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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Alaisa makes it to the meeting place in time for Roper's deadline, and she encounters The Ebon Blade Asset. Unfortunately, the only one Alaisa's willing to bargain with is Roper, Himself. Characters in conflict RP, 5100-ish words. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Darrowshire looks different at seven in the morning, a thick, heavy weight of mist settled on the town. Things move in the mist, subtle shifts of shadows that may be nothing more than a trick of the light, but this is the Plaguelands, where dead things walk in unceasing waves of existence and death, crashing against the shore of the living who enter this place.
The well in the center of the square is visible enough, as is the stark white skeleton still there at its base, but there is nothing else near it of, perhaps, an expected darkness. Instead, tucked away in a shadowed corner of a building, not visible from every reasonable point of entry into Darrowshire, there is a smear of extra shadow — a corpse up and walking — a Death Knight waiting and watching the well, his hood drawn over his face, bright, eerie necromantic blue eyes sweeping the area back and forth, the rest of him perfectly still.
Alaisa comes running down the road to the well at a full sprint, a flock of eight plague bats in pursuit, with exactly thirty-one seconds to spare before the deadline. The hood of her black and red cloak has fallen back to expose her face, and the cloak and her mess of curly hair stream behind her as she runs downhill. She wears a black leather cuirass over the same dusty rose-colored blouse, and attached to the sword belt at her waist are two swords with familiar hilts that sit poorly in their scabbards, a little too loose to be properly secure.
The shadow shifts at the incoming movement.
It does not take him even a blink to comprehend the situation. There's a tsch sound from beneath the hood, full of scorn, but he steps out of the shadows, his rune blades snapping free, one in each hand, his actions loose and relaxed.
Roper sprints forward.
He is on a direct collision course not for Alaisa, but for the plague bats behind her. The one that is too close to her, that has been gaining on her, is thrown backwards, wings flapping desperately, by a hard shock of ice and disease. There's a harsh sound of a death rattle exhale, as a chain of disease forms among the bats.
A brutal howling wind gathers behind the Death Knight, ice and shadow twisting from somewhere, slamming into the bats, before Roper has even made it into melee range.
Alaisa hits the well with both hands, breathing heavily. It takes her a moment longer than it should to draw her swords and turn to face the bats.
Roper has made it to the closest bat, there is a flash of blue glowing metal, and the bat drops to the ground, dark ice covering it. A step, another flash, another bat on the ground. The Death Knight looks like he's swatting flies out of the air as he moves through them, frost and ice on his blades.
There is a deadly sort of beauty to it. A rhythm of power and expertise. A bat backflaps in desperation and opens its mouth to let loose a shriek, unholy terror in the sound. The Death Knight's hand goes tense on his blade, but he doesn't stop his forward momentum. Two runes pulse in his swords, and the bat is obliterated in a shadow of power.
There is a chill of death in the air, as the temperature drops, and the remaining bats freeze in place for a breath of time, before that terrifying howl of wind sweeps through, shattering them into pieces.
The Death Knight sheathes his blades, turning away from the dead bats on the ground to face Alaisa.
Alaisa has moved into a ready stance, eyes on Roper and the bats, trying to catch her breath enough to speak. She lowers her swords when the last bat falls and leans back against the well. She looks like it is taking her some effort not to just collapse on the spot.
"Where is the armor?" Roper asks, in that neutral voice, no drawl, no rasp. There is nothing at all in his voice to suggest any sense of feeling in the Death Knight.
Alaisa sheaths her swords, pushes her sweaty hair out of her face, and says, "What the fuck, Roper."
"Is there a problem, Mist?" Roper asks back, his face entirely within the shadows of his hood, his body language loose and relaxed.
Pain - immediate and sharp, a quick stabbing burst, at the name.
"Yeah. Yeah, give me a. Second." Alaisa sinks down into a sitting position against the well in a way that is only just barely not an actual collapse.
Roper's chest moves in a deep inhale, as he moves his arms across his chest. He stands there, an immobile ice sculpture surrounded by the mist. "Impressive trick," he says. "Really. How long did it take you to figure that one out? End of Darrowshire? After the tailor?"
