Fandom: World of Warcraft
Pairing: Male Orc OC x Male Human OC [Romantic]
Rating: Teen
Content: Alternative Universe, Theramore joins the Horde, Bigotry in a fantasy setting, Worker abuse, Alcoholism
Date originally written: 6th June 2019
Summary: Tom is continuously pestered by a fish-obsessed wolf. The orcish owner of said wolf does his best to not lose his sanity.

Tom had to admit, of all the customers he had expected to show up to his fish stall, he'd not expected to be seeing a wolf any time soon.

Well, maybe not a wolf that was by itself, at least.

He’d quickly learnt that the wolf did not in fact want to eat him, but rather, she wanted to eat his fish. If her whining and literal puppy-dog eyes was anything to go off of, she was very interested in his fish.

He did his best to ignore her presence for the first few minutes that she sat there. There was no way in hell he would be giving away free fish just because a wolf that showed up to his stall was begging for it. Unless she was somehow carrying gold on her fluffy body, she couldn't have any...

...Alright, it wasn't like Tom didn't want to give some fish to the wolf, it's just that if he did, his father would absolutely know about it. That man was incredibly meticulous about the pricing of the fish they sold, and the profit that was made each day. He'd know if the amount of fish left at the end of the day and how much money they'd made didn't properly match up. He'd be in the deepest shite if his father found out.

But still the wolf persisted, whining more and wagging her tail, huffing at him.

He had to admit: although she'd initially terrified him, her behaviour made her seem very cute.

He reached his hand out to her, slowly, to let her sniff him like how he would for an actual dog. She inspected the appendages, sniffing the back of his hand- over the small, pale fingers- and then over the palm of his hand. She seemed content with his scent, so he decided to risk a few pats, hoping that she wouldn't decide to bite his hand off.

He gently pet the side of her cheek, and- thankfully- she didn't seem to mind. It was when he reached up to scratch her ears that it looked like she was actually starting to enjoy the pets she was receiving.

Tom was almost glad that the wolf's presence was warding off customers, as it just gave him more time to pet her. She was unbelievably fluffy; the amount of fur she had around her neck made her look more like a lion than a wolf, and he was sure that she wouldn't have looked so large if she was furless.

He carefully reached under the wolf's chin to scratch her neck, and she lifted her head up so she could get more scritches. Her eyes were closed in contentment, and Tom could quite literally pet her all day if he had no responsibilities to attend to. He realised that he'd have to find some way to get her to shoo, but it didn't seem like there were any other options besides just giving her the damn fish.

As Tom was petting the wolf, he was suddenly very aware that there were eyes on him. He'd been paying so much attention to the furry, white behemoth in front of him that he'd failed to realise- until just then- that people had been staring at him interacting with a wolf that quite obviously belonged to an orc.

He was usually fine with being stared at by other humans, most people thought he was a bit weird anyway considering his rather thick accent, so staring was no issue. Humans were bashful anyway, so the moment they were caught staring, they looked away.

But Tom wasn't just being stared at by humans.

He had orcish eyes on him. Troll eyes. They were staring at a human petting an orc's wolf like it was nothing.

To them, he must have looked absolutely bonkers.

Tom ceased the petting at once, but he still had the problem of trying to figure out how to make the wolf go away.

There was no chance he was going to ask any of the orcs or trolls that were close by to move the wolf for him, because he was still quite awkward around other members of the Horde (but then again, what human or dwarf wasn't?) so he would have to do this himself.

The idea of just giving the wolf what it wanted was really starting to sound like the only viable option, at this point.

The wolf whined again, sniffing one of the fish curiously and then looking back up at him.

He was still being stared at.

At this point, if he didn’t give her a fish soon, not only would she not go away, but he’d look like an absolute prick to the trolls and orcs that were looking at him, judging his actions.

He sighed and prayed to the Light that his father could forgive him.

Tom grabbed one of the trout, and the wolf’s change in behaviour was immediate. She sat up straighter, and stilled with determination and focus. He reached over the stall to hand the fish to her, and she grabbed it with a gentleness that he associated with only the oldest and most patient of dogs. She finally stood up and walked away, going up to one of the nearby orcs so she could receive more affection.

The other orcs and trolls that had been staring at him seemed pleased at the outcome. He made brief eye contact with one of the orcs, purely on accident. They gave him a small smile.

Tom blushed and looked away.

He hadn’t been able to find his wolf on his own.

Trying to look for a big white wolf in a human city smaller than Orgrimmar was something he thought was going to be easy, but as he found out, that was not the case at all.

