Bruises (Part 1 of 5)

Adelheide woke slowly, her mind unusually hazy and slow this morning. Or was it morning? She wasn’t absolutely sure. The gnome opened her eyes and blinked them into focus. It took her a moment to realize that she wasn’t in her own bed.

Wha… where… OUCH!

She had tried to turn her head to shift her gaze – that was her mistake. That’s what prodded the rest of her body awake, and that’s when the pain finally registered on her slowly-waking mind.

Thinking feverishly around the pain, she recalled the night before. Nikolas had been busily puttering about in the workshop, and she’d felt the need to do a bit of field research on Horde battlefield behavior. She’d set out for Warsong Gulch again, bidding her distracted and diligently working technomantic wonder of a gnome farewell…
_____

“I’m off!” Adelheide chirped happily, giving Nikolas a quick hug.

Distractedly, Nik gave her a one-armed hug in return, his mind still half on his project. “Be careful, Addy,” he warned her gently.

“Oh, don’t worry so, Nik!” she replied easily, waving away his concern. “We’ll be fine, won’t we Spot!”

The mechanical squirrel chittered.

Nik frowned ever-so-slightly. “Hmm… maybe I should go with you. Just in case.”

“Nik, your project is important, and at a critical phase! Besides, you know you’ll just be worried about your experiment the whole time, if you go. Now go off back to work, and I’ll see you tomorrow, alright? I think I’m going to stop by and visit with Jharvis a bit. See how Abby is getting along with everyone.”

“Alright, Addy. Just be careful, alright?”

Adelheide grinned. “Of course! Aren’t I always?”

Nikolas frowned again. But Addy and Spot were already out the door.

Adelheide and Spot made their way through the busy streets of Ironforge towards the Military Ward. As usual, it was awash with people. War effort volunteers worked around the clock, collecting together supplies from everyone who donated, tall and small folk alike. From rough copper bars to steaming roasts of raptor meat, they collected, prepared, and packaged up everything, sending the much needed supplies far across the sea, to lands Addy had only read of. For a time, she and Spot watched the bustling activity with some interest – crowd dynamics were fascinating to study – but in the end, she put her notebook away once again, and hurried off to speak with the lady tall blue one staying with the sir general cousin dwarves in the ever-fascinating Armory.

…not that they ever allowed the curious young gnome anywhere near the truly fascinating areas, of course.

She sighed again, as the lady tall blue one nodded. “Indeed, friend gnome. We could use your aid. In fact…”