Another bright, sunny day in Elwynn. That meant markets, field work, children playing. It also meant that Haemon Shadowind was to be found in one of his favorite places.
"I am sorry I have not been out in a few days. I am still adjusting to having a dependent." The elf, hair shorn to his shoulders, appeared to be speaking to the tree he faced. Given his race and occupation, that would certainly not be unusual. Few druids, however, spoke to trees so personally. "We will be all right, though. I do not want you to worry about her."
His gaze turned from the flowers he was restlessly rearranging to the sky. "Laurus...I have not heard from him since we argued a few months ago." Right before the mage had left to search, leaving a lonely little girl in his wake. The one thing Fells had left him, and he abandoned her. Bastard. But that wasn't for Fells to hear, if she was hearing this at all. "He likely still thinks you are to be found," the elf continued. "...I wish he was right."
Haemon had always been a man of few words, and fewer still in the past few months; that he had few to leave at the makeshift memorial was no surprise. The flowers said enough. "Grant him peace if you are able, Tara," he murmured, fingertips brushing the tree before he stood and bowed. "Elune adore." She'd always hated it when he bowed. Now, perhaps, she could accept it as respect for the dead.
As he walked away from the tree, something caught his attention. It wasn't the rustle of the bushes, nor the heavy plated footsteps that emerged from them. No, it wasn't until the soft "'lo, Shad," that came from much closer than he'd expected that he froze and turned slowly, paralyzed by the trickle of icy quills that seemed to flutter down his spine. The black, ominous armor and huge blood-forged blade clearly marked his hooded assailant as one of Arthas's, the death knights who so blithely claimed to owe allegiance to living kings now.
And this one just happened to wear the form of the woman he loved.
For a moment, it looked as though he might faint.
Well. We can file that under "Be careful what you wish for..." "You...You..." Fells. No. Fells was
dead. "Dal'dieb!" With his cry, his face twisted in anger. Imposter. How -dare- this thing approach him, mock him like this? "Anu no fulo, osa shando terro!" She didn't need to understand his words. The venom in them was plenty clear.
She frowned, and the expression lacked the genuine distress it should have detailed. "Shad, s'me."
"Dieb ano nor nór! ...ishnu!" His final curse delivered, the elf turned to run off, to gather his wits, to decide what to
do. He got about three steps before an arc of dark power cut across the landscape, grabbing his body and pulling it backward through the air and into the path of a runeblade.
"Don' run!" The sword should have gone clean through his arm, unprotected as he was in his simple shirt. It turned at the last second, though, and only cut a deep gash into his bicep. The reflexive punch to her face with his other arm did far more harm to him than it did to her helm, but it did push her back enough to let him turn and run once more. Five steps before the icy quills struck again; this time, they weren't metaphorical.
"I SAID DON' RUN, DAMMIT!" the counterfeit shrieked to the druid surrounded by icy chains. That he was a druid, of course, meant that this was not long the case. The chilled cheetah that took his place made it eight pained steps before he was again frozen in place.
Shift, run, freeze, march. The dance continued, rune power heralding the tromp of advancing metal boots, mana freeing the captive (if only momentarily), until at last the rune power did not come. He shot off down the road, leaving the fiend cursing over her recharging sigils.
That was when he learned that summoning a deathcharger required no runes.
It was a remarkable feat, really, the way she hit the mark just so, leaping from horseback to tackle him so expertly. The real Fells would never have dared. She'd've worried for hurting herself, and more for hurting him. It was already clear that this wasn't a factor anymore.
"Al'SHAR NO!" He struggled under her weight--the weight of that hideous armor. "Da dieb shari osa anar dath, fandu!" Fells was light as a feather. Just another sign of the obvious. "Do'ran anu ànu!" Not her.
"STOP FLAILIN'. 'M NOT GONNA KILL YA."
"O DATH OSA!" She was demanding, not pleading. Fells would never have said that to him. Fells wouldn't have -had- to! "Osa...asto're...ABOMINATION!"
She hauled back at the insult she could finally understand, and her elbow met his head with enough force to knock him out cold. "STOP. SQUIRMIN'."
"Ow, damn!" With the elf unconscious, someone less high-strung could step in, which was probably for the best for their bodily integrity. "You got fuckin' pointy elbows!"
A manic smile spread across her face, the sort that he'd used to get when he was trying to kill his soul partner. "Era! Era. Thank everthin'. He's addled." Like she was one to talk.