In Orgrimmar, the majority of the streets were still lined with sand and dirt, making it easy to tell who was where with the footprints that were left behind. The wolves of Orgrimmar also had what orcs back home called a ‘wolf-highway’, so finding a particular wolf wasn’t so difficult when they all usually followed the same path, and went the same direction.

Theramore’s streets, on the other hand, were not lined with sand or dirt, but stone. Stone, which left no footprints.

There was certainly no wolf-highway to speak of, either.

It should have been easy, it should have taken him at least ten or twenty minutes to find her, but he’d been searching the entire city for an hour and he’d still found no trace of her at all. It had gotten to the point where he’d been asking any passer-by he saw if they’d seen a big, white wolf walk by. He’d even enlisted the help of one of his friends, hoping that the taller tauren would be able to help him cover more ground.

As expected, most humans, dwarves and elves refused to say anything to him, even as he asked them if they’d seen a lone wolf walking down the street. A few orcs had said they’d seen her walk towards the direction of the docks, but when he went down to check if she was still there, he had found nothing.

He really didn’t want to start yelling out her name so early in the morning and disturb the peace, but he really wasn’t being given many options at this point. He had to find her before she got herself into trouble he couldn’t get her out of.

“Kal’Grok! Get back here, you mischievous dog!”

Nothing. Just as he’d expected.

He tried again.

“Kal! Come here, now!”

Still nothing. He was truly starting to think that maybe Kal had run outside the city, to go frolic in the marsh and splash around in muddy, crocolisk infested water.

It wouldn’t be the first time she’s done that.

He didn’t think it would be the last time, either. Kal was a trickster, through and through. She might've been an intelligent and caring wolf that gave him (and everyone else) all the love in the world, but Kal did whatever she wanted, and if she wanted to run five laps around the entirety of Orgrimmar and cause a howl-riot among all the other wolves in the entire city...then so be it.

Other orcs may say that he didn’t have an ounce of control over her; he believed that to inhibit a wolf’s natural instincts, was to prevent a wolf from being.

His thoughts were rudely interrupted by the sound of galloping. If he hadn’t known any better, he’d say it sounded like a horse with unhealthily-soft hooves, but he knew that sound anywhere, on any surface.

Kal’Grok- the Fluffiest of Durotar- came running up to him with a big ‘ol fish in her mouth, like she hadn’t been missing all morning. Like her master hadn’t been looking for her, and calling out her name, and stressing about all the bad things that could’ve happened to her.

“You silly dog...where did you get that? Did you catch that fish yourself, or did you steal it like last time?” He asked, his voice lacking true scrutiny. He wasn’t really mad a her, he just didn’t like it when she decided to run off for hours on end, especially in such a foreign place like Theramore.

Kal only looked at him with a big grin on her face. She looked proud of the fish she had...acquired. He still didn’t yet know how she’d acquired it, but she’d obviously wanted to show it to him first before she ate it.

He gave her some good pats on the head to let her know he wasn’t mad at her, and that she'd done a good job.

“Come on then, we’re going home. You’ve already gone on your morning walk and caught your breakfast, cheeky thing.”

For once, Kal was content to follow behind, as she gnawed on the fish in her mouth.

Tom had been quite lucky that at the end of the day, his father decided not to pay that much attention to how much money they'd made.

He didn't know if it was because his father was too tired or pissed off at him to care, or if it was because he was too drunk to properly absorb any important information, but Tom hadn't been reprimanded for any gold or silver that had gone missing.

Yet.

He was sure that in the morning, when the alcohol had mostly worn off, that his father would read the profit made and realise something was wrong. Hopefully Tom would already be out on the water before he came to that realisation.

For now, all he wanted to do was rest, and maybe finish another chapter of the book he'd been reading before he had to go to bed.

He'd deal with the repercussions of giving free fish to monstrous wolves later.

Tom's morning routine was the same as it always was: wake up, get dressed, grab any specific fishing equipment that he'd need that wasn't already on his father's small sailboat, and make his way to the docks.

He'd long ago stopped being afraid of the dark, whether he was simply walking down to the docks at three a.m. or starting the first fishing session of the day, the only thing to guide him on the water being the stars in the sky and his little lantern.

Tom was well acquainted with the guards and other workers that also got up and worked at the same ungodly hours as he did, so he felt no fear of being stalked by any creepy individual or predatory pervert.

There weren't many people in Theramore that were like that anyway, but even if there were people like that, he knew that the city guards were never too far away to call upon for help (and if they weren't, he kept a knife on him, just in case).

