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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Roper and Alaisa reconcile, agreeing to meet to re-establish their rapport, and play the game answer a question, ask a question, as they each move a piece forward to get what they want. 9900-ish words. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Chain: Is This Your Card?
[in spiky, almost aggressive looking handwriting]
Mistake,
About that cloak – tell me where and when and I’ll be there within the deadline. Keep in mind that I can run a lot faster than I used to, but for some fucking reason people get nervous when they see a Death Knight barreling down the street at full tilt. You’d think we were some sort of fucking former-Scourge undead creature or something.
-R
PS – Just because I can wait at the mailbox all day doesn’t mean I will. Stay put too long in Acherus and the ghouls start using you as a weapon rack and there’s just no coming back from that one and I’ve got a fucking reputation to maintain.
[in spiky, almost aggressive-looking handwriting]
Roper,
We've been trying to reach you about your dexterity boot enchantment warranty!
Mistake,
Oh, good, because I just got these boots enchanted recently, and I should probably protect that since apparently I’ve gotta cross fucking worlds to get another one. How much is that extended warranty gonna cost? I have at least one gold coin that isn’t a counterfeit, and fourteen candles. I also have underwear, but I’m keeping that. I have to think about my manly virtue.
-R
[in cute, loopy handwriting with interlocking letters]
Roper,
Ophie has told me she wants another coin trick from 'Coin Trick Man' now that he's back in town and I would hate to disappoint her. Don't come by after her bedtime, which is at nine.
I'm still recovering, so I'll be home all afternoon. Bring me some ice for my writing wrist and we can call it even.
Your Ally,
Mistake
[Enclosed with the letter is a formal calling-card for Lady Alaisa, written in the same handwriting, accepting an invitation at 4:30 PM on Saturday, March 12th. The card looks a little aged and there's a heavy crease in it as though it were folded in half at some point. The time 4:30 PM has been underlined in dark blue ink.]
It's another cloudy afternoon in Stormwind, and Lysander Manor still looks haunted. (It is.)
In the entryway, Alaisa sits on a little bench, talking in a warm, friendly voice. "…dimensional ships. Instead of sailing through water, they travel between worlds."
The figure that opens the gate and walks inside as though he has every reason to be there would certainly look very normal if not for the hood he has drawn fully over his face. But, perhaps it is just that it is a cold November afternoon, and it is plausible enough that he doesn't bother skulking.
He seems like a regular caller — and it's clear from the way he walks, and the high quality of his clothing that it could be assumed that he is a nobleman. He wears a long, black cloak with the hood up, and underneath is a soft, beautifully tailored black turtleneck, tucked into dark slacks without even a hint of wrinkle to them. His shoes are expensive looking, and obviously more about fashion than comfort. The black gloves covering his hands are exquisite and very clean.
The knock at the door is polite, and formal. The Death Knight standing outside wrapped in an illusion of nobility, despite all appearances, however, is not.
" — here!" says a very, very faint little girl's voice with a ghostly sort of echo to it.
The door opens a moment later. Alaisa is dressed in a black blouse and a deep maroon-colored high-waisted skirt, with her usual pink house slippers and satchel. She is not wearing any makeup, and the sleeves of her blouse aren't quite long enough to cover her wrists. There is visible bluish-purple bruising around her right wrist, and there are just the faintest flickers of pain coming from it as she pulls the door open.
Clinging to her right leg is a ghostly little girl with her hair in ringlets and a big, childish smile.
Alaisa takes one look at Roper and her face immediately softens into a fond smile. "Roper, glad you could make it. I, ah, she was very excited."
Ophelia gives a little wave.
Roper inhales and there's a tensing of his hands before he tilts his head and steps inside, looking first at Alaisa, and then down at Ophelia. "Hey." That seems to be intended to cover both of them.
His runeblades are strapped to his waist, the way a noble would wear them, and they are dark and inert as he stands there. Under the hood, his eyes are not as bright a blue as before. "Holy shit, kid, how are you holding your head up like that," he says, his voice a deep husky sound, as he reaches out to Ophelia's ear with what looks like for all the world an empty hand. He moves his fingers and there's a clinking sound as several coins land in Roper's palm. "There you go," he says, holding them out on display in an open palm.
"Whaaaat?!" Ophelia lets go of Alaisa's skirt and flickers out of visibility. Alaisa quickly sets her right hand on top of Ophelia's head to reveal the little ghost girl reaching both hands behind her own ears, checking for more coins. Touching Ophelia clearly hurts a little - there's that faint burst of pain from Alaisa's fingertips before they go numb from the cold.
"I checked my ears for money before you got here!" Ophelia says with wide eyes. "And there wasn't any!"
Alaisa chuckles quietly and pats the little girl's head.
"You gotta be careful, sometimes if you check too hard you just push them…" Roper moves his hand and wiggles his fingers by Ophelia's other ear. Ten copper pieces fall to the ground, as he shakes his head. "In further, and then they get stuck."
Alaisa grins.
Ophelia looks shocked. "But…!" She drops down into a crouch, forcing Alaisa to lean over to keep her visible, and starts grabbing at the coppers on the ground. Some of them actually shift a little as she touches them, but she doesn't seem to be able to pick any of them up.
Roper glides into a crouch, his motions uncannily smooth and utterly silent, as he tilts his head. "That's a real neat trick you have, kid. Were you playing in the couch cushions earlier? Might be picking up the pocket change on accident. Have you ever looked real hard in them? People lose all sorts of things in couches, because that's where they sit and some people are fucking stupid enough to keep shit in their pockets."
Ophelia gasps, totally hooked by this. "The couch! I gotta check the couches!" She gives up on trying to pick up the coppers on the floor and straightens up, bolting in the direction of the double doors straight ahead of them. She vanishes as soon as Alaisa lets go of her.
Alaisa looks in that direction, waiting for a moment, and then turns back to Roper. "Well, that'll certainly keep her busy. Thanks."