"Mmm." What to say to the unliving corpse of your best friend? Something simple, casual, a propos, that wouldn't make her break his neck. "So. You're dead, huh." He tried a smile. It was likely no more convincing than hers. "What's it like?"
For his efforts, he was released, if slowly. She sat back against a fencepost, trying to appear relaxed, but he could tell she was still coiled to pounce again if he tried to flee. "S'different. Everthin's...like, I can' feel m'toes. An' food tastes kinda like ash an' dirt." Her eyes left him, at least ostensibly, while she undid and removed her gauntlet. "But m'stronger. M'cold, too."
She wasn't lulling him into any sense of security, false nor true. In panther form, he paced a few steps to and fro before slowly approaching her outstretched hand. She didn't smell like the rot he'd expected. Rather, she bore a strong scent of ice. Frost, with a mere hint of decay, and a rich undertone of fury. "I won' hurt ya, damn!" she snapped at his tentativeness.
"You already
did," he snarled, retreating a step. If she'd somehow forgotten, the blood trickling down his foreleg was plain enough to see. He licked at it for emphasis.
She sighed. She may also have rolled her eyes--it was hard to tell with those solid blue orbs. "I didn' mean ta."
"You didn't mean to, huh?" he returned. He'd mock her more, but there was the great likelihood she'd just kill him for it. Unlike his alter ego, he did not have a death wish. "An' how'm I s'posed to trust you won't do it again?"
The blank stare was not a promising start. "I don' know," she intoned hollowly. "...but I won'."
A snort, and he retreated several more steps; just outside her sword's reach, but not so far that she'd advance. "I don't think that's really true. The Fells I know wouldn't hurt me. Wouldn't hurt us. And if she did?
First thing outta her mouth woulda been "Sorry.""
She blinked at him, open-mouthed, for a moment, as though the concept hadn't occurred to her. "'m sorry!" she blurted at last, rising to her feet. If that was as much feeling as she could put into it, she was going to have a hard time convincing
anyone. She sounded more like she was offended that he'd suggest she should be sorry. "He wouldn' stop runnin'! He wouldn' come close!" she announced. As though it were
his fault.
"Of course he ran! He's a druid!" He shouldn't have expected this to be easy. Even alive, Fells was never the sharpest tool in the shed. Death clearly wasn't a very enlightening experience. "To him, you're a perversion of all that's right in the world."
Hope sparked in him, for his message seemed to hit its mark, and her countenance fell. "I can go. If'n he needs." That was progress. Understanding. That was the caring, thoughtful woman he-- "Would killin' him make it easier on him? M'kinda good at it now." The innocent smile didn't match the betrayal in her words.
"Yeah," he sighed, facepawing, "you really ain't her."
"But s'me," she protested. The hand he'd sniffed was thrust forward again as proof. See? Body. "M'what's left."
"You're what someone put back together!" Frustrated, he shifted to elven form. Easier to talk with hands, for some reason. "But you ain't
her. If you cut down a tree and then build a tree out of it...it's not the same tree. It's a mockery." He shook his head. He was talking like a damned druid. Stupid elf was rubbing off on him. "I ain't denyin' your right to exist, babe. I'm just denyin' your right to call yourself Fells Drachmas." Also her right to come within five hundred feet of him.
One thing she didn't lack was Fells's stubbornness. She held the line. "The Neth...Era s'
me. Like it or not, s'me!"
"You just offered to kill your druid!" He rounded on her, forgetting for the moment that she was quite capable of doing just that. "Time was, you'd've died for him. Why'd you offer to kill him first?"
"...I don' know?" For the first time, her distress began to seem genuine. "...m'...still...me. M'the same person, jest got dealt a
damn odd hand. S'allat it is!" He wondered how much work she'd put into convincing herself of that.
Not that it mattered. "Well. Elf's never gonna 'gree with you." In his head, the druid was beginning to wake. He'd need to go soon, before he couldn't hold back the other soul's displeasure.
"His hair's short." A small physical change, and she sounded more suspicious of it than he was of her drastic personality shift. She even circled him to examine it, a move which made him infinitely nervous. "What happen't?"
"You died."
Cue blinking session number three. "Norra didn' know," she mused. "She said I jest up an' diss'peared. Didja find me?"
He shook his head. "Nope. Woulda gotten you buried proper if I had." And then we wouldn't be here.
