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| Details |
| Author: | Saaron |
| Summary: | Sandy travels to Booty Bay to meet his birth mother, Sirie Netelle. |
| Rating: | A for Adults Only 18+ |
Sandy jumps off the gryphon’s back as he lands in Booty Bay. He clutched a letter tightly in his hand the whole journey over from Stormwind and had only one wish this whole time – to read it again, making sure he didn’t get any information wrong, like the date or the place. However, holding a piece of paper while you’re flying at high speed isn’t a very good idea, Sandy knows it very well, and he still needs the address written on it.
Now that his feet are on the ground again, however, he opens the crumbled letter and reads it once again, shivering with excitement.
“My dear Leghan,
Do you still wish to meet me? Because honestly, I’d die to see you. I’m currently staying in my home, in Booty Bay.
Come by on Monday if you want to, around 3 PM.
There’s a thing or two you need to know before you meet me, however…”
The letter then gives some very technical instructions on how to guard oneself against all the curses and hexes which protect Sirie’s home, instructions which he followed to a T… although he had to ask Brynia for some help with those. He now believes to be fully protected from all the Fel attacks his mother could accidentally throw his way!
Sandy reads the address one last time and begins walking confidently towards the right home. Meeting his birth mom feels completely different from meeting his birth father. With his father, there was a big question mark regarding the situation. Would he be happy to see Sandy? Would they get on well? Was that man really Sandy’s father? This time, there are no questions like that as they’ve been exchanging letters for a while, and Sandy is 100% sure he’ll love his birth mom just like he loves his birth father, as well as his mom Ekorenine too! He’s light on his feet, each of his steps almost looking like a little dance as he’s moving energetically and rhythmically to a happy little melody he made up in his head. As he walks away from the inn, he crosses paths with a Draenei woman with white hair. She looks familiar – and given the glare she throws his way, she, at least, probably knows him –, but Sandy is too focused on his meeting to think about who that lady is. He just answers the angry look in her eyes with a polite, joyful nod as he walks past her.
The happy little melody disappears from his head as he stands, staring at the door to Sirie’s home. There’s nothing wrong with the door itself, but Sandy begins feeling nervous about meeting her, for whatever, unknown reason. He stands there, in his white shirt and red shorts, one of Cressidha’s huge bags on his back, where he ‘carefully’ placed a bouquet of red flowers for Sirie.
He’s not about to make the same mistake as he did with Therald! No one will be called buddy today! With his shaky hand, Sandy knocks on the door. It was unlocked, and the mere touch of his hand opened it ajar.
No answer from inside. He opens the door fully and lets himself in this dark entrance, which, from what he can see, also serves as a dining room. His eyes get used to the dark incredibly quickly and he immediately notices the Fel sigils and amulets placed on the walls around the doors and windows. Good thing Brynia helped him with protecting himself from that, uh?
After the shock of seeing how well guarded this place is, comes the smell. It has a terrible scent. Sandy expected this place to smell like sulfur, sure, but that was not it. It was rot. It smelled like the Plaguelands, or the catacombs he visited with the Company, in Duskwood. It was much more concentrated here, however, as it was inside a small, closed space, and the scent got Sandy’s eyes teary. How could she live in a place like that?!
Finally, after the hexes and the smell, Sandy finally noticed one last thing. What was probably the reason why his nose was wrinkled up.
On the ground, next to a door, lay a corpse. He rushes towards it, braving the terrible scent, and falls to his knees at the side of the body. It is that of a woman, and looking at her face, Sandy can’t help but notice similarities between his facial traits and hers, which leads him to the worst of conclusions. The small drops of water that were gathering under his eyes turn into tears of grief as he believes to have lost his birth mother, right before meeting her. He takes her hand, feeling her cold, cold skin, and tries calling her name. He doesn’t notice any blood but does see the two scars going over her eyes, the bony fingers as well as the skin around her mouth being ripped in parts and almost non-existent in others. Apart from those traits, the corpse seems recent, which doesn’t make sense to Sandy, but Sandy is not thinking rationally right now. Sandy is terrified of what has happened inside these walls, and about how long ago it happened. The young man begins sobbing. He keeps calling out her name, repeatedly, gently shaking the body as if she was going to wake up.
Which she does, apparently.
In between his sobs, Sandy can hear the woman chortling, stifling her laughter, her lips – or rather her jaw – twitching. He stops making any noise, just staring at the dead body’s face, baffled. He can see ghosts now, thanks to that ritual in Nagrand, but that’s just ghosts, right? He’s not supposed to see cadavers moving, right? Unless they’re—
Sirie opens her eyelids, revealing two completely empty eye sockets, and what’s left of the rotting skin around her mouth tightens in what Sandy can only decipher as a smirk.
“Boo!” she says softly with her high, almost screechy voice, her eyes smiling at him.
