It's a hard world out there

This is a story I wrote a while back in my own language and ran through Babelfish, which gave me a really incomprehensible version. I have been working on a proper translation on and off, and finally 'finished' it today, although it is still far from perfect. The story is about Darilas battling against unwelcoming forces in Silvermoon when he first arrived. Suffice to say, a lot changed since then, although his friendship with Pest stayed. He's called Darryl here, to shorten it. Some names of characters have been altered because I'm not sure whether the owners agree on me posting the story. Pest and Kiirin both did.


“You have to fight back,” is what they had told Darryl time and again. “Fight back, or he will never stop.” He tried to imagine that, while he saw the feared, blue-clad figure approaching from the corner of his eye. Why hadn’t he ran, away from this city, where nobody wanted to have anything to do with him? He had been beaten up, spat on, received a ‘warning’ from the bar’s owner. The previous day he had said goodbye to the few people who had been nice, mostly clients. He had left a message for the one person he hadn’t found. He had left it with two people. Why, then, had he returned after all? Deep inside, he knew. It was that one person he hadn’t seen yet… he wanted to tell him something. But what? He didn’t even know. And as a reward for his reckless behaviour, the one who had made clear how unwelcome he was, was now approaching.

Darryl was accustomed to rejection, scorn, even contempt. He had often been beaten up, too. People, particularly men, felt threatened by him. It was his source of income, the only thing that he was fairly good at. He was a whore, an escort ... there were so many names. Darryl himself preferred the term 'professional company'. For every customer he got there were ten people who wanted to beat him. They could not stand the fact that the got the prettiest women to follow him, or that he aroused feelings in them, which they rather wanted to suppress. Usually he could seek protection from senior clients, or stronger street rats, his own kind. This time his greatest enemy was... just an underdog like himself. And for the underdogs of the world there the law of the jungle still applied.

He was not strong. Yes, muscular, to be appealing. But he could not fight. He was scared. The sight of Kiirin, who came towards him, made him tremble. Kiirin was a half-blood elf/troll ... a monstrous distortion. His teeth were like razors and one of his eye sockets was covered with a dirty bandage. When he had seen him first, he did not think he would get so many problems with him. He had observed how others laughed at Kiirin, humiliated him or were condescending to his word. Darryl had even thought he could be a potential customer. Despite his low standing, Kiirin had money. How he got it was not clear, but that did not matter. If someone looked like a customer, anything else did not matter. Business is business and love is bad for business. That was Darryl’s motto.

Anyway, he had not directly approached him, but had used the occasional remark, a wink adopted a pose. As usual. Soon there was a customer at him with an unusual request. The dirty forsaken man had a fish with him and had wanted to use it on him. Oh, it was quickly earned, and Darryl had allowed it to happen in front of the other bar goers, who turned out to be shocked faster than he had expected. The half-blood in blue had tried to shove them through a portal, but it all went so fast that there had been no time.

In a small Group, Darryl was now known as ‘Fish boy’, but he didn’t care much. Maybe he had lost one or two potential jobs, but the rest of the city was still available. The next day he was back into the pub, at ease, hoping to find a customer. The only two others there were the half-blood and a big black tauren with the appearance of a mad bull. Darryl was sporting an even shorter pair of shorts than usually, which didn’t leave much to the imagination. He approached Kiirin, just for a chat, but soon heard the other male call a challenge. Not thinking about what could happen; Darryl had placed a flirtatious remark. Kiirin suddenly stepped back and kicked him in the crotch. He could just release: "What was that for?" or the Bull, as he called him, had him grabbed his ankles and lifted him up into the air, at least two meters above the ground. Apparently, the Bull was after the money from his pockets, but to Darryl’s luck he just happened to have an old sock stuffed on top of his coinage and nothing fell out. Disappointed, the Tauren threw him down, right on his head. Darryl immediately lost consciousness, and that was a good thing because the Bull deliberately stepped on his wrist, which split with a sickening sound.

To Darryl’s good fortune, others by now had entered the bar, including Susie the barmaid, who was a gifted healer. She had cared for his injuries and almost effortlessly made the wrist heal. When Darryl came to, Susie sat next to him, flanked by Silvester, a blonde beauty, who Darryl had flirted with before, but who had had a negative reaction to the idea of paid love. Silvester was now worried about him and that had given him a pleasant, warm feeling. Not much later, however, the troll who owned the bar approached Darryl and 'warned' him to no longer try to practice his profession within the walls of the pub. Discouraged, Darryl had made preparations to leave town. Silvester had been called away for commitments elsewhere, so he had asked some others to bid his farewell to him. He hadn’t come far. Just outside the town he had seen a group of people he knew, including Susie and Silvester. He had looked at them from a distance, and suddenly felt the desire to speak with Silvester again.

Behind a tree, unnoticed by the others, he fell asleep and returned to the city the next day, where he searched for Silvester. He eventually saw him sitting on a bench in the pub, but Darryl did not dare to go inside and left. So it went on for a few days, until he dared to venture into the pub again. The owner was nowhere in sight, just a forsaken whom he had often seen talking to Silvester. He just wanted to ask him if he expected Silvester soon when he saw Kiirin approach. He had tried to hide, but it was too late and Kiirin had punched him in his stomach and threatened him severely. Terrified, Darryl had burst into tears. Right then -thank the gods- a guard came in and ordered Kiirin to leave Darryl alone.