Roper's voice sharpens a little from how he was talking to the ghost child, the husky note barely a whisper. "Who else is here?" His voice is low, not meant to carry beyond them, his fricatives controlled carefully.
Alaisa steps a little closer, her expression going more serious. "Of the living? Elaine, our maid and cook, and she'll be in the kitchen at this point. I expect Mother home at six and Father home at nine. Do you want a list of the ghosts as well?"
"Not unless I'm supposed to avoid them," Roper says, stepping away from the coppers as he moves more fully in the house. "What was my name, before, that they'd know?"
Alaisa crouches down to scoop the coppers up. "That they'd know? Tibault Beringer." She pours the coins into one of the side pockets on her satchel and straightens. "He sounded like this, when you had to speak to my family," she adds, in a different voice altogether - still a Stormwind accent, but a very bland sort of tone with a very faint lisp on the sharper 's' sounds. Her posture changes a little as she imitates Tibault. "Very polite. Nice respectable merchant family, to appeal to my mother. Orphaned in the Second War, lived with his great-aunt Delphine."
Alaisa starts off down the right-hand passage, flexing the fingers of her right hand at her side. There's a faint pins-and-needles sensation as the numbness fades.
Roper mutters something under his breath, where the words 'fucking nobility bullshit' are faintly audible, but he exhales and pulls on the mimicry from Alaisa like he's angrily tugging on a coat whose color he hates but he has to wear because it's cold outside, and then he follows Alaisa like a soft, mild mannered shadow.
Alaisa grins over her shoulder at him, amused, and leads him upstairs to the same room as last time. "The healers told me I slept for ten hours at Light's Hope Chapel yesterday. Can you imagine? What a luxury." She has returned to her own voice. Alaisa opens the door, holding it for Roper.
"Depends on if you want to think of what I was doing as sleeping for four fucking years," Roper drawls, as he steps soundlessly inside. He inhales again, and there's a tensing of his hands. "How much of a problem did that cause that you were out for ten hours when you shouldn't have been?"
Alaisa shuts the door. "Way less of a problem than me being dead would have caused. Thanks, Roper." She sounds a little embarrassed, but grateful.
"Well, dead in the Plaguelands. Either way, you wouldn't have stayed dead for long," Roper says, and there's something dark in his voice as he moves immediately for the reading nook again. "Don't fucking thank me. I weighed it. It wasn't sentiment." He shifts his hand behind his back, and tosses something over his shoulder with an unerring precision to Alaisa.
It's a deathweave bag, filled with what seems to be ice. The bag is very, very cold, covered in an unfading frost.
Alaisa catches it, sets it down on her vanity table, and opens it. There's a flicker of a smile visible on her face in the mirror as she takes out a handkerchief, uses it to wrap up a piece of ice, and holds it against her right wrist. "What changed your mind?" she asks, turning to look at Roper.
Roper moves to sit in the nook, crossing his arms over his chest as he flicks his head, the hood falling back from his face. "The puzzle fits both ways, the only piece that alters it is me. I didn't want to bet on me," Roper says, the husky note an edge of whisper in his voice.
"But the problem is, I'm too far in to what I'm doing to stop, and every single option put me right back in your game. So, I either pull up another seat at the table and play it again, or I already lose. Trying to make you work with another identity wouldn't work — you know me too well, you know what to leverage. And that means I've gotta come as myself, and if I do, I'm going to eventually get compromised, because you know what to say, you know how to mirror what I want to see, what I want to hear, because you've done it all before already. Either way, I'm fucked if you're lying, but at least I'll know." Roper spreads his hands. "I don't like betting that I've got that much of an appeal, but I am also very fucking good. So, I'm betting that in the end, if you're playing a long game, that I'll be able to play it better. And if you're not…" Roper looks steadily at Alaisa. "Then I have my ally."
Alaisa leans back against the vanity as he speaks, holding the ice in place. "I don't lie to you," she says, making eye contact. It sounds like a promise. "Other people, sure, I'm a very good liar, but never to you. That would defeat the whole fucking purpose of having a best friend, so I stopped, shortly after we met the first time, when I decided I liked you." She heads over to the nook, aiming to sit down next to Roper.
"You already know what I think about lying as myself, or you wouldn't have fucking insisted on only talking to me," Roper says in a soft rasp, watching Alaisa move. He doesn't stop her from sitting. "It's the Hunger. It makes it fucking impossible for me to be anyone else for long. It'll make me drop any lie, and that's not even talking about the fact that I'm trapped in this fucking corpse, with no options other than what version of a Death Knight to be. So now everyone gets to meet me. It's my Winter Veil present to the fucking world," Roper drawls.
Alaisa smiles at him. "Well, I'd pick you over whoever that one was any day of the week, but that's personal taste. Hey, what actually happened at Light's Hope yesterday? What'd you tell the healers?"
"The truth, minus me. That you were there to deliver your brother's saronite armor, that you hadn't slept all night, and the gryphon flight was cold. What didyou say." It's not quite a question, but his voice is still that soft rasp.
"She asked me about this." Alaisa twists her wrist a little, removing the ice for a moment to show Roper the very obvious bruise. "I told her that I was very tired and I didn't remember passing out." Alaisa tilts her head. "I didn't want to risk contradicting your story, since I didn't know what it was, and memory loss and disorientation is pretty common with that level of hypothermia."
"I would have told her that it was from me, if she'd asked. She didn't get a chance, because I couldn't stay in the fucking tent. I couldn't think in there." Roper doesn't look anywhere near her wrist, electing to examine the curtains, which are definitely fascinating. "If she decides to ask later, I'll tell her the truth, even if I spin it. Briellen is my next intended point of contact. She knows Syarra already from at least once before. We need someone to start personal connections with the Argents in cooperating out there. She's high up enough. We'll see if it was 'lucked or fucked' that it was her on duty," Roper drawls slightly.
