Such is Life

 ((Originally posted 2006/11/25))

A voice within her mind disrupted the search for a metal chain for the raptor hatchlings. Come out, Hakkajin. I'll be waiting. Hakkajin paused in mid-speech with the goblin merchant she was speaking to and hastily walked out into the jungle in order to have some space to think. The voice was unquestionably Uzil’s, but the tone was ominous. I'm at the overlook cliffs, north of Revantusk. We need to talk.

But in your letter it says 'Better hope I don't see you again'. Taking back your words? Her retort was in sarcasm. Wouldn’t he make up his mind?

No, it's just gonna be a hope in vain. When Hakkajin was well on her way towards Revantusk , Uzil asked ... Why? Why did she hurt his elf? Simple. It was an elf. She didn’t bother to reply that answer to Uzil. He knew her reasoning. She had argued it to Zue and Siwili the day before, but they couldn’t fathom her reasoning either! The elves had broke the world, the elves had a constant warfare against trolls. It was nature for the two races to kill each other!!

Uzil was just where he had said he was going to be. He was standing under a stone arch at the mid-section of the ramp up onto the cliffs, on the platform where the trail twisted to continue its path up. “Yeah?”, the girl asked him as she approached warily.

“... Don't do it again. Ever again.”

“Why?” Why did a troll protect a high elf?

“Because she's under my protection.”

That didn’t answer her unasked question. “..so?”

“And I'll kill you if you do. How's that?”

Disbelief shown from Hakka’s face and a sneer resonated from her, “You'll kill me?” Uzil didn’t have the heart to kill her. “As if you'd have the guts.”

“... Yes, that is what I said.”

“..so.. you choose a worthless elf over me?”

“You broke it off. I'm not 'choosing' her over anyone.”

“Yeah. You'd kill me over her. You're choosing an elf over a troll, an elf over a friend.” This wasn’t even about their former relationship. Of course, Hakkajin was shoving the fact that she was indeed extraordinarily jealous into the back corner of her mind, refusing to accept that she was.

Uzil loudly announced, “Welcome to Hakka's ludicrously flawed fantasy world. Hope you enjoy your stay”. Her expression hardened after a second of confused vulnerability in which he then continued, “... You can see it however you want.”

“What makes this elf so special? I thought you hated them.”

“Point remains, if you hurt her again, I will kill you. Hell, might kill you now. And this one made me laugh, and requested asylum. That's all. And No, I'm not you”. He would kill her..? Of course she didn’t believe him, but even so it still hurt. He had once made her believe that she was precious, that he had loved her, that she was wanted..and now he wanted to kill her. Such was life, now wasn’t it?

Hakka stared at him silently, brooding over those thoughts before faintly flipping her palms outward, “Well then Uzil, give it your best shot”. Such was life. A snarl rattled her lips.

“Won't be long till they're allies, at least the ones up north.”

“..as if I'd accept them.”

Uzil maneuvered his right arm until it popped, “You're not some government official. Well?”

“I don't need to be a government official to stand up for what I believe”. She hadn’t been a high priest in the temple, and yet she had attacked Jammal’an and had set bombs around the place.. Her eyes narrowed to watch Uzil as he began to pace around her like a predatory creature.

He took a swig of something smelling of strong alcohol from a flask he had been holding in his palm. “I promised Siwili I'd let you go first.”

She sneered, “So, the only reason you aren't 'killing' me is because of Siwili?”

“No, the only reason I'm not killing you is because I assumed you had some vague interest in staying friends”. Uzil continued maneuvering himself around her, his own hardened eyes never leaving Hakka, “Guess I was wrong.”

Hakkajin stood where she was and only shifted in order to maintain her body facing Uzil. The tension was so thick that one of them likely could have pushed it away physically. “Just because some elf makes you laugh you want to kill me? My my, fickle, aren't we?” She stepped on foot forward and tilted her head a sliver to the side as she spoke, “You're the traitor.”

“You're the one attacking people hoping for peace, who are under my protection. Traitor doesn't factor into it.”

“No.. I'm the one attacking our racial enemy. Fuck Uzil, I know the high elves must have killed countless numbers of your ancestors.”

“And if I'd done the same, you'd be a smear on the ground. ... Why the hell do you people keep saying that? I'VE killed hundreds of my 'relatives'! 130!” Uzil paused he pacing to stare at her meaningfully, “Anyway, I'm not leaving here without either assurance that Nenuial is safe from you, directly or indirectly, or you dead. Prefer the first.”