Sandy keeps staring, unable to move or say anything.
“Okay, that’s rude, Leghan,” she says. “It’s me, I’m mom! I was only pretending to be dead! Well.” She pauses, a smile drawing on her face once more. “Half-pretending.”
He stares at her unblinkingly. She stares at him unblinkingly back.
“Leghan?”
“You—”
“I?”
“I didn’t know you..?”
She laughs.
“Come on, you didn’t pick up on all the ‘deadly’ or ‘deathly’ puns in my letters? I thought I was pretty clear about the fact I’m one of the Forsaken!” Sandy doesn’t look convinced, and she notices instantly. “Okay. Next time I’ll end all my letters with ‘woooooh, Sylvanas Windrunner, yay!’”
She chuckles. Ever since Sandy got her, she seems to be the only one who has laughed.
“Jeez, tough crowd, uh?” Sirie gets up. “Wants something to eat? I prepared a little something just for you! Come with me!”
Sandy is still on the ground, now resting his back against the wall. His stomach is in knots and given the shock, the smell, and what surprises might still await him in here, he really doesn’t feel like eating anything. He looks at the front door, considering leaving and never coming back. But he can’t just run away from his birth mom like that, right? He has to give her a chance. If demons can be redeemed and good, why wouldn’t his undead mother too? He mentally takes a deep breath to calm himself down. Not physically. Because eww, the smell. He gets up and carefully follows her lead.
Sirie walks into the kitchen and approaches a countertop, covered with a white cloth that seems to hide something underneath. Sandy winces at the thought of what an undead creature like her could be hiding under there.
“Ready for it?” she says, a wicked smile on her face.
“Yes,” he answers while his head slightly shakes from side to side.
“Okay, then… Ta-da!” she says, revealing the meal she’s been hiding. Sandy immediately throws his gaze to the side and covers his eyes from the horrors served on that pla— oh wait, what? Those are cookies!
“Sweets..!” he says, completely surprised, looking at the food.
“Well, not exactly, no.” Sandy stares at the cookies, staying as far away from them as possible. Of course they’re not exactly sweets. His mom isn’t exactly alive, she isn’t going to make ‘exactly sweets’ for him.
“That’s an old family recipe! Sugar’s always been a little expensive for us Netelles, so we used to make salty desserts like these instead whenever we could!” Sirie smiles at him. This is the first smile she throws his way which doesn’t look mischievous or even malicious. Sandy feels like he has a good grasp on her expressions already even with the state of the lower parts of her face. “I used to love these – you know, when I was alive. Always thought you’d do too!”
“Oh… thanks!” He gulps loudly. “I—I’m just not really hungry right now!.. Flying on gryphons always makes me a little nauseous. I’m really sorry!”
The brows on Sirie’s forehead furrow. All traces of her previous smiles – whether they were genuine or not – are gone. She takes a few quick steps towards Sandy, standing a little taller than he does, and stares him down. The poor man shivers and attempts to back away from her, but she just walks closer as he bumps into the wall. She swiftly throws her hands at his face and gently pinches both of his cheeks.
“We’ve got to put some meat on the bones of my sweet little Leghan! You used to be the chubbiest, cutest baby ever, and look at you now! I could have eaten you for Winter Veil back then!”
The young man feels extremely uncomfortable with the cold hands and bones clutching at his skin. The smell is even worst from up close. When they fought undead with the Company, at least as a warlock, he was staying away from them. This is the first time he’s this close to one of them for so long. He thinks he should be happy to know that, although she died, his birth mother is still there, but the state she is in absolutely terrifies him.
“Still a no for the snacks?”
“No, I—I—I’m really sorry.”
“Ah. It’s okay, you can just pick them up when you leave for later!”
“No!” he barely shouts in panic. The scary, angry look on her face comes back. He can’t eat anything that comes from here, though. He just can’t. He’s eaten or was willing to eat weird stuff in the past, but that weird stuff was at least made from someone who was… alive. Not made in a small, closed room that smells like a rotting corpse… probably. “I’m… you said you loved them! I don’t want to take these from you!”
“Oh, silly, don’t worry about that! I don’t have to eat anymore. I can’t even taste food! That’s why I said I used to love them! You could feed me those or dirt, it’s all the same for me, now!” She sighs. “But I get it. This place and its food are not good enough for the living, right? A cadaver’s hands are too dirty for your precious tastebuds, I suppose. I probably wouldn’t have eaten that either if I was the live one.” She speaks of life with the same level of disgust Sandy is trying to repress about undeath. “Anyway, don’t worry about it! I’m a ‘disgusting monster’, I know, but I was long before I became undead, right?” She grins and nods at the hexes on her walls, as she walks back to the snacks. “I’ll just give you the recipe and you’ll try them for me, okay?”