Alaisa nods, setting the makeshift ice pack against the inside of her wrist again. "Briellen, was that the healer with the scar?"
"Briellen Clay, yeah." Roper, perhaps unconsciously, rotates his hands in a familiar gesture, where if his hands were visible, he'd be turning them inwards to minimize the visibility of the scarring on his hands.
Alaisa rests the hand containing the ice pack on her lap, palm-down, holding the ice pack in place against her leg to free up her left hand. "I didn't get the best read on her personally given how fucking exhausted I was, but I know she studied the Libram of Compassion, if that helps at all." As she speaks, she reaches out to rest her left hand on top of Roper's hands, in what might also be an automatic gesture, because it doesn't slow down her speech at all. "Do you remember any history, or did that go too?"
Roper looks down at Alaisa's hand on his like the moth is back and he isn't sure what it's doing there. "I have skills and information. What makes it sometimes fucking annoying is that it's always without context. I know shit like Illidan was in fucking prison for fucking around and finding out with the fel, and I know he was let out to help with the Third War. And I can tell, I'm angry about something. So fucking angry, but I have no fucking clue why. It's like that."
Alaisa's hand stays where it is, steady and warm. "You had a brother, Cailean, who died in the Third War. You blamed Illidan for his death. At least that's what you told me."
Roper frowns hard at that, and there's that tsch. He inhales and exhales deliberately, a harsh sort of sound. "Fuck. Well. That's something I guess." He flicks his eyes to Ally. "Answer a question, ask a question. You get three passes. Third pass calls it."
Roper's hand in the glove feels relatively warm. Even this close, he feels warmer than Ally's ever experienced from him before, where he's closer to room temperature, only just slightly still chilled from the November cold he walked in.
"Sure." Alaisa grins. "What the fuck happened to your horse? One of the Argent Crusade stablehands was talking about it."
"It's dead," Roper deadpans. A beat. "To be fair, it started off that way. It's a shadow. When I'm not keeping it here, it goes back into the Realm of Shadows, and no I didn't fucking name it that."
"What the fuck is an Arakkoa?" Roper asks, for his question. He pronounces it accurately.
Alaisa sits up a little straighter, her fingers curling slightly around Roper's. "The arakkoa are a race native to Draenor. Visually, they're humanoids with a lot of the same characteristics as birds. Some are friendly, some are hostile, some are cursed. Every one of them I've met speaks Common, but they do also have their own language, which I'm learning, even if it's a little difficult for me to make some of the sounds without a beak. They are divided into factions, they have a caste system, and their settlements are known as 'veils'."
She gives that a moment to sink in before asking, "What the fuck do you do with all your free time if you don't have to sleep anymore? It can't always be beautiful calligraphy."
Roper frowns harder at the arakkoa info, and his left hand starts up a slow tap, tap, tap. At the question he tongues a back tooth, tilting his head back. He does nothing at all with his right hand.
"Think things through. Plan the next steps, and go out as far as I can, with everyone, everything. I practice the swords, because they're not knives. I weigh coins from bounties. That's in Acherus. If I'm elsewhere, I hunt for my next meal."
Alaisa nods. She opens her mouth to say something and then closes it, waiting for the next question.
"Would an arakkoa attack someone specifically to take their eyes — as an actual thing they do, not a hypothetical one really fucking kinky crazy bird humanoid?"
"Hm." Alaisa considers this. "It isn't something I've heard any of them mention, but I could certainly find that out for you for sure if you want."
"This wouldn't be a freak accident. It'd be common if it mattered. Good enough," Roper says, his voice a gentle burr. "Yours."
Alaisa nods. "Why did you make me the swords?"
"Establishing a potential sense of a debt that you owe me something. I need you to finish the journal, as soon as you possibly can," Roper says, looking at Alaisa through the corner of his eyes. It looks eerie with the white film over his irises, but they're more visible in the slightly less intense glow she's usually seen of his eyes.
Alaisa nods. "I'm making good progress on that. I can prioritize it, get it done by… probably Friday. Is that soon enough, or do you need it sooner?"
Roper's left hand speeds up into a rapid beat, but he makes a vague head motion. "Friday will work. If you don't for whatever fucking reason, you need to tell me immediately. I will be writing Colson for it, and putting pressure on him to hand it over." He pauses. "What the fuck is an 'Aldor?'" This one he mispronounces, as though he's only read it, not heard it spoken.
Alaisa finally pulls her hand away from Roper's to adjust the placement of the ice pack on her right wrist a little. "I'll get it done. I can still write with this, it just fucking hurts. The Aldor are an order of draenei anchorites - priests. Anchorites are their priests. You'll find them mostly in Shattrath. Was that the only reason you made me the swords?"
Roper gives Alaisa a look, something darker in his expression. He says nothing for a moment, as he steadily avoids looking at the wrist. He works his jaw like he's thinking about passing on the question. In the end he says, "No. I was also showing off," Roper answers, raising his brows in a single up and down flick to see if that was enough to qualify for the next question.
Alaisa grins at him and nods. "Damn good job. Your question."
Roper's hand slows again as he drums his fingers. "Why can you see ghosts?"
Alaisa hesitates. "I've been able to see them my entire life that I can remember. I have theories why, but I don't know for certain." She sets the bundle of ice aside and rubs at her right wrist, looking at Roper to see if that's a good enough answer.
Roper narrows his eyes but he jerks his head in a 'bring it on' sort of motion.
"Does using your new abilities - the ice, all of that - make you hungrier more quickly?" Alaisa asks.
Roper flips his hands up spreading his fingers in a fluid motion of a guess. "Sort of. Doing anything at all makes it come on faster, but using them against something I can hurt or kill means I get back more than what I spent." His voice gets darker, and colder.
"The Hunger is the…consequence of how we were raised. It's like anything needing to eat to stay alive, only this is…" Roper sighs and stretches out his legs as he crosses his arms over his chest. "We live in constant pain, it's just a matter of how bad or how much it is. The Hunger is the pain getting worse, until it's excruciating beyond anything you can even comprehend. Healing, fighting, existing — it all slowly drains the fucking magic shit keeping us up and running, until the Hunger is all that's left, with the Monster that wants to feed to keep existing."
