{"sf1_id":1148515,"sf2_id":"A1pjM8Jm","title":"Tauren Tale, Chapter 8","author":"gre7g","words":2425,"posted_at":"2017-02-23T15:32:00.000Z","tags":["Adventure","Fantasy","Magic","Minotaur","Slavery","Tauren","Werewolf","Worgen"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1148515-tauren-tale-chapter-8","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/A1pjM8Jm","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/c8/a6/c8a6a3d5-01a7-465a-889d-00bd02db011f","description":"#8 of Tauren Tale","content":"Kazbo ran after the Tauren, down, down into a depression in the desert floor. At the bottom, he found the pair in deep scrub brush. Sanja was climbing a scrawny tree - the only one without thorns that they had seen since entering Desolace - and Jorga circled underneath her, holding the pack open for her to drop things down into it.\n\n\"What is that tree?\"\n\n\"It's a jacao,\" she shouted down at him, dropping another large pod down into the pack.\n\nThe Gnome picked up one of the jacao fruit from where it had fallen into a scrub. It was bright yellow and the same sort of size and shape as a tangerine.\n\n\"Don't eat that!\" Sanja shouted. \"Jacao fruit is poisonous. It might not kill you, but you'll get... well, you could end up dying of dehydration. I doubt we could find enough water to keep you alive.\"\n\nKazbo dropped the fruit and wiped his hands on his blood-stained shirt.\n\n\"So the beans...?\"\n\nShe wagged her head from one side to the other. \"Poisonous too, actually. But you can bake them in the coals of a campfire until they scream.\"\n\nJorga looked at him and made a quiet\u0026nbsp;_eee!_\u0026nbsp;noise to imitate steam escaping.\n\n\"Then you can eat them safely.\"\n\nThe Gnome made an unhappy face. He wasn't sure which was better, cactus that tasted like \"green,\" the haunch of a dying man, or a poisonous nut that\u0026nbsp;_should_\u0026nbsp;be safe to eat.\n\nSanja was busily cutting pods away with her knife and dropping them into the bag. She paused for a moment and looked down at the Gnome. \"Kazbo, tell me, what is your favorite thing to eat, in all of Azeroth?\"\n\n\"My favorite?\" He tugged on his bright, pink beard. \"Well, in Stormwind, there is a\u0026nbsp;_tavern_\u0026nbsp;called\u0026nbsp;_The Golden Keg_.\" He used some Common words, since he knew no Taurahe translation. \"The owner, a human named Colin, he makes\u0026nbsp;_quail_, and he stuffs it with mushrooms and nuts.\"\n\nHe closed his eyes, remembering the beautiful aroma and the glistening beads of fat on the perfectly crisped skin. \"I do not know if anything could taste better.\"\n\n\"Well,\u0026nbsp;_our_\u0026nbsp;favorite food is The Sleeping Calf.\"\n\nJorga nodded in a wildly exaggerated manner.\n\n\"It's a piece of warm flat-bread, smeared with a huge glob of jacao, and sprinkled lightly with salt.\" She looked down at the little man and gestured with her hand. \"You tear the end off of a baked pod and squeeze the nut paste out like... well, into a glob. Before you spread it, it looks a little like a calf on a sleeping mat.\"\n\n\"It looks a lot more like poop!\" Jorga laughed but then grew somber. \"If you say that, then adults say something like, 'I guess you won't want any.'\"\n\n\"Yeah. We don't have any bread or salt, but I bet the jacao still tastes good without it.\"\n\n\"So these trees grow in Mulgore too?\" Kazbo asked.\n\nSanja shook her head. \"Definitely not. The only way to get jacao in Mulgore is to trade for it. Orcish traders like Thurg, Elizabeth's owner, gather it from Desolace and bring it in.\"\n\n\"Trade?\" Kazbo tried to imagine what a people without technology could possibly have to trade. \"What do they trade for jacao?\"\n\n\"Well, pottery, of course,\" Jorga responded. \"That's all traders ever want.\"\n\n\"We always make extra pots, just in case any traders come through.