Procuring supplies for a trip of unknown duration attracted some strange questions, and put me in touch with strange merchants. And to whom do these merchants owe their livelihoods? The wretches, the villains, the unscrupulous… But it still came as a surprise to see him, even if it shouldn’t have. Drek’tal: as strong, jagged and ghostlike as the mountains he was born on. With a lover, there are things that you can sense before your eyes have time to recognize them. His massive head of dreadlocked hair and his runed tusks weren’t nearly as much a giveaway as his hulking gait and casual dismissal of everyone else’s want of space.

Instinctively, I ducked and pulled my cowl closer over my face. But, as I said… there are things that a lover can sense. He smelled me before I had time to turn around.

‘Magi’.

‘Primal.’

And so it goes. One is never without the painful reminder of all their fuckups, and Drek’tal is my most uniquely bitter living memory. I’d already had the privilege of seeing the rest killed.

‘Where are you going?’

I shrugged at first, not looking to pique his curiosity. I darted through rabbit holes of small talk, evasive and recalcitrant. Eventually the sight of something absurd on the street made us turn to one another and laugh, the way two souls with a shared sense of the ridiculous can laugh and spare each other the indignity of being alone in the world. I knew then that I wasn’t walking out of Orgrimmar alone.

Where we go now, however, is not determined purely by the Primal. I have a need that companionship and intimacy do not stand to solve. What must be done is clear: the Rushka is a gift, the Primal is a pillar. I will take all my environment and chance gives me, in hope of finding my own way.