Alaisa frowns and sets a hand on Roper's right shoulder. She looks like she has a follow-up question, but she waits her turn.
Roper looks at her hand, that same sort of odd inquisitive look on his face, like he can't quite understand why this moth keeps landing on him. "Who else in your family can see the ghosts, interact with them the way you do?"
"Only me, but I can… 'stabilize' them by touching them, make them visible and audible to others, like you've seen with Ophie. My mother can feel when they're nearby, but she can't see or hear them without my help." Alaisa continues to frown at him. "You live in constant pain? In what way?"
Roper looks over at Alaisa and there's a cruel sort of grin that forms on his face, his lips moving in that lopsided smile but his eyes are hard and ice cold. "Exactly how it fucking sounds. It hurts to exist. You get used to it. It just becomes what's 'normal.' You learn to think of the pain as just a part of yourself. And it slowly gets worse and worse, until you can't fucking think of anything except how much everything fucking hurts, and then you kill something, you hurt something, and it all goes away for a moment. It feels so fucking good," Roper says, his voice dropping into a rasping purr, as he leans closer to Alaisa, something almost like rage in his eyes. "Every time."
Alaisa doesn't look away. She looks thoughtful. "So the— sorry, it's your question, go ahead."
"Who else lives here, or visits here regularly enough that it matters?" Roper asks, staring hard at Alaisa, something similar to anger on his face.
"My parents. Theris used to. My eldest brother Kyris has a room, and he visits for holidays sometimes, or when he's on leave. Not very regularly." Alaisa rattles this off very quickly. "Does that make killing cleanly far less efficient for dietary purposes?"
Roper does that little side to side head movement that isn't a shake or a nod, as he leans back, looking away from Alaisa to a middle distance. "I can't speak for everyone. We're all…sorta different. For me, if I don't make the death hurt enough, I don't get enough to go more than last another day. If I really, really drag it out, I can stretch it to three days in between anything at all." Roper does a rolling, elegant sort of shrug that accentuates, for a moment, the muscles of his arms and shoulders. "I wouldn't even have to kill them, if not for the fact that I just hate to be the subject of gossip," Roper drawls, that dark edge in his voice.
As Roper leans away, Alaisa's hand returns to her lap. She nods impatiently. Roper's turn.
"What do you know about how Theris died?"
Alaisa hesitates. "Very little. He died up in the Plaguelands. Theris himself might know more. He didn't want to talk about it to me, and I didn't push him."
Roper makes a rolling sound of disgust in his throat, but he waves his right hand in a 'go ahead' gesture.
Alaisa shakes her head. There's a faint flicker of something like irritation that passes over her face before it fades, and it doesn't seem to be directed at Roper. "Why aren't you as cold today?"
Roper's face clouds and he makes a different sound of irritation. He taps his fingers of his left hand against his arm. "Fuck," he mutters, and then shakes his head. "Pass." He moves immediately to, "Does Cobalt know you're part of SI:7?"
Alaisa looks immediately more curious the moment Roper passes on that question. "Their leadership should. The original captain did, certainly, and I imagine he passed the information on to the others when there was a change in leadership. I was very open about it when I applied. As 'Alaisa' to them, not 'Mist'."
Roper nods once.
"Why did you want Theris to have his armor as soon as possible?"
"I need him to work with Syarra and me, for our collaboration with the Argent Crusade," Roper says, looking at Alaisa with a tilt of his head, and there is something genuinely dangerous in his eyes, despite the lopsided smile that twists his lips. "Couldn't pass up the opportunity to use the 'exceptional' Death Knight to show just how 'good' we can be, and I plan on that happening by the end of the fucking week. I certainly can't be the fucking poster boy with this fucking face, so thanks for that. I'll send you the first autographed poster," Roper drawls, something grating in his voice.
"Why did you love me, before?" Roper shoots back, not waiting to see if his answer was enough, his voice hard and vicious, his eyes on Alaisa's.
Alaisa looks briefly taken aback, but almost immediately she straightens up, lifting her chin a little, something like defiance in her posture. She doesn't shy away from eye contact as she says, "I love you because of the way you think, the way your mind works. The way you see the world, all the layers to everything, the details, the connotations. How much thought you put into everything. I love how you can't sit idle, how driven you are, how you're always as many steps ahead of the present as you possibly can be. I love how fun you are to talk to, I love writing to you. As for before… You were there for me when I needed you. You taught me a lot."
Roper's eyes narrow to slits as Alaisa speaks in the present, his left hand slow tap, tap, tapping, and only when she answers the question does he look away, staring at some middle distance ahead. He jerks his head in that same 'let's go,' action, his arms tight across his chest, his jaw clenched hard, and what looks like fury on his face. He's not breathing, utterly still except for his tapping hand, glaring what should probably be a burning hole through the wall ahead, except that his eyes only look like they're on fire.
Alaisa folds her hands together in her lap. "Why did you ask that?" she asks, her tone even.
Roper grits his teeth. "Pass." He snarls out, the husky note thick in his voice. "Why did you answer for now when I asked about before." It's not entirely a question the way he bites it out, but it's obviously meant to be one.
"Because I thought you ought to hear it," Alaisa says easily. "Because if anybody in this fucking world is on your side, it's me, and starting all over again is hard. You don't have to earn my support all over again, Roper. You already did." She shakes her head, looking down at her lap. "Why the fuck was that deadline so tight? I had to go through the mage tower to even stand a chance at making it."
"I wanted to know how hard you would work for him, how far you would push to make sure he was safe," Roper's voice is harsh and he looks up and away, moving his jaw as though he's trying to force it to unclench. "And I wanted to punish you. That was the fastest I could possibly get from Stormwind to Darrowshire, if I had no limits for what I would do to make it there. I knew it. I expected you would probably miss it, but I would still see when you arrived, if you did, and I would know how badly you wanted it. Either way, I got information."