So that was what this had came down too? “I could have killed her.”

“And you didn't. I'm thankful for that. But it doesn't excuse beating her half to death just for knowing me.”

He was still pacing. It was terribly distracting..she had to keep turning in order to keep him in front of her. “Stop pacing before I knock you off this cliff.”

“And she pleaded for peace before you attacked her. And COME ON, then!”, he held out his arms mocking to her, urging Hakka to attack him.

The girl bared her teeth and bent her knees in preparation to launch herself at him, “Fucking stop it, Uzil.”

“Make me.”

A really deep snarl rattled her chest, but Uzil’s pacing only increased in order to anger her further. As he rounded around her side he spoke, “Two ways this can end. You a corpse, or you promising on whatever last vestiges of a relationship we have not to ever hurt her again”. He kept rounding around Hakkajin, but she held back that urge to lash out. “Am I gonna pace all day? Or can we start this?”

Hakka breathed out, “Until I break your legs.”
“Well?” He paused.

She strode up to where he stood and breathed into his face, “Waiting on you, bastard.”

Uzil didn’t back down, “Do you want this? You're starting it.”

“You said you'd start it. I'm not the one preaching death.”

“You are the one growling like a goddamn animal.”

“Makes more sense than your words.” Hakka snorted into his face.

“Are we starting this?”

Hakka corrected him, “Are 'you' starting this?” She wanted to make it a point that she wasn’t the blood thirsty little Amazon everyone thought her to be. She did have control… or maybe it was just that her internal feelings for Uzil prevented her from hitting him again? They were still there, afterall..

“Leave her alone, or die. How's that? Pick one.”

The girl feigned contemplation in mockery, but the answer had already been chosen from the very beginning. “Hm.. I'll pick die.”

“So be it.”

Uzil charged into Hakkajin and used his metal buckler as a tool to further the impact. Hakka responded by swiping her massive hammer against one of his legs. His blade barely found any openings in her plate armor, but when it did it surly left gashes. An oddity of his blade was that it sometimes even killed the skin that it made contact with, leaving blots of dead flesh in places where it could slip between Hakkajin’s armor.

Many of her attacks were deflected by his shield, leaving her open for his other arm to make jabs at her. She was a lot lighter than Uzil, and one of his jabs to her chest made her loose footing due to the force exerted by him..an excellent time for Uzil to make a killing blow, but unsurprisingly he didn’t take it.

The girl straightened herself back up with a “..heh.”

Uzil pointed his blade towards her and potently commanded, “Get down.”

“..Down?”, she questioned with a firm glare.

“Don't like you standing after you lose. Still not sure if I should end you or not.” At his full height Uzil was indeed menacing.. Hakkajin only stood at 5’8, at most, and Uzil had to have been at least two and a half feet taller than her..if not three.

She made no motion to lower herself and remained glaring defiantly. Uzil fiercely set her arms against her shoulders and exerted his strength against Hakka to try and force her down, but she managed to stay up by stumbled back. “Down.”, he commanded again. The girl gave him a malicious snarl, but he matched it right back with a growl of his own.

“No. How about you go and make that elf get 'down'?”, she sneered.

“... You're pathetic. Don't know when you've lost.”

Hakka sarcastically retorted, “Right. And that makes me pathetic.” Wasn’t that a strength?

“It is.”

Straightening herself, Hakka replied robustly, “If not giving up is pathetic..then yeah, hell I'm pathetic.” If there was one thing she was proud of about herself, that was it.

“Giving up? Bitch, I could have KILLED you right there.”

Despite being called a bitch, she merely smirked slyly at the boy in confidence, “Why didn't you? See. I knew you couldn't do it.”

“Because I hoped you'd be sufficiently cowed. I'm ready whenever. Round two.”

Without loosing the smirk the girl casually mocked, “Oh, again? I wonder how many times I'm going to 'die' today.”

“Figure I'll give you as many shots as I've got fingers on a hand.”

He used his shield to ram against her again and gain the upper hand by forcing Hakka to struggle to retain her footing. By the time she was stably standing again his attacks were already raining down onto her. This time, instead of aiming at her minimal exposed flesh he was using his sword to pry between the plates of armor and bend them upwards. Again, most of her attacks were thwarted by his shield..but at the same time his other hand was deftly using the sword to smash her armor into bits. With only one hand, Uzil managed to exert enough strength to nearly peel her shoulder plates from her body. Only a thin sliver of metal kept them hanging on.

