Chapter Text
Booty Bay was everything and nothing like Anduin had expected, based simply on what he had read and heard before. He had been excited to stand in the helm of the ship when they had started to approach the port city, leaning on the sturdy wooden railing and watching the colorful and multi layered chaos slowly come into view in all its wonder. He had never seen anything like it, tied down to Stormwind as he had been for most of his teenage life and he was dying to finally get off the ship and step into the world that he could have only experienced in books before.
But as he had already struggled to take all of it in with his eyes from the deck of the ship as they had slowly glided into the bay, it was even more overwhelming when you were standing in the middle of it and soaking it in with all your senses.
The whole city was built on wooden layers on layers in the shape of a horse shoe lining the bay. With buildings and tents and maze like alleyways filling all the limited space there was. And all of that was stuffed full of barrels and boxes, hanging trinkets and wind chimes, clothes and armor, storefronts for both food and equipment alike. With colorful residents and visitors from every walk of life; merchants from Darnassus and sailors from Tanaris all coexisted together under the watchful eye of the Booty Bay cartel. There was so much color and movement and noise that it put the Stormwind harbor market on a busy Sunday noon to shame.
Jaina had told him to not wander too far and to stay out from the dark alleyways and any shady figures, to which Anduin had readily agreed to, just glad to have a chance to look around at all when for most of his life had been contained to his home city. His aunt had told him multiple times that while Booty Bay was for the most parts very safe, he still needed to be careful as his father would have her hide if anything was to happen to him. And of course Anduin appreciated how much they cared for him, but he was already fifteen and fully capable of looking after himself without needing to be babied. And sometimes he felt like the adults in his life could not see that or they did not trust him, projecting their fears on him in the form of over protectiveness because of his mother’s untimely death when he had been nothing but a babe. As if he still was as defenseless ashe had been fifteen years ago.
But now he was finally here, happily tagging along to Jaina’s side while she went on doing her business in Booty Bay. A tall and tough looking sailor following them like a shadow that Anduin only knew as ‘Smith’, one of his aunt’s personal guards. The man had been gifted with the build of a giant and a very rough resting expression, but during their two week sailing trip he had been revealed to be a soft spoken man and very nice when you sat down to talk with him. But his appearance made him the perfect intimidating presence by the much softer looking captain’s side when she needed to be taken seriously.
They passed by many shops and peddlers as they weaved among the colorful crowd, the familiar scent of fish and salty water filling the boy’s senses from around them, mixing in with the smell of grilled food and exotic perfumes and incenses that he was not used to. The air in Booty Bay was more humid also and the wind warmer compared to Stormwind, and the wooden planks beneath his feet felt almost soft from the dampness. And when he glanced upwards he was surprised to see not the seagulls he was used to preying on humans in his home city, but a colorful pair of parrots sitting on a rope between banners that were gently dancing in the wind.
It was all so chaotic, but Anduin loved every little detail of it. Hoping that he would have a chance to sample the wonderful smelling foods they were selling from the carts and stalls before he would be ushered back to the ship and then home.
They finally arrived to a building that they entered, with Jaina leading their group and making sure that the blonde boy was still following her and not getting lost in his daydreaming. A bell by the door chimed announcing their arrival, and a weathered looking orc man behind the counter turned to face them and greet them with joy once he saw who it was.
“Jaina! My favorite frosty mage. What has dragged you to my humble abode today?” the man spoke to them in broken if not still cheerful common.
“Business, as always, Volgar,” Jaina greeted him back with friendly familiarity and a smile of her own, the dark cape of her cloak trailing behind softly her as she made her way up to the counter.
Volgar seemed to not pay any attention to Smith, and if that was because they knew each other or because of some other reason Anduin could not know, but then the man’s attention turned to him and the boy paused from the surprise of being scrutinized so closely by an orc. It was not often that he found himself from the same room with one, and so suddenly he found the experience rather intimidating.