"Then how...?"
"He was tyin' himself to your life force. Wanted to know the minute there was another in there." It had become as much a part of them as their own breath: the melodious sensation of her existence. When it had cut short abruptly, Haemon had been in Outland. In flight. He'd nearly fallen to his own death. "Pretty easy for him to tell when it was gone," he finished quietly.
She was silent for a moment. "I don' know that I can have babes now, by the by." Whether she was truly upset, or merely fishing, she was at least doing a good job with the act now.
Unfortunately for her, she was still talking to Era. "You can't." He knew. He'd watched trolls try. There were some things in nature that truly were impossible to pervert. "And if you could...you'd be on your own." At least as far as fertility treatments.
"No, I won'," she insisted confidently, entirely missing his meaning. "We's goin' t'find Laz, y'know. He's goin' t'Icecrown." She turned fully to him for the first time since her confidence had begun to waver, and eyed him critically. "I wantcha 'long. I miss havin' ya near. ...S'lonesome."
Somewhere in his mind, the druid burbled that the undead do not feel lonliness. This meant he was fast approaching sentience. No matter how much Era wanted to believe her, he'd never be able to hold back the druid's feelings. Certainly not for a whole trip through Northrend. "You'll just have to miss it more, then." His bleeding arm caught his attention. He did hope it wouldn't get infected. "I'm hopin' we don't run into each other again. 'Cause he'd try an' kill you."
His gaze flicked up just for a moment. Just long enough to see the small smirk on her lips. "Era. Y'know I 'dore ya." Did she think he was joking? Or did she think he was a joke? Whichever was the amusement, she shoved it aside in a flash, tearing her eyes from the blood. The smirk was gone when she looked at him again, a small, desperately hopeful smile in its place. "Can I have a hug afore y'go?" Her arms spread like gargoyle wings, and she offered the first "please" he'd heard out of her.
She
had to be crazy if she thought he was falling for a trap like that. And yet, there was enough of Fells in her that it was tempting, for his sake if not hers. Just one last hug. With just one condition. "Put the sword down."
Icy fingers involuntarily gripped the hilt of her weapon. Death knights, he knew, were supposedly powerless without their rune weapons, so it was no surprise she was reluctant. But it was too powerful a factor for him to risk it being close. If it was anything like Frostmourne, one touch could be fatal to his soul. Whether Fells thought of this or not, she apparently decided that he wouldn't try to take it, or that she could kill him quickly enough if he did. It stuck in the ground, a third of its length buried, when she advanced for her last embrace.
It was the coldest hug he'd known, in temperature as well as affection. Elf was right. She was missing something vital, essential. She was missing
love. And that made her last request all the more unfortunate. "Can y'call me Tara real quick?"
He opened his mouth to utter the beginnings of a long list of reasons he couldn't use the druid's nickname for her. Before he could speak, however, the druid answered for him. "You," he hissed, pulling away and holding her at arm's length, "are a
monster, not worthy to
speak that name, let alone claim it as yours." His golden eyes were wide, wild, like those of a cornered animal. "You are that name's opposite--MY opposite, for I am LIFE! And that means for you, Death Knight..." The title was spat, literally, and accompanied with a shove that sent her sprawling, clattering to the ground. "...to
you, I am death."
Then he fled.
The tiniest hints of regret had begun to creep into his subconscious half an hour later, which was likely what drew him back to the tree. He still would not allow for that thing being Fells...but perhaps he shouldn't have been quite so hard on it. Perhaps it was disrespectful to treat her body that way, even if it was being misused. Or perhaps, he realized when he arrived, he was in fact entirely correct.
Fells's tree was dead. Or dying. The trunk bore a crater two fists wide and full of black rot. It seemed to be the center of the devastation, a decay that radiated out onto the grass in a perfect circle. Spellwork, and nothing else, would leave such exact destruction. A death knight had been here. There was no room for doubt.
Neither was there room for doubt about the knight's identity. The flowers he'd left for his lost beloved were gone, save for one. In the soil at the base of the tree, a bloomless rose stem stuck straight out of the ground. The message could not be clearer. This meant war.
With a deep breath, Haemon began to concentrate. There was little time to save this first casualty.
((Translations, in order:
Imposter! Rot in hell, you zombie whore!
Fuck off and die! ...again!
Release me! Go back where you came from, ghoul! You're not her!
I HATE YOU! You...fucking...))