It had been a brief respite. The acquaintance who had helped him earlier, had tried to teach Kiirin a lesson. It ended in a bloody brawl in which Darryl was just crying and trembling while watching how his friend lost his life. Then, he had to flee. But instead he threw himself at the feet of Kiirin, begging to leave him alone, he would do anything ... Grinning, Kiirin had asked him to stand, he made as if to kiss and – with his razor teeth he bit a piece of Darryl’s tongue and swallowed it. The latter fainted of shock and blood loss, to be found by the Silvester’s forsaken friend, who had patched him up. Finally, now he should be safe, right? Kiirin had had his joke with him, consumed part of him, now it must be finished… Darryl felt somewhat comfortable… until he saw Kiirin once again from the corner of his eye. There were several witnesses now, surely he wouldn’t ...
"Fight back," one girl told him, he knew her only as 'Pest', doubtless a nickname from her time in the thieves’ guild. Pest stood beside him, but didn’t intervene when Kiirin began his scornful remarks again. "You would leave me alone!" Darryl brought in. “Oh? Did I say that? Oh, I must have lied ... "was the reply. Fight back, fight back ... it flashed through his head. How could he fight back? Without much hope, he blew on his fingers ... in the past; he managed to tame a large wild cat, which had often helped to keep difficult clients at a distance.

Again came the beast, he had no idea where from, running towards the sound of the familiar whistle. It felt the threat posed by Kiirin, and all the hairs stood up on his back. Kiirin kicked his foot out to the beast, which sprang forward and bit down in the limb. Darryl tried to get Kiirin off-balance by pushing him, and that worked. Unfortunately, Kiirin got hold of him in his fall, grabbed his ankle and broke it with amazing strength of his hands. Darryl screamed out in pain, he fell down right beside Kiirin with a dull blow, the latter who added to the fun by letting him fall on Darryl’s back with his full weight. The blow got near to breaking Darryl’s back. Now the trained muscles in his torso payed off, because they prevented the result from being worse than a sprain.

At last, the audience finally deemed it time to interfere with the beating. Pest called for Kiirin to stop and tried to pull Darryl away. Another female viewer, however, chose Kiirin’s side and dealt with the cat. Darryl had, with a face contorted by pain, to watch how his cat was hit by a deadly bolt: the woman had spoken some words with a nasty undertone, against which the beast could not fight. A curse ... here were forces at work that Darryl could not hold up against. Pest, however could, she could take on both Kiirin and the other woman. Her attempt to stop Kiirin was apparently successful - the half-breed stood petrified as Pest's magic made frantically attempted to change him into a teapot. The warlock however succeeded to distract her with a kick in the shins and Kiirin broke loose. "Let me not to start a real fight," said the half-blood and lunged at Pest diaphragm with a wave of his cleaver. She was too fast for him however, and reached for it, forcing it out of his hands. Then Kiirin grabbed Darryl by his long, dark hair and began pulling him outwards. Paralyzed by pain and fear, he was unable to resist. He knew what awaited him; he would be killed like his cat. It would only take longer, and Kiirin would hurt him as much as possible.

Pest and the unknown warlock followed them, fighting amongst themselves. Once they had arrived at the city gates, Kiirin attempted to freeze Darryl’s body and hurl it towards Pest. Simultaneously, the warlock muttered a curse that set the victim’s body aflame. Screaming in pain, Darryl was thrown towards Pest, who at the last moment used a spell to change his course and extinguish the flames. Darryl was dying, and he knew it. There was no way he would survive, if he were not quickly brought to a healer. Pest knew this too and managed to knock Kiirin out with a well-aimed blow to the back of his with a flying crate, which she had conjured out of thin air. The warlock then run to Kiirin’s side, paying no attention to Pest, who cried: "Run!" She followed up on her own command, dragging Darryl along by the means of a floating spell. Running through the streets at full speed, with Darryl’s dying body behind her, Pest began to sum up theories about what she could do. "I can put your brains into someone else's body. Then you won’t live on, but it's amusing, "she mused. He could only give her a pleading look, his lungs were singed and his lips molten together.

Eventually, however, Pest decided to go against her own threat. Instead, she brought him to the priest-trainer. Even she had great difficulty to repair Darryl’s badly damaged body. "It will take weeks before he has really recuperated," said the woman. At that point, Darryl lost consciousness again, exhausted, still half convinced that he had died. Pest let him float calmly behind her through the city. At the auction house she spotted a man she had seen talking with Darryl earlier. "Here, you care for him now," she said cheerfully. Darryl’s' body was dumped like a sack of grain at the feet of the astonished man. Pest had already gone. "Hey …” the man stammered, shaking Darryl back and forth. When he opened his eyes, Darryl was sure he was dead. A blonde angel...

My goodness, is this what's going on in Silvermoon City nowadays? Lovely.

On a more serious note, I really think this was just absolutely excellent. You have a real ease of style and writing that's just a pleasure to read, despite how short Darryl's shorts are and how many fishes are waved in his direction ... I won't (and don't want to either!) comment any further on Darryl's err ... quirky profession. Nevertheless, well done on a really well written story - especially considering you translated it!

mind you, the story took place in january or februari. He's a respectable soldier now ^^