfast together before the day’s proceedings, unlike her usual morning ritual of rushing out of bed with barely enough time to get dressed, clean up, and get there, and rarely with enough time to eat a proper meal. It wasn’t uncommon for her to take her meals there and pick at them between her usual duties there, or to substitute them entirely with coffee. It was probably maddening for Garrosh to watch, admittedly, and she began to suspect as much when one morning he’d caught her right as she’d been stumbling in, mug in hand and a flurry of papers from her desk following her through the portal, and she swears, she actually saw his eye start twitching. He’d probably been gunning for her to start taking proper meals there for ages, long before the first time she’d slept in the guest quarters, and once he’d been given the opportunity, he did not hesitate to act upon it.
So Jaina woke up surprisingly early (to her standards; Garrosh had the gaul to call her lazy for daring to wake up past dawn, the lout), and had barely been awake for more than a few minutes before she was forcibly presented with an enormous plate, carrying a wide array of food for her to choose from. She had just sat down at the conference table, hoping to go through the paperwork one more time to make sure she hadn’t missed anything in her tiredness, and Garrosh had come up behind her and dropped the plate directly in front of her, as if he was throwing down the gauntlet. He must have gone down to the mess hall and put it together himself, not trusting her to put together anything substantial. Which was… fair, considering she’d just been there herself and all she’d come back with was some prickly pear slices and a large mug of coffee.
He then sat down next to her, his own plate in hand, loaded up with a similar amount of food (which is to say, enormous even for orc portions), and turned his head to stare her down, presumably with the intention of continuing to do so until she put down the paperwork and started eating. Which she did, if only to get him to stop.
It wasn’t a bad meal; while traditionally many orc clans tended to be simple and straight-forward in their meals, it seemed to mostly be out of necessity, as many of them were largely nomadic, though this did not stop the food itself from being hearty or tasty, nor did it stop orcs as a whole from experimenting with ingredients once they had the luxury of stability. It seems the formation of the Horde had only increased this tenfold: with the Darkspear came the fruits of the sea, a diet staple she had missed dearly, and with the Tauren came grains like wheat and rice and barley, and with the Forsaken and Sin’dorei came all manner of curiosities- wine and rum, sugar and spice, cultivated and distilled in ways she’d never seen before.
There were eggs on the plate, sunnyside up, though from what creature she wasn’t sure, as they were larger and redder than any kind of egg yolk she’d ever seen. There was bacon, cut in comically large strips that looked especially enormous in her small human hands and prepared with something she couldn’t identify, a different cooking oil maybe, that changed the scent of it just enough for it to be strange and fascinating. It was made from boar, she thought, the meat much gamier than she’d expected but pleasantly so. There’s also sausage, dark and savory-smelling, and some kind of tuber, deep, rich purple in color, chopped up and pan-fried. There’s more cactus apples, freshly picked and sliced into pieces, but accompanying this were little orange berries she didn’t recognize. Garrosh called them hackberries, and they were juicy and sweet to the tongue. A fruit native to Durotar, she thinks.
But there were also blueberries, and strawberries- two staples of her childhood that at the time, she wasn’t sure she’d ever get to see again. They weren’t the same, exactly- the blueberries were much more tart than expected, and the strawberries were larger and more tangy than they were sweet, but the gesture had to be deliberate, she thought; Jaina, at the time, was still fresh off from being banished and ergo, was still visibly haunted by it, and being a savannah region, it wasn’t something typically brought into the hold unless imported from elsewhere north or west. Garrosh would have had to have specifically asked for it, and seeing them on the plate he’d unceremoniously dropped in front of her cut right to the core of her, as if she’d told him exactly where to stick the knife. She went a little misty-eyed while eating them, and couldn’t even get a slightly teary thank-you out before Garrosh immediately grumbled, “Stop, just eat the damn food,” over her. Clearly embarrassed. Which really only confirmed his actions.
Anyway, that was how this started, perfectly reasonably enough, but that apparently gave Garrosh the excuse to push for more each subsequent time they had to pull late nights like this. It wasn’t as if he had any shortage of excuses; despite all that he’d done, despite being hand-picked by Thrall, despite being eventually, grudgingly vouched for by the likes of Cairne, Vol’jin, Sylvanas, and the rest, there was still a seemingly endless list of grievances thrown at him to deal with every single day, when everyone knew damn well that the sheer amount of petty, ridiculous things Garrosh was asked to resolve never would’ve been asked of Thrall.