\" Sanja added.\n\nKazbo scratched his head. \"So, Orcs love pottery? I never would have guessed that. They just seem so...\"\n\nSanja laughed. \"Oh, I doubt it. They just sell it to Goblins.\"\n\nThe little man sat down in the sand. \"Hey! There's water here!\" he shouted suddenly.\n\nSanja leapt from the tree and began digging in the sand beneath the scrub brush. \"You're right! There's a lot of water.\"\n\n\"Why is it... orange?\" Jorga whispered.\n\n\"The stream must flow under the ground, through a large...\u0026nbsp;_deposit of iron ore_.\" he completed in Common. \"_Rust_\u0026nbsp;should not make it poisonous.\"\n\nSanja studied the edges of the puddle for a long while. \"I see insects!\" she shouted in joy. \"It must be safe.\"\n\nBoth of the Tauren dove face-first into the puddle and began to lap it up.\n\nEveryone was thirsty. They had been rationing their water carefully since the beginning of the journey.\n\nKazbo waited patiently and stared at the twin tails drawing lazy figure-eights in the desert air. He eventually started to wonder if the Tauren could be related to camels.\n\nWhen they could drink no more, they rolled out of the way and laid on their backs.\n\n\"Tastes yucky,\" Jorga said.\n\n\"This is the best day...\" Sanja started to say before stopping herself. \"Well, this day is getting better. A lot better than yesterday, at least.\"\n\nThey built a small campfire and rested, thankful that they could finally take their time without fear of being spotted by Centaurs.\n\n* * *\n\n\"You're going to burn your mouth,\" Sanja admonished, but she couldn't really blame the boy for not waiting until the jacao pod was cool. Everyone was hungry.\n\nKazbo cautiously slurped the warm meat out of the singed jacao pod. It was the nuttiest flavor that he had ever tasted. Smooth, buttery, and a little sweet. He swished it around in his mouth a long while before swallowing.\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"I do not think this is quite as good as\u0026nbsp;_quail_,\" he said at last. He closed his eyes. \"But I can imagine it on top of bread and sprinkled with a little salt. That must be... amazing.\"\n\nThe Taurens nodded in unison.\n\nThe trio laid back and stared up at the stars. \"So the Tauren make pottery. I did not know that,\" Kazbo said casually. \"Do you know who is crazy about pottery?\" The siblings looked up, but didn't speak. \"Draenei.\" He nodded his head.\n\n\"Draenei can never get enough pottery. They hang it on their walls when they run out of\u0026nbsp;_shelves_.\" Kazbo had gotten into the habit of shifting seamlessly to Common whenever he did not have a translation for a word. Quite often, he found, when Sanja did not know what a Common word meant, that no amount of description would help explain it.\n\nKazbo sat up, suddenly. \"In fact, I have a Draenei friend - a big fellow, named Belenkar - who gave me clay bowl as a gift. Can you believe that he once\u0026nbsp;_sailed_\u0026nbsp;all the way to the Goblin city of Booty Bay just to...\"\n\nThe Gnome's mouth fell open and he stared at the Tauren.\n\n\"Is... is Tauren pottery brown and have black and white lines on it?\" he stammered.\n\n\"I like to draw circles on them sometimes!\" Jorga volunteered. \"Circles are more fun than the lines.\"\n\nKazbo was silent for a long moment. \"How could I have not seen this earlier? The bowl my\u0026nbsp;_wife_\u0026nbsp;keeps fruit in must be Tauren-made!\" He laughed and slapped his knee. \"It would be so\u0026nbsp;_bizarre_\u0026nbsp;if your family made my bowl!\"\n\nJorga smiled, but Sanja looked confused. \"What is a 'wife'?\"\n\n\"Oh, sorry,\" Kazbo said. \"My mate.\"\n\nSanja's brows furrowed. \"Gnomes mate in the summer?\"\n\nHe giggled nervously. \"Well... um... heh...\"\n\n\"Tauren mate in the fall,\" she explained.