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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Syarra stops by Roper's room-cage for Tuesday Night Candle contemplation. There are riddles, schemes, and offers of power, as the two Death Knights begin to cement their purpose forward as Knights of the Ebon Blade. 8800-ish words. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Arc: Sunstrike Story
It's definitely the same place — there's no mistaking this particular block of hallway space, and the cage is still there. Except, of course, where the cage once stood with open bars that showed the interior there is now a deep black curtain blocking all light and visibility from the outside on the three open sides.
If Roper is in there, it is difficult to tell. There are no easy to distinguish sounds from the cage that would be loud enough to be heard over the general din of Acherus, and there is no movement visible through the curtains, or with them moving in air currents; they hang thick and heavy, immovable. The door to the cage is shut, and locked.
The change is certainly a surprise to the elvish woman who walks up to the cage as if she thinks she's expected.
Syarra has dropped her saronite armor for the evening, and is dressed in a long-sleeved dark blue blouse, black pants and boots, with a moonstone necklace hanging just below her collarbone. The clothing looks like something she might have worn in life, though there is nothing lifelike in her pale, waxy face. She also still has her runeblade strapped safely across her back, an obvious sign of 'death knight' were one to miss all the other obvious tells.
She trails to a stop in front of the closed door, and then reaches out one hand to 'knock' on the curtained door, open-palmed.
There is a clank sound, and a low, muttered curse. A pause, and then, "Syarra?"
Roper doesn't wait for confirmation before the curtain is drawn partially aside, dark gray hands bare of armor appearing and rapidly unlocking and opening the door, making a commanding 'come here' gesture. "Hey."
"I see you reclaimed your privacy." Syarra hesitates only briefly before stepping up to the curtained cage.
“Yeah. Early Winter Veil present,” Roper says, his voice an amused husky rasp. “I told you I’d need to make space for them pouring in from people.”
The cage room is, if anything, even cleaner than the last time Syarra saw it, as though someone has quite literally sanded down the floor, removing a thin layer of Acherus’s flooring to make it look incredibly clean. There are two crates, with several beeswax candles lit, and what appears to be something like a breadbox with a lock on it on one of the crates. The other has paper and three different ink pens on it.
Roper himself is unclothed from the waist up, very clean bandages wrapped around his abdomen, his face exposed fully. He is, much like the room, impeccably clean, his features easier to see now without blood covering them, his hair thick and styled back from his face. There is a pencil behind Roper’s right ear, tucked smoothly in. In a corner of the room is his ruined breastplate, and several blacksmithing plans spread out and held down by ingots of saronite.
Roper raises his left brow at Syarra’s lack of armor, but doesn’t say anything as he gestures to the cage in an open invitation.
Syarra steps past him into the cage, looking over the changes warily.
"Designing new armor?" She gestures toward the saronite bars, and then raises her own eyebrow at his unclothed state. "I could have brought some of my father's clothes, if you needed something. They might have fit well enough."
"You know," Roper drawls as he shuts the door to the cage, leaving it unlocked, and the curtain re-draped over it, "If women keep trying to give me clothes, I'm going to get a complex." He doesn't actually seem like he's in any danger of it as he crosses the room to the armor with an easy gait that suggests he doesn't really care about his state of dress. He tosses the pencil down to the plans, and turns back to Syarra.
"Women," Syarra says evenly, shifting back to lean against one wall of the cage and leveling her gaze at him. "I thought… today is Tuesday… but if you're busy or have other engagements…"
Roper's expression jumps into several forms of amusement, a wry lopsided grin briefly crossing his face before he shakes his head as an intensity of focus returns. "No. Just you," he says, as he makes his way to the crate with the breadbox like container. "I forgot it was Tuesday. Haven't actually been properly outside of Acherus since…well." He gestures vaguely back to his breastplate in explanation. "Time got a little weird. But I got something for you. Information," he clarifies a beat later, the drawl back in his voice, as he sets his hand on the container.
"Information for me?" Syarra's brow creases gently, but her gaze stays on Roper's face. Then she shifts slightly against the wall and the corners of her lips quirk up slightly. "From the past, I'd guess, or it wouldn't be appropriate for Tuesday candles."
Roper's brows jump up briefly in that sign of amusement as he flicks his wrist near his waist and a key pops into his hand from what seems like nowhere. "But of course. Can't be off theme," he drawls as he unlocks the breadbox, and pulls out a sheet of paper with something written out in spiky, aggressive looking handwriting, and then shuts the box once more, locking it, and as he stands the key simply vanishes.
"The main thing is that you need to know you're walking into a problem with Aszera," Roper says, and the drawl is gone as if it was never there, as he looks at Syarra, his eyes a bright, vibrant blue.
"You found out what trouble she's in?" Syarra looks at the paper, though she definitely can't read it from where she's standing. "I was going to go to Shattrath tomorrow."
"No, not exactly. Still don't know what's got her running scared, only that she knows what you are, and that while you," Roper glances down at the writing and reads off it, "'may still see Aszera as your sister, the reverse is no longer true.'" There's a movement of his face as he moves his jaw slightly. "And she's got friends in fucking high places where it matters right now. Colson Aspenwood and Mordecai Aspenwood at the least, and possibly more within Cobalt Company itself."