Alaisa, who has always held at least some composure together in Roper's presence up until now, looks like an absolute mess. She rubs her hands together, trying to get some feeling back in them, and gathers Roper's her cloak around herself more tightly. She's shivering, she's taking in big rattling gasps of air, and exhaustion is obvious in her posture. She shakes her head to Roper's question.
“You don’t need to bother though. There’s just no need for this…charade, to continue,” Roper says, gesturing to Alaisa with his right hand. “Not that I don’t appreciate the detailing of it, the execution of the entire facade. Really, the craftsmanship of it all. The swords, the made up shadows under the eyes, the cloak…but there wasn’t any reason to put yourself in danger of missing the deadline to try to sell it. I told you – it won’t be necessary. Our goals are perfectly aligned: you want an ally in the Ebon Blade, and I want one for Cobalt Company and Stormwind. Friendship has nothing to do with being a valuable asset."
Roper's hood tilts slightly. "Whatever impression your brother gave you of what we are, I am a real Knight, the monster in the dark forged to be an army unto myself, one chosen for the front, not to hang back and watch. If I were the type to be moved by friendship, they would have had me culled the moment I hesitated to destroy someone begging me not to, claiming he knew me, knew ‘Shale,’ from before.” Roper leans closer, his voice going into what is almost a conspiratorial stage whisper, something dark and cold in his voice. “I didn’t hesitate.”
Alaisa closes her eyes. The accusation hurts, that much is obvious to a Death Knight. She shakes her head again, looking up at Roper. "You've convinced yourself I've been lying to you. Fuck, I don't know whether to be flattered that you think I'm that talented or hurt that you think I'm that heartless." It's a soft, steady wash of pain. There's something ragged and miserable in her voice. "This isn't a charade. I'm not that good. I didn't fucking sleep, Roper. I was in danger of missing the deadline from the start because it was a real tight fucking deadline." She licks a finger and rubs under her eye for a few seconds. There's no change, no smearing.
Roper bends down into a crouch, and there is an intensifying sense of a predator as he does so, hands loose by his side, curled slightly inwards into the shape of claws. He lifts his face enough that his features are vaguely visible in the gloom, his eyes bright. There is no emotion in his face, no mobility at all. It's a corpse staring out from under the hood.
"Stayed up all night hiding the evidence of brother-dearest from dad, and using it now to sell 'distress?'" Roper says, in a guess that makes it sound like he doesn't think he's guessing. "Clever. Use what could be a weakness into selling a lie. It's what I would do, because I am that good, and yes, I am that heartless, to get what I want. The thing I can't quite grasp is why you think it's necessary that I believe the lie." He spreads his hands out in a show of emptiness, staying perfectly balanced on his heels in the crouch. "Maybe the man you remember would not have been a reliable asset without some personal loyalty, but as you know, I am not him. I am a Knight of the Ebon Blade, your ally against the Scourge."
Alaisa seems exhausted, but she doesn't look afraid. She lets him speak, waits it all out, and then says, "How about because it isn't a fucking lie? Roper, I'm not giving up on you this easily."
"I am curious though," Roper says, as he watches Alaisa. "How long were you planning it? How far back does it go. Was he even the one who realized I was up and walking? Did you pitch it to him, when you realized what you could get for yourself if you could sell it?"
Alaisa slow-blinks at him. "How far back does what go…?" She rubs at her face and sits up a little straighter, reaching into her satchel. She takes out a thermos and drinks some of whatever's inside, making a face. It smells like tea, but it's probably gone cold.
"The plan to use a Death Knight to save a Death Knight," Roper says, in that even voice that gives nothing away, his face unmoving and unblinking as he stares at Alaisa. "When you came to me in the bar, did you already know what you were doing? Before that? When did you realize you could use me?"
"Shaw wanted somebody to approach you, and he gave me the job because I was the only fucking person who wasn't happy to conveniently forget you ever existed back in the day." There's a note of genuine anger in her voice, not directed at Roper, but it fades as Alaisa continues. "That had nothing to do with Theris at all. When you said you were willing to downgrade to wetwork, though, it made me realize it must be pretty fucking bad. The Hunger. That was when I started to get worried. But I was never trying to use you, Roper. I wanted information, sure, but I was there to see you. Always."