No matter how hard she tried to slam her hammer into his face, his shield was always there to block it. If she aimed at his body, then he simply let his plate absorb the damage while focusing his attention on dismantling her armor. By then end..even her chest plate had an alarming crack zigzagging through the middle of it.

“... Your armor's in tatters. Get the hell down.”, he growled at her.

Hakka was panting deeply when she backed away from him to survey the damage he had done. Her shoulder plates were practically destroyed, her chest plate was about to split in half and one of her bracers had falling off..she didn’t even remember him ripping it from her. Plate metal! He had cracked fucking metal! Physically, she had nothing but a few nicks and patches of dead skin on the very surface.. As for him, he hardly seemed effected by her efforts..but..it looked as if a trickle of blood was draining from one of his legs..

“One last shot. Say you'll never do anything to her again, or the next one is real.”

She let out a defensive snarl and began to back away from Uzil nervously.. Maybe he was serious.. For twenty seconds neither of them said anything and simply stared firmly at one another. Not even a glare was spared.

Uzil lifted his blade and aimed it at Hakkajin’s throat, “Well? All I want, is for you to leave her alone. If I have to kill you for that?”

Finally, Hakkajin spoke her answer, “We don't always get what we want”, but Uzil finished her sentence for her.

“Such is life.”
“Yeah.” They agreed on one thing.

“... No promise?”

No specific facial features crossed Hakkajin’s expression..she was to focused. “How can I? She's an elf. I kill elves.”

“She isn't a threat, you were just being a sadistic bitch. So. Promise, or a promise of a quick death. Up to you. It's not a thing I do willingly, but she is my charge, and I will not just let her be hurt.”

…

…

…

“... Well? I'm not acting till you pick one.”

…

…

…

“Fuck you, Uzil.”

A dark expression glazed over his features, “... See you in hell, Hakka.”

This time Hakkajin met his charge and used her hammer to deflect the shield from knocking her off blanance. Uzil’s sword easily found access through her destroyed armor, especially her arms. Still, her hammer rarely found an effectively place to hit. Uzil was just to skilled with his shield, especially after all his time shielding the others in Zul’Gurub.

In desperation Hakka quick attempting to block Uzil’s slashes with the handle of her weapon and went completely offensive. She increased her swinging speed until her arms sung with exhaustion. At least she noticed a few dents in Uzil’s armor and hopefully some broken bones with that..but now all of her energy reserves had been used up, and her arms were bleeding freely. Hakka disengaged -- her upper body was slumped and her mouth was wide open to inhale as much oxygen as she could, but she kept her hammer up. Uzil ran at her ferociously to glide his blade across her left arm. There was a screech from when it hit her chest plate that amazingly hadn’t split apart yet.

Hakka tried to counter, but his shield came up way to fast for her to hope to hit him, so she feigned it away and brought it back to her. It appeared that she was struggling to stand.. The injuries weren’t to great, but Uzil had immense stamina in comparison to her..she was simply tired after futilely exerting all her energy in those wrathful swings..well, at least his shield looked a little dented..

Uzil stared down at Hakka with heavy breaths prior to pounding his palms into her chest. Her feet were to slow to catch her, and so she fell. Without wasting a second, Uzil was over her in a kneel with his knee keeping her pinned.

Unable to do anything else, Hakka snarled like a rabid beast. “..fuck you.”

“... Say goodnight, Hakka.”

She clenched her teeth while her eyes reflected their disbelief that this was actually happening.. Uzil pressed the blade of his small skinning knife gently against her neck -- the same blade that had skinned countless of Hakkar’s minions. The irony wasn’t lost on her.

She didn’t want to die.. Not like this. Not by Uzil. She wanted to die by someone she could hate. At least she wanted that..to be able to hate her killer. “.. You brought this on yourself.”

Hakka’s fearful snarls ceased..and she just stared up at the foreign face above her.

“Promise to never hurt her.”

…

…

…

…

“HAKKA.”

…

“Promise, never to hurt her. Never to even try to find her. If you break this promise, I will be there, and finish what I start today.”

…

“I'm not a liar like you”. Right as those words were finish a glob of spit followed to splash against Uzil’s eyelid. She wasn’t a liar. She wouldn’t tell someone that she loved them only to take another as a lover..

…

…

“... Then goodbye.”

…

He completed the cut. Crimson liquid erupted from her throat.

…

Her eyes were huge with shock and terror.

…

She didn’t want to die.

…

A large, circular object made of metal blocked the sunlight.

…

The buckler connected forcefully with her forehead.
…

She didn’t remember anymore.