"Another Day, Another Death"

[Delion]

((Keeps making me cry. Augh. I can't think of anything else to say right now, just, guh.))

[Bricu]

Why are you making the future so sad? Even bastard paladins are tearing up.

[Chrystal Kaleigh]

I say after everyone is done with their character death stories, we all turn around and write a "Happily what if after!" story!

I feel so outclassed reading this, but I sooooo don't care, such a fun read! Thanks for writing it!

[itanyablade]

Because the character death thing is easy to make dramatic.

A future where everyone is fat and happy... not as easy to write.

Of course, considering I made Pill's death rather low key... Ah well... I can't imagine her fat or happy... /mourn

[Delion]

There is no WAY Del is ever getting fat, or chubby, or anything more than he already is, thankyouverymuch. If anything he'll get thinner in a sort of Ian McKellan way.

As for happy? Who knows what'll happen... In the FUUUTUUUURRRE~

[itanyablade]

HAH! You know he'll end up with a little belly, sitting in front of the inn telling all the little elflings about how he had to walk uphill both ways to get to that furbolg camp. *snickers*

[Tarq]

Tarquin ap Danwyrith, of Stratholme and Stormwind City, filled his mind with his wife's face as the triggers slammed and the bolts flew; it was impossible to miss at that range. It would all be worth it, he thought at the last, if I could but say goodbye. The bolts hit him chest and stomach, groin and throat, tearing through leather, skin, flesh and organs, sending him flying backwards with his mouth open and his bright eyes going dull, to lie in a puddle of blood on the floor.

He was looking at a low gray ceiling, carved of rough stone. Something was telling him he should be cold, but he didn't truly feel it - he sensed the cold without feeling it, like a blind man being told what a tree looks like. His back was on more stone, rough and hard, but there was no discomfort, though all his nerves told him it was cracked and pitted and bumpy.

He tried to speak, failed, tried again. The second time a dry, whispering rattle came out, and he felt something of a breeze in the area beneath his jaw. He moved his right arm, feeling for some reason that he would fail, and was surprised when it came up to his throat at the slightest urging. How did he tell his arm to do that? Was his brain like some strange gnomish machine, with toggles and levers? Open eyes, speak, move arm, touch neck. He touched his neck, again feeling without truly feeling. There was a ragged hole in his throat, dry and torn. He spoke again, and this time succeeded in an audible grunt. Again, air rushed out the wound in his throat.

The man on the floor sat up with another grunt of effort. He reached his arms out in front of him and inspected them. They were draped in rags and scraps of leather; beneath the scant cover, they were as thin as bone, the skin pale and tinged with green, dotted here and there with spots of black or purest white. He flexed his thin fingers experimentally, and was pleased when they responded easily. He traced them down the stone floor, and again, could sense the pebbly, cold surface, locate every crack and divot, without really feeling them.

Things were beginning to come back. His left arm did a quick tour of his torso, locating the small, ragged-edged puncture on the right of his chest and the badly knit bones beneath, the torn cavity in the pit of his stomach. His hand trailed down more, to his crotch. It was a ruin.

"Fuck me," he said out loud, and was pleased when the words came out. though his voice was cracked and toneless. He leaned forward to inspect his left leg. There were obvious wounds there too, but not as bad as all that. They had knit a little since he last remembered.

When was that?

A giggle interrupted his musings; he snapped his head to the left in a quick, jerky motion. There was a table in the shadowed corner of the room, that he had not even begin to look at. It was covered with playing cards, a game that was obviously forgotten. Two men and a woman sat at the table, all watching him. They were dressed in bright, garish colors, with baggy breeches for the men and a long, slit-sided skirt for the woman, and extravagant cloaks on the backs of their chairs. They were also dead.

He looked at them silently, and the giggler - one of the men, with long hair that looked to be somewhere between green and blue - let out another titter. "Didn't find what you were looking for, did you?"

"Doubt anyone'll be doing that f'r some time," said the woman, who was actually quite pretty if you didn't mind gray-green skin and inadequate dentistry. "Unless'ee likes it t'other way, in which case, Jasper'd be glad t'oblige." She grinned at the long-haired man, who giggled again and punched her in the arm. They looked very young, really, as corpses went.

He asked the question as old as time. "Where am I?" It provoked another giggling fit from the long-haired man, and the woman as well. "Home, of course!" she said merrily. "Your own home!"

That did it - the suggestion that whatever had happened to him, he was kin to these cackling monsters, at home with them. His blind unfeeling muscles reacted swiftly, putting him on his feet and advancing towards the table in the blink of an eye. He didn't know much right now, but he knew that no dead men would make sport of him.

I won't be scorned, you little shit. Not by you. Not by anyone.

Now where did that come from?

He crossed to the table in three long strides, where the giggling man was first out of his seat. He backhanded the boy across the face, bony knuckles drawing blood, then grabbed him by his ostentatious silk collar and flung him into the wall. There was a tankard of something on the table in front of him, and without bothering to look what it was, he picked it up and dashed it over the woman's head. It shattered, and she fell to the floor bleeding black and screaming.