Syarra makes a quiet sound of frustration and sags back against the wall. "Is that what Colson Aspenwood said? She hasn't even seen me yet. I remember her, and I know how to talk to her. Aze has always been… overdramatic." She closes her eyes for a moment and adds, "How is my sister involved with Cobalt Company, anyway? This seems like a weird fucking coincidence."
Roper shakes his head. "I don't know. I'd need to actually…" Roper makes a slight twitch of movement of his shoulder that might have been covered by armor if he was wearing any. There's a stronger rasp in his voice. "Get to Shattrath and try to trace things back. Right now, what I've got is that she's got a strong backing, and if you go in there, there's a good chance you walk into the pointy end of a pitchfork." There is a flash of something that looks very much like rage at the thought that Roper brushes aside with a twist of a smile. "So, don't let that happen. Out in the open, wherever there's some sort of fucking…I don't know. Whatever Shattrath uses to keep it 'sanctuary.'"
"I wasn't planning to meet her in a dark alley," Syarra says, opening her eyes. "I did have a better plan than that. But maybe we don't need to trace things back. I can find her where she can't make a scene, and I can just ask her." She gestures at her clothes. "And I know what you said, but I thought… in this situation, it's better than saronite. The more she recognizes of me, the better."
"Bring the turtle," Roper suggests in a light drawl, as he glances at the clothes, his eyes lingering briefly again on the pendant. "The ceramic one." He taps a brief drumming beat on his left leg, fingers moving with a fluid agility. "And there's the second thing."
"Yet another barrier to my dreams of safe house ownership in Silvermoon?" Syarra asks, a faint dry note in her voice.
Roper sits down in a smooth motion, the armor giving him only a little grief with a slight scraping noise, and leans back casually against the crate, his head turned up to Syarra. “It’s more a bit of something that doesn’t fit. A riddle, if you will. Because, you see, there’s something of yours that you wrote that’s made its way somehow to Aszera, but in a way that doesn’t make sense.” His voice is a dark husky rasp, filled with a sense of whispers in the dark even as he keeps his tone clear.
“See, if I wanted to read something you wrote in Thalassian, I’d need that translated. But, your sister shouldn’t, and if someone who was her friend wanted to know what it said, why not ask Aszera? So, why would your sister maybe have a friend of hers translating something of yours to be able to read it, and what does that have to do with why it looked like she wrote that letter to you in the dark?” Roper moves his fingers like he’s playing an invisible piano, dark gray fingers flashing with uncanny speed. “Because, see, to me, that says someone is blind. But, why would she conceal that from you? Why wouldn’t that be a lead in for sympathy? What makes a Sin’dorei hesitant to tell her sister that maybe she can’t see anymore?” Roper’s eyes are sharp and intense on Syarra, as he watches the ‘riddle’ land.
Syarra slides down to sit against the wall, looking up at Roper. She rests her arms on her knees, but her expression is looking inward, not really noting Roper's scrutiny. "First piece of the riddle to me would be what have I written that anyone needs translated? I haven't contacted her at all. I can't think of anything I've written since I died. And why do you know about this? But… " She takes in a breath, deliberately, and thinks. "Let's say my sister's blind now. Then my first guess on why she would hide it… because she did something to cause it. Because it was not an accident, it was something she messed up."
Roper makes a sound that's like a huff of a laugh as a grin settles onto his face. There's something about the expression that makes it seem like Syarra's said something particularly complimentary and he's flattered. "It was from before. My guess would be journal or letter," Roper says, a pleased note in the rasp, tilting his head slightly. "And so then, the next question I'd ask is why would she deliberately blind herself, or do something like it, and then conceal it from you?"
"Why would she deliberately…" Syarra trails off and drops her gaze down to her hands, a faint echo of disbelief written on her face. Eventually, she says, "Possibly a journal. I had one, once. It wasn't with me when I died."
"Well. There's one possible answer." Roper lifts his brows up as his left hand beats out a very slow tap-tap on his leg. He rests his right arm behind him on the crate, his right knee bending.
"I can think of one for the blindness, maybe, but it might sound ridiculous out loud." Syarra's right hand twitches to Roper's rhythm, and she doesn't look back up at him. "How much do you know about Illidan Stormrage?"
Roper makes a tsch sound as he looks up at the ceiling of the cage. "I know…things. They've got no context to them, but I know he's called The Betrayer for a lot of reasons. He was in some serious fucking prison for doing shit with the fel, and then let out because people panicked with the Legion. I remember…" Roper’s voice goes softer, the husky note stronger. "I was…angry about something. Something about him." He shakes his head, his eyes focusing on Syarra. "But it's gone. Why? What's the ridiculous thing, and what's it got to do with the bastard himself?"
"A lot of people are angry about him," Syarra shrugs, looking up again at Roper. "It may not be something specific? More recently, Aze mentioned him in Outland, in her letter. I'm no expert on the subject, but… he is blinded, in some way. And his closest disciples as well. But… it's a kaldorei thing."
