Totally Raiding Inc.

The double-damned son-of-a-trogg Hale is laughing at Ovistine again. Not very charitable, not very kindly, not very priest-like, but he's been doing it since they were novices, and she's not surprised he hasn't got the maturity to stop now, even though he's looking craggy around the eyes these days. (It'd be just as uncharitable for her to be smug about that, about the fact that she'll probably age like her mum and look beautiful well into her late second century, but... well. She'll pray to the Light for forgiveness; right now she needs every advantage she can get.)

She's tempted to just stomp up to him, plant her hands on her hips, and ask just what in the bloody hell his problem is, but it is the Cathedral of Light, and she really doesn't want to start a scene.

But she does want to know what he's laughing about this time.

He notices her watching him and raises an eyebrow, then nods at the two young priests he's been training. They run off, one of them glancing at Ovistine as she goes.

Ovistine recognizes both of them -- Amylina Tallenschrafe, quite talented in holy arts, but interested in learning the path of shadow, and Norris Bellhugh, who doesn't seem very interested in healing so much as flaying minds. They'd both been assigned to her to start with, but after a few weeks she'd recognized it as a poor fit and sent them on to Bishop Hale, who's been a shadow specialist practically since he landed in the Cathedral of Light himself.

Ovistine's latest trainees are a lovely young dwarf named Iris and an elf from Westfall, of all places, named Theodore. They're both very adept at discipline-based healing, and she likes them a great deal.

So what in Uther's name Hale is laughing about today, Ovistine can't imagine. And was Amylina smirking? She'd better not have been.

Ovistine sidles up to Hale when she's got a chance. "Something funny?" she asks. All right, not the most subtle of approaches, but no one's accused Ovistine of subtlety in a while.

"Oh, Amylina just learned to control her Shadowfiend," Hale says, smiling down at her. He always makes such a point of that. Blah blah blah, I'm a human and you're just a stumpy dwarf who ought to be back in Ironforge with the rest of your kind. She's tempted to levitate -- she's as tall as a good tall elf when she does that -- but he'd probably just do the same. Bloody longshanks.

"Good for her," Ovistine says curtly. "Handy buggers. And?"

"Well, she was asking me if you know how to control yours."

Ovistine's cheeks go crimson. Fecking hells, get it away from me! Ach! Go -- you go over there and -- AAAGH, don't come back here, an' don't sniff me! Go away! Beastly thing! Shoo! Shoo!

"Of course I do," she snaps. "I'm a bloody expert at all of this, same as anyone here."

"Really. There's been some debate about whether you've ever used a Shadow Word in your life."

Ovistine clenches her teeth. "That's right, you were on vacation when the Dark Portal reopened, so maybe you didn't hear. I spent months in shadow, and I used every bloody Shadow Word in the book."

"I hear you spent those months fretting about turning into a trogg. Does the Horde have some new polymorph spell I haven't heard of? Polymorph: Trogg? Because surely no priest worth her salt would be afraid of shadow. It's as much a part of our teachings as the Light. You can't have one without the other."

Ovistine swallows the first four things that come to mind -- they're all in Dwarvish, and none of them things she'd say in front of her mum -- and just glares at him. "I'm not afraid of shadow. I just don't like the stuff."

"If you think no one here has noticed the fact that your ability to teach is sharply limited--"

Ovistine's braids go flying out behind her as she turns on her heel; she feels one of them smack into Hale, and she hopes, with her height, that it hit him somewhere sensitive.

There's a soft sound of muttering coming from a back table at the Stoutlager Inn. There's also an occasional hiccup, and the odd Dwarvish curse.

Very odd, Valinar thinks, because he's pretty sure he's heard that set of curses in Alterac, and why Ovistine would be muttering them, he doesn't know.

He orders a Rhapsody Malt from Innkeeper Hearthstove and brings it over to Ovistine. "Kost?"

"Oh aye, an' plenty of it," Ovistine says, hiccuping again. "Thank ye--oh! Elf!" She quickly wipes her nose on her sleeve and sits up straighter. "Didnae know you were around."

"Er... I live here."

"In the inn?"