The other man was behind him now, and grabbed his left arm and forced it behind his back. This one looked even younger than the other two, his hair pulled back in a neat little queue, but he was also probably bigger than both of them put together, and his hands gripped his foe's arm like a vice. "Don't you do nothin' stupid now, new meat, just-"

That was as far as he got. The man dressed in rags had condsidered the boy's tight grip on his arm, viewed the theoretical pain from a distance, and concluded that he had a great deal of force to go before his arm was in danger of snapping. With his free arm he reached back and gripped the bigger man's ear, fingers digging into flesh, and then whipped his own head back and around. He felt the jar of his own cheekbone, and far more importantly, the crack of the boy's nose shattering. He might not feel pain, but these three certainly did, and more importantly, they were not used to it. The ponytailed man let go and staggered back, hands going to his nose, which was freely spurting something halfway between blood and ooze.

He spun, put a knee into the big man's crotch, doubling him over, and then brought his knee up again, right into the man's face. There was another crack, louder than the first, and the boy fell like a poleaxed ox. That done, he checked behind him - the woman was no longer screaming, but she was still slow to rise - and advanced towards the first boy, who was on his feet already. Longhair might have gotten the jump, but instead he had moved towards his chair, and drawn a rapier from a scabbard across the back. It looked to be a finely made sword, bright and glistening, the blade at least functional even if the basket hilt was overly adorned. "Just you hold on, fellow!" he demanded, a trifle shrilly. "There's no call for-"

His foe stepped over to the table, put his hands on one of the chairbacks, and did a complete turn as he lifted it. He noted in passing that the girl was still on her knees, her formerly pretty face a mess of blood. When he completed the circuit, he said simply "Idiot," and let fly. The boy parried - actually parried! - the fairly substantial chair, but of course it went right through the rapier and hit him right in the face. The rapier clattered to the ground, and he advanced on the boy flexing his fingers.

"I asked a simple question," he hissed - not out of choice, really, but he didn't mind that his voice seemed good for this sort of thing. "I didn't ask that you make mock of me." He rolled the chair aside with his foot, put the remains of a leather boot on the boy's bruised face, and ground in his heel. "I didn't ask that you congratulate yourselves on a new addition to whatever twisted family you run here." He knelt down, putting his knee into the terrified dead boy's sternum, and jammed both his thumbs into the boy's eyesockets. "So you had as best tell me where the fuck I am, or you'll never be able to."

The girl was behind him, he sensed, but not close at all. In fact, she was still on her knees, shouting something. She had been shouting for some time now, but now it began to register. "Master Tarquin!" she was shouting. "Tarquin ap Danwyrith, no! Please! He tells it true! Sir Tarquin!"

So that's my name, he considered, and deliberately avoided the flood of questions and memories that began welling up. He'd examine what it meant to be Tarquin ap Danwyrith later. For now, he relaxed the pressue of his thumbs a bit. He thought he could feel tears on his hands. "How's that, girl?" he asked without turning his head.

"Y'are home, sir!" she gabbled frantically. "In thy true home, where'ee wis born! Y'were buried near Stratholme, that's how we finally found'ee, and that's where y'are! We ne'er meant to make sport of'ee, sir, ne'er in life or death - 'twas only that'ee really were home, an' so we thought it passin' funny." There was sincerity in her words, but also a lie.

"Horse-shite, you 'never meant to make sport.' It was in your faces and words." Tarquin turned to look at her, keeping Longhair firmly on the ground. His larger friend was still out with his face leaking. "If you greet all your guests as such, it's a wonder I'm the first to ruin your faces."

"Regardless of that, Sir ap Danwyrith," said another woman's voice, "'Raia tells it true, as does young Jasper. You are in Stratholme, where you were born, not once but twice." She came through the doorway, a tall woman in black chain and silver plate with a sword at her hip and a setting sun on her surcoat. "Please do release him. He's a fragile young man."

"I noticed," Tarquin responded, but he did rise to his feet, though he made sure to put his full weight on Jasper for a moment before he pushed himself up. Jasper rewarded him with a pained whimper. "The next question, I guess, is who you all are." A thought occurred to him. "Or maybe when you are." He looked down at his decrepit arms.

The woman shook her head, framed by a thick mane of purple-red hair, at him and pointed at the girl on the floor. "I can answer the first question, sir, but you had as best look to her for the second. This entire foolhardy project was 'Raia's idea and she knows the history far better than I. I'm only a soldier, not a historian." This was directed at the girl on the floor with a sarcasm that bit like a corehound.

'Raia lowered her hands from her face, where she had been inspecting the extent of the damage with a certain horror. She looked at Tarquin and shot out. "Sixty-four years, Sir ap Danwyrith, an' four months or so. Since..." she paused, and then spat out another rapid-fire burst. "Since'ee passed on. They buried'ee a month after."

[Tarq]

Sixty-four years. Tarquin pushed the number away from his mind, which was easier than he thought it would be, and simply frowned. "I meant to be burned, as I recall." Time to think about it later. I need all the information first. I was taught that way...someone taught me that way.

"Lucky you didn't, I daresay," said the boy on the floor. Tarquin looked at him and he went silent.

"As to that first question," said the tall woman, "I am Dame Mara Balthasar, of the Brotherhood of Dusk. Your fragile friend is Jasper Elberon, and that is Andiraia Thersby and her brother, Piezo." Tarquin started at the names and stared at both of them - the girl looked back timorously, while the big man with a gnome's name was still unmoving - before turning back to the woman, who was smiling a little sadly. "Perhaps 'Raia might tell you the story of those names."