Roper raises his right brow in a strong arch. "Something that would be obvious. Something that if she walked down the street in Silvermoon, even if she wears other armor, she's as marked as you are now, in some way."
"Like you said, he was imprisoned for 'doing shit with the fel'," Syarra clenches one hand on her knee. "And Aze did something she regrets… with fel energy. It matches some pieces."
Roper gives Syarra a brief lopsided smile, nodding as he continues to gently slowly tap out a beat on his left leg, his hand not making as much noise as his gauntlet usually does. His eyes dart to Syarra's hand, and back to her face. "How much of a problem is that going to be for you? Is she likely to be able to overpower you, one on one?"
"Does that matter? I wasn't planning on fighting her," Syarra's gaze sharpens on Roper. "And neither are you, I would hope. The plan was to get her to sign over her inheritance."
"Me? No. I'm not hurting Aszera, and I'll do what I can to make sure she doesn't make a problem for herself throwing her life up against one of us. But, that's the question you gotta ask, to know if you can let yourself go anywhere with her, even if she seems like she's on your side. 'Can I survive this, if it turns out she's going to betray me?'" Roper says it like it's standard. "Because she's not on your side right now. Or at least, she thinks she's not."
"Then I won't go anywhere with her," Syarra says, sitting back against the wall of the cage with a sigh. "If your question is whether she's dangerous, the answer is yes. I don't know about the blindness or anything else she may have picked up. But the Aze I knew before would have been a serious threat, as an enemy."
Roper examines Syarra seriously, that intense gaze on her face, his hand going still on his leg. "How much information do you need to make a strategy on approach then, if that's the case, and if she's got some new fucking tricks up her sleeves? How well can you manipulate your sister into doing what you want, if you can't lean on her love for you, if she's caught up in what you are more than who you are?"
"We know what she wants, from the letter," Syarra says slowly. "Safety. Family. Probably love. But it sounds like she isn't going to want any of that from me, even if I had it to offer. I don't think I have anything she wants, unless…" Syarra moves one hand to touch the fabric of her sleeve. "I see two options, and using one will ruin the chances of the other. On the one hand, I could threaten her. I can't offer more safety, but I can take hers away. Or I could lie… like you did with Brendol. Pretend to be the girl who died, and do it so convincingly that she sees her and not what I am now."
Roper nods slowly, his gaze following Syarra's hand. "Once you threaten her, there's no going back. I wouldn't use it unless you think she's about to destroy you." He tilts his head as he looks at Syarra, right brow rising in a slow arching. "So I guess the real question is, how good can you fake it? Once you start the lie, can you keep it up? You can't let her see what you are. You have to hold it in place like it's your real fucking face. Can you do that?" It's asked with a curiosity, his voice that softer burr of sound.
"I don't know," Syarra answers simply. "It's not a thing I practiced in life, not like you. But then, I was her. It seems like that should give me some advantage. I think the risk is what you said once before. If I keep up the lie, and she notices some crack in the facade, she's going to feel betrayed. And if she feels betrayed…"
There's an amused lopsided smile that moves Roper’s lips even as his eyes remain fixed on Syarra's in an unblinking gaze. "Spoken like a paladin," he drawls, and if there's a note of irritation in his voice there also seems to be something else, difficult to pin down. "Who spent most of her life trying to be honest and is now wondering how hard can it be to lie completely about who she is. It's not simple. You were her, but you're not anymore." Roper's eyes narrow as he holds up his right hand like he's playing a piano in the air and he looks away from Syarra into some middle distance.
"No. I think…I think you have to start thinking longer-term. I don't think you walk away from this one with a win. I think you lose this one. You don't have the information you need to leverage her on first meet, and if you want it you have to engage with her. So. You take the hit. You show up, she sees you're changed even if you play it closer, you lie about what you want the way you paladins like to — tell the truth but not in full. Technicalities. And you let her come away thinking she's won something. What did you say before? That the surest way to get her to come back was to have something she could take from you?" At the question, Roper’s attention snaps back to Syarra.
Syarra shifts forward, leaning her arms on her knees, as she watches Roper speak. Her expression remains smooth and neutral, not seeming to take any offense at this assessment of her lack of ability and information. On the last question, however, she tenses for a moment, something like anger flickering across her face.
"Yes, but that was… an echo," Syarra says as if she's testing out the fit of the word. "Does that happen to you sometimes? A thing happens now, and it seems to…. to resonate with something that happened before. Or many times before. And it might be a memory you'd almost forgotten, but for a moment it feels like it happened to you."
Roper bobs his head in time with his right hand in a wibbly wobbly form as his mouth twists a little. "Sort of. Except I definitely feel like it happened to me. I'm just…missing the story. Like I know I made swords. Over and over and over. I can feel it. But I have no idea why. Just this fragment and echoes of memory." Roper looks at the curtains of the cage. "But even when I'm looking at someone that I know, with absolute certainty, I must have cared about, that this person must have been so fucking important to me…I don't feel anything from before. I feel what I have now, and that's it. I can guess that it's probably what I felt like before as well, but I've got nothing. No proof that it's the same or different."