Alaisa makes a faint 'hm' noise. She reaches for the cloth covering the ice and holds it against the bruise on her wrist again.
There is a long pause as Roper stares straight ahead, everything about him tense enough that if someone didn't know him well, they would assume he was about to launch into an attack. Instead, after over a minute of silence, his hand tapping slow, steady beats, he asks, in a gentle rasp, almost a drawl, "Of all of Cobalt leadership or whatever the fuck they do, who do I need to avoid for the longest until our reputation isn't somewhere below people who talk loudly at the theater and only slightly above people who rip off dog-ear sections of books they borrow?"
Alaisa laughs out loud. "If I were you, I would avoid Sir Elohad Ference, Bennarin Hazan, and Sentinel Auralind Mistwalker for a while. Your best bet is absolutely Captain Jocoza Sparkwire. You might even have some potential for success with her."
"That's why you sent the science lesson," Roper says, his voice that same soft rasp. "She's on my priority list, but I don't have enough to hook her. I could make big promises, but I don't have the proof to back it. She'll have to wait until I've got something concrete. Gnomes love concrete," Roper drawls.
Alaisa nods. She leans back against the cushions in the window seat and taps the fingers of her left hand on her knee. "Do you believe me?" she asks, looking over at Roper.
There's a long pause. Roper tilts his head up, and his right hand moves in an idle, rolling gesture, and someone familiar with his mannerisms can see it — the internal weighing going on.
"Yes."
With that, he rolls to his feet in a silent, fluid motion, uncrossing his arms as he does, and he walks across the room to the vanity table, setting a hand on it again, almost as though he's checking the temperature of the wood. "Are you going to publicly claim your brother as a Death Knight?"
Alaisa grins, visible from the vanity mirror. The smile fades slowly from her face at the question, as she considers.
There's a pause long enough that she seems like she might pass, but then… "I'm still weighing that. I'd like to, eventually, but it'll obviously have consequences for my family, and Mother… I'm worried about her health. She and Theris were close. They both…" Alaisa puts her right hand over her heart and shakes her head. "I'm thinking about it. My mother losing her job at the palace would be a very, very bad potential consequence and I'm working on ensuring that won't happen."
Roper does three drumming rolls against the vanity as he keeps himself in profile to Alaisa before he holds out his left hand, fingers moving in a smooth 'come here' sort of motion. It likely means ask her question.
"How long until all that ice melts?" Alaisa asks, standing up and taking a few steps closer.
"When I fucking tell it to," Roper answers. "Or when I leave." He moves to the other desk, and does the same sort of gesture, setting his hand palm down on the surface, pressing lightly down. "What does your mother do for her job?"
Alaisa moves the deathweave bag of ice closer to the center of the vanity. "I should put this in a bucket," she says idly, and doesn't. She looks into the mirror. "My mother, Renna, is Second Royal Librarian at Stormwind Keep. Why do you keep trying to scare me?"
"Because you should be afraid," Roper says in a deceptively gentle whisper, his voice edged with something cold enough that the room temperature drops ever so slightly for a moment before it's gone, like nothing more than a draft quickly quelled. "And so that if I ever really lose my fucking shit around you, it will come as less of a surprise. You won't feel betrayed, because I'll have been telling you all along that I'm a monster. When I hurt you, and I enjoy it, you won't stand there wondering why I didn't tell you what I was from the start."
Alaisa holds her right hand up in front of her, examining her wrist. "I can't believe I was so fucking out of it I forgot I had healing potions in my bag," she says, a note of self-deprecation in her tone. "I'd been up twenty-four hours at that point."
"So had I," Roper drawls. "Can your mother be flipped against your father, or leverage him into accepting the Ebon Blade, if her son seems enough like her son to have something back?" Roper asks, brushing a finger along the top of the desk.
"Yes," Alaisa answers immediately. She sounds confident about this. "Are healing potions still effective on Death Knights? You never did answer that one."
"Yes," Roper answers. "But it costs the same in the end as if I healed by standing there, just faster. It's better if I use a living thing to heal. I rip out its life and drink it down, and I solve both problems at the same time. The healing potion just leaves me fucking Hungrier." Roper tap, tap, taps the desk. "How much did your brother seem to retain of who he was before?"
Alaisa hesitates. "Some. Memories he kept. Personality… It's genuinely hard to say, now that I know he was apparently losing his fucking mind the entire time. I haven't exactly had a chance to talk to him since, you know." Alaisa waves a hand. "What is it you actually need to know about Theris the most, for him to be useful to you?"
"How hard I'm going to have to work to sell him as 'good enough' for your mother to have her publicly claim him as her son, legally reinstating him as a member of your household. There are no fucking laws in the Alliance to deal with the undead, and we're in legal fucking limbo. A noble house is where we could start forcing precedence into it, and creating the net that says that we exist on paper," Roper says, the rasp barely a whisper on the edges of his voice. "That's further down on the steps, but we can't delay for fucking ever. I'm working the Horde already with Syarra. That's easier though, because of the fucking Forsaken," he bites out the title like it's a curse.
"Hm. I genuinely don't know. I'd have to see him again after he's actually eaten properly to be able to tell you how similar he is." Alaisa sounds faintly apologetic about this.
Leaving the vanity, she crosses to stand next to Roper. "Why did— sorry, your question, go ahead."
"How long would it take you to finish the journal if you do it without hurting yourself?" Roper asks the surface of the desk, moving his right hand over it in a gentle stroking motion.
Alaisa blinks at Roper. This is the second question that seems to come as a surprise to her. "Sunday or Monday." In a dry tone, she adds, "Next time, if you could please at least go for the left hand instead, that would be great."