"First," said Tarquin, looking at Dame Balthasar's surcoat, "You might tell me of the Brotherhood of Dusk, and how you've come to serve them, and who leads them."

Mara cocked her head at him. "So you do remember that much. The colors of Degmarlee the Sly, and Lakota Matsu'jin, and the Warlord Badblood, and -"she stopped a moment, then lowered her voice. "And the Butcher."

See dat. Tahkin? Ya can' kill me! Ya late!

She watched his reaction, then nodded when he met her gaze with what he hoped was a steely glare, as if he had fulfilled some obscure requirement. "Matron Kaylia Torrea leads the Brotherhood, as ever she has, though it is Sir Baphamut and the Lady Residue who handle most of the details of the passing days. How I came to serve them is another story all together. I don't think you'd care to hear it right now."

"There's a whole lot of things I'd care to hear right now rather than that," agreed Tarquin, still staring at her. "Like how I came to be in Stratholme, sixty-four years after my death, with Forsaken children bearing the names of my dead friends and a woman in the colors of my greatest enemy." He deliberately avoided thinking about his other great enemy, who had probably been a far deadlier foe than Nim'jhal - after all, he won. "That one, I wager, will take some real explaining."

Dame Balthasar gestured at the girl on the floor - Andiraia, Tarquin remembered, bemused - with one plated hand. It occurred to him that Mara Balthasar was another one who'd be quite pretty if you discounted gray-white skin and glowing amber eyes. In fact, a man who liked his women tall and elegant might call her beautiful. "That question, 'Raia, you'd do well to answer. And swiftly."

'Raia straightened a little, looking more as if she were simply resting on her knees by choice instead of kneeeling on the floor picking glass out of her face. Tarquin had to admit, she bore the pain well - if she feels it still, he thought, considering his own deadened nerves. "Aye, Dame," she said. "But I must ask a question of'ee first, m'lord." She looked at Tarquin with a certain fascination, and it occured to him to wonder what he must look like. Later.

"From new meat to my lord," he rasped out. "That's an improvement, alright. Ask your question."

"What's the last thing'ee remember?" She looked up at him a little more boldly now. "Tell me, I beg, the last thing in your eyes an' your mind, afore'ee passed on. For it has to do with your answer, truly, I promise."

Tarquin shrugged. Well, why not? Maybe he could remember some more things himself that way - the gaps seemed to fill in as soon as he looked at them, like turning over cards. He thought back, constructing an image himself as a living man in the process of dying. The memory was right there, of course, hitting him with the force of a crossbow bolt.

For fuck's sake, you useless poxy little bastards, kill him now and kill him dead!

"I was shot," he said slowly. "Mathias Shaw did it, or his agents. He caught me trying to save Shaila's daughter, woke me long enough to let me know who was doing it, and then his men shot me down with crossbows. He was an old man then, coughing and gasping, maybe even dying. I think he was too busy being sick to even see the end." Tarquin smiled a little. "I gave him no satisfaction, I think. I told his men the truth of him. And then..."

Before he could follow the thread to the end, the girl 'Raia almost crowed, startling him. "I told'ee, Jasper!" she shouted exultantly. "Resistin' arrest my arse! Nay chance, never'n life! 'Twas treason that brought Sir Tarquin down, an' cowards killed him unarmed an' alone!"

Jasper, sitting in one of the undamaged chairs now and inspecting his rapier, gave her a weary look. "So it was, my dear, but don't sound so damned happy about being right. I'd wager Sir Tarquin would rather you were wrong."

'Raia remembered herself, flushing through the dried blood. "I'm sorry, sir. For your loss." She sounded absurd, as if consoling him on the loss of a family member. He shook his head and gestured her to keep talking. "Well, m'lord - as'ee may guess, the story o' y'r death was that'ee were shot resistin' arrest. An accident. I never b'lieved it, they'd never've taken'ee like that. Had to be a trap. An' everyone knows what happened after, that had to be part o' it."

Tarquin didn't know "what happened after," but he made no move to ask at the moment. He was more curious about something else. "And how, girl, do you know that they'd never have taken me like that? Unless you do happen to be my old friend Andi, somehow. Or let me guess, that's yet another story?"

The dead girl lifted her chin a little. "I'm a Historian, m'lord." She pronounced the word in a careful way that made Tarquin mentally append a capital letter to it. "I study those heroes that've passed, both great and small, an' I seek the truth o' their lives an' deaths, 'gainst what the world thinks they know as true. An' if they died with work left undone, or were killed unjus'ly..." 'Raia bit her lip. suddenly nervous again. "...I give 'em the Cure. Another chance."

The Cure, she called it. As if the condition of death itself was a disease. Realization of what this woman had done flooded Tarquin's brain; in front of him, 'Raia suddenly begin trembling, perhaps seeing it on his face. She started to back away, still on her knees; before she could shift more than a foot, Tarquin took two quick steps forward, grabbed her throat, and lifted her off the ground with no more effort than it would have taken to lift a child. It was much easier to use his muscles, those that remained, when there was no feeling of pain; he seemed aware of exactly how much stress he could put on any part of his body before it failed him. Except for the brain. That, he could only guess at.