There is for the first time something darker around the Death Knight, a hint of emotion beneath the mask, as frost creeps around the edges of the saronite for a moment before it disappears as though it was never there. "Well, you don't have to worry about the Hunger taking your brother from you. If he lived off fish and little sparks of your pain for months, he's practically a living person. I would have ripped that cage open by the end of the first week and killed you all." It's delivered with no particular threat or inflection, just a fact. "That's what you've been talking to all this time."
The Death Knight turns his hands up in a twist of his wrists. "I wondered why you weren't afraid of me. I thought you must have had nerves of steel, but really it was just that you had the wrong information. I'm nothing like him." The bats behind him still haven't thawed, frozen in ice, in pieces.
Alaisa takes another sip of cold tea, coughs a few times into the crook of her elbow, and caps the thermos, stowing it away again. "I'm still not afraid of you," Alaisa claims, raising her chin a little. "I know you're dangerous, obviously." She gestures behind Roper to Exhibit A, Frozen Bats. "You're a monster, but you're not a barbarian," she says in Roper's drawl, and then adds in her own voice, "And you're still a person. Both can be true."
"Is that what this is? You need to prove something to someone, that you have a 'tame' Death Knight? A monster that is enough of a person for 'friendship?'" Roper asks. "What promises have you made that you now wonder if you cannot deliver on?"
Alaisa throws her head back and laughs, genuinely amused by the idea. The laugh turns into another cough, and again she politely covers her mouth with her arm. "No, Roper," she says a moment later. Shivering, she pulls the cloak more tightly around her. "No. Is it really that fucking hard to believe, what I've been saying this whole time?"
Roper leans closer in a truly gravity defying feat of strength and balance, stretching closer to Alaisa, his eyes bright under the hood. "You are asking me to believe, despite all the evidence to the contrary, in the fact of the proof of your brother's entire existence, that it was nothing but coincidence. That even without him slowly fading away, without this very real need to learn about a Death Knight that you desperately wanted to save who would not tell you anything because he wanted to die, that you would have done everything else the same? That I am the prize you're seeking out of this? I can only assume that I have forgotten some truly monstrous levels of arrogance that you remember of me to think that I would ever believe that sort of conclusion."
Alaisa blinks slowly at Roper. "Roper. Listen, I was trying not to make my fucking problem into your problem. I thought I could handle it. I didn't know about the fucking runeblades. I wasn't trying to, to earn points with you, I wasn't trying to use you, I needed help." Looking down, in a quieter voice, Alaisa adds, "And I asked you, when I knew I couldn't handle this on my own, because I thought you'd want me to."
"It must be so frustrating," Roper says, turning his right hand over again, showing the palm, and there might be something that certainly sounds like genuine sympathy in his voice. "To have been forced to play your hand too soon. You asked when you had no choice, forced to reveal what you had been doing, instead of slowly siphoning off what you thought would be the information you needed. Believe me, I do sympathize. None of us ever like it when we mishandle an asset because our information was incomplete. But what's done is done. I already told you what I am looking for, what I need, and I intend to hold to our agreements." He sets his hand on his knee. "Now, where is the armor?"
Alaisa goes from leaning back against the well to kneeling in the dirt, and she starts to reach for her satchel again before stopping. With a look of pure determination, she holds a hand out to him. "Where's Roper? I want to talk to you first."
"No," Roper says, as he looks at her hand. "You really don't, Mist." He inhales a breath and deliberately sighs as he straightens up, staring down at her, his face that same, corpse-still expression. "Well, if you won't hand it over without getting that, then I suppose I return empty handed, and your brother goes another day hoping he manages to heal the damage done to him before he's destroyed." He holds out a hand. "But I think we both know that you won't let that happen. So, hand it over."
Again, a sharp, stabbing pain at the name, and her expression flickers, but Alaisa holds her ground. "I could have just fucking sent it by mail, Roper. I'm here to talk to you."
"I suppose I will look for it by mail, then," Roper says, as he gives Alaisa a little nod, reaching out a hand in a way that is familiar now, as he twists the shadows. "Do give the Argent Crusade my best when you see them."
Alaisa stands up, clutching the cloak around her. "No. I told you I'd give it to you. You, Roper, not whoever this one is supposed to be. Don't you fucking dare run off now. I'm not giving you that armor until I can talk to you again."