Sandy smiles gently but awkwardly as an answer. He’s up for trying those under other conditions, yeah. His smile quickly fades however, as instead of throwing the snacks she made in the trash, Sirie abruptly pushes the plate to the ground. Pieces of broken porcelain fly all around the kitchen in a loud clang. Sirie, as if nothing, walks over the shards as well as the cookies to go back to the dining room.
“Come. Let’s sit around the table. Or, you know, you can just stand up and… not touch anything, if that’s what you want.”
And that’s what he does. Sirie sits down at one end of the table, her legs crossed on her chair, and Sandy stays up, behind the chair opposite of hers. For a split second, she glares at him, perhaps with more anger than the Draenei looked at Sandy earlier today. The Forsaken’s face softens quickly, however, which does not make Sandy feel any more at ease. Two empty eye sockets fixated on him. Her lack of eyes does not seem to make her blind at all, somehow. He knows she is looking at him. These two small black holes follow his every move. If he were to run away and leave, they would see it. She would know immediately. She could run and chase him, without ever having to blink.
“You look so much like dad, you know? My dad,” she chuckles at that. “I mean, he was a blacksmith so he was a little… stronger looking, but your face… You’d tell me if you were wearing my father’s face as a mask, right?”
She chuckles once more. Sandy still has yet to laugh once since he got in here. This meeting is not going how he imagined it at all. He’d rather have met a normal, human mom and call her buddy before running away. But still, he can’t help but feel like he has to give her a chance. She’s his birth mom, and she seems to love him! He doesn’t want to run away from her and cut ties. He doesn’t want to break her heart.
“Th—thanks! It’s actually great to hear I look like him! I look nothing like my famil—”
She interrupts him. Not by talking faster or louder than him, no, but by jumping onto the table and crawling all the way to Sandy, suddenly closing the distance between them. She presses his cheeks with her hands. It’s the second time she’s touching him, and he still has not gotten any more used to her touch. He tries to take a step back, but Sirie does not let go.
“I still can’t believe you’re back to me after all these years! I’ve missed you so, so much! I thought I’d spend eternity without my sweet, precious Leghan!”
He nervously laughs, finally able to move backward and escape her grasp.
“So, uh…” he says, a very precise question in mind. “How did you… become… like that?”
“Oh, you know! I died. Painful and devastatingly tragic. Most Forsaken will tell you that, though. It’s been pretty fun since, though! Why do you want to know?” She narrows her eyes as she speaks.
“I… Please don’t take this the wrong way, I haven’t met many undeads like you before! I need to know something to be a little more comfortable. Is it, uh… I was wondering if it was contagious?.. Maybe?.. Being a Forsaken, I mean?”
Sirie bursts out laughing. “Oh, dear, no.” Sandy smiles slightly, sighing of relief. “If it was, or if it was in my power to make you one of us, you can be sure I would have murdered you as soon as you got in here!” His smile fades once more. “I promise you, there are only benefits to being undead. Unlife is so much freer! Warlocks are even a little more accepted by the Forsaken society, you know?”
“Uh, I…” he looks at her fingers. At her jaw. At her eyes. He stares at her eyes in silence for a long time. Those empty eye sockets that stare directly at him, that are so close to him. “I’m… fine, thanks!” He scratches the back of his head. “I’ve read stories about people turning into undead through a bite or stuff like that so… I just wanted to make sure!”
Sirie’s eyes smile gently as she pats his left cheek softly.
“Well, there’s only one way to know for sure, isn’t it?” Before he has the time to react, Sirie removes her left hand from his face and violently takes a bite out of his shoulder. Sandy screams in surprise and, in return, uses all of his strength to push his birth mother's face off of his flesh, but she holds on and it only makes the bite even more painful. His white shirt turns red once she finally lets go, a huge grin on her face, spitting some of the cloth from his clothes onto the floor. He covers the wound with one hand and rushes to the door, as she bursts out laughing once more. As he leaves, he can hear her going:
“Oh, come on! I’m pretty sure you’re not going to become a Forsaken because of that! Probably.”
In the streets of Booty Bay, Sandy looks for someone to help him, tears streaming down his face as the red on his shirt spread further and further. He pants unable to say a coherent sentence, looking at one face after the other, people either avoiding his gaze or backing away.
From afar, he catches the gaze of that Draenei woman who glared at him earlier. The anger from earlier has disappeared, instead replaced by worry about him and his panicked state. Sandy walks towards her. That’s a friendly face – more or less. At least one he knows. The boat she is standing on begins to move. She looks at Sandy, then in the direction of the helm. She takes a deep breath, and moves inside the slowly moving ship’s hold, away from Sandy’s gaze. A gaze which gets blurry. He stops rushing towards her and takes a look at his blood-red hand.
Oh no.
He forgot to give Sirie the bouquet.
It all fades to black, and he falls to the ground.