"I'm certain I felt it before, even if I don't now," Syarra says, watching him. "Nothing I did makes sense otherwise. But maybe some stories are better forgotten. Like your swords, probably."
"Not if you can use them," Roper says and he stretches his hands out, laces his fingers together, and sets them behind his head. "That's what my point is. There was history in what you said. That's an opening gambit, and a warning. We know she's fucking pissed off, falling on the side of 'Scourge monster, kill it.' So if you come at her with the house, she'll take it from you just to spite you. So, time to bury it in a mix. How well can you sell a lie like," and his voice shifts, the accent and pitch altering, until he sounds like an eerily accurate mimicry of Syarra, "'I just want my life back, Aze. I want my little sister. I want my people. I want my friends. I want to go home again, too.'" He raises his brows at Syarra.
Syarra doesn't press any further about the sword-making, but she shifts her gaze to his scarred hands until they disappear behind his head. When he mimics her, she looks sharply back to his face.
"If she's blind, maybe I don't even need to lie," she says, with a faint smile and maybe just a touch of Roper's usual drawl. "Maybe I don't need to be there at all. Think you can fake a hundred and twenty years of history?" Then she drops back to her usual voice and says, "The history wasn't that simple, though. I don't think it was ever intentional."
Roper chuckles at the attempt of the drawl, a smirk twisting his lips at the suggestion that he impersonates Syarra. "Even if you gave me enough time to really sell it, I wouldn't. Mimicking someone and being someone are two different things. When you're going to pretend to be someone they already know, you keep it brief. Shallow. I could play it off that I was you for, say, a journal hand over. I couldn't be you for an interview with a sister." He glances down to the pendant again. "How much did she take from you, in life? What you wanted. Men? Women? Friends?" Roper pauses and there's a narrowing of his eyes as he considers. "Leadership?"
"At least I'm not easily replaceable," The smile fades as she thinks, lacing her fingers together as her gaze goes somewhere distant. "She always… took up more space. She was just… louder, brighter, knew how to draw the eye. As for what she took, I don't know if there's anything I can say that won't sound petty and trivial. Attention. Acclaim. Men, yes, but not in the sense that she took anyone specific from me. It was more the simple fact of her presence deflecting possibilities. And when I got her into the military - recognition, advancement, even though I was the one with experience."
Roper's left arm flexes, and although his hands are behind his head, there's a sense of movement visible in the tendons of his wrist, like he's tapping slowly as Syarra speaks. He watches Syarra with a measuring expression, his eyes going intense as he listens. When she pauses, his eyes move as he looks at the dark curtains. "Did she ever realize it hurt you? Even when she didn't mean to do. Did she see it, or was she fucking oblivious?"
"Yes, Aze knew," Syarra says, refocusing on Roper as her mind comes back to the present. "I think she felt guilty, sometimes. But she couldn't not be herself, and she enjoyed getting what she wanted. And I… this is what I mean, about things not making sense. I guess I loved her, so I did nothing."
Roper makes a sound almost like a laugh, as his mouth drops open in a cheeky lopsided grin that looks triumphant as he tongues a tooth briefly. "Fucking perfect." He shakes his head. "She knew, and you see, now, now she'd want to do it on purpose. To hurt you, when she can't actually fucking stab you in the middle of the square."
Roper stretches out his legs as he readjusts against the crate. "So, what do you give up for her to 'win,' and force her to step forward, engage with you more? Or as you can think of it," Roper says, his voice developing a military precise sharpness, "'Mobile defense concentrates on destruction of the enemy by a decisive striking force. The intention here is to allow the enemy to advance to a point where they are exposed to a decisive counterattack.'" He drops the tone as he continues, "What can you pretend you want, pretend you don't want her to take that would make it feel like a victory to her? The journal she already has, but you could act like you wanted it back." Roper pauses. "Your father's stuff? Your friends in the guard? Or, what about Celaven?"
Syarra's shoulders twitch in surprise when he moves into military terminology, and she says, "[I see your Thalassian is coming along well.]"
Then, moving back into Common, she continues, "It would have to be something I would believably come to her about. My father's things I could simply take, and if she's avoiding the authorities she won't speak to the Guard. Celaven, though… you said she's backed by members of Cobalt Company." She hesitates, and then says more slowly, "I could claim I want her to speak to him on my behalf, to help me reconnect. I could say his friendship is important to me. That… that is something she might be able to take from me."
Roper gives Syarra a lopsided grin. "Exactly." He sounds pleased, the husky note of his voice deep. "And it helps us trace what the fuck she's doing with Cobalt Company. While she's busy with that, we work on how to make her see what you want her to see — and enough of it to eventually realize she should hand over the house to you. Find out what she needs, and exploit it, and then maybe you get two for one: an asset in a person, and an asset in a location."
"Two assets," Syarra repeats, something uncertain passing over her features. Then she smiles, and says, "A win for the Ebon Blade. I can go with my original plan for timing, head to find her in Shattrath tomorrow, then."
Roper nods and hesitates, moving his hands from behind his head to his waist, as he looks at Syarra, his hands completely still. The intensity is back in his face. "I have somewhere I need to be tomorrow. I'd cancel and go with you, but I don't think I should for this. Even in the fucking shadows, I'd make you look stronger, and you want her to think she's winning this round. I'll be in Stormwind, through the afternoon, but I will be back in Acherus by the evening."