"You dared?!" he roared into the dead girl's face, fingers drawing blood in the soft flesh of her neck. "You vile damned corpse-bitch, you did this to me?!" He shook her like a ragdoll, then hurled her into the table. She shrieked as her back hit the edge of the wood with a loud crack; the shriek was echoed by Jasper Elberon. Tarquin spun around to see him charging forward, rapier out. He simply stepped forward, welcoming the charge, letting the thin-bladed sword sink into his belly and noting the damage done to the remains of his intenstines. Then he grabbed the boy's slim, extravagantly decorated shoulders and held him still while his head snapped forward once, twice, and again. Every time he made contact with Jasper's face, the resulting crunch was louder. Four, five. Jasper was screaming inarticulately.

He would have kept going, possibly forever, but something gripped his shoulder and wrenched him away. Mara Balthasar caught Jasper by the crook of his arm, one handed, and then lowered him to the floor, relatively gently. The sword was still caught in Tarquin's stomach; he gripped the ostentatious hilt in one hand and pulled it out. "Get out of my road," he snarled, "Or I'll cut you down and put you back where you should be."

Dame Balthasar put her hand on the hilt of her own sword, but did not draw. "And then put yourself back there too?" she challenged. Before he could answer - he might have said Aye - she went on. "Put down that sword, Sir Tarquin. You're right to be enraged, but you'll only shame yourself further. Your quarrel's not with me, or them."

Tarquin stepped to the side a little, pointing the tip of the rapier at the motionless Andiraia Thersby. "My quarrel's with who I say it is - starting with that meddling, malicious hell-bitch. I'm of a mind to cut her till she's twice as ugly as I am." He wagered that was a good bet - judging by Dame Balthasar's cold-eyed expression, it was a dire threat indeed. "She may be right about me not finding what I sought, but steel will be could enough for such a corpse-whore as her." Something black and furious boiled in the center of his brain, a cold, cold, coil of hatred for the monsters in front of him, for all the world. He was as good as dead. He had no limits. Who had told him that? Someone named Loche Shadowstalker. Death is the last limit, that was it. And he had even less to lose.

Mara Balthasar drew her own blade, her face troubled. "If you are the man that poor girl thought you were, sir, you'll put that blade down."

He laughed harshly. "I'm not." His rapier whistled as he darted forward, feinting at the knight's legs. She wielded her sword with a two-handed grip, he saw; stay out of the way, poke holes in her and they'd leak, and she'd slow, and he'd have her. She didn't fall for his first feint, but her sword moved slowly enough for him to lash aside and take another poke at her chest.

To Tarquin's vast amazement, Dame Balthasar, with her chivalric armor and knightly title, simply let her sword hang free in one hand, doubled her gauntleted fist, and punched him in the chest. It didn't hurt, but the impact startled him and rocked him backwards, and gave her time to sweep her bastard sword up one-handed and slice through the tight-pulled tendons in his right arm. The sensation of his muscles coiling in on themselves, without any pain, was slightly sickening, and the sudden immobility of his right arm gave him a sudden sense of vertigo. Sixty-four years.

Shoot straight, you bastards, I said. Don't make me die ugly. And then I filled my head with thoughts of...

Ceil.

She stuck the blade between his ankles and swept, then, tripping him up to lie on the ground, but he took the fall and let the rapier clatter to the ground, the arm holding it useless anyway. He didn't see the tall Forsaken woman kneeling over him, but another woman - even taller, green of hair, gray of eye, violet of skin, tattooed tears marking her smooth face and giving her an air of sorrow. But she was smiling, for she'd always had a smile for him.

"Are you done?" asked Dame Balthasar, planting one plated foot on his chest. It would occur to him later how easily he'd been beated by someone who actually knew what they were doing, but for now all his thoughts were elsewhere.

"They had no right," he whispered, all the anger gone from his voice. "They shouldn't have done that to me."

"They had no right," agreed Mara, "But nor should you have acted as you did. Your confusion excuses some of it, but..." she trailed off, looking at him, and then gave him that sad smile again. "Did you just remember something, Sir Tarquin?"

"My wife," he said simply. "She's...she should be alive. Sixty-four years. Ceil Nightfury, she was-"

"-an elf, yes." Mara removed her foot, though she did not yet sheathe her sword. "I've heard nothing of her death or wherabouts, though I may not be the right one to ask. But 'Raia seemed to think you might find her. That you deserved a chance to find her." She spoke neutrally, but Tarquin was vaguely aware that he should feel guilty. That would come later too.

"A mirror," he said in his cracked whisper. "Do you have a mirror?" She pointed silently, to yet another corner of the room, where a black drape covered a vague oval shape. He wondered briefly, as he rose with some effort, why there'd be a mirror in this room. Then he realized he was probably not the first person to wake up on this cold stone floor, wondering what the years had done to him.

Tarquin pushed the rapier away with his foot, and Mara sheathed her sword in turn, though she did not relax entirely. He approached the mirror slowly, and stood in front of it for some unknown period of time that might have been ten seconds or ten hours before finally ripping the soft felt off and looking into the mirror.

He stared into the face of a horror. Gray-green skin was pulled over bone, as tight as old leather, until he could see the skull beneath the skin. His nose and right ear were gone entirely; a tarnished loop of gold that was as much green as yellow still hung from the ragged left ear. The skin of his jaw and cheeks was patched with an unhealthy, almost moldy layer of beard, and his mouth was an awful, lipless rictus, a ragged toothy hole in his face. Perhaps the worst thing was that his hair was as long and fine as it had ever been; someone had made an effort to get the dirt out and mostly succeeded.

