Maybe it was the muriothropy. Maybe it was the food. Maybe it was that 'god' he touched with clumsy hands. Maybe Vralkast itself heightened these sorts of things. But memories regurgitated in dreams seemed to haunt Warren more and more in this place.
Trinity wasn't from Maruk Dar. She was from up north in Vaanka Dar. It wasn't necessarily unheard of for clan members to move around but Trinity's move seemed shrouded in rumours, of the move erupting from personal issues she had with clan leaders than anything else. She was a shifter much like him but a lot more...goaty, he supposed. She had the prettiest curled horns framing mousy brown hair and she was fiery, loud and stubborn as all Khyber. He remembered the first time they met and she tore everything about him to shreds - his skills, his personality (or apparent lack thereof), the armour he was wearing, his face... Kreb was right in a way, that Trinity was an irritating, know it all bastard. She knew how to get under your skin. And while Warren mostly agreed, his dumb brain still got smitten regardless. Love is like a tiny demon, the kind that the Plague Bearers truck with as it weakens you and you thank it for it.
"So, you want to sire a child, then, ratboy?" she had asked, blunt as a brick after Warren admitted how much he liked her. He supposed that it didn't especially matter what the feelings were. Maruk Dar needed to remain, didn't it? Still, if she kept calling him ratboy in that disdainful tone... Had her voice always been that sultry or was his mind fucking with him again? "It makes sense. And..." Trinity had stopped, a flash of something across her face that Warren pretended he didn't see. Vulnerability, perhaps. Fondness? If they didn't speak its name, they could pretend that it was just him being stupid. He was good at that, he had lots of practice.
"I guess." he shrugged, trying to seem unbothered although he knew no one bought that. "For Kalok Shash and all that." She walked over to him, the dark eyes with horizontal pupils pulled him in.
“You really are pathetically easy to read. At least any child of ours will get some brains from me.” she murmured. Warren smirked - hardly her most cutting remark but he liked it.
They tried. They tried multiple times but nothing changed. It was after it was clear after half a year that something was wrong. They were both relatively young - it made no sense. Trinity decided it was time to get a healer's help on it. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about his scrungly bits to Kaitwaen when she was so busy with people being stabbed or whatever but he was getting nervous. What if he was secretly sick? Or she was secretly sick?
But perhaps the answer that it was all Warren's fault, actually seemed less surprising than it should. Kaitwaen tried to tell him delicately but then had to be a damn sight more explicit when he wasn't getting it. Trinity seemed unbothered by the news but even Warren could tell that it was an act. He tripped over a half orc kid on the way out of Kaitwaen's tent - some scrawny looking kid with bright eyes and a flurry of brown hair. Warren felt something crawl up his spine, heavy and cold. Aside from the tusks and green skin, that's probably what his kid would have looked like if he had been able to have them. A haphazard lump of bony limbs and hair. Kind of like Hunter when he was smaller. No - not right now, can't think of Hunter and Trinity.
They stayed in that odd limbo where Warren wasn't sure if she hated him or not but it was somewhat comfortable. She didn't talk to him as much as before and he knew he had started looking for other partners. At least until the Razor Wind got her. She was casting some fancy druid spell or some magic bollocks when she got stabbed. Nobody could heal it, even with trying. Blood oozed slowly onto the dusty ground, Warren kneeled beside her because despite everything - despite everything - he liked her. He wished he didn't, it would be a lot easier if he didn't but he did - more the fool him.
She was about to say something when the Eighth pulled him from sleep. Kalok Shash's shit, Vralkast is starting to get to him.