So she started staying at the hold more and more, sometimes days at a time, and Garrosh steadily needled her into going to bed earlier and earlier, until she could no longer stay awake through the night without great effort, which of course meant she would be too tired to travel back to her tower for another night, and this was about when she began to suspect that he’d probably keep her there forever if he could, broody thing that he was. That was another thing she had never expected to learn, that the great and fearsome Garrosh Hellscream was, to put it lightly, a wee bit clingy. It would be kinder to call him lonely, but it also painted an incomplete picture of him, one that lacked his pushiness, and jealousy, but also his steadfast loyalty and oddly rough-yet-caring nature. It wasn’t as if she didn’t understand why; he had few friends here, and so did she. Really they didn’t have much else beyond each other, at this point, and Jaina wasn’t about to throw that away.
It wasn’t that odd, she thought; before the north side of Orgrimmar had been expanded upon and the tower she now lived in had been built, she had spent most of her nights either in the hold working late to try and ensure her people’s security, or in her tent among the sea of tents that made up the refugee camp constructed specifically for survivors of Theramore. Perhaps he had merely gotten used to having a much more direct line of access to her, and then, when he made her an advisor officially, it probably just made more sense to him to have her stay in the hold. The other advisors didn’t, but they had their own homes and families to go to, and Jaina did not. They also were, coincidentally, remarkably less willing to help Garrosh than they were Thrall, in her opinion. It certainly seemed that way.
Then, a few months ago, there was a time when all available guest quarters had been taken up, and there was nowhere left for her to stay. It was late, as it usually was when it came down to just the two of them, still working on some last minute proposal or some such while the rest of his staff had long since retired for the evening, and as it usually happened, Jaina was far too exhausted to safely get herself home, be it magic or otherwise. Which would typically be all according to plan for Garrosh, she thought, only this time, he apparently neglected to remember that the entire ambassadorial parties for Thunderbluff, and the Darkspear, and the Undercity, and Silvermoon were all taking part in the hospitality of Grommash Hold already.
And they had gotten a lot closer as friends by that point, admittedly, and it was obvious that he was stressed, and it was obvious that he didn’t want her to leave, so it didn’t really come as a surprise when he came out and said:
“Stay with me.” She’d merely looked at him, at first, because it was true, she was far too tired to even think, let alone concentrate long enough to conjure herself a way home. She’d already known, distantly, that this was what he wanted, but he was notoriously sparse with his words, particularly in the realm of asking for help or affection, so to have him just come out and say it, let alone like that- he must’ve realized how it sounded, because he growled and sighed irritably and said, “Not like that , ugh. Forget it, nevermind-”
“Garrosh,” she said, cutting through the stream of his annoyed embarrassment. She looked at him plaintively, then. Waiting. His expression went closed-off for a moment, stubborn and ornery as a mule, but she kept waiting, and then:
“I’m not used to sleeping alone,” he answered through gritted teeth. “Not- not completely. Before this, I always slept in the barracks with the other warriors, and before that, I was.” He stopped, then, unable or unwilling to go any further, and that was alright, for now, Jaina thought. He’d told her bits and pieces of his life before all this, in Garadar, and she could fit them together into a clear enough picture.
He said he’d been raised by Geyah, and he said he’d been one of the older children, of which there were many. He’d said they were frequently short on food, and space, and hands able to pick up either a spear or spade. He didn’t say that Garadar had been mostly children, not by a lot but by enough that he, as an adolescent, had been one of Geyah’s primary assistants long before he’d ever be considered of age, by now’s standards. He didn’t say the majority of adults had been women- mothers whose children had been too young to be separated from them- the elderly, and the infirm. Judged too old or too weak to fight for the old Horde.
Garrosh had spoken of his desire to have been old enough to fight, or strong enough to have not caught redpox in the first place (an irrational thought, seeing as he couldn’t have been much more than an infant when he got it from what he’s said, but not a thought Jaina thinks can be challenged just yet), but he said nothing of the deep furrow of his brow upon mentioning the return of any of those warriors of the old Horde, and said nothing of his insistence that the Mag’har were strong, that they were capable, when those supposed kinsmen had no sympathy to spare for the sick and beleaguered folk that resided in Garadar.
There were names mentioned only in past tense, and only ever spoken of in childhood, be it his or theirs. There were times he had mentioned, only very rarely, only if Jaina herself had brought it up first, the childhood fear of waking up alone. This was how he commiserated, when she complained of her usual insomnia, or other times, the sort of nightmares that only came as the seasons changed and stormy weather came rolling in. That wasn’t an active complaint on her part so much as a lingering shock that rendered her numb and distant for hours afterwards, or until Garrosh made her sit down with him with a hot drink and a hot meal.