"Yes, anything that makes my position more obvious is not going to help," Syarra nods, and then tilts her head curiously at Roper. "What's happening in Stormwind tomorrow?"
"I'm meeting an asset," Roper says, his brows jumping in that flick of amusement. "And maybe afterwards you won't have to worry about me scandalizing you with my bare chest," he drawls. "Like, I said, I'm gonna get a fucking complex, Syarra. Women didn't use to ask me to put my clothes on."
"If it helps, I only suggested I could bring clothes," Syarra says, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "And I recall expending considerable effort to get them off."
Roper tosses his head back in an amused laugh, a lopsided grin on his face. "Yeah, well." The amusement drains out into something more serious as he looks down at his hands, turning them over in the light of the candles so the scars are pressed against his legs. There's no drawl, but the husky note has turned into a soft scrape of sound in his voice, his expression thoughtful. "Thanks for that. For stopping. I wasn't sure…if you would. And if you hadn't, I wouldn't have fucking blamed you."
"There… were a few moments," Syarra says, almost apologetically. "But I always meant to stop." Her eyes trail down to the bandage over his waist. "Did it not mend right?"
Roper looks down at the bandages, touching a place over his stomach with his right hand. "No, that healed," he says, his voice soft and hollow. "It's the bullet hole that killed me. It never closed. It's just…there. Like a really fucked up belly button." There's a hint of a drawl. "Gonna be great if I ever need to smuggle some fucking illusion dust or some shit over the border."
"Ah," Syarra says, her expression clearing with understanding. "I was left with nothing so dramatic, but I have marks." She raises her left hand and brushes it over her right shoulder. She gives a brief breath of a laugh, and says, "I thought about healing it, just before, but then decided there was no point. Little did I know."
Roper's face flashes with something, and he deliberately inhales so he can exhale through his nose. "Yeah? Right before you sacrificed yourself for, who was it…Elivia Bloodsong?" He doesn't sound like he's guessing. "'Divine Intervention.'"
Syarra flinches, almost as if he's struck her. "What the fuck, Roper? Do you do this to everyone you know?"
"Only the ones I give a fuck about," Roper says, his voice quiet and dark. He looks at Syarra. "Especially the fucking paladins, lying with the truth, like they can hide it if they just stay on the line. I told you, Syarra. Information. If I want to know it, I will find out. I will make it fucking happen." His voice loses the husky note, his eyes burning brighter in the gloom of Acherus. "And if you want to know something, all you have to do is ask me. I will find it out for you. And I won't fucking stop until I know it."
"I told you what mattered," Syarra says, her own voice darkening. She pulls her knees in closer, almost protectively. "Whatever she told you, she wouldn't have told it right."
"You think so?" Roper says, in that soft burr. "I know she wouldn't. You really think I'd listen to her over you? Think I'd trust her more than you?"
"Why did you want to know the details?" Syarra takes in a careful breath, and deliberately relaxes. "They aren't helpful. There was a death knight. I saw the way out and I took it, for both of us."
"What, you never heard of the phrase 'the devil's in the details'?" Roper asks, and his left hand taps a slow, steady beat. "Empires rise and fall on the fucking details. Knowing that you would go that far, that that was how you ended it, fucking matters. You, what, got to the end and flipped the bird to a fucking Death Knight, who can't fucking feed off a death she didn't cause. That's not nothing, Syarra."
"That's one way of putting it," Syarra says, a certain weariness coming into her eyes. "Those memories were hazy until after Light's Hope. And then they didn't make much sense for a while, because… well, we just talked about that earlier."
"No context, no emotion behind it to understand why The Other Syarra in the story did it," Roper says. "Yeah." He turns his hands over, the scars obvious in the light. "You wanna know how I got the name 'Roper?' I remember enough of it, now, to at least give you the gist. I can't give you all the details, because they're gone, not because I wouldn't tell you."
"If you're willing to tell," Syarra says, looking at the scars, "then yes."
"There was a mission. I don't…remember what I was doing in prison, just that I was. I remember the cell, remember how to be a prisoner," Roper says, his voice a soft rasp, his eyes on his hands. "Something went wrong. A…judge, I think. 'Expedited execution.' The identity I was wearing was sentenced to death. If they pulled me, I would have lived, but I wasn't done. The mission would have failed. I didn't take the extraction. I stayed." He looks up at Syarra. "I made it to the end. I made the final drop of information, and I kept the identity to the fucking last. I let them hang me. Neck didn't break. I suffocated, slow."
Roper taps his right hand against his throat. "It took them an hour to cut me down and get the priest to resurrect me." The husky note gets darker and deeper. "I came back and nothing he did fully healed my voice." His voice shifts, going smooth and neutral, without a trace of the husky sound. "I had to learn how to talk around it, for identities. It took me six months. But at the end of it all, that's how I got my agent name — Roper. Willing to fucking die, slowly and painfully, if it meant I got the job done, if I got the information and didn't drop the lie I was telling."