He looked into the twin hollows where his eyes had been, and saw a sickly green spark pulsing - bright and dim, bright and dim. Tarquin had always joked about his own vanity, and would cheerfully admit that perhaps he was a bit too fond of his own handsome looks. But this...this went beyond any simple vanity of appearance. The mirror did not lie; he was a dead man. A corpse. An object, to lie mouldering in the ground until his bones blackened and crumbled and fed the soil - and yet here he was, among the living.

I can leave this place, if they'll let me, and go walk in the sunlight, feel the grass on my feet, taste a tankard of mead. See the world as it is sixty years after I last looked. Visit the corners of Azeroth. Go see my wife.

With this face?

"Better I'd stayed dead," he whispered hoarsely. He stared at the ruin in the mirror, and wondered what the black and pitted marks on his cheeks were. Some sort of devouring acid? Worm dung? Simply more of the ground's corruption?

No, he realized, as more marks spread beneath the hollows of his eyes. It was some sort of ichor, perhaps the same that now flowed sluggishly in his veins. These were tears.

[Bricu]

Bravo.

[Delion]

((This is just amazing. I adore reading this, it's honestly like one of those novels where you NEED the next book in the serious OR YOU WILL DIIIEEEEE. Just as well-written, just as creative, with twists and turns and personalities abounds.

I even have favourite minor characters already. God, if this weren't just a thread we could start an actual fandom.))

[Tarq]

The doctor was a small, fussy man, who somehow gave off the impression of being stout despite his obviously bony frame; there was even a hint of jowliness to his face. He examined Tarquin's arm and applied a liberal mixture of medicine and magic to heal the cut in the tendons, while keeping up a steady stream of mumbling, mostly instructions to himself and the occasional request to his patient. Tarquin did as he was asked and didn't listen or talk. When the doctor was done, he told Tarquin not to use the arm for the next day and a half and then left reminding himself of his next appointment.

Dame Balthasar stood by the door when the doctor left. "Do you wish to talk, Sir ap Danwyrith?"

"Come back in an hour," he told her, and she left Tarquin sitting on the floor in a bare cell. There was a straw-stuffed matress on a stone block that served for a bed, a crude wooden chair and a cruder table, and a single three-drawered cabinet. Life among the Forsaken of Stratholme, or at least those newly risen, was bleak and utilitarian. In a way, that was better. If he'd been expected to try to pretend to be alive, he wouldn't have been able to take it.

Dead, he told himself again. Dead and walking, talking, living. A damned horror, too - not half as lucky as Shadowstalker or the Stonemantle woman, or my new friends here. He stared at his gaunt hands again, ran them over the flesh and bone of his face. The "feeling" - he didn't know a better word for the numb awareness of his body - of his lichenous beard made him shudder. That sort of thing should be the provenance of mouldering, senseless corpses, underground with the rats and the mushrooms. Not sentient beings. Not men. Not him.

And yet, as he contemplated the abomination he'd become, a single fact held him back from despair. Ceil was still out there somewhere. She had to be. Sixty-four years was not so long a time to Kaldorei, though he could not imagine how long it had been to her. Tarquin tried to imagine himself living sixty-four years without Ceil by his side and could not; it bore even less consideration than his current state or the fates of his other friends. But Ceil would not have taken that dark and final leap over the edge, that bitter-sweet surrender - she had too much strength for that. As long as there was someone, somewhere who needed her, she would be there. It was her old curse.

I have to see her, he decided. And somehow let her know that I loved her until the end, and love her still, and would gladly have given up whatever years were left to me for those eighteen I had with her. He wore the skin of a monster, aye, and doubtless other things had happened in the years since his death - things to change her, and the world she lived in - but he had less choice than the tides at the call of the moon. He would find Ceil, and go to her, and worry about everything else later.

Someone coughed. Tarquin looked up, and saw Mara Balthasar standing the doorway. She had exchanged her armor for a simple white doublet and black trousers, and carried a wrapped bundle in one arm, but still wore a sword at her hip. "Has it been an hour already?" he asked.

"An hour and a half, actually," said Mara, a bit apologetically. "I looked in on you, but you didn't even respond when I made a noise. My pardons."

"Not to worry," he said automatically, and then nodded to himself. "Aye. Not to worry. I'm ready to talk now, Dame. Will you sit?" He gestured to the chair, while moving himself to sit on his straw mattress. The woman moved towards the chair, placing her bundle on the table, which wobbled alarmingly.

"Clothes, sir," she said at his raised eyebrow. "You'll hardly want to wear those rags for long, I imagine. 'Raia Thersby fetched them for you, and made it clear that she'd gather anything else you required. She feels quite guilty, you know."

"I spoiled her face and near broke her back, and she's the one feeling guilty?" Tarquin said incredulously. He himself, in his ponderings, had not yet considered any of the three young Forsaken who'd apparently awoken him, but he did feel a surprising flash of shame now when he did.