Roper's head turns slowly as he looks at Alaisa and there is something in his posture that seems for the first time genuinely dangerous. "There isn't spare armor up there. If you don't send that armor, your brother will have nothing. Or do you plan on simply buying your way out of this one, Lady Alaisa? And here I thought you would want only the best for brother-dearest."
Alaisa straightens up further and glares at him. She looks just as freezing and exhausted as she did a moment ago, but there's a fierce sort of confidence about her all the same as she says, "You want him to get his armor back. He isn't useful to you without it. Fucking talk to me, Roper."
The Death Gate snaps closed, a wisp of shadow. There's a beat of silence and then, a soft, "Fine."
It's a blink, and everything changes about the Death Knight, as Roper throws back his hood, and the identity scatters into the mist.
The Death Knight revealed is a terrifying powerhouse of dangerously cold rage, frost covering his face like white blue veins full of ice. He crosses the distance between them in a menacing burst of speed, his hand launching out to close painfully tight – the pointed tips clicking against the saronite armor – on Alaisa's right hand, lifting it up, as he gets directly into her space, his breastplate almost touching her leather cuirass.
"Give me the fucking armor, Mistake," Roper snarls in deathly, uncanny echoes, as the temperature around him drops even further.
Every single word is a threat, and none of them are idle.
Alaisa's glare dissipates the moment Roper pulls his hood back, and she grins at him even through the pain as his hand begins to crush hers. "Hi, Roper," she says, pleased.
One moment she's standing there smiling at him and the next she has pressed in closer, with her left arm wrapped around his back in a tight hug and her cheek, red from the cold, pressed against his significantly grayer and colder cheek. "I will. Good to see you."
The Death Knight freezes, and not only metaphorically, as frost armor snaps over him, chilling him even further. But Alaisa is close enough to hear and feel the inhaled breath, and the odd, almost needy-sounding noise in his throat he doesn't quite repress. His hand over hers twitches, as though he's not sure if he wants to crush it harder or let it go, and caught in indecision, he does nothing.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner," Alaisa says, her voice gone even softer. "Didn't mean to hurt you." The pain from her hand is a steady, even stream, and Alaisa is not trying to pull free at all.
"Let. Go." The uncanny echoes are almost painfully jarring. Roper is breathing steadily, his eyes glowing brighter with each inhale, and despite his words, he pulls Alaisa's hand closer to him.
"Why?" Alaisa asks. Her tone is almost dreamy-sounding, like she might be on the verge of falling asleep. The shivering has gotten significantly worse. She doesn't let go.
Roper tilts his head, inhaling again, and again, his body language relaxing in a different way as he sinks into something. Another inhale in the below freezing temperature and then a hitch, as Roper lets out a vicious sounding, "Fuck."
He reaches a hand back for the one wrapped around him, and with a precise sort of gentleness to avoid clawing her with the gauntlets, removes her from him. The hand around her wrist relaxes enough to stop hurting, and the temperature around them climbs steadily as the frost recedes. He holds onto both her wrists, looking at Alaisa with an evaluating eye, his face a storm of anger and something else.
"Mistake," Roper says, his voice harsh, as he gives her a shake.
Alaisa blinks slowly at him. "'s cold," she says, the clear enunciation gone from her voice. "Real… fuckin' cold on that gryphon ride."
"Go," Roper orders. "Just fucking go and mail the fucking armor," he says, his voice a husky rasp, and he lets go of her hands, casting them off, as he forces himself a step back.
Alaisa stumbles back against the edge of the well and slides down it to sit again. "Mm… 've got it here." She fumbles with the clasp to open her satchel with frozen fingers.
Roper nods, flicking his hood up, and reaches out a hand to twist the shadows for Acherus.
Alaisa has stopped shivering. "I was worried I wouldn't… make it here 'n time." Her speech has gotten more slurred, and she pulls something from her satchel - a drawstring mageweave bag, heavy. "Brought you… the armor, Roper," she says, smiling, her eyes shut.