Garrosh didn’t really have nightmares in the same way she did or Thrall did, the two of them beholden to leylines, to the pulse and water and weather of this world whether they liked it or not, nor did Garrosh have the average sort of nightmares that afflicted most. He didn’t really need to; waking up, alone, in the wide, yawning expanse of a dark room when there had previously been others, children or otherwise, was the sort of experience no nightmare could ever hope to replicate. Not when those that had disappeared overnight- carried away, no doubt, by Geyah herself or whatever adult was well enough to do so- were only to be seen again on the funeral pyre. The Mag’har burned their dead, Garrosh had told her once. He did not tell her why. He didn’t have to.
So Jaina replied, “Alright,” and “If you don’t mind,” because while she and Thrall had been close enough to share the same room- the same bed, even- to turn in for the night, she had never imagined she would ever reach this point with Garrosh. And for a while, it seemed as though he thought the same, perfectly content to be just down the hall from each other whenever she did stay for the night.
“Of course not,” he replied gruffly.
What happened next was the standard hemming and hawing over who would take the ridiculously big bed and who would take the spare bedroll and sleep in the antechamber, until Jaina, thoroughly exhausted at that point and wanting to just fall asleep, suggested that they both take the bed, instead. It wasn’t as if it couldn’t fit both of them, and after all, it was the time of year that the nights were getting colder, and whoever got stuck with the bedroll would likely never truly be warm enough overnight. While Jaina was plenty willful, herself, she had her limits, whereas Garrosh looked like he was prepared to fight about it all night, sleep be damned.
So Jaina said, “We can both stay here,” and it looked like Garrosh hadn’t been expecting this, as the surprise was evident on his face.
“Right. Of course,” he said, trying to recover. “If you’re sure.” And once again, Jaina had to do her best not to tease him, though it was rather tempting, and Garrosh’s moment of stumbling was rather endearing.
This hesitance followed them into bed, even as they had laid back to back. Jaina was perfectly fine but she suspected Garrosh thought otherwise, the man going stiff and rigid behind her as she settled in. They laid like that for a while, for how long she wasn’t sure, but the longer they did, the more sure she became that sleep would not come as long as Garrosh continued to radiate unease like this. She doubted he would say anything on the matter, and elected to take this into her own hands.
She talked about the day they had. She talked about the amount of work they’d gotten done, and the work that had been waiting for them the following day. She talked about his other advisors and staff- her coworkers now, and wasn’t that strange to think about. She talked about the meals they had shared, there in the hold and in the parlor of the newly-built mage tower, back in the north side of town where she normally slept. She talked about the few games they’d played together, cards and dice and knucklebones, most of which she had talked him into but some he asked for himself.
And slowly, she got him to engage, to reply back in kind, and before she knew it, they were facing each other. Garrosh had still been on edge at first, but she very carefully and very gently coaxed him out of his shell until he no longer laid rigid beside her, stretched out, languid, and barely able to keep his eyes open. She wasn’t doing too much better herself, at that point, thoroughly warm and content. It was easy, then, to give way to sleep, and her dreams were muted and peaceful.
The following morning, when the two of them awoke, Jaina did so first. Dawn was just starting to peek over the horizon, and its pale light had begun to permeate the dark corners of the room. Waking in and of itself was usually something of an ordeal for her, but when her eyes opened, her mind was clear and unclouded. She felt refreshed in a way she hadn’t in a very long time.
Garrosh was soon to follow. It wasn’t too much earlier than his usual waking time, and knowing him, he probably woke up because her breathing pattern changed, or some other tiny detail he’d managed to detect in his sleep. Maybe he felt her looking at him. Either way, she was met with a sleepy groan as he blearily opened his eyes and returned her gaze.
“Good morning,” she said, her voice still low and hoarse from sleep.
“Hmph,” he replied without opening his mouth. “Go back to sleep.” All anxiety from the previous night gone away. She laughed quietly at this- she couldn’t help it. He grumbled again and rolled over, facing away from her. She left him a glass of water and pulled the covers back over him, and after that, her escape was a simple matter. She’d done it dozens of times already, with Thrall. She said the Words, she hid her presence and slipped through the layers between here and there, and that was that. Back in her tower, back in her bed, simple as that.
She was right to have cherished Garrosh’s nervousness while it lasted, as it turns out, because he did not suffer the same hesitance the next time she had to bed down at Grommash Hold, when there were no extra guests, and he expected her to stay with him in his bed, anyway, like a spoiled dog.
“Lonely,” truly, could not wholly encompass the sum of his parts.