"She wronged you, Sir ap Danwyrith," said Mara. "It's a terrible sin, in the eyes of men and the Lady alike, to raise one who doesn't wish it. If Andiraia was half the Historian she thought she was, she'd have known of your distate for this life. It's a horrible mistake to make, though I do believe she cares more for the injury done you than her own reputation."

"Even so," said Tarquin, aware that he was taking the position of his own cross-examiner, something Ceil had always urged him not to do, "it was a poor thing to do. No man hits a helpless girl, or makes the kind of threats I did." He looked down in disgust. "Though I suppose I'm no man anymore, beg pardon."

Mara smiled a little. "Recognizing sin is the first step to atonement, Sir ap Danwyrith, and responsibility the hallmark of manhood."

"Why do you keep calling me sir?" Tarquin asked suddenly. "I mean, manners are manners, but did modes of address or whatnot change in the past sixty-odd years? Even a gentleman of repute like myself was still 'Master ap Danwyrith' when..."

He trailed off, leaving Dame Balthasar to pick up the thread, which she did with a puzzled look that gave way to a laugh. "Of course, how could you know? You were knighted after your death, sir, in the name of Stormwind. I believe Mathias Shaw was your elector. The man who slew you, if 'Raia is to be believed."

Tarquin stared at her for a moment, then laughed himself, an ugly, barking noise. "Fuck all, that bastard - he knew what I thought of knights. Did he ever get tired of shitting on me? Wasn't killing me good enough?"

"He grew tired a few years later," said Mara calmly. "He was found dead in his country estate in Eastvale. I'm not familiar with the details, but again, you might ask Andiraia."

He shook his head. "You've got no idea how weird it is hearing that name. D'you know of Andi Aradan? The Red Rider, they called her - she fell in the reclamation of Stromgarde, with her husband Rane." It was, of course, impossible for him to have a lump in his ruined throat, but he felt it anyway. "They were good friends. The best."

"I knew both of them," said Mara then, surprising him. "Not well, but we spoke. This was years before the Fall of New Stromgarde, or the Reclamation that followed." She turned an odd little smile on him. "I knew you too, Sir ap Danwyrith. We met not too many miles from here, at a small chapel that carried the hope of the world with it, in a room full of thieves, murderers, and zealots."

The remains of Tarquin's eyebrows went high. "Holy hells, that's right. Agent Mara Balthasar, of the Dawn. I heard you went missing a few years later in Naxxramas - suppose this clears that one up." He barked again. "Did you ever find your brother, Dame?"

A fleeting but very familiar expression crossed her face; Tarquin had seen that expression on Ceil's face every time someone mentioned Tsoshen Nightfury, usually in reference to his near-legendary final battle in Ashenvale. "I did. Do you recall the statue we passed coming to the barracks, of white marble? A man on a bone horse?" Tarquin nodded slowly; he hadn't really been paying attention, but he could reconstruct his idle memory of the statue well enough. A youngish man in knight's armor, mounted and carrying a slim-lined greatsword, his face bearing the sort of melancholic bravery only found on the faces of dead heroes. "That was him," Mara reported proudly. "Saint Jakob Balthasar, the first Templar knighted by Matron Kaylia, martyr of the Sealing of Alterac Valley."

"After my time, I suppose," said Tarquin. "A great knight, was he?"

"The finest," said Mara, and now he recognized the look on her face again. He had occasionally seen it in the mirror when people brought up Nikolai Diaconescu, before that terrible, beautiful day at Absolution. "He served for thirty years, never shirking in his duty, risking his life for every cause the united Horde took up. He trained me at arms when I took the Cure, and avenged our family though it nearly cost him his own head for a traitor. Even at the end, betrayed and abandoned, he served Our Lady of the Shadows."

Despite his long-held professional contempt for chivalry and other such heroic nonsense, Tarquin felt a stirring of interest. "Tell me a little about the Sealing of Alterac Valley. Last I heard, it was fairly peaceful; Frostwolves on one end, the Stormpike clan on the other, and they spent most of their time clearing out kobolds and arguing mining rights in the courts of New Stromgarde. How'd the fighting start up again?"

Mara shifted in her chair, one finger tapping on her thigh. "Let me place the history...it would be twelve years after your death that Varimtharas" - she forked the evil eye into the air at the name - "and Faranell betrayed our Lady, and attempted to release their new plague. It was contained swiftly, though not swifty enough for some - the Thersby family was one of those. Far more damaging was the hatred it inspired, not just against the Forsaken, but between Horde and Alliance as well. For a few months, it seemed war might break out again. New Stromgarde was rife with riots and violence, and the goblins were selling arms to both sides. Finally, Apothecary Faranell was spotted in Alterac Valley, hiding from the justice of Our Lady."

It was a little mesmerzing, hearing these familiar names and places in a past tense, learning the history of his own future. He leaned forward as Dame Balthasar continued. "A Frostwolf patrol made to capture him, but he fled into Stormpike territory, where the dwarves mistook his pursuers for an orcish incursion, and responded in force. War followed swiftly, and lasted for weeks while both sides mobilized. My brother was the General of the Alterac territories, so he led a force in to support the Frostwolf Clan - for even though he was Forsaken, Jakob Balthasar was trusted and respected by many in the Horde. He'd earned it.