\n\n\"Oh! Well, Gnomes take a mate for life. I call her my\u0026nbsp;_wife_, and she calls me her\u0026nbsp;_husband_.\"\n\n\"So you have a calf?\" Jorga asked.\n\nKazbo laughed loud. \"We have two sons, but they are grown up now and have families of their own.\" He smiled at the boy. \"One has a daughter who is about your age. She turned seven before I left on this voyage.\"\n\nThe pair stared at the Gnome in silence.\n\n\"How can your granddaughter be seven?\" Jorga asked.\n\n\"Do you mean, seven summers and summer winters?\" Sanja added.\n\n\"Yes, she is seven years old,\" Kazbo said, confusion evident on his face.\n\nThe girl scrabbled in the dirt for a moment and then put seven small stones into the Gnome's open hand. \"Seven?\" she said, making sure she understood correctly.\n\n\"Yes, seven.\"\n\n\"But how can that be? My grandmother, my father's mother is only eight.\"\n\n\"Eight?\" Kazbo gasped. He picked up another small stone and poured the pile back into Sanja's hand. \"Eight years old?\"\n\nThe Tauren nodded in unison.\n\n\"So, then how old are you, Jorga?\"\n\nJorga looked to his sister and then back to the tiny man. \"All Tauren are born in the spring,\" he said as if it were obvious.\n\n\"You were born\u0026nbsp;_this_\u0026nbsp;year?\"\n\nWhen he nodded, Kazbo shifted his gaze to the girl. \"And you, Sanja?\"\n\n\"I'm a yearling, of course. Why, how old are you?\"\n\n\"I'm...\" the Gnome hesitated, suddenly uncomfortable, \"one hundred and six.\"\n\n\"But no one lives that long!\" Jorga shouted.\n\n\"Gnomes do,\" Kazbo explained. \"I've met a Gnome who is over two hundred and fifty years old.\"\n\nSanja scratched her head. \"You know... Elizabeth had told me that she was sixteen and I thought that she must be lying. The oldest Tauren in our tribe is only fifteen.\" She started nodding. \"But I guess not every race lives the same length of time, do they?\"\n\n\"No, they do not,\" Kazbo responded. \"In fact, the Night Elves were once\u0026nbsp;_immortal_.\"\n\n\"My father said that once. He said they were 'eternally youthful and that they never aged, no matter how many seasons passed,'\" Sanja said, \"but I couldn't believe him.\"\n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"Well, how could that be true? Every year new calves are born and some of the oldest Tauren die,\" Sanja explained. \"If the elders stopped dying, then there would be a whole lot of Tauren.\n\n\"So, I told the elders, 'If the Kaldorei were once immortal, then why are we not up to our horns in Night Elves?'\" Sanja nodded her head, purposefully.\n\nKazbo smiled. \"You are a very clever young woman. So what did the elders say to that?\"\n\n\"Bo thought that perhaps most of the Night Elf bulls did not know how to impregnate Night Elf cows. This made all of the elders laugh.\" Her face turned angry. \"No matter how I asked, no one would explain why this was funny.\"\n\nThe Gnome stroked his beard with one hand and worked to stifle his own mirth.\n\n* * *\n\nIn the morning, the trio returned to the road with a full water skin and a backpack that brimmed over with jacao pods. They hiked north at a much more leisurely pace and stopped frequently to hunt for for rabbits and to let Kazbo rest.\n\nTo the Tauren's surprise, hunting in the desert was much easier than it had been back in Mulgore. Instead of hiding in deep holes, Desolace hares would run into nearly impenetrable cholla bushes. This defense would work perfectly on most predators, but the spines offered little protection against Sanja's spear.\n\nWater was scarce, of course, but there was actually some to be found if you were not in a hurry. They were certainly not, and were all too glad to let Theodore get way, way ahead of them.\n\nThey did not see him anywhere, and he was far from missed. They once stopped at a campsite near the road that still had the remnants of a campfire.