That brought them to now, months later, with Jaina regularly settling down under the covers with him about once or twice a week. It took some time, yes, for him to realize that she wasn’t going anywhere, and that he didn’t have to cling quite so much, as suspicious a creature he was. It felt odd, at first, to seemingly be retracing the same steps of her friendship with Thrall now with Garrosh instead, and she’s sure he felt the same; she’s well aware of the reputation that precedes her, even before all this, when she had allegedly, according to ever rumor mill between Kalimdor and Khaz Modan, been selling herself for peace. And then, when Theramore lay in pieces beneath the sea, the rumors smoothly transitioned to selling herself for survival, instead.
And she knows he’d heard it. She could see it on his face, every time when, during those first few rocky months of displacement and homelessness, she had to fight for her people’s right to food and shelter. She had to practically beg for it. She could see it in the faces of all his advisors, all his staff, even the ones Thrall had picked himself. Especially the ones Thrall had picked himself, and especially when Garrosh had made her part of his staff, as well.
It wasn’t as if she’d felt begrudgement towards those in that particular line of work, nor did she think it shameful. But it had been more and more difficult not to feel ashamed, herself, when seemingly anyone and everyone she interacted with felt that she should, and made it clearer with each subsequent interaction. A curious thing, to be viewed as both precocious and lazy, conniving and vapid, but the worst thing wasn’t any of these, it wasn’t the icy looks nor the scornful mutters. It was that, after all the work she had done, after all the sweat and strain and blood and sacrifice, all of it had been thrown away, disregarded, or reduced to nothing. It was that there was nothing she could say, nothing she could do, that could convince them otherwise. And then, when they’d been there long enough that patience was wearing thin and tempers were at a constant high, she had begun to receive this treatment from her own staff. She felt as if she was going mad.
She supposes that’s what eventually changed her view of Garrosh. While true at first that he was initially no different than the others, suspicious of her and mistrustful, her labors did not go unnoticed. He acknowledged her, and the work she’d done was rewarded in kind. That acknowledgement did not come easy, as he was very exacting and did nothing in half measures, and so expected the same of her. Surprised he may have been when she lived up to his standards, but unprepared he was not, and her work was awarded justly.
The real surprise, Jaina thought, was the trust she was granted along with it. That was not something she would have ever expected, or even asked for, beyond what the two of them had promised Thrall in his absence. While for a time, yes, they were all each other had, that still didn’t quite explain the warmth and intimacy of the trust that had formed between them.
Garrosh had been there when she had received her final and most heartbreaking rejection letter, stamped with the seal of Stormwind. It’d been incidental, really; he’d shown up to her holdings, for whatever reason, probably to ask for her opinion on some tax or another. She couldn’t remember, being rather distracted at the time, and it had apparently stopped mattering the moment he’d entered her tent in the refugee camps and saw her already in tears.
It’d been the letter she’d been waiting on the longest and hoping for the most fervently. After being turned down by the other cities she had pleaded sanctuary from- Tyrande and Velen, Magni and Mekkatorque, all friends she thought she could rely on, all she would’ve helped without a second thought- Stormwind’s decision to take in she and the rest of Theramore’s refugees had been her last hope.
She and Garrosh were not friends, not yet, and so the initial arrangement to let them stay had been understood to be temporary, with Jaina working to make permanent arrangements elsewhere. It was generous of him to let them stay at all, given the persistent tensions between their two cities, and she knew from the start that he was not a man to be trifled with. So when she finally received a reply from Varian and Stormwind, after months and months of waiting, only to have her plea be rejected, again- it was too much to bear. The tears had begun flowing before she’d even finished reading, so by the time Garrosh had arrived, she was already on the edge of breaking down into full blown hysterics. He saw her trembling with restraint against her own sobbing, saw the parchment in her hands and the open envelope on the small, makeshift table closeby, both marked with the emblem of the golden lion, and Jaina thought it was all over right then and there.
It wasn’t quite enough to tip her over the edge, but it was close, and she could hear it in the quavering of her own voice when she tried to reassure Garrosh not to worry, that she would find another solution, that she would work day and night until that solution was found, she just needed more time- and that was it. The exhaustion from trying to keep it together, the shame and frustration and futility to have to beg for time, to beg for her own life, again, to have the crushing realization that she truly had no control over her own fate- this was what finally pushed her over. What finally reduced her to having a full-on breakdown in front of the man who had more say over her life than she did, herself.
And when he looked at her, when he looked at what she had become and the life he held in his hands, he chose not to berate her weakness or fragility, but instead to comfort her. He chose to place his hand on her shoulder, to look at her unflinchingly while she was trying in vain to blink back tears, and tell her that she could stay. That Orgrimmar was her home, now.