Roper turns to face Alaisa, his eyes hard, as he gets very close, enough to see the details of death in his eyes, the almost hypnotic slight movement of the light that shines through them, as though the blue energy was alive. "Finish it Monday," he says, and there's that barest touch of the uncanny echoes in his voice. "I'll adjust my plans."
Alaisa looks so taken aback that she asks almost immediately, without thinking about her next question, "Why?"
"Because if that gets any worse, and I stop by again and it still hurts, I'm going to start being fucking stupid because all I'll be able to think about is how I could just," Roper darts his hand out and closes his hand over Alaisa's injured wrist, clasping it gently, his fingers closing over the bruise and he inhales deeply, that look of pleasure making his features go softer, the light in his eyes growing slightly brighter. "I'm not your fucking brother, Mistake. Everything you think you know about one of us is wrong if you think I'm anything like him. I will hurt you, and I will enjoy it so fucking much."
Alaisa smiles through the faint pain of him pressing on the bruise and attempts to gather Roper into another one-armed hug. "I know," she says quietly. "Does this help?" It might be unclear what she's referring to, the hug or causing her pain.
Roper inhales deeply, as his hand twitches like he's trying not to squeeze, and frost creeps around the edges of his hands, twining up in bright white branches against the stark black of the turtleneck. "When I said you could drape yourself on me even when you're in some amount of pain," he grinds out between tightly clenched teeth. "That was a fucking example not a fucking suggestion."
Alaisa laughs out loud. "Don't break that wrist, I need that one," she says, her tone warm, and she pulls back slowly, her left hand still resting on Roper's shoulder. "Sorry. I just, well."
Roper moves slowly, releasing her wrist with a lingering touch that would seem almost like a lover's, except for the look on the Death Knight's face, a dark hunger, and his lips move to form words that look like not her.
He closes his eyes, inhales, exhales, and then his chest goes still. The sense of a corpse in the room grows for a moment, until he opens his eyes. "No, it doesn't help to dangle yourself as a fucking snack, when you're in pain and I've been sitting in it already. Potions or not. It's not about how much you can heal. I am not feeding off you." His voice goes vicious, and there's a look of genuine rage on his face. "I'm not a fucking pet, who you can dole out little treats to, thinking it'll charm me. All it'll do is make it more and more likely that I'll eventually lose control just long enough, and destroy everything I'm fucking working towards."
Alaisa moves her right hand behind her back, but her left hand remains steady on Roper's shoulder. "I'm not trying to— hey. No. It's not like that. I didn't realize there was— I thought— I'm sorry. I'm not trying to do that to you. I apologize if it seemed that way. I'll pace myself and get the journal done by Monday."
Roper gives her a tight nod, and he stares at somewhere around a middle distance. "Do you remember a member of Cobalt named 'Corduin.'" There's no sense of a question to it, but it's likely intended to be one.
"I remember the name. We've never met." Alaisa releases Roper's shoulder and crosses to the vanity to get more ice for her wrist, getting out a second handkerchief for this second piece.
Roper's mouth opens and he makes a harsh rolling sound of disgust as he remembers he's used his question. "Fuck," he mutters, and waves a hand at Alaisa like he's swatting a gnat out of the air around him.
Alaisa makes a faint noise of amusement and shakes her head. "Why the interest in the arakkoa?"
"Checking a possible lie of someone who gave 'an arakkoa ate my eyeballs' as a reason for blindness," Roper answers in a dark, husky voice, and without pausing continues, "Who the fuck was 'Corduin' in Cobalt Company — a mercenary obviously, I want the rest of it."
"Pass. I don't have that information, but I can look into it if it's important to you. Why do you want to know about Corduin?"
"She's one of the Ebon Blade," Roper answers. "And she might be a fucking problem someday," he adds, turning his right hand over, rotating his wrist. "I want to know how I leverage her into staying where she can't go on her 'we control the living with terror' plan if she gets bored." He looks at Alaisa, his eyes cold. "I'm not having them come for me with pitchforks because of her." He leans back against the desk, setting his hands on either side as he grips the edge. "Why fucking fish?"
Alaisa nods. She leans against the vanity in turn, still holding the ice to the bruise. "That's a question for him, not me. He asked. I don't think he knew that wouldn't be enough." A short pause. "Can I hug you when I'm not in pain?"
"He fucking asked for fish," Roper mutters, and there's a snarl of disgust on his face. "Fucking old gods shit on my fucking face." It seems to be less of a genuine wish as much as it's a general sense of how he feels about this information.
Alaisa laughs and holds up her hands like she's trying to clear herself of any fish-related responsibility here.
Roper's lips move in a lopsided smile he doesn't quite hide with movement as he shifts his arms in a classic hug motion, but he holds up a finger in a classic 'wait' gesture. "It depends on why you want to hug me."
"Oh, are there— damnit, it's your question first." Alaisa sets the ice handkerchief down on the vanity.
Roper looks at Alaisa with something that is a cross of amusement and something else as he tilt his head and deep, long drawls, "Why do you want to hug me?"
"I could pass on this and make you wonder forever," Alaisa says, grinning briefly. "It's not that complicated, though. I just like hugs, and I missed you, and I'm glad you're here and I didn't somehow fuck everything up. Good enough for you?"
Roper nods, and with his arms open does the impatient, quick 'get over here' gesture with his hands, looking at somewhere over Alaisa's shoulder.
Alaisa doesn't hesitate, stepping across the room to wrap Roper up in a hug immediately. She looks into the mirror behind the desk to see if the reflection from the vanity mirror catches anything of Roper's expression.
Roper's expression goes darker and he closes her into a hug that feels less like an embrace and more of a cage as he sets his mouth near her ear, his arms an implacable, unbreakable wall. "If that had been me in the cage," he purrs, something cold and dark in his voice. "I would have gone over within the first week. I'd have broken the cage, waited for you to come down, and then I would have hurt you so slow, so deep, until you begged me to kill you. They always beg me, Mistake. Eventually. And I don't fucking stop. I keep going, until they can't beg anymore, and nothing feels as good as that does, drinking them dry to the very last fucking drop. That's the kind of monster I am."