\n\nSanja picked up a piece of firewood that had not burnt completely. The rubbed the charred tip and looked at her fingers. \"Theodore probably camped here,\" she said, showing her blackened fingertips to the others. \"This was probably burned within the last few days.\"\n\nShe dug briefly into the ashes and shook her head. \"No warm coals. Good. He must be over a day ahead of us.\"\n\nThe three stayed awake until all hours, laughing and sharing stories. Kazbo never told the siblings to go to sleep and Jorga reveled in his new-found freedom.\n\nThe boy got homesick at times and even cried once, but there was nothing that could be done for it. The road was a lonely place.\n\n* * *\n\nKazbo grinned like a child when he spotted the clay banks of the oasis. He grabbed a pointed stick and plopped down in the mud without worry for his nearly-ruined clothing.\n\n\"Here, look,\" he said to Jorga. \"Three little lines beside each other... that represents the 'hhh' sound.\"\n\nJorga looked to his sister and then back to Kazbo's impressions in the mud.\n\n\"A triangle, that's the sound 'orrr'. And then a slash, that's 'nnn'. And finally a dot. That's the 'sss' sound. Put them all together and that\u0026nbsp;_spells_\u0026nbsp;hhorrnnss.\"\n\nThe Gnome grinned stupidly. \"Get it?\"\n\nJorga shrugged. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Well, it would not have to be here in the mud. I could make these marks anywhere and they would still say 'horns'.\" He studied the boy's blank expression. \"I could carve these in a tree, or put it on a piece of\u0026nbsp;_paper_, or\u0026nbsp;_write_\u0026nbsp;it anywhere, really. And if you saw it, and you knew what each symbol sounded like, then you would know that I was telling you 'horns'. Get it?\"\n\n\"But why would you tell me 'horns'?\"\n\nKazbo shook his head and waved his mud-covered hands. \"It would not have to be just 'horns,' why if you knew the symbols, then I could\u0026nbsp;_write_\u0026nbsp;any message and you would know how to\u0026nbsp;_read_\u0026nbsp;it. And you would know what I was telling you.\"\n\nJorga nodded for a moment and then started to shake his head. \"Wouldn't it just be easier to tell me?\"\n\nThe Gnome pointed up with a single finger. \"Ah, but something wonderful happens when you can\u0026nbsp;_read_. If I can\u0026nbsp;_write_\u0026nbsp;something down, then you can\u0026nbsp;_read_\u0026nbsp;it later. We don't have to be in the same place at the same time.\"\n\nThe boy shrugged, not really understanding the significance of this, or why it would be worth the effort to learn a bunch of symbols.\n\n\"Oh, I get it,\" Sanja said. She knelt behind the boy and put her hands on his shoulders. \"So if everyone could\u0026nbsp;_read_\u0026nbsp;and\u0026nbsp;_write_, then storytellers could save their stories, and you could hear them whenever you wanted. You wouldn't have to wait for someone to tell it to you.\"\n\nJorga looked up at his sister.\n\n\"So you could hear the story of the Hammer and the Knife, and I could hear the story of the Warrior and the Butterfly,\u0026nbsp;_at the same time_.\" She grinned wide. \"And I wouldn't have to listen to that stupid, impossible story you like ever again.\"\n\n\"Hey!\" Jorga shouted. He turned around and gave his sister a shove. \"The Hammer and the Knife is\u0026nbsp;_funny_. It's way better than the stupid butterfly story.\"\n\nJorga started prancing around in the mud. \"Oh look at me. I'm too sad to fight a war! I wish I were a stupid butterfly.\"\n\nSanja threw the\u0026nbsp;_first_\u0026nbsp;glob of mud.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"Tauren Tale","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1146677-tauren-tale-chapter-7.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1150795-tauren-tale-chapter-9.json"}}