"That's… beyond dedication. They must have valued you highly after that," Syarra's gaze moves to his throat, and then up to meet his eyes. "And then the constant reminders, with the name and the voice. But maybe it was a mark of pride, not a memory of pain?"
"Damn fucking right I was proud of it," Roper says, the slight husky note back in his voice. "I might have survived the last time, if I hadn't gone back for the sniper. I could have made it to Colson, my healer, if I'd gone the faster route. I would have been seen, would have blown the entire mission, but I would have lived. I never made that choice, not fucking once. Both times I died, I went out mission success on the primary parameter." Roper shrugs, something hollow in his voice. "Agent survival was secondary."
"Colson," Syarra's eyes widen with surprise at his name. "So that's why he's a contact for you. Makes sense. I…" Syarra frowns. "I don't know if I should be proud. She was preoccupied with flaying Elivia, only paying enough attention to me to keep me from stopping her. I was so tired by then, it had been days. And then she took Elivia and she fucking left." Syarra's hand clenches involuntarily, apparently remembering anger clearly enough. "Maybe it was a trick, but it seemed like I could have gone back to Light's Hope. She had Elivia and she didn't want me. But of course I followed her, even though I knew there was no hope. She must've thought I was still trying to get out alive, so she was caught off guard when I made sure Elivia would die. It wasn't hard to push her over, you know how we skirt that line. Then I laughed in her face, and I killed us both."
The other Death Knight is quiet, his left hand tapping a slow, steady, almost soothing beat. Roper gives Syarra a lopsided grin at the conclusion of the story, something hard and cold in his eyes, but it doesn't seem like it's directed at Syarra as he says, "Good." There's a beat. "And that's why you don't need revenge. You already got it on the way out."
"Yes. And I can't imagine this was her idea, either," Syarra says, gesturing at her body with a cold smile of her own. "I would imagine she'd see this as a reward."
"So," Roper murmurs, his voice deceptively soft, and filled with dark malice. "She gets to keep existing. And you keep climbing, forcing her to watch you succeed over her." Roper makes a sound like a laugh, cold and delighted all at once. "I won't let anyone take that from you, if that's what you want."
Syarra nods, some unnoticed tension flowing out of her body. "Not that anyone would on my account, but thanks. Though I guess she must have many distant relations of the dead who'd like to destroy her. For all I know, we do, too."
"I would," Roper says, his smile almost lazy. "I wasn't an assassin. But a lot of things have changed. If you wanted her destroyed, I would do it." It's a black promise, one that the other Death Knight tucks away, as his hand goes still on his leg.
"Maybe later," Syarra doesn't try to stop her answering smile. "If she causes problems, or if she and Aze go after one another. Enaliya doesn't get to kill anyone else I care about, so if that's even a possibility…" Syarra shifts slightly, as if thinking of going for her runeblade.
There's nothing to give away any surprise in the other Death Knight, no flash as the information lands.
"Your sister doesn't think you're her sister now, but you were when you died. She finds out who was responsible, she could take that from you, either for the Other Syarra, or just to fuck with you now." Roper holds Syarra's eyes. "I won't let her, if she tries. I will pull on what I have to in order to do it. And no," he adds with a wry look on his face, "I won't hurt her. I don't have to."
"Whatever's wrong with Aze, I intend for her to keep living, unharmed. It's what I would have wanted,” Syarra says.
Roper tenses at that, and there is a pause.
Roper’s voice is as dark as Syarra has ever heard it, the rasp a purr. "Then, in the spirit of that, let me make something fucking paladin unsubtle levels of clear: I won't hurt Aszera. Unless," he adds as he makes eye contact, his eyes unblinking, his voice a deep frozen midnight. "She destroys you. So in case you were thinking that if things go wrong to sacrifice yourself with any of those lingering echoes of preserving your sister at all costs, know that if you don't come back at least somewhat intact – especially if you let her take you out because of some echo of paladin guilt bullshit – I will make her fucking pay for it. If she's lucky I will kill her,” there are uncanny, deathly echoes in his voice that disappear a moment later as Roper softly drawls, “But you come back, in one way or another, and we won't have any problems, and I will keep Aze living and unharmed, as best as I fucking can for as long as I possibly can, and I am very good at what I do, Syarra. Deal?"
Syarra pauses for a moment, then nods. "Deal, then. I'll be careful tomorrow. I don't intend to let her destroy me."
Roper nods, his face flickering in a suggestion of a smile. "I'll stop by your cozy corner, after I get back from Stormwind. If something goes wrong, get there, aim for those crates. You can't be seen by the foot traffic. And I'll help. I can walk away from your pain."
"With luck, it's only words, and I just set her after Celaven," Syarra says, and passes a glance over Roper's bare chest. "But I'll be there. I wouldn't want to miss your asset's idea of Acherus fashion."
Roper flicks both brows up and down. "The fashion is the excuse. I don't give a fuck what I end up getting. I want the tailor." He stretches his hands back up and behind his head. "Cressidha Aspenwood. Colson's little sister. I don't know how she ended up being drafted into Dress The Death Knight, and I will find out, and I will have one more connection by the end of it."
