Taters and Leeks

[Aelflaed]

(Written with Jolstraer.)

Icecrown changes people. The cold, rigid landscape, fraught with hatred, decay, and half a million ways to die horribly finds a way to worm itself into your brain after too long, a problem many of the healers in the Crusade were familiar with. Common among those returning from months of deployment, they were used to the cold stares, the ashy faces, the lack of sleep that plagued the soldiers who had some reason to come back.

Those that survived Angrathar were, in general, the worst of the lot.

So when Aelflaed Larsdottir reported for duty on what had to be her sixth straight week of work with no days off, her superiors had a bit of a conversation - the end result of which was finding herself on a boat back to the Eastern Kingdoms, very much alone. The higher-ups of the Crusade hadn't gotten the whole story, and as such had rather misdiagnosed the problem, but when does any healer ever fully let on what's been happening away from the hospital tents? At least she'd had time to stop by at the Hero's Rest to cancel the room she had waiting there - all the better that she was being forced away for a time, so she'd not have to face the empty cloak hook or still-made other half of the bed.

Which left the problem of where she was going once she got to Stormwind.

She wouldn't go to Mrs. Cross - that was more explaining than she wanted to do. Aely ticked off potential places on her fingers - not Booty Bay, too frivolous. Not Arathi, too many memories. Certainly not the Pig and Whistle's bunk rooms - too much there that would turn her nights to torturous remembering.

After a few fitful, drunken evenings in a rented room at the Gilded Rose, she picked up another boat ticket, this time bound for Southshore.

And so, in the middle of a sunny morning that exemplified the beauty of autumn in southern Lordaeron, Aely found herself staring down the front gate of a farm that she was told belonged to Jol Taborwynn.

The farm itself was relatively well kept, though a bit rough-and-tumble. It clearly lacked a gentler touch, what with the strict ordering of the stoned in walk and the severity of the front windows. The thatch roof was in good repair and mended in the same neat rows. The garden itself was half turned over amidst harvest, though the pickings could have looked much better.

Behind the great barn that faced the front came a rumbling groan, as feminine as one could be when sounding murderously large. "Ol' still yeh feckin' pansah!" A gravelly voice rumbled back, and more short groans of a mighty throat were heard. A thump, then a crash, a rumbling and the great whoosh of lifting leathery wings gave view to the bronzed form leaping into the air from behind the barn and soaring towards the Tarren River.

A grizzled, worn-out and lusterless old mountain of Lordaeron ambled out from behind the barn towards the house, bare chested and sweaty with dirt mixed well in. He muttered - as was his fashion - and spat, a sword propped on one shoulder with sticky yellow ichor clinging to its point. As the gate came in view his eye flicked to it, and though he didn't stop shambling towards the house's front door, he took full stock of what had wandered onto his doorstep.

"Yeh ken 'et ain' ah por'i'cull's hol'in' back tha 'Orde. Ain' much use starin' 'et it like 'et's wunn," he said offhandedly, surly as usual.

She blinked at him, and after a moment, opened the gate.

"Oi, Jols. An' I ken, jus'.. Well, dinnae wan' t' have th' wrong place. Ye've work f'r another pair ay hands?" Her voice cracked, but she quickly reined herself in. "Said once tha' farmin' w's how ye worked out memories. I've... muir an' a few I need t' ground myself."

Jol stopped there, about halfway to the door, and gave her the once-over with a critical eye. Frumpled would've been the polite way of putting it, a man might suppose. "Yeh look like shite, lass. An' nae tha run o'tha' mill type, ayeh. Wunn tae manah rolls in tha muck wagon, ayeh?" He grunted a touch disapprovingly. "Ayeh, well, Ah dinnae lie 'bout tha wohk an' tha mem'ries, nae. But bah tha look o'thangs s'moah'n mem'ries tae cleah oot ah thurr." He grunted again, hefting the sword and pointing it towards the front door to the house. "For'ard, MARCH!" he barked in a Sergeant's cadence.

Aely blinked at him again, her body following the command faster than her mind caught up with what was going on.

"Muir an' mem'ries? Ayeh - 'struth, bu' I dinnae ken how t' sort anythin' out wi'out sleep, an' drinkin' myself silly's... nae a good way t' get i'. An' I willnae drink th' horrid potions. So I figure, 'f I c'n work m'self hard enow t' wear out, I c'n get rest, an' work out th' rest wi' th' turnips. An' leeks." She smiled weakly at the half-joke, remembering Bricu's warning.

"Raight. Well, ah ken ah few 'maters 'et need reignin' in tae, an' taters 'et need tae beh raight pulled up afoah 'ey uproot me 'ouse. Dunnae fret, wee lassie, ah'll 'ave yer back sore an' yer bones wearah in nae time," he grunted, following her into the house. Once inside he took up a rag and wiped the mostly-dried ichor off his sword before setting it on the stand to be oiled later. he took up a rumpled pile of shirt and pulled it on, rolling up the sleeves and tying them. "Ho's thar," he grunted, lifting his chin to point at the corner.

The younger paladin unslung the pack off her back, chuckling. "Sigh' better 'n other places 've called bed. I've travelin' pallets, so I dinnae need much. Maera's go' th' bedroll, outside. I ken m' way 'round mos' crops, thow's been fair few years since. Been fair few years since any'un called me "wee lassie" eyther." She peered around at the stark house. "'spose I dinnae need t' ask if's jus' ye 'round ay late."

Jol grumbled noncommittally before speaking up. "Ayeh. Mos' folks leave mah be 'ese days. Less o'course 'ey need ah blade 'er ah slab o'meat tae stan' aroun' an' look uglah fer 'em." It nearly sounded as if that was the way he preferred it. "Well, daylaight's wastin', eh?" he grunted, quirking a brow and taking up a three-pronged rake from the tool corner by the door and blustering right back outside.

She laughed then, rummaging in her pack to find a quilted vest to throw on over her working clothes and tying a handkerchief around her head. "Ayeh - 's nae time like th' presen'. Le's see 'bout 'em taters..."