Alaisa's expression goes serious, and what she says, when Roper's done talking, is, "I won't let you starve. I've been doing fucking research for the missions he lets me send your way." There's a sort of grim, unflinching defiance in her tone.
Roper lets out a ha, and he relaxes just slightly, until it's more of a hug, although the Death Knight seems more awkward with it now, as though he's less sure of where to put his arms. His voice is a soft scrape of sound. "Three days is my maximum to still be sharp enough to be me. When you met me in the bar, that was me three days in. I could do four, but I'd be making stupid fucking choices. If I have to do anything like feed a hungry baby, it sets me back even if we mow through some Scourge. They don't feel enough pain for me to recoup my losses to where I prefer to be. I just use them to fill in the gaps."
Alaisa seems completely at ease, her body language radiating a quiet contentment, despite the topic of conversation. "Despicable people don't grow on trees, but you're getting the very best-worst dinner reservations I can make you, you can count on that."
"Not yet they don't," Roper drawls, a sense of amusement in the Death Knight. "I've been working hard to give it a good try. Encouraging the growth. Just call me Johnny fucking Roper-seed." That sure is a way of referring to Roper’s particular brand of leaving the bodies behind for pick up.
Alaisa makes an amused noise and rests her chin on Roper's shoulder. "Your question, I think." Is she letting go? Absolutely not.
"When did Colson get married?" It's asked as though some part of him doesn't want to know, but he's asking anyway. Even before he's finished asking it, his left hand starts up a tapping on Alaisa's mid-back where his hand rests.
Alaisa answers that right away, without even having to think about it: "March 19th, this year." A beat. "I did the translations for the invitations. And at the ceremony, I was interpreting for one of the draenei."
Roper makes a sound like a laugh, but it's jagged, and he goes colder, more relaxed. "Wow. That fucking close. I missed it by just…" Another exhale like a laugh.
Alaisa closes her eyes. There's a slow inhale, slow exhale, and she asks, "Is the 'arakkoa ate my eyeballs' person Syarra's little sister?"
The change in him is immediate. "Yes." Roper sounds incredibly pleased. "Why do you know that?"
Alaisa opens her eyes and blinks at the mirrors, once again trying to catch Roper's expression. "Educated guess. Just enough pieces that it didn't seem like a coincidence. No, I don't know why she's blind, before you ask. I've never met her or had any personal contact with her." Alaisa shakes her head a little. She still seems very comfortable where she is. "Why'd you dress like this today?"
Roper has that lopsided smile on his face. His jaw moves as he tongues a tooth. "Disguise. With the winter, the hood doesn't look so odd. You've got until the weather changes for me to keep coming here in the middle of the day without the armor. But this way, if your mother caught a glimpse, all she'd have seen was 'Tibault.' So did your neighbors, but that sounds like a you problem."
Alaisa nods. "My sleep's all messed up now," she grumbles almost under her breath, as if somehow this is Roper's fault and not entirely her own.
Roper shrugs like this again, really sounds more like an Alaisa problem than a Roper problem. "As for why this outfit in particular," he drawls. "Laundry day."
"Where— no, it's your question." Another faintly disgruntled noise from Alaisa, whose chain of thought has once again been interrupted.
"Do you know if your father has told anyone about Theris?"
"I don't know. Couldn't guarantee it one way or another." Alaisa shakes her head. "Where in the world do you do laundry?"
"I haven't quite figured that out yet," Roper says in the drawl. "Probably going to be a bigger bucket than what I've got, which is going to be a real pain in the fucking ass. The good news is that Acherus has great drainage. The bad news is that it's over the fucking Argents. But, you know, that really does sound like more of a them problem."
Alaisa laughs, clear and bright, shaking her head fondly.
A movement of a lopsided smile, and he tilts his head up a little, staring into the middle distance, the tapping from his hand speeding up another notch. "How much is it likely to cost me to bribe a mage to portal me into Shattrath, given the Death Knight Special Inflation?"
"Depends on the mage. Not everyone has Shattrath access. Cressidha could. There's a persistent portal being maintained in the lower floor of Stormwind's mage tower that you might consider as an alternative, that'll take you outside the Dark Portal on this side of things." Alaisa shrugs. "The restrictions on who they let through the Dark Portal these days have been greatly relaxed. Do you think the Ebon Blade is sustainable long-term?"
"Yes. Our numbers are going to shrink — it's just fucking inevitable. We can't repopulate, so every single one we lose is gone forever, and we are gonna lose people through stupidity, circumstance, and even more fucking stupidity." Roper pauses, and leans a little to one side, his posture shifting as he moves his right hand off Alaisa. He flicks a gold coin into his right hand, running it over his knuckles in a blur of speed.
"It's what I'm fucking doing. Everything. I'm going to make sure the Ebon Blade survives, and that we pull this for as long as we fucking can, without having to beg to exist. I know what not to do from the fucking Forsaken. No evil cackling, no glorifying what makes us fucking disgusting. We don't lie. We pull ourselves up from Scourge creatures to gravediggers — you may think it's disgusting, but someone's gotta do it. From there, we push up into where we're another SI:7 — just another necessary service to keep everyone safe from the Worse Monsters. I'm not fucking stopping until we get there."
Alaisa pulls back so that she can see Roper's face, hands resting on his shoulders. "Just keep letting me know what you need, Roper," she says, her tone calm and sincere but with a trace of that fierce determination.
"I need to get to Outland. And I need that journal for Syarra." Roper shifts again, the tapping of his left hand getting faster, and there's more force behind it. "Syarra has a house, in Silvermoon. The law has it that the will was executed after her death and now Aszera owns it, and there's no fucking law protecting us, so they're denying Syarra's claim. We need to leverage Aszera into giving it up, so we can establish that we're 'living' people as far as the law is concerned in a precedent. At the moment, it doesn't look like Aze is even thinking about that house, because she's grieving and there's something wrong with her. That journal has details that Syarra's lost from the transition from Point A to Point Fuck You And The Soul You Rode In On," Roper drawls. "Eventually Aze is gonna remember that house. We have to get to her before she gets there. That's the rush."