Roper turns his head to look at Alaisa. He leaves the Death Gate open as he moves to pick up the mageweave bag, lifting it as though it was nothing more than corpse dust. "Great, everyone fucking wins, now use the fucking hearthstone," Roper snaps out, his voice a harsh rasp. "You're fucking useless to me if you freeze to death."
Alaisa pulls the hood of the cloak up over her hair and curls up a little bit against the well, turning sideways away from the skeleton, gathering the cloak around her. "Mmm…"
"Hey," Roper barks out, grabbing at Alaisa's shoulder, his grip loose as the tips of the gauntlet catch on the cloak. "Hey!"
There's a moment where she doesn't move, and then slowly, sluggishly, Alaisa turns her head a little and blinks at him. "Roper…? Wha'swrong?"
"Use. Your. Fucking. Hearthstone," Roper bites out, pulling up Alaisa's satchel and shoving it in her face. "Go home."
"Mmm." Alaisa blinks slowly at it a couple of times and then closes her eyes.
She doesn't open them.
Roper growls as he crouches down next to her and moves his hand to Alaisa's face, holding her chin in cold, hard grip, the tips of his gauntlets threatening to prick her skin as he turns her face. "Wake up." It's an order.
Alaisa is either ignoring him or legitimately unconscious, and there's a very, very high chance it's the latter.
Roper releases her face with a harsh sound as he stands, hands balled into tight fists, and he looks down at the bag in his hand containing the armor, and then the Death Gate. There's a pause, and he looks back at Alaisa.
The Death Knight flicks his fingers and the Death Gate snaps closed once more, as Roper opens an imbued netherweave bag behind his back and shoves the armor bag inside it. "Fuck," he mutters, as he removes his gauntlets, every motion jerky and filled with banked rage. He makes a 'come here' motion with his head as he shoves the gauntlets with their dangerous claws into the bag.
From the deep shadows around them comes a horse of darkness and death, obediently stepping to Roper. He says nothing as he moves over to Alaisa, picking her up as easily as if she weighed nothing at all, shoving the satchel into her lap.
With precision and inhuman, monstrous strength he gets both of them into the saddle, carrying Alaisa carefully in front of him, cradled against the saronite armor, wrapped in his old cloak. He doesn't have to give any instruction to his horse for it to take off at a hard gallop, a max speed that would leave any living horse panting and near death as they ride unceasing through the Plaguelands.
==Time Passes==
The sight of the Death Knight riding at a gallop that signals either an emergency or that he is being chased by the entire Scourge itself would be potentially alarming. That he seems to be holding onto what looks to be a living woman may be either more or less so. He passes by some of the Argent Crusade as though he can do that, just riding on by, as he makes for Light's Hope Chapel.
As he gets closer to the building, still riding fast enough that it may seem for a moment that he intends to simply keep riding all the way into the building itself, he doesn't even dismount, as some signal of power shifts, and the Death Charger makes a grating scream as it's dragged back into the shadows. Roper catches his feet on the ground, holding Alaisa in his arms, and he keeps walking without breaking stride for the chapel.
A young man in an Argent Crusade tabard standing near the stables looks up expectantly as the sound of hooves approaches. He looks curious, and then alarmed, and as he watches the horse be pulled Somewhere Else, mutters, "Holy shit."
Standing just outside the chapel is an armored paladin with short black hair and a nasty, disfiguring scar across her entire face, who moves as if to intercept Roper.
Roper pulls to a halt in front of the paladin, and if there's a muttering of something under the hood, it's low and faint enough to possibly go unheard. Louder he says, "I'm here to claim fucking sanctuary or whatever you call it. She needs to get fucking warm." His voice is a tight, harsh rasp, and he looks impatient, even with his face hidden beneath the dark shadows of his hood.
The paladin passes a quick, evaluating glance over Roper and Alaisa, and she nods. "Medical tent's this way," she says, already starting to walk very briskly. She jerks her head in the direction of the tent.
Roper follows behind, a slightly clanky shadow, his strides almost overreaching for his height as he tries to cover more ground quicker.
"I'm Dame Briellen Clay. One of the healers here." Briellen steps inside an open tent flap, leading them into a medium-sized tent with about half the cots full. There's a sense of pain emanating from several of the wounded here. Briellen waves over to an orderly, a small gnome with her pink hair pulled back into a ponytail. "Extra blankets, Cheep."