Even as Theramore joined the Horde and had slowly started to allow other races of the Horde into the city, he'd still felt no reason to be afraid at night. Sure, there were slightly more people walking around at night than there had been before, but Tom quickly grew accustomed to the new faces. Though he did not know their names, nor did he know enough orcish to communicate with any of them, he could still recognise the individual faces of orcs, trolls and tauren that worked very late at night or very early in the morning.

Sometimes, he would get doubts about some people's motives, or at times he would become a little bit nervous, but he reminded himself that he was now apart of the very same faction as they were.

That morning, though, he felt that something wasn't quite right.

He walked to the docks with the eerie feeling that something was hovering behind him...like he was being watched, or stalked.

As his heart quickened, so did his pace. As much as his job metaphorically took the life out of him with every day that passed, he'd rather live in his current conditions for the rest of his miserable life than have the literal life taken out of him by some creepy bastard in an alleyway.

Tom walked around a corner, to a more open area of the city, so that if anything was following him, they would be deterred from doing anything to him in such a public place.

Even if it was three in the morning.

He still felt like something was following him, but the thought of looking back to see what was there filled him with dread. What if he saw something that he shouldn't? What if he saw Something that couldn't be explained?

He'd heard the old, secret fisherman's tales of indescribable beings of flesh and void that surfaced from beneath the water, whispering all sorts of horrors into the ears of sailors before they succumbed to insanity, drowning themselves in despair.

He'd also heard that these tales were some sort of half-truths of encounters with the Old Gods, and if that was the case, he did not want to become one of those insane drowned sailors, so the best thing for him was to not look behind him.

It worked for all of ten seconds when he heard the sound of deep, loud breathing behind him. He dropped everything he was holding, and booked it as faster than he'd ever thought possible.

He heard loud thumping noises behind him as well, chasing after him, and if he wasn't so terrified out of his goddamn mind, maybe he would've screamed. The idea to call out for help popped up in his head, but the fear that coursed through his body prevented him from doing anything else besides running for his life.

And boy, did Tom run fast. He didn't think himself capable of running particularly fast, especially given that he was so accustomed to the wobbling waves of the sea and had perpetual sea legs, but he was really glad to know that his body was capable of keeping him alive in dire situations. Such as the one he found himself in now.

For a few moments, Tom actually thought he might've gotten away from whatever had been chasing him, until it ran in front of him, stopping him right in his tracks.

He screamed.

He quickly stopped screaming once he realised what he was looking at.

The light from a nearby streetlamp was the only thing illuminating the beast that was in front of him, and when he could finally see the details of it, he almost face-palmed.

It was the bloody wolf!

Tom leaned against a nearby house's wall to pant and exhale a sigh of relief. He thought he was being chased by some eldritch horror, not a fish-obsessed wolf. Though, now that he thought about it, maybe being chased by a wolf was not such a good outcome, either. He could've been activating its prey drive by running away, and if it was truly hungry...there really would've been nothing stopping it from killing and eating him.

He took another look at the wolf that had sat in front of him, and it seemed like she wasn't trying to actively hunt him. At least...he hoped so.

"I'm sorry Wolfy, but I don't have any fish on me right now. Haven't caught none, yet."

Tom reached his arms out towards the wolf to let her sniff his hands, and as she did so, she seemed to understand that he had no fish on him. He did have an overall sea water smell to his body, but any fishy scents that he had on him were dull, and obviously from the day before.

"Go on now...shoo! I've got work to do" He said, motioning with his hands for her to go away. He really couldn't be wasting any time if he wanted to be bringing in enough money for him and his father.

The wolf only seemed to follow him, though, as he doubled back where he came from to grab all the stuff he had unceremoniously tossed when he'd thought he was going to die. She sniffed some of the items that were strewn about, hoping that maybe his pack would contain fish, but they smelled exactly as he did: salty, but not fishy.

To Tom, it seemed as though the wolf had finally lost interest in him once she had thoroughly sniffed both him and every object that he was carrying and holding, but as he continued his way down to the docks, she still followed him, like a lost puppy.

The wolf seemed far from lost, and she was by no means a puppy, but she was definitely following him. No amount of 'shooing' would get her to leave him alone, either.

He was stuck with her.

Tom was glad when he finally reached the docks, because it meant that he would finally be able to enjoy some time by himself, without the gruff criticisms of his father, or the too-curious sniffing and nipping of the white wolf that wouldn't leave him alone.

That didn't mean, however, that it was going to be easy for him to go out onto the water.