“And who is this young cub?” Volgar asked with that same warm demeanor, not really seeming that intimidating when he spoke up, and Anduin only smiled a bit awkwardly even if ever friendly as Jaina turned to look at him to introduce him.
“This is my good friend’s son, Anduin. He is traveling with me and visiting Booty Bay for the first time,” his aunt explained almost proudly, and the orc’s smile only warmed up to beaming levels at this information.
“Welcome to the gutters then, son! Feel free to look around while we take care of the boring stuff, but stay out of trouble,” Volgar said good naturedly with a wink as he pointed at him, the playfulness seeming almost odd on the face of a burly orc.
“Thank you, and I will try my best,” Anduin replied with a sheepish grin that seemed to amuse the man to no end as he guffawed a laugh, and then the adults left him alone as Jaina pulled out a letter of some sort from her cloak and handed it over to Volgar, who picked it from her fingers to look over its contents.
While they were talking, Anduin gladly left them to it as he had witnessed way too much business talk during his life when shadowing his father, and his attention was stolen by all the items on display instead. It was hard to say immediately if the shop specialized in something specific because it seemed to be stuffed full of things from one end to the other, ranging from fishing equipment to trinkets, and from capes to what looked like sacks of sand out of all things. But from the back of it he could spot a crooked shelf with some books and those drew the young man in like a month to a flame.
He felt like he had already read through the Stormwind library from end to end, both to pass time and to sate his curiosity about the world, so he was hungry for any kind of new reading material. And to his delight Anduin found out that much like the rest of Booty Bay, this collection of books also consisted of tomes from all around the world, some of them in languages he didn’t even recognize.
The blonde got lost in browsing the dusty tomes in the dimly lit back corner, trying to figure out what some of them were about while others were easier to figure out. Paperback novels of adventures, a water damaged libram, guidebooks of various sorts and in varying languages and more. And by the time Jaina called out for him Anduin had picked out a small stack of carefully selected books that he wished to purchase, having to leave the rest of them sadly behind in the store.
He paid for his books and placed them in his leather messenger bag under his cloak, and then they were leaving the shop with Volgar telling them that they were welcome back anytime, giving the impression that whatever business his aunt had been here for had probably gone well.
As they made their way down the pier Jaina inquired him about his findings, and Anduin showed her one of the books. A tome full of beautiful illustrations about different kind of herbs and plants, with thick worn out pages that were skillfully bound between hard covers. The book was Tauren in origin he suspected, with descriptions on the pages in beautifully painted little glyphs that he could not read. But despite that it was still so pretty that he wouldn’t mind just browsing the pictures alone, but with some time maybe he could learn to decipher some of the descriptions as well. The book was either about idetifying plants or their usage, or perhaps both. Which was all right down the blonde boy’s alley as an aspiring herbalist and healer.
They chatted a bit about the books on the way and the chances of finding someone to help him translate Taur-ahe, before Jaina was stopping by another building and telling him that it would take just a moment. It seemed more like a supply store for sailors if the sailing equipment piled outside was of any indication, and if Anduin had to make a guess his aunt was trying to secure them supplies for the trip back to Stormwind. Smith remained standing outside the doorless shop doorway to guard, and the blonde was left waiting with nothing but his books to entertain him. Which really was one of his favorite ways to be entertained anyways.
This part of the town seemed to be less busy. Off to the side and away from the street vendors, which made for a surprisingly quiet corner in the middle of all that chaos. There was a pile of sun burned wooden boxes piled up near the edge of the pier, and Anduin walked closer to them and pulled himself up with his hands to sit on the edge of one of them. This spot allowed him a nice view of the bay, with the ocean water swaying down below one level and the more busy part of Booty Bay curving into his sights on the other side of the blue expanse. The boxes smelled of tar, the buildings behind him blocked the sun out of this corner, and there was another exotic bird singing somewhere out of his sights; probably another parrot. It was like a wonderful mixture of familiar and new sensations that made his trip seem like the rich experience he had been dreaming of inside his lonely room with his countless books and it put Anduin into a good mood.