"Yes ma'am!" Cheep says, rushing off.
Roper hesitates at the tent flap, inhaling deeply, and he sways slightly, head tilting up in what seems to be an unintentional motion, his eyes closing. It takes him several breaths before he deliberately stops breathing, opens his eyes, and follows Bree inside, tension radiating off him as he focuses intently on his goal.
"I know you," Roper grinds out from between clenched teeth. "I'm a f— ," he starts and there's a brief hesitation that drags out into a longer one. He starts again, "Syarra's mentioned you." His voice is a dark, deep rasp, and there's a sense of something dangerous in his voice that he's trying to keep under control. "Roper." It sounds like it's his name.
"Oh? I recall Syarra." Briellen nods towards one of the cots and looks at Roper expectantly.
Roper gently deposits Alaisa onto the cot, although some of that may be due to the tightly coiled tension in him preventing him from moving quickly. He withdraws, stands up straight, and reaches behind him to his back immediately. His blades are behind his back.
As Alaisa is set down, she makes a small, quiet noise and reaches a hand out in Roper's direction for just a moment before it drops, resting on her stomach.
Briellen's eyes are on her patient, rather than Roper, as she strips her gauntlets off and sets a hand on Alaisa's forehead. "What happened to her?"
Roper removes his gauntlets from his bag and drags them on aggressively. "She came to deliver her brother's armor." He pauses. "Her brother's saronite armor. He just moved into Acherus yesterday. He left the armor behind. She took a gryphon. Apparently it was cold, and she hadn't slept." Roper's voice is clipped and his sentences are brief as he seems to be avoiding taking larger breaths.
Briellen reaches for Alaisa's right hand, frowns at the bruising on her wrist, and sets it back down. She murmurs a prayer, a soft Light emanating from her hands that washes over Alaisa in a wave. Only then does she glance back at Roper. "Hypothermia."
"Blankets!" chirps a small pile of blankets on little gnome-sized legs.
Roper mutters something, and sways again slightly. "Fuck," he says, his shoulders hunching. "I can't fucking be in here." He starts towards the exit, and pauses at the flap. "I'll be outside," he grates out, and steps out of the medical tent without waiting for any response.
"I understand," Briellen says mildly, starting up another prayer.
"Whoa!" The gnome holding the blankets dodges around Roper as he exits.
Roper is standing near the chapel's mailbox, leaning against the wood of the building's facade with his arms crossed so tightly across his chest it's unclear how he's not actually denting the armor. His left hand has a steady, rapid beat of clicking claws going against his right arm, his hood drawn so low over his face there's nothing visible underneath but shadows.
He's pointed so he can see the medical tent from where he stands, and the impression is that he's staring at it intently. He does not look approachable in the slightest.
A good fifteen minutes later, the person brave enough to approach Roper first is actually the pink-haired gnome orderly, who exits the tent, looks around, and walks right on up to Roper with a friendly customer service smile on her face. "Hi! The patient you brought in is asking for you."
"She's awake then," Roper says, tilting his head down slightly. From her perspective, despite the darkness, his features are somewhat visible and he looks as though he's furious, even if he doesn't sound like it. "She's fine." It doesn't sound like a question.
"She's a little disoriented and very tired, but she'll heal!" Cheep maintains the Customer Service Smile. "Are you going to see her, or do you want me to take a message?"
Roper stretches out a hand, fingers splayed. "Tell her 'I don't know if you're a mistake or not, but I'll be in touch about the cloak.'" He looks down at Cheep, his voice going midnight dark, not a hint of drawl or rasp in his voice. "Those exact fucking words. Do you understand me? Exactly those."
Cheep blink blink blinks big blue eyes back up at him. "'I don't know if you're a mistake or not, but I'll be in touch about the cloak.' That's it, right?"
"That's it." Roper twists the shadows, a Death Gate forming. He steps through before it's finished forming, and it immediately blinks out into a wisp of shadow behind him.
Cheep marches right on back to the tent to deliver the message.
A few moments later, Alaisa exits the tent, wrapped in blankets, looking around intently. She does not find whoever she's looking for, and in only a few moments, Briellen comes to fetch her and ushers her back to her cot.