"He must still trust you," Syarra says, raising an eyebrow. "Introducing you to his family. Well, if I can get Aze on our side, we'll be collecting little sisters."
Roper doesn't correct the assumption. "That's how it works. You let each thread bring you another until you make a fucking net, and then you use it to get what you want."
"I do have some threads," Syarra says, sounding a little surprised at the realization. "Not just Aze. I should work on that."
Roper's face moves in a brief, lopsided smile. "The families of Nadori Bladewhisper, Linnrael Flareheat, and Elivia Bloodsong for letters. Terian in the fucking royal guard of Silvermoon. Yeah," Roper deep drawls. "Just a few. Nothing really. Only major connections to some of last standing houses of the Sin'dorei."
Syarra raises one eyebrow. "Light's Hope Chapel, for the names? Or Silvermoon, but that would have been more of a risk. In any case, the letters were sent. Their daughters all died noble, relatively painless deaths, as far as I'm concerned. No responses yet, but I'll see what that gets me."
Roper puts a hand to his chest, the motion elegant as a dancer, blinking his eyes in a show of innocence that looks uncannily like Brendol, giving that Die-of-Shock Sin'dorei gasp, even as he speaks in his own voice, "Syarra Sunstrike, are you asking me to spy and tell?"
Syarra's pale face brightens with amusement, but she just says dryly, "I would hate to ask you to give up advanced spy techniques, like… I don't know, reading a roster."
Roper gives one of his brief ha laughs, a lopsided grin flashing on his face before he gives a rolling shrug. "You would be surprised how often a simple thing like a roster made or broke an entire military operation." Roper's expression bleeds into something else, his voice going lower. "I still know the names from the Scarlets'. Who was there, the guard rotations they set up. Not sure how many are still alive."
"From before? Not many, I would guess." Syarra drops her gaze, and adds, "We had no incentive to leave them alive."
Roper tilts his head in acknowledgement. "Yeah." A beat. "You know. You did it well." Again that clipped, militaristic sounding tone, "'When a team is assembled, an important first step is for team members to get to know one another. They are to be encouraged to exchange names, as well as some personal information, and to demonstrate how they work as an individual.'" Roper drops it. "Fucked up as it was. You remembered what you were doing."
Syarra twitches again, jerking her head up to meet his gaze. "Yes… I would venture a guess that those parts of me were deemed more useful to keep than to destroy. I haven't spoken with Forge or Corduin since then. After we were free, I just…" she shrugs, and continues in a lighter tone. "If you're going to keep doing that, maybe I should leave some Thalassian romance novels lying around. Or bad poetry."
"Oh, I think I've got the bad poetry covered," Roper drawls, but there's a note of something in his voice. Embarrassment, maybe, in the edges, and the way he doesn't look at Syarra as he says it.
"Mm," Syarra says, pushing herself to her feet. She looks for a moment like she might step over to him, but she doesn't move. She crosses her left arm to touch her right elbow, then lets the arm drop. "Not what I meant, exactly. You held it together, too. Back then, and at Corin's Crossing. Remembered what you were doing."
Roper watches Syarra stand, and remains sitting by the crate, but he lowers his hands to the ground as his gaze latches onto the bend of her elbow. "It was the point, you know. Of the fucking practice torture. You have to be able to remember what you're saying, no matter how bad it gets. And that was me, losing my fucking mind." He deliberately blinks and forces his eyes back up to Syarra.
"You didn't, though," Syarra says, looking down at him. "Lose your mind. Maybe you said a little more than you would've liked, but…" she shrugs.
Roper makes a sound like a dry chuckle, his mouth twisting as he glances again at the curtains. "I don't say shit on accident, Syarra. If I've got no control over what I'm saying, that means I've lost all control." He stares back up at Syarra. "What is it that bothers you about the book? The subject or that I know what it says?" The husky note is barely a whisper in his voice.
"It doesn't bother me. I told you that you could borrow it, and obviously you're a quick study." She pauses, seeming to consider her words. "It's just… startling. The parts you quote, the context… it feels almost like a commentary on me. Which is absurd and self-absorbed, I know, it is an entirely neutral book. Maybe it just makes me feel… observed. Which I am not used to."
Roper gives Syarra a lazy sort of grin, like she's said something particularly complimentary again, and he's pleased by it. The husky note comes back, in a soft rasp as he says, “You think I don’t notice you watching me? Looking at my hands like you’re cataloging them, studying my face like you’re memorizing it for later. You think I don’t see you tucking away the information on how I feel about Colson Fucking Aspenwood, and use it when you want to make me look away?" He flicks his brows up, amused.
"This is what I do, Syarra. I shouldn’t have to tell you that I’m fucking dangerous, and that I'm watching you right back. I've been upfront about what I am from the start. But I’m your,” Roper hesitates, just a fraction too long, “Partner. Part of your team. I’m not dangerous to you. Not anymore. And this? This was fucking useful. This is what I need — someone exactly like you.”
"I'm not trying to store up ammunition," Syarra says, her brow furrowing. "Not against you. And I know that. You could have not walked away, in Corin's Crossing. You could have made me stop you. But… what do you need me for?"