She could hardly believe it, at first, staring at him blankly while he waited for her reply. He wasn’t gentle about it, he hardly ever was about much of anything, but he wasn’t unkind, either. When she did not reply- she couldn’t, really, tongue stolen right out her mouth- he started speaking again, filling the space her stunned silence left behind. As if he couldn’t stand it. An odd thought, considering the enormous amount of pride he took in his own boldness, but the more he kept talking, the truer it seemed to become.
Perhaps this is what stirred her from her shock; the sheer absurdity of it all. Tears filled her eyes again, and when she tried to take a breath, the noise was abrupt and stuttering. Garrosh didn’t know what to do with this, stumbling in his words, and Jaina just about flung herself into his embrace before she had even realized what she’d done. She doesn’t remember if she actually even thanked him. It probably didn’t matter at that point; her gratitude was apparent enough. And Garrosh, to his credit, didn’t hesitate for much more than a moment, very carefully wrapping his massive arms around her.
She thinks- she thinks she apologized, she doesn’t really know why, and tried to pull away, but he held her in place. Told her to stop apologizing, which. She thinks caused her to cry harder, horribly enough, embarrassed and excruciatingly aware of what she was doing but unable to stop. He shushed her, as gently as he was able to, and otherwise said nothing else. He probably didn’t know what could be said, then, neither did she. This- this was when they had become friends, truly. Not just allies, but companions, and while this thought did not make things any easier- there was still so much work left to do- it was a relief to know that neither of them would be alone in this.
He seems more at ease now, in their friendship and in his role as Warchief. She doesn’t think she can recall any point prior to this where he’d ever been at ease, even long before he’d ever become Warchief. It’s taken a lot of time and effort, but she wants to believe she’s helped with that, even if it was only in small ways, though he’d probably insist otherwise without actually giving reason as to why. Hypocritical as it was, he couldn’t stand it when she thought badly of herself, and didn’t appreciate it when she turned it right back on him. Stones, glass houses, and all that.
He wasn’t exactly easy to work with- being one of his advisors came with its own caveats, yes, good and bad, and whatever she thought would happen, it certainly hadn’t been this, but she could not imagine a world in which she didn’t do her best to fulfill the promise she’d made to Thrall, that she didn’t act as ally to the steward he’d left in his stead, regardless of who it was. Garrosh could, unfortunately, and had already experienced such a world long before she’d arrived. A frustrating thought, even now, but hardly a present or pressing issue, given the nature of their friendship, now.
He wasn’t an easy man, but he was steadfast, and loyal, and he actually tried, god damn it, he tried, and that was much more than what could be said about many others. She never felt as if her work was going unnoticed, or unappreciated, with him. And that’s. Something she hadn’t felt, for a long, long time.
Another snore. She was thinking too hard. Definitely time for bed. She pulls back the covers just enough for her to slide in beside him and no more, not wanting to wake him. She needn’t have bothered; Garrosh slept like a rock, for one, and two, the moment she sat down and began to move herself under the covers, an arm lurched out towards her and started groping blindly. Once it found her shoulder, she was sluggishly pulled down into his waiting grasp. The force of it knocks all the air out of her lungs.
“Garrosh,” she wheezes.
“Hmm?” he grunts in response. Was he even awake?
“You’re squeezing me,” she tries again.
“Hmm,” he grunts again, though his grip does loosen. She props herself up to look at him. His eyes weren’t even open. Groaning, she sets herself down and allows herself to be pulled in once more, albeit much more gently. He turns on his side to face her proper, and sighs, the breath fluttering on the top of her head as he nuzzles into her hair. Now, this- this she would tease him for, once he woke up. But for now- she let herself be lulled to sleep by his warmth, and the steady beating of his heart.
It’d been a hard journey here, there was no denying that, and Jaina certainly had her regrets, far more than she’d ever wanted to have. But this- this, she thinks, won’t be one. She hopes it won’t. She places these troublesome thoughts aside, and settles in. Her breathing falls in rhythm with his, and his grasp warms her from the inside. It doesn’t feel like home, exactly, Jaina hasn’t felt at home since Theramore’s fall, probably earlier than that, if she’s being honest with herself, but. It’s- it’s something. It’s a safe place to lay her head, put aside for her by a companion who has taken her in from the cold. That’s good, too, she thinks. And she- she thinks he knows that she’s made room for him as well. That there is a place for him by her side.
It wasn’t easy, and still wouldn’t be easy for some time, maybe never, but. Whatever difficulties they had could wait until tomorrow, where they would face it together.
- - -
The next morning, when they ate breakfast, there would be strawberries on the table.