A soft smile crossed the boy’s lips as he breathed in the ocean air deep into his lungs and took in the view, and then brought up the book on herbalism to his lap and opened it up so he could continue leafing through the pages some more while waiting. The further along he explored it the surer he was that the book had been written by a Tauren. And even without being able to decipher the glyphs he could recognize some of the plants, tracing the delicate and detailed drawings with the tips of his fingers as he appreciated the artistry, and tried to guess what all the little arrows were pointing at when he didn’t understand the descriptions.
His concentration on his reading was suddenly broken by the sound of water rippling louder, and Anduin raised his eyes from the page before him as he looked down to the ocean. He couldn’t see anything besides the dark waves, and the sound made him think that it had maybe been a fish breaking surface to catch insects, and he was just about to turn back to his reading when he heard it again. But this time as he was faster, he could pick up movement from the corner of his eye, and as Anduin turned to look to his right he was fairly sure that he could see the tail of a big fish slip back under the dark ocean waves.
If that had been a fish then it had been really big, Anduin thought to himself. Something that fishers would catch from the deeper parts of the ocean on their trips and brag about back in port. And he hadn’t known that something like that could wander so close to land. It was a curious enough sight that the blonde found himself from staring after it with puzzlement, his book momentarily forgotten as someting more interesting caught his attention. Hearing the same rippling sound a moment later again. And with a glance at Smith to make sure that the man was not staring at him, Anduin was quietly closing his book and slipping off the boxes.
Behind the pile of boxes part of the pier sloped down to the next level below in ramp, and the blonde cautiously made his way down it as he leaned low to peek under the wooden planks of the second floor to see the waving water through the shadows. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, maybe nothing since the fish would most probably not stick around for long enough to be seen anyways, but what he witnessed instead had him freezing in the spot.
There on the lower level of the pier, right next to another pile of wooden boxes and barrels, was what appeared to be a young man hanging on the edge of the wooden platform. He had his elbows on the pier, with the rest of his shirtless and warmly toned and water damp body hanging off below to the cold ocean, one hand trying to reach out resolutely for a fishing spear that was leaning against a barrel and just out of his range of reach. The boy looked like he was kicking himself up, trying to rock himself forwards enough to be able to reach, the tips of his fingers barely scraping by the staff of the spear as his face was set into an expression of determined annoyance. And the whole sight was so absurd that Anduin could only stare, his fingers growing slack and his book dropping from his hands to the wooden ramp under him before he noticed it escaping him.
The sudden thud of a sound startled the young man, and he whipped his head to the side to look at Anduin with wide surprised eyes nested under thick dark brows and a mop of dark hair. And the blonde only saw those eyes briefly but he swore they were bright red in color. Before he could even blink though, the boy was quickly pushing himself off the edge and disappearing hastily below the pier with a splashing sound.
Anduin reached down to grab his book quickly, raising his head just enough to be able to stare at that spot again and debating if he should rush forwards to see if the boy was alright. Wondering if he had maybe hallucinated the whole thing. But the experience had been so vivid and also weird enough that he wasn’t sure if his imagination could even come up with something like that.
Pushing himself over his shock, Anduin jogged down the rest of the slope with his bag jostling against his side and approached the edge of the pier in hurried steps, gazing down into the dark waters below trying to see any movement. He wasn’t sure what to expect. The sight of the young man in trouble or drowning perhaps and in need of help, but all he could see was black water and no signs of a struggle.
Maybe he had imagined him after all… There was no way the boy would have been able to swim away and disappear that fast, unless he was stuck under the pier, which didn’t really sound like a nice idea either considering that the water had to be freezing cold…
Anduin straightened up, and then looked at the spear that still sat there against the barrel, untouched and forgotten. Before his eyes wandered to the other edge of the pier that went by the rocks of the mountain side that the city was build up against. If the boy was in trouble Anduin couldn’t just abandon him like this, so just to be sure he walked over to that edge too, taking a hold of a wooden post with one arm to lean forwards and over the water so he could peer down and under the edge of the platform, trying to listen for any signs of someone drowning even if they were unable to call for help.
