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She hadn’t known he was Amani. Not at first, at least. She really couldn't be blamed, either - Amani were green with moss and growing things, had warpaints in bright colors, were always vibrant and raucous and vicious . Or at least that’s how rangers would describe them, six cups in and trying to impress with war stories when their looks, coin, prowess, and cock size - the lack of all those, really - were failing to land them a warm bed they didn't have to pay by the hour for.
So not knowing he was Amani could be excused, because he just… didn't seem the type.
He was grayish, only a faint blue-green tint to his sparse fur, and she’d assumed the little bits of moss were from his grave, not his life. His warpaints were stark black and white, his eyes faded and dull behind the blue glow (it must be harder for the other races, she'd thought, soon after waking - only quel’dorei are used to seeing eyes like this in the mirror). All in all, the antithesis of vibrant .
And raucous - no. Loud, sometimes, but not raucous, lacking the implied brashness or stridency, as if he was afraid of echoes, afraid of notice. He seemed rageful and terrified by turns, to her, and equally dangerous in either mood.
Vicious… they were all vicious.
So she really couldn't be blamed - at first. But she could be blamed, if anyone cared to, for all the time after she found out. After he told her, rising to his full height and looking down on her to tell her in thickly accented Thalassian (what she’d been speaking to her fellow elves, trading stories about foes they’d fought in life and lying, all of them lying, for the sake of a laugh, trying out humor and jokes and laughter , sometimes forgetting to inhale beforehand and shaking through something that sounded like a deathrattle) that he was “Amani, whelp, an’ more den able ta take more bitch-elves to da grave.”
(Her fellow elves had bristled, bloodlust singing, but she’d laughed - bitch was the least of what she’d been called, the least of what she was, and oh how not-dull his eyes were in this brief moment of outward anger, how not-dull it was to feel this surge of good, clean violence and know it was returned tenfold.)
Because after she’d known, after she’d been told, she only got worse .
She made it her mission to be near him, to drive him to snapping and snarling and roaring out challenge as they dove at each other. More than once they were kicked into the sparring ring by other knights to clear the way of their grappling. More and more often they’d simply arrive, in sync, at the training dummies, only to snarl - grin - snarl and tear at flesh instead.
(His blood was stale like hers but it burned, somehow, on her tongue and in her mouth, and it was fresher after she’d used her magic to patch them both up. Round two became more and more common, and she wondered if he liked the taste of hers, too.)
She made it her mission - she had none, Arthas was truly dead and Bolvar had so far stayed out of her head and so could live until that courtesy stopped holding true, but she wanted one, this worked - to drag him over the line, to make him play , to make him call out an insult first or scream curses with less and less pushing. To make him seek her out, instead, and wasn't that just the sweetest victory she’d had since ice and snow and the taste of dragonfire ash on her tongue in the breeze.
(“Not a bitch.”
“No?”
“No. Insults da fuckin’ warwolves. Ya not near dat fuckin’ useful. Or pretty.”
He bit her first that time, too, as she did her best to snap his tusk out of his mouth and claw out his belly at the same time. She didn’t smooth the flesh after, either, left the mark on her forearm, faded but there, and she noticed the fear in his eyes when he saw it, later, before he turned and walked the other way. Before he came back the next day and let her claw four lines across his chest and didn't call her on not smoothing those over, either.)
She made it her mission and she was winning, slowly. With every second longer the clean anger stayed, with every roar and growl, when his fear visibly shriveled and rotted and turned to ash (resurrected, impossibly, later, but dead for a time and for longer and longer), with every moment - growing in number - they spent together without the bloodthirst, she was winning .
She didn't know what she’d do when she won, didn’t know what winning would be, but she thought she might like it.
He wasn't passive, either, no, he fought back. He clung to his terror and his hate and she mocked his pain that she’d never have, because she hadn't lost, she'd only changed. He ripped her apart in the ring with nothing but leggings on and fought every second to keep her from doing the same.
It was so much fun , to have an equal. To have an equal who didn't mind hurting her, or being hurt back, because they should hate each other, right? Everyone agreed. Everyone watched and cheered as they rolled on the stone floor in splatters of their mixed blood, and everyone approved of how she’d put them back together after and how he’d grow his plagues to aid her mending, mutation after mutation until he had strains that could carry her magic as well as their one-time king’s, and wasn't that an achievement for a brutal barbarian and a wretched whore?
It wasn't until, months later, she sat in his lap for no reason and got her head half heartedly slammed into a table for her efforts that she realized she didn't know his name, and she didn't think he knew hers. She laughed into the wood, his elbow digging into the back of her neck as he rested his chin on his fist, and he huffed.
“Wat now, elf? Did I fine’ly crack someting import in dat head o’ yours?”
“My name’s Shanrae,” she giggled, sides heaving as she struggled to remember speech through laughter, “what’s yours?”
“...Zu’kazi. Ya fuckin’ bat’s shit, ya know.”
She snickered. “Pleasure to meet you, Zookasi.”
“ Zu. Kah. Zee.”
“Zu’kazi.”
A pause.
“S’pose it was nice ta meet ya, too, Shanree.”
“ Shahn. Ray.”
“Das whaddi said. Shainree.”
His blood tasted sweeter than usual when he laughed, and she caught him licking his lips while she fixed his caved in ribcage after they were dragged out of the ring for guard duty. The color was too bright to be all his, and she smiled.