"Eventually, the truth about the battle leaked out, and scouts reported seeing Faranell holed up in the ruins of the old watch tower at Iceblood Point. By that point, the Frostwolf army had pushed the Alliance all the way back to Stormpike Keep, and was within a few days' work of driving them out of Alterac Valley. When my brother heard the news, he immediately offered peace, and set up a meeting with the Stormpike and Alliance commanders in front of the keep to discuss an end to hostilities and the capture of the Apothecary. They met two days later, under a peace banner.

"Unknown to my brother, the Warlords of Orgrimmar had already made an agreement with the Alliance Grand Marshal to seal the Valley from both ends, collapsing the passes and dropping tons of rock and snow, to end the battle and trap Faranell so that he could be collected at their leisure. The message was received by the main body of the Frostwolf force, but one of my brother's lieutenants had ambitions, and prevented it from reaching him or his retinue."

Dame Balthasar's face went cold for a second. "His name was Aqintar Windspeaker, a blood elven sorcerer. I killed him, of course. Myrdronn the Smiler sliced every member on his body off, one by one, and then I choked him to death with my own bare hands." Tarquin sat silently, not entirely sure how to respond. Eventually, Mara's face went back to an air of distant melancholy. "So Templar-General Jakob Balthasar was down at Stormpike Keep, waiting in vain for a peace meeting that would never come, when the order was given to collapse the passes. One of his aides realized what was happening, and he gave the order to retreat back into the middle of the Valley, and wait out the winter as best they could until help could arrive.

"The remnants of his retinue were picked up when the spring thaws came. They said that at the last, General Balthasar had seen Faranell picking his way across Stormpike Pass, about to make his escape before the avalanche could come. He'd ordered his men to fall back - all but his squire, our nephew Asreic, who would not leave him - and pursued the Apothecary. Alliance troops who had withdrawn later reported seeing a group of Forsaken fleeing the avalanche, but being ridden down and scattered by another in a knight's trappings, before the pass fell and took them all with it.

"The death of Apothecary Faranell, and the final death toll from the Sealing of Alterac Valley - over twenty thousand, both sides combined - sated Azeroth's bloodlust, and peace was restored. It wasn't long after that, though, that Our Lady left us and the Forsaken were forced out of the Horde - but it was partly in thanks to my brother's example that we were not immediately wiped out by one faction or the other. Warchief Thrall himself mentioned him in his speech urging prudence and tolerance of the Forsaken of Stratholme. He was a great man. He was my brother."

Mara grew quiet then, and Tarquin didn't feel a pressing need to fill the silence. He had gotten more than a little history out of that, and a sense for the type of person this possible ally was. And, he had to admit, it was a damned good story, if you liked your stories bloody, gloomy, and full of noble sacrifice. Which I do, aye - but only the stories. I've had enough of it in the real world.

The tall woman broke the silence finally. "Well, now you know why he has a statue. I'm sorry that took so long, Sir ap Danwyrith - I might have made a much shorter tale of that."

"I liked hearing it," he said truthfully, "And knowing the whole story comes in handy. Tell me, Dame, who leads the Forsaken now, if Sylvannas is dead?"

"Not dead," she corrected, a little sharply, then smiled. "Well, at least no deader than She was. She gave up Her body to end the daemon Varimtharas, but Her spirit guides us still, Sir ap Danwyrith. And I do not mean that in a strictly religious sense - She speaks to us when she can, sometimes all of us. She is with the Shadows now."

"Beg pardon," Tarquin said, a little wearily. "And by the way, please just call me Tarquin, would you?" I'm glad I've gotten used to this enough to be irritated by polite zealots. And make jokes to myself. Maybe I'll go looking for bourbon next.

"As you will," she said. "The Forsaken as I suppose you knew them are three now, though. There are the Forsaken of the Argent Dawn in Andorhal, led by Lord Morghest Wenderwyl; the Defilers in Arathi and the Wetlands, under the command of Sir Mallory Wheeler; and we Forsaken of Stratholme, under the hand of Matron Kaylia Torrea and the Temple of Shadows."

Tarquin raised a ragged eyebrow again; Kaylia of the Brotherhood lording over an entire city? He supposed he could see it. After all, she'd mastered Degmarlee and the Butcher for a time, as much as any man or woman could "master" those two; an entire city of the living dead would prove little challenge. "So what's the difference? Politically speaking, I suppose."

Mara scowled. "The Andorhal men are lapdogs to the Alliance. It's sad what the Argent Dawn has come to; with Lord Tyrosus and Leonid Bartholomew dead, and our - their great foe gone, the Dawn is nothing more than the arm of the Archmage in Lordaeron. In Andorhal, those curs are so grateful to be alive under the good graces of the living that they're content to act as spear fodder for Lordaeron and Dalaran. Wenderwyl is the worst, some petty noble whose father was a war hero a century past, and got killed by one of his brothers and happened to be there when Andorhal was retaken. A bootlicker.

"As for the Defilers," she went on in disgust, "They're nearly as bad – a pack of murderers and ruffians, half of them formerly of the Syndicate. They've hidden out in the hills of southern Arathi, where the Witherbark trolls used to be, and launch constant raids on the roads to New Stromgarde. It's one thing to fight for your survival and honor, but they are nothing more than brigands, attacking merchants and soldiers alike. Wheeler's latest pet project is the destruction of the Menethil bridge - he has saboteurs in the northern Wetlands killing repair crews and intercepting supplies. They're a plague and I can only hope that Trollbane loses patience and annihilates them, whatever the cost."