There was another sound of water being displaced from behind him, and when Anduin turned to look that way over his shoulder again he almost slipped and fell into the water when those same crimson eyes were staring at him intently again, no sign of distress of drowning in them. He pulled himself close to the wooden pole, holding onto it with white knuckles as he clutched his book against his chest where his heart was suddenly beating faster. Staring at the boy that most definitely was not a figment of his imagination.
His dark skin was glistening with fresh water droplets from his quick swim, and his short mess of a hair looked a little wet. He was also leaving a puddle of water on the planks where he was resting his arms again, and Anduin wondered if it was normal for people to swim under the piers like this.
“Do you not know that it is rather rude to sneak up on others and just stare at them?”
Anduin startled again as the young man suddenly spoke to him in smooth common, his voice oddly melodic even when he was clearly scolding him, those dark brows knit together in a look of annoyance. And somehow the blonde felt like he had done something bad, like maybe committed a faux pass even though he had just been walking in a public space and happened upon such a bizarre sight.
“I’m…sorry?” Anduin said, or more like asked. He wasn’t sure if he should be sorry, definitely feeling off balance.
“You should be,” the young man sniffed back at him with all the confidence of someone who was in the right. Then those weird and observant red eyes were moving down, and for a moment the blonde thought that he was being measured up or judged before the boy spoke up again and pointed at him with one hand.
“What is that you’re holding?” he inquired in that same melodic lilt, sounding more like he would fit the environment of a Stormwind noble ball instead of the underside of a Booty Bay pier and the odd contrast just made the situation seem even less real.
Anduin startled at the question and looked down, like he had completely forgotten what it was that he was holding in his hands. But the only thing he had that wasn’t stashed away in his bag was his herbalism book that he was hugging close to his body still like he was afraid of dropping it again.
“A book?” the blonde asked hesitantly, which he immediately knew to be the wrong answer because the dark haired boy’s crimson eyes narrowed further into a glare.
“I know what a book is!” he snapped and gripped the edge of the pier with his hands so he could bob up and down on the edge like a buoy in water. But he sounded defensive despite his claim and Anduin couldn’t say if the boy was embarrassed or simply impatient, or maybe just rude. “What is it about?” he then elaborated a little calmer as his moods seemed to change with the wind, settling down again with his elbows on the wooden flooring and resting his chin on his folded arms expectantly; and the blonde hesitated a bit. Not sure if a weird bossy boy in water fell under the ‘do not interact’ category that his aunt had appointed on him or not.
But he didn’t seem shady or dangerous exactly, just a bit rude and curious. And slowly Anduin relaxed his hold of the wooden pole, making sure that he didn’t slip backwards over the edge as he found his balance, before he slowly walked closer to the boy with his book in his hands.
“It’s a book about herbalism,” Anduin started, and despite all the oddities of the situatipon still feeling kind of weirdly enthusiastic to share about his wonderful finding to someone who might be interested in listening. “I think it is a guidebook for how to identify and use different parts of plants,” he explained his reasoning. And when he approached the dark haired boy he was slipping a finger between the pages so he could open it up to a spread, and as he got close enough he turned the book around in his hands so the boy could tilt his head in a curious way to the side and upwards, and allow those crimson eyes of his to take in the pages.
The boy then motioned for him with his hand to move the book lower so he could see it better, squinting his eyes as he looked over something and then hummed in agreement.
“Hmm, fadeleaf,” he said simply, and Anduin snapped the book closed in surprise in a way that visibly startled the other boy as well.
“You can read it?” the blonde asked incredulously, his surprise clear in both his voice and face as the young man just raised a brow at him like he was the weird one here.
“You can’t?”
