Before the World Broke — A Vegetaone Story
Reddbull left them at the turning toward Mulgore.
This time, Vegeta was the one remaining behind.
The guild had taken rooms outside Orgrimmar, then escorted a winter shipment to the Crossroads. Reddbull had traveled with them that far. Now he was heading home.
His shield hung beside his saddle pack. Sarn's repairs had held. The line in its face remained visible beneath the new finish.
“Write,” Super said.
Reddbull nodded.
War gave him the names of two reliable carriers.
Luvz gripped his forearm.
Vegeta looked at the road marker.
“You can come back before you have an answer.”
The Tauren smiled.
“I may need reminding.”
“Then I'll write too.”
Envy pushed against Reddbull's leg.
He crouched to rub her neck and stayed there until Super called her back.
The departure took less time than Vegeta thought it should.
He watched until the road dipped beyond the ridge.
Then turned toward the wagon that still needed unloading.
The first letter arrived with a parcel of dried berries.
Reddbull had reached home. His mother had fed him, examined the repaired shield, and accused him of writing too little about how he had obtained its damage.
He had gone to Elder Rise.
Aponi Brightmane listened to his account of the northern roads, the lift in Blade's Edge, and the young scout he had been unable to help.
She had not promised him power.
She had asked what he believed power would require of him.
Vegeta read that line aloud.
Super looked at him.
“A useful question.”
“An inconvenient one.”
“Often the same.”
War took a berry from the parcel.
“Does he say what he answered?”
Vegeta checked the page.
“He says he is still answering.”
They visited Mulgore with an escorted load several weeks later.
Vegeta expected to find Reddbull doing something impressive beneath the sun.
He found him helping repair a water carrier's harness.
“Your spiritual awakening seems familiar.”
Reddbull looked up from the buckle.
“This was loose.”
“I understand the mystery.”
They finished the harness together.
Afterward, Reddbull brought him to Elder Rise.
Aponi sat where the morning light reached the edge of her shelter. Her shield stood nearby. She regarded Vegeta's armor with a warrior's attention rather than an armorer's.
“You are the one from the lift.”
Vegeta glanced at Reddbull.
“I had a part.”
“He gave you one.”
Tahu Sagewind joined them a little later. He spoke about balance within the Earth Mother's care, about attention long given to Mu'sha and attention they were learning to give anew to An'she.
Vegeta listened without pretending to know more than he did.
The names were not his traditions.
The seriousness with which Reddbull listened was something he understood.
Aponi asked Reddbull to take up his shield.
He did.
She asked him what he would do if someone came toward the people behind him.
He planted his hooves.
“Hold.”
“And if holding here put them at greater risk?”
The Tauren glanced at Vegeta.
“Move them. Find better ground.”
Aponi nodded.
“Strength can serve a choice. It should not spare you making one.”
She made him practice shifting with the shield while keeping its coverage over a person walking beside him. Vegeta volunteered to be that person and immediately regretted it when she made them repeat the path six times.
Nothing shone.
No flame sprang from the shield.
Reddbull kept his companion covered through every turn.
At the end, Aponi lowered her hand.
“Again tomorrow.”
Vegeta looked at the Tauren.
“She is thorough.”
“Yes.”
“I approve from a distance.”
Reddbull laughed.
They ate with his family that evening.
His mother listened to Vegeta's version of Blade's Edge, then looked at her son.
“You left out the burning store.”
“Most of it stopped burning.”
Vegeta decided not to assist further.
Later, he and Reddbull stood beneath the stars beyond the family's doorway. The wind smelled of grass. No mountain teeth cut the horizon.
“I thought learning this would mean learning a new way to strike,” Reddbull said.
“Doesn't it?”
“Perhaps. First, it means paying attention when there is no fight to tell me where to stand.”
He rested a hand against the repaired shield.
“Tahu says reverence isn't something I put on when I want a blessing.”
Vegeta considered his own matched armor.
He could take it off.
The work that had earned it remained part of him.
“Makes sense.”
Reddbull looked toward him.
“You don't think I've stopped being a warrior?”
“You didn't leave your strength in Blade's Edge.”
“No.”
“Then decide what to use it for.”
The Tauren was quiet for a while.
When they went inside, he carried the shield with him.
Winter brought more letters.
Reddbull wrote about the days he understood something and the following days when understanding it seemed less certain. He practiced. He helped families whose roofs or supplies had failed. He returned to Aponi and Tahu with questions rather than claims.
Vegeta wrote about road work and the completed armor's unexpectedly large appetite for oil.
Super added corrections to the stories Vegeta told.
War sometimes enclosed a map.
Luvz wrote a short note after Reddbull asked whether choosing a new purpose made the old one meaningless.
You carried people out. They are still out. Keep that.
Reddbull's next reply took longer.
It included thanks beneath Luvz's name.
The ground shook for the first time while Vegeta was tightening a wheel nut outside Orgrimmar.
The movement was brief.
A cup fell from the wagon seat.
Envy rose sharply and pressed close to Super.
War put one hand against the ground after it stopped.
“Not the cart.”
Vegeta looked toward the road.
Luvz had come to the doorway with his runeblade in hand.
Nothing attacked.
That made the moment harder to understand.
Later, a courier brought Reddbull's latest letter.
There had been a tremor in Mulgore too.
The Tauren had written the ordinary news first.
Then, at the bottom:
Whatever comes, tell me where you are.
Vegeta reached for paper before supper.
This was one question he could answer immediately.
End of Chapter Nine