“Because I told you – I have fucking plans. And every single Death Knight who wears this armor is part of that. Mograine’s got his high lord seat to be the scariest mother fucker in the room, and that’s good for keeping us fucking in line. But what the rest of us rabble do…” Roper looks around his room with a twist of a smile. “I know where we need to go, but like I told you. I’m really not a walk out in front kind of guy. I’m not gonna lead a team out in the fucking field. Someone has to do that. I don't want a fucking puppet. I want someone I can trust to actually fucking lead it. And you…” Roper pushes himself up to a stand, looking at Syarra with that hint of a smile.
“You studied it. You focused on it. How to make a team and make it work for you. So yeah, I’m looking at you Syarra and I’m wondering, do you want it? Is that still true, that you want to rise to the top and fucking do it, or was that just the Other Syarra?”
"Yes, I want it," she breathes, meeting Roper's eyes with certainty. "That was not taken from me. All I lost there were the things that might have stood in my way."
Roper's smile grows into a triumphant lopsided grin. "Then you're gonna need a fucking team. And collecting assets…that's what I fucking do." He makes an oddly elegant gesture to himself with his right hand, almost a courtly bow. "You've got your shadow. After that you need more muscle, someone to direct for taking on something more impressive than tracking down a lost lamb. Right now, the easiest for me to collect would be Forge or Corduin. Any preference?"
Syarra considers. "Both are capable. Corduin might be simplest to recruit - I saw her after the battle. She was disappointed to be discarded, and may still be looking for direction. Preferably toward something to kill. Forge… I am not certain of his state. It is harder to predict the reactions of the draenei, and I do not know how many memories came crashing down on him. It could be centuries or millenia."
Roper nods, his attention sharpening. “Forge, I think, would have to wait until we have something specific, but I could find that if you wanted it. Full cold logic on that one, and if he's trapped in his own head from too much fucking memory an actual game plan for that specific time is how we hook him. ‘We’re going here, we are doing this, it will benefit you directly and indirectly.’ That shit."
“Corduin though…that’s an approach I can make any time. Emotional lead in. ‘Chains were in the bedroom.’ Now, you could think maybe it’s some kinky shit, or a relationship that took the insult ‘ball and chain’ way too fucking literally, but I don’t like those." His right fingers dance in a quick, complex pattern like he's playing a piano in the air. "There’s another simple explanation, and simple is almost always right. Because where else do you have chains in your fucking bedroom?” Roper stretches out a leg and nudges the manacles on the floor of his cage. They make a scraping sound against the clean floor. “Prison. And like I said, I remember that. No prisoner ever fucking wants to go back to prison. This place…it’s gotta be a fucking nightmare. A constant reminder of going back to that. So, she’s gonna want out, gonna want options. And that means she’s gonna follow someone leading out of it. And being chosen after being discarded? Fuck, that's irresistible.”
"Prison," Syarra tries out the idea, narrowing her eyes in thought. "It could be. Even if not, I got the impression she saw her new state as… freeing in some way. And yes, she felt special. Likely less so now, on both counts, which we can use."
"Corduin first then," Roper agrees, his voice clear of any drawl or rasp. "You knew the Argents. Could you get them to give us something, take out a threat, clear a fucking problem, go set some shit on fire minus the pitiful orphans inside? Someone you knew who would trust you to do it without following in our fucking footsteps?"
"Possibly," Syarra tilts her head. "Briellen Clay? Tabiana? I left both on good terms. Or I could try someone I had spoken to before."
"Mm, no, known is good. Build up a connection into a full asset." Roper taps his left hand slowly on his left leg, looking into some middle distance. "Of the two of those, who is higher up? Has more pull?"
"Briellen, I think," Syarra says thoughtfully. "She has more seniority, if I'm judging correctly. And she seemed very interested in us."
"Perfect." Roper tilts his head, his brows swooping up. "You take Briellen, and I'll see if I can get Corduin?"
"That sounds like the path." For a brief moment, something like satisfaction crosses Syarra's face. "So many things to be set in motion. I have missed this. Purpose."
Roper gives Syarra a brief smile, and does a little finger flourish in the air before he turns, and moves towards where the blacksmithing plans lay on the ground. "So have I," he says, his voice a deep rasp, staring down at them, his back straight, control and power visible in the way he holds himself. He looks back at Syarra over his shoulder, eyes bright. “And Syarra?"
"Hm?" She asks, shifting toward the door.
“Yes, I’m watching you, looking for your weak spots, finding out where the soft parts are that remain." Roper holds up his right hand, turning it in place, as frost covers his fingers in a glove of lacey ice. "It’s because I need to know what and where they are, so that if someone tries to stab you in them, I can cut off their fucking hand before they even touch you. That’s what it means to have me there, walking behind you as a shadow in the dark. What you get if you keep me as an ally.” Roper arches his right brow as he drawls, “I’d ask what you’re watching me for, but it’s more fun to figure it out. I got the candles to burn.”
Syarra gives a brief smile, and ducks her head in a nod.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Roper," she says, her expression falling flat as she turns to slip out of the cage door and back into unsheltered Acherus.