Anduin felt a suddenly warm flush of embarrasment raise up his neck all the way to the tips of his ears as he realized how he had made that sound. Like he was completely illiterate and could not read simple plant names when reading was one of his passions and his interest in the academics a point of pride, and he rushed in to explain himself better.
“I mean, I can read but just not these glyphs. I suspect it is Tauren in origin..,” his voice trailed off in embarrassment, his fingers touching the cover of the book as he looked down at it. The cover was beautiful also, with imprinted symbols on the surface of it. It really was a lucky find and he wished that he had the time to go over all the stores and their books in Booty Bay before they would have to leave.
“It is,” the red eyed boy then confirmed curtly with a bored tone like he was confirming that the weather was sunny right now. And for maybe the fourth time Anduin found himself from simply staring at him, not even sure how he got himself into this situation in the first place.
The dark haired young man was still hanging from the edge of the pier, assumedly half of his body floating in the freezing water below but he didn’t seem bothered by it in the least. And from up close now Anduin could see how truly red his eyes were, seeming both familiar in a weird way but also otherworldly. His hair consisted of short cut thick and dark curls that seemed untameable, and despite looking maybe around Anduin’s age there was a patch of dark hair growing on his chin that had the blonde feel lightly jealous. His fingers, delicate as they were folded with his arms under his chin, ended up in dark and sharp nail. Which was maybe finally the part that had the blonde grip his book tighter against his chest as he spoke up his confusion.
“Who are you?” Anduin asked as the words just slipped out of his mouth, gaining a rather bored looking half lidded expression from the boy for his efforts.
“What do you mean?” he replied to the blonde with a tone that indicated short temper lingering under that facade of boredom, and the blonde realized how rude he was sounding and he felt scolded once more. Somehow the boy had the effect on him where he felt like the weird and rude one when he most definitely was not.
“I mean, what is your name,” Anduin tried again a little sheepishly, and at that the boy seemed to be thinking over his answer, inspecting him with those almost unnerving red eyes of his for a good moment before he deemed to reply in a short and straight to the point fashion.
“Wrathion.”
What an odd name, the blonde thought to himself dumbfounded, having never heard that kind of a name before. But maybe the young man was simply foreign, and perhaps all his oddities; the eyes, the nails, the name and his ability to understand Taur-ahe could be explained away by being from another place and another cultu—
“Lord Wrynn?”
Smith’s voice came from near the ramp suddenly, and Anduin could catch that same wide eyed look of surprised fear from Wrathion’s red eyes again before the boy was pushing himself away from the edge and diving into the dark waters. His lean dark form sliding under the surface in the blink of an eye with a glimpse of a bag tied to his hip, followed by a long tail that was covered in black scales that reflected off light, and which ended in orange tinted fins that barely made a ripple when they disappeared into the dark and deep waters below.
For a moment Anduin just stared in shock at the spot where only ripples on the water remained. When he had been thinking of a foreign culture and race he hadn’t quite meant mermaid.
“Lord Wrynn?” Smith repeated as he walked down the ramp, spotting the blond youth standing by the edge of the shadowed pier. And he was probably confused over why Anduin was lurking down here alone and staring off into nothing, but there was no way he could explain what he had just experienced. A mermaid was definitely very firmly on the ‘do not interact’ list of his aunt’s, especially a black tailed mermaid. And suddenly those unsettling red eyes made so much more sense, the memory of similar eyes having stared him down before resurfacing with a shudder that he could barely suppress. A ghost of a melody in the back of his head that he would have firmly preferred to forget for forever.
Anduin pulled his eyes away from the water before he would allow himself to sink deeper into those particular memories, trying to fit a friendly smile on his face as he looked at the mildly worried looking older man.
“Please, Smith. I told you to call me Anduin,” he reminded him gently. A song and dance they had repeated several times over these couple of weeks they had spend together sailing. He did not wish to gain any special treatment from the crew nor put them through any unnecessary trouble, he had even wanted to pay for his fair but Jaina had shut that down quickly. But he only received a grunt in return that was probably the most the man could do to disagree with him vocally.