He'd jumped into the small, red sailboat and put down all of his equipment as he started to put the sail up and bring the anchor back up from the water. He was about to untie the boat from the dock when he heard a whining sound coming from the wooden platform close to the boat.

The wolf was whining and huffing at him, and she leaned down to put a huge paw into the water, splashing at it.

She wanted to go with him

"Oh, like hell ye coming with me, pup! Ye too bloody heavy! I'll be back in a couple hours, and ye can have some fish then, alright? Just be a good wolf and stay there, please. Don't come swimming after me for the love o' the Light."

He untied the boat from the wooden pole rising up from the water. She whined again, and continued to splash the water, this time with more gusto.

"Stop that! I said ye can't come with!"

The wolf wiggled it's body and got into a crouched position. Tom thought this was rather cute for a few seconds, until he realised what she was doing.

She was preparing to jump.

Onto his boat.

"Don't ye dare, ye little shite!"

Quickly, Tom grabbed a spare paddle he had on the sailboat and reached over to whack the wolf with it. He really didn't want to whack her, but he also really didn't want the boat to be tipped over by the massive weight of the wolf, either.

It barely registered as pain to her, given that she was built like a mountain, but it was enough to get her to understand that she could not come with him.

"Stay here. I'll be back, Wolfy."

And with that, Tom was off.

Several hours passed before Tom returned to the dock with a boatful of fish, and to his complete and utter amazement, the wolf was still there when he'd arrived.

He couldn't believe that the wolf had seriously sat there for hours just for a couple of bloody fish.

Deep within his mind, he was incredibly impressed at the amount of patience she had.

When Tom managed to get the boat properly docked, and started to unload all the fish into a cart, he looked over to the wolf who was sitting close by, focused as ever.

What his father didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

Tom walked up to the wolf to give her a few really good pets behind the ears and under her chin like he had last time, and he laughed a bit as the wolf sniffed his hair.

"Alright, alright. Here, I'll give ye a few fish to make up for me whacking ye with me paddle."

He went over to the cart and grabbed two fish, and threw them over to the waiting wolf. She caught them in her mouth, but she didn't leave immediately like he thought she would. She walked up to him again, and put her head underneath his hanging arm.

She wanted more pets.

Tom smiled and scratched her for a few more minutes before both of them had to leave.

"See ye 'round then, Wolfy!"

The wolf trotted off with two fish hanging out her mouth, as Tom pushed the cart up to the market.

Hopefully the next time they saw each other, she wouldn't try to con him out of his fish with her fluffiness.

When the orc had woken up in the morning, he'd nearly had a heart attack.

Usually, he woke up with Kal by his side, huffing at him to take her on a walk, give her breakfast and wrestle with her. But that morning, he'd woken up to a wolf that was gone and a front door that was wide open.

By my axe, she's escaped!

He was truly panicking, much more than he had been when she'd decided to run off the day before. Then, she'd only decided to walk down a different alleyway than he did, which caused him to lose her. Her snaking her way through Theramore's alleyways and streets like she'd lived there her entire life definitely didn't help matters.

This time, however, it seemed that she'd straight up barged out the house, instead. Either that, or he'd forgotten to lock the door, which he hoped that was the case.

He took a second to investigate the lock and hinges on the door to see if they were broken, and was relieved to find that the door had simply been unlocked all night.

At least he wouldn't have to deal with the predicament of a wolf that knew how to escape.

He had another predicament, though: finding Kal.

Again.

He knew Kal like the blade of his axe, and if Kal was anywhere, she would be where the fish were at, and that would either be at the docks, or at the market. He decided he'd go down to the docks first, as it was a bit too early for the market to be open yet.

He didn't make it that far, as when he turned the corner of one of the buildings, he ran straight into Kal, who had two fish in her mouth this time around.

He sighed out of exasperation.

"Kal...what the hell were you doing? You're going to make my heart stop, one day."

Kal wagged her tail and bumped her snout against his hand. He gave in to her demands, and gave her a few scratches.

"You're a menace."

She made an undignified huffing noise at him, and he chuckled.

"One day I'll have to figure out where you're getting all that fish from. There's no way you're catching that all by yourself."

Kal only looked at him patiently, as if waiting for him to give her a command.

"Come on. Let's go for a walk."

She perked her ears up and followed behind the orc, prancing down the street with the fish flopping up and down in her mouth as she did so.

He'd figure out who was giving his wolf free fish later. For now, he was content to enjoy the cool morning breeze with his companion.

End notes: -The Fluffiest of Durotar- is Kal'Grok's official title, given to her by the denizens of Orgrimmar : )