Alaisa nods. "If you don't have any luck at the mage tower, I can convince Cressidha to portal you. Let me know. The journal will be done by Monday, as requested, because I am not free fucking dessert. If you can't get it once I send it back to the Aspenwoods, and what you end up needing is the information rather than the physical book…" Alaisa tilts her head back slightly. "It's in here. I've got it. I've got the best fucking memory of anyone you've ever met."
Roper looks at Alaisa with narrowed eyes, the tapping of his left hand slowly way down. "How good is your memory for something like reproducing an entire Thalassian journal, word for word perfect, from nothing but that?"
"Fuck, Roper, you really fucking forgot me," Alaisa says, and there's a sense of resignation in the words, a sad smile on her face. "Yes. Yes, it's that fucking good. For the entries I've translated already, I know them. For the ones I haven't, I'd need to read them again first."
Roper jerks his head in a nod of acknowledgement, his left hand tapping very, very slowly. "Your question."
"What are you planning on doing in Outland?"
"Getting the materials for Cressidha, first and foremost," Roper answers, and he moves his head side to side as he moves his right hand in the opposite directions, still making the coin walk over his knuckles as he moves his hand. "And doing some fucking recon. Everything I've heard about that place is fucking mess of information, half of it makes no fucking sense and shit contradicts. The gossip in the bars out there has to at least be closer to the real."
Roper looks Alaisa full on in the eye. "Did we ever fuck?"
Alaisa laughs again, a sudden burst of laughter that she quickly contains. "Absolutely not. We were coworkers, Roper. And I'm not interested in men like that. Damn, Roper, did you think that's why I'm so invested?"
"No, I needed to know what you might know about me from before, if I run into someone I did, and what they would know about me. I don't…remember anyone. I just remember that there were…" Roper's mouth moves into a lopsided smile, as he gives a jerk of a shrug that does not pass off any level of modesty. "Many. I don't…" He looks off into some middle distance, a look of concentration on his face as the tapping stops and the coin pauses on his knuckles. "I don't think I was often Me for any of it. But I don't know and it's a fucking problem if they're out there and might recognize me now."
He looks back at Alaisa. "Are you seeing anyone now, in any way?" He moves his head closer and there's a drawl of "And no, that's not a fucking come-on. I want to know the other threads you can pull."
"Hm. That's fair. No, I'm not." There's a flicker of a smile and Alaisa finally pulls away, turning her back to Roper as she returns to the vanity for more ice for her wrist.
Roper settles back against the desk, setting his hands where they were, the coin vanishing just before he closes his hands against the edge, his left hand tapping a fairly rapid beat, slightly audible in the room. "Yours."
Alaisa turns back to face him, leaning against the vanity, holding the handkerchief with ice against her wrist. "What does Syarra know about me?"
Roper stares intently at Alaisa, and it's clear, there it is again — that rapid weighing as he thinks. He shakes his head. "Pass." He steps away from the vanity, adjusting the fit of the turtleneck around his wrists. He doesn't look at Alaisa as he says, in a deep husky voice, "She's my…" Such a small hesitation, a twitch of his lower lids. "Friend. She didn't know me before. And she's leading what I'm doing. She's as much my ally as you are, but her skills are different. Don't ask me to give up information on her. I won't. Her weaknesses are mine to protect," Roper states as he looks at Alaisa. "Good game."
Alaisa smiles faintly. "Good game. I'd still like to meet her, one of these days, but not until the translation's done." Alaisa starts to cross her arms, but then remembers the ice and stops. "You trust her?"
Roper hesitates, looking down at his chest for a moment, then back to Alaisa. "I almost didn't survive the attack that destroyed my breastplate. The pitchfork shoved the metal into me all the way through to my spine, and the rifle blew open my chest. I had to heal around the fucking armor, and it cost me almost everything. I needed someone to help me get that armor off, heal, and feed before I fell off the fucking edge. I went to Syarra." He spreads his hands to demonstrate that he's still standing. "I trust her with my existence, and with my fucking future of the Ebon Blade."
Roper stretches out a hand in a familiar gesture, pausing as he watches Alaisa's face.
There's a faint frown at the description of the injuries. "Fuck, Roper. Glad you made it. I'm curious about her, but I won't cause her any problems." Alaisa's voice sounds sincere. "Heading out now?"
"I have to finish your brother's armor. I don't sleep, but recreating the armor is still a fucking project. I've got the breastplate and the boots, but the rest is a fucking nightmare of more precise work and I've never fucking done it before. He's going to need it soon." Roper twists his wrist slowly, the shadows of the room gathering and slipping towards him, as they begin to form a Death Gate, the chill in the room growing stronger. "If you want to meet Syarra…next week. Light's Hope Chapel, where you can be seen doing it. Lady Alaisa associating with Death Knights, openly, including the one who came in with her unconscious in his arms. Deal?"
Roper doesn't mention his cloak.
Alaisa hesitates just long enough that she's clearly weighing it, but she straightens up and says, "Deal."
Roper nods, and it looks as though he might step through the Death Gate, where the sounds of Acherus echo faintly, the chill in the room intensifying. "And Mistake?"
"Yeah?" Alaisa doesn't mention the cloak either.
"Delicates wash cycle, like colors only, hang dry," Roper says as he steps through the gate. It closes behind him so close that it almost catches a bit of his cloak, nothing but a wisp of shadow left behind.
The ice in the bag melts instantly and completely into a rush of water.
Alaisa whirls around and looks at the bag that is beginning to leak water onto her vanity table. "Damnit!" She rushes out of her room to get a bucket and cleaning supplies, laughing quietly to herself.