"In Thelsamar." Valinar raises his eyebrows. "Are you all right? You look... unsettled."

Two long braids and a number of empty ale mugs go flying through the air as Ovistine thumps her fist on the table. "Unsettled! I'll give 'im unsettled! I'll unsettle his arse right through his--" The rest of her sentence is a loud smattering of Dwarvish that makes several heads turn in her direction. She blushes and sinks lower into her seat, trying--with some success--to hide behind Valinar.

"Would you like to take a walk?" Valinar offers. "It isn't too cool out yet."

Ovistine nods and climbs to her feet, swaying a bit once she's there. Valinar stays close at hand as she weaves her way out of the inn and heads down towards the Loch, and she picks up a few loose stones and skims them across the Loch's surface.

"So," Valinar says.

"Bloody buggering wanker! With two wee spots of fuzz that couldn't pass for a mustache on a newt!"

"Newts have mustaches?"

"Y'know what he says? He says, 'oh, we understand you're too scared t' harness th' power of Shadow.' Says, 'Lucky fer you dwarves are so long-lived, mebbe by th' time ye're yer mum's age, ye'll have a chance t' practice.' Says, 'Jes' best t' hope th' coming months dun' ask more frae th' priests than a wee bit like yerself c'n handle.'"

"Who?"

"Bishop Bloody Arse-Smelling Hale, that's who!" Ovistine bursts out. Valinar doesn't know whether that means Bishop Hale smells like an arse or whether he goes around sniffing them, but now is probably not the time to ask. "I faced down th' Firelord o' Blackrock Mountain! I kept man an' elf an' dwarf an' gnome an' even blue-folk alive time after time, an' did I ever so much as flinch when someone asked me t' stand in a bloody Flame Wreath an' keep me head cool while me braids were smokin' at th' tips from it?"

"No!" Valinar says immediately, which is not only true, it is clearly the right answer.

"Damn right I didn't! I ask you," she says, stopping short and poking a finger at his stomach, "do I have to flay minds an' melt faces t' be a useful adventurer?"

"Of course not!" Valinar says. He pauses. "But you didn't do badly when you were flaying minds and melting faces..."

Ovistine puts her hands on her hips. "That's right. That's exactly right. I know how. Just because he was on bloody vacation when th' portal opened again an' he happened t' miss how I got meself back from bloody shadow--doesnae mean I can't do it."

"Certainly not," Valinar says. He takes a seat; Ovistine's weaving a bit, and the height difference is becoming more and more apparent. He doesn't want her levitating when she's this drunk, either; he doesn't know where she'd end up. "As far as I know, you're a perfectly competent priest in all the various disciplines."

"I can bloody do more than be disciplined!" Ovistine sputters. Valinar winces; that, he realizes now, was a poor choice of words. "If I wanted to, I could flay any damned thing I wanted, an' melt th' face off... off..."

"Troggs?" Valinar supplies helpfully.

"Worse than troggs!"

"Orcs?"

"Demons! Ghosts! Hell, even elves--"

"Only bad elves, I hope," Valinar says, but Ovistine's shouting over him; he doesn't think she hears it.

"--an', an', an' time-shifted liches, an'..." Her voice trails off, and she wobbles enough Valinar actually stands up and catches her, lowering her gently onto the grass. "Oh. We goten kost kost?"

Valinar's pretty sure that meant Is there more beer?, and while in Ovistine's condition, he's not entirely sure she needs more beer, he also knows better than to keep a thirsty and pissed-off dwarf from her lager. Anyway, she's probably got Sparkling Southshore Cider or a pony keg in her pack, so if he says no, she may go digging around through it and break something important--like whatever that ticking thing is. He makes a mental note to ask about the ticking thing as he sets his own Brewfest Pony Keg on the ground.

"How's that?" he asks. She's already tapping herself a mug, though, and tipping it back like an expert.

"I tell you," she says, leaning back on her elbows, "I could do anything I wanted to."

"What is it you want to do?" Valinar asks.

But Ovistine's drunk enough now that she's only speaking in Dwarvish, and while Valinar catches a few words here and there--and some curses he's pretty sure even the soldiers of Alterac don't know--the gist of it is lost on him.