“Captain Proudmoore did not want you to wander off, it’s easy to get lost or hurt around here,” Smith said and the words of concern were so predictable that it had Anduin suppressing a sigh of exhaustion. Even this far away from home he was being treated like he was made out of glass and would break if he stepped off a paved road or, Light forbid, interacted with things outside of his safe bubble.
“I’m not wandering, Smith. I just thought that I…saw something,” the blonde said a bit hesitantly, casting another glance at the lazily waving dark body of water that he now knew hid away an entire mermaid. And then turned to look at the fishing spear next to him that the dark haired boy had been so resolutely trying to reach for whatever reason.
Anduin placed his hand on the spear and took a hold of it, turning it around in his palm as he considered it. It was a simple polished wooden pole with a crafted metal spike and hook at one end and a metallic loop on the other end where you could tie a rope to. He had seen hundreds just like it in Stormwind, and there was nothing special about it as far as he could tell.
“Like what?” Smith asked as he watched him with suspicion, folding his wooden trunks of arms over his chest in a way that probably made the giant of a man look intimidating to people who did not know him. But Anduin just shook his head, his blonde bangs swaying lightly with the movement. Trying to dispel away thoughts for now of those piercing red eyes and the rude boy that they had belonged to.
“Nevermind, it was nothing. We better head back before Jaina gets worried, then?” the young man said with a more genuine smile at Smith, placing the spear back down to lean against one of the boxes next to the barrel. And Smith only hummed in agreement at that plan, waiting for Anduin to come up to him and walk up to the ramp first as if there was a threat of him disappearing again the moment he turned his back.
Before following him up though, the older man cast one more curious glance down to the lower level pier and at the utter emptiness of it. Trying to see what it had been that the boy had been there for and what it was about the spear he seemed interested in. But once he saw nothing besides a dark puddle of water on the edge of the platform he followed Anduin back to the upper level, and was just content to not have lost the boy lest he wanted Jaina to personally magic him to the bottom of the pier.
As the two of them walked back to the supply store where their Captain was waiting, a silence fell over the shadowed lower level of the pier. Only broken by the steady sound of waves licking against the rock and the occasional cry of a bird looking for an easy snack from the crowded city streets. And once the sound of their footsteps drifted off far enough, dark black clawed fingers were curling up around the edge of the wooden platform, soon followed by a damp mop of unruly hair and a pair of crimson eyes peeking over it curiously.
Wrathion’s gaze flicked the way that the humans had gone, and then focused on the spear before him that he had been trying to steal, noticing that it was now sitting much closer to the edge where he could easily reach it. His eyes narrowed with suspicion as he glared at the ramp again, wondering what that weird human was plotting and what he could possibly benefit from doing this.
But he wasn’t going to throw away this chance either, kicking his strong tail under the water to propel himself upwards into a little hop; bending over the edge so he could quickly grab the spear he had had his eye on, and then push himself back and sink back down into the water with his newly pilfered treasure in his grasp.
Wrathion twisted his lean body under the murky water as he spun around to right himself, wide eyes blinking to get accustomed to the lower levels of lighting as he stared up to the glittering surface. His brows furrowed as he thought of the blonde human again, silently scolding himself for getting caught unaware like that and knowing that he would have to be extra careful now to get the rest of the items on his list. If the human went and told others about his presence here he might have to find some other port to steal from for a while, not willing to take the risk of being caught by a bigger human with a weapon.
But what a puzzling individual the blonde boy had been, the mermaid thought to himself as he turned away from the surface and swam forth to the dark depths. He had seemed surprised to see Wrathion but not at any point had he seemed aggressive, which was already weird enough for a human as it was as they seemed to have a kneejerk reaction to try to hunt him down for his scales. And they blonde had seemed much more interested in his book, despite not even knowing how to read!
Maybe he just never would be able to understand humans and their quirks, Wrathion thought to himself as he then let his thoughts wander back to how in the world he was going to get his supplies now.