Rosellina's boots echoed loudly as she walked down the length of the dock, clipboard in hand. Wearing her normal civilian attire, she stood out from the others who worked in Stormwind's harbor only in that she was not currently drenched in sweat and lifting heavy objects on to or off of sailing ships.
She approached the end of the dock, pausing as she reviewed the crates piled there; a pile that was ever growing as men continued to remove additional crates from the depths of a nearby vessel and stack them along the edge of the wooden platform. The ship was owned by the Blackleaf Trading Company, and as part of Rosellina's duties she was taking inventory and ensuring that their latest acquisitions had all arrived intact.
Although her real objective in working for the trading company was to acquire intelligence information, she had to play the part of the dutiful agent and clerk in order to keep her cover story plausible. This meant spending several hours each day taking inventories, sending missives to other trading companies, and even balancing accounting records as needed. She had been thoroughly trained to perform such tasks by SI:7, even if she found the work to be tedious or dull at times.
After counting the crates in front of her, Rosellina paused, taking a moment to study the paperwork affixed to the clipboard before looking out over the sea and then around the rest of the harbor. Her eyes wandered over to a neighboring dock where workers were in the process of loading another ship when she paused.
The burly men on the other dock were lifting particularly heavy crates, many of which were three to four feet in length but flat and appearing to have a depth of only half a foot at most. Even with the relative shallow depth the men strained to lift stacks of the crates onto a net that would then be used to haul them up into the ship's hold.
As Rosellina watched, the dock's foreman walked out, standing amongst his men and encouraging them with jokes and a pat on the back here or there when it looked like their strength was failing in the extreme summer heat. Rosellina studied him, placing a boot on one of the crates in front of her and leaning on her own knee as she watched the men work.
The foreman was attractive to put it mildly. His bulging muscles strained each time he paused to help his men handle a particularly difficult crate. Sweat glistened in his short cropped black hair and ran down his cream colored neck, and she could see that he was just as hot and uncomfortable as the rest of his men, but showed no sign of it to keep them motivated. Rosellina watched with a half smile on her lips as he worked, studying his form.
Another wagon arrived on the neighboring dock, and the foreman nodded to the wagon driver before walking over to begin the process of unloading the additional crates. Rosellina found her heart pounding a bit in her chest as the well-built man reached up and pulled his shirt off, his perfectly sculpted body kissed by the sun as he bent to begin moving the newly arrived crates over to the pile where the others were being hauled up onto the ship.
Studying him keenly, she bit her lip, fanning herself a bit with her clipboard as the man worked. She likely wasted a good five minutes standing there, staring at him before a shadow fell over her and a gruff voice interrupted her daydreaming.
"Should just get a gnome to make a picture of 'em. It'll last ya longer lass!" the Blackleaf dock worker joked.
Rosellina instantly felt blazing embarrassment rush through her, the blood hurrying to color her dusky cheeks as the rest of the men working at the Blackleaf Trading Company's docks began to chuckle and mutter obscene jokes at her expense. She whirled around, not daring to make eye contact as she hurried away from the edge of the dock.
"Y-yes yes...e-everything's in order here. I s-should be going then," she muttered, pushing past the men who only began to laugh all the harder. Rosellina quickly walked away, hurrying down the dock until the laughter was no longer in her ears. When she was finally clear of it, she smiled to herself, shaking her head.
It had been worth it.
With a smile on her lips she walked back towards the city proper, an errant thought popping to mind as she went to go file her report.
Just what were those men loading that was so heavy? The ship had the Falconoak colors on it. One would think that given the fact that their Lord was almost just abducted, they would have other things on their minds than immediately sending out a shipment of...something.
A curious thought indeed, and one that Rosellina filed away for additional study and inclusion in her next status report.
No comments:
Post a Comment