Tarquin absorbed this, wondering who the Archmage was but deciding to ask later. "And you here in Stratholme? Us, I suppose?"

"Well, s - Tarquin, I am a little biased," she said with a dry smile, "But, let me see...when you passed, Stratholme would have been largely abandoned to wandering Scourge and the last holdouts of the Scarlet Crusade, because of–"

"Balnazzar's curse, aye," Tarquin said gloomily. He didn't like to remember the disaster that had been the attempted reclamation of Stratholme, or what it had cost them to drive the thing in Darthoran's skin out. And the Nathzerim's dying words had woken him at night for several years thereafter, and Ceil too.

Let no flower bloom or water run where my blood is shed; let the air of which I breathe my last sear the lungs and boil the skin; let this city be a place of death and ashes, until the white marble crumbles to dust!

"It seemed to work," he rasped.

"So it did," agreed Mara, "But when the Forsaken split from the Horde, some of us were - well, desperate enough to try. And while a Nathzerim's last curse is a powerful magic, it seemed mostly directed towards the living. So led by Matron Kaylia and the Warmaster Raiston, we cleared out the last holdouts. It might please you to know that as far as anyone knows, the Scarlet Crusade died here. A woman named Sonna Rivers set the last man in red aflame and watched him burn."

Tarquin shrugged. "Like as not, I never knew him. So you settled here?"

Dame Balthasar nodded. "Mainly the Brotherhood at first, but more and more trickled in every day, and Lord Baphamut set them to work rebuilding the city. All we asked was that they kept to the precepts of Our Lady and the Temple of Shadows." Her chin lifted slightly. "We of Stratholme are not warmongers, but we bow to no man, nor do we squander the gift the Shadows have given us. We welcome any with the courage to deny the void, and defend our own to the last drop of blood."

Ichor, thought Tarquin, but he stayed silent. It was a pretty speech, he had to admit, and she seemed to believe it honestly. He decided to take the conversation full circle. "So that lot, the Thersbys and their poof friend, they aren't squandering, then?"

Mara laughed a little, surprisingly Tarquin, who had expected shame or at least irritation. "One thing you must know, Tarquin, is that we of the Forsaken don't truly age. 'Raia Thersby has been seventeen for fifty years now, but she stays seventeen in mind and body. And a city without children - even children who never grow old - would be a dull place." She smiled fondly. "No, the likes of the Thersbys and Jasper Elberon serve, as do we all. They are just more prone to mistakes."

"Mistakes like me?" pressed Tarquin. Mara's face grew somber.

"You must believe, 'Raia meant it for the best. It was her idea, I have no doubt - Piezo does not lack for loyalty or courage, but he has never been one to inspire others. As for the Elberon boy, I suspect it was simple boredom that made him lend his mind to the task. No, Andiraia Thersby was the one who gave you the Cure. You fascinate her, you know. Several years past, she read a history of your life - well, something of a romance, truth be told - and she has been telling tales ever since." Mara gave him an oddly sly smile. "It's as well for you that you're, less than intact, Tarquin. Otherwise you'd never be able to get the girl away from you."

Tarquin didn't even want to think about that, though he did note with pleasure the friendly banter. This was a good start. "So, I got dug up and put on my feet 'cause a silly dead girl had a powerful crush on a man out of a flowery textbook. Fucking beautiful."

Mara shook her head, not bothering to disapprove of the profanity this time. "No, Tarquin - you got 'dug up and put your feet' because the Shadows believe you deserved it. Or, if you find religion uncomfortable, fate - or simply 'Raia Thersby. Someone thought you died with work left doing,and decided to give you another chance. The question now is, what are you going to do with it?"

He sat there on the bed for a moment, seeing the simple truth of the matter. There was only one answer, of course, but he didn't feel like giving it to her. Not yet. "First, I'm going to try out those new clothes," he said, "And then I'll go take a look at my home." Tarquin straightened his back, slowly unfolding a plan. "When it's possible, I'd seek audience with your Matron Kaylia. And send the Thersby girl to me. I'm going to need someone to talk to or I'll go bloody mad, and I don't doubt you're busy, being a knight and all."

"In truth, Tarquin," she said with an engaging grin, "My primary duty right now is to keep an eye on you. The Matron is aware of your resurrection, and has certain interests in you. She'll receive you when the mood is upon her, but don't doubt, she will wish to speak ot you. In the meantime, consider those three brats that wakened you your personal servants, and I, a certain kind of inkeeper." Mara rose and gave an awkward peasant curtsy, and in the bright smile on her face Tarquin saw the living woman she had been. "You'll be installed in new quarters soon, with those three living near. When shall I send you 'Raia?"

Tarquin considered it. "Give me half an hour and then send her in. I'm going to need a guide of the city. I'm not sure I remember."

"I'll see it done," said Mara, and offered a more elegant bow. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Tarquin ap Danwyrith; despite the circumstances, I do hope you think the same."

He nodded honestly. "Aye, I do. My thanks for all you've done." She'd be a useful piece and a powerful ally if he could continue to win her over, but that didn't change the fact that he did honestly like her, dead woman or not. She nodded and left the room, leaving Tarquin alone with a bundle of clothes and a barrage of conflicting thoughts.