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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Roper finally manages to track down Enaliya in Duskwood to meet face to face for the first time, and the Death Knights play a bit of a game. 3600-ish words. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Arc: Death Knight PR
Enaliya stalks through the forest of Duskwood atop her huge, white deathcharger. She has a shield strapped to one arm and a moonglaive on her back. She holds the reins with her free hand and lets her horse walk leisurely. Her eyes are closed, but her ears and nose twitch as she smells and listens, guiding the beast towards something, or someone…
Enaliya has a shadow.
Or in this case, two of them: one beneath her feet, and the other approaching from the east, as though coming from Darkshire.
Roper looks every inch a familiar sight of a Death Knight. The Deathcharger is dead, made of shadows and formed into the shape of a horse, and the armor is saronite — a metal that can only be found in Northrend, hammered into the form to cover a bringer of Death.
He's far enough away that it's possible he hasn't noticed the other Death Knight, but he's on a collision course with her hunting ground.
Enaliya continues about her business until eventually she opens her eyes for a moment and sees the shadows beneath her. She draws her moonglaive and shoots her head back when she marks that she couldn't smell or hear whoever is following her coming, "Who goes there!" She shouts.
Roper draws up short. There's an equine, muffled scream as shadows rise up from beneath the Deathcharger, dragging it back under, as the Death Knight catches his footing on the ground, his hands held up in a standard sign of surrender.
There is a hood over his face, casting it in deep, dark shadows. He's on the slimmer, smaller size for human males, and he wears his two Runeblades low on his waist. "Hey." The voice is masculine, with a low-born Stormwind accent, and the slightest bit of huskiness to it. "Roper. Ebon Blade. Who are you?"
She stows away her weapon upon seeing that Roper means no harm, "Lady Enaliya Nightwhisper, The Mistress of Pain." She narrows her eyes at him, "Why are you asking me this? I have something of a reputation, and I somehow doubt that this is just a chance meeting."
She shifts in her saddle, her red plate clinking underneath the heavy black cloak she wears.
Roper spreads his hands out in front of him in an open gesture. "I've been looking for work while checking on other things, and I got myself a bounty for a fucking grave robber." He sounds sincere, and his body language suggests nothing else. "Enaliya though…I've heard of you." There's something a little darker in his voice at that, but if that's good or bad is left ambiguous.
"Oh?" Mercy snorts and shifts his weight underneath his mistress, "Well you've come too late, then. That bounty is mine. Find your own prey, Roper."
"Yours?" Roper lets his hands fall slowly to his side, as he moves his hood around in a way that suggests he's looking around. If he actually has taken his eyes off Enaliya is unclear. "Well, now. That's different. Maybe I miss out on lunch, but I wouldn't say no to witnessing a fucking art exhibition. If you weren't going to waste an opportunity, of course. From what I hear, you're quite the artist, when you want to be."
"Hmph," Enaliya grins wide, flashing her long, sharp fangs. She throws back her hood back and adjusts her braid to fall down her chest, "You heard correct. I simply cannot abide brutes who don't know how to prepare their food before eating it."
"Isn't that the fucking truth," Roper drawls, tilting his hood back up enough that his features are visible in the gloom, his eyes bright enough to cast a faint glow. "I'm a fan of those who know what they're doing. Clever thing, using a bounty for a target. Sanctioned kill, signed off by the fucking authorities and everything. Their own fucking fault if they didn't specify the state of the body at the end of it." The grin he offers Enaliya is a flash of teeth in the shadows.
"It's just a shame that I can't keep the head for myself." She leads her steed closer to Roper, "So are you planning on settling down here too? I won't say no to good company for a day, but the pickings are a bit slim for my liking as it is." Her eyes flash a little, almost threateningly at the end.
Roper makes a sound of amusement. "No, not much one for the single place, myself. I've got a couple bigger things going on, and things I've been…keeping an eye on. Cobalt Company's been through here recently looking into that haunted as fuck tower, Karazhan. I'm interested in them. Cobalt. But, mostly, I'm interested in making sure the Ebon Blade stays ahead."
"Ahead?" Enaliya's ears twitch and she glances off into the distance, "Listen," she continues impatiently, "I'm not in a patient mood today, my prey is moving again, and honestly I still don't buy that our meeting here was just coincidence. If you have business with me then I recommend you state it now. I don't bite." She smiles, "Not our kind anyway."
Roper shakes his head. "I don't have any business with you, Enaliya. You want to go your way, go your way. I wouldn't mind coming along for the ride, seeing how the rumors match up to the reality. I'm out here to get my shit done so I can head back out to Outland. Trying to make sure the Ebon Blade has an in there in the big battles of shit going down. It's what we're fucking made for, and the world should fucking see what kind of glorious fucking monsters we can be. But, I hate traveling on an empty stomach." He spreads his hands again in another show that they're empty, and the shadows make it hard to tell just how friendly the smile he gives her is. "So, you gonna make it worth my while to go hungry to watch a rumored master, or what?"
Enaliya eyes him for a minute, trying to size him up before tugging the reins of her horse and turning him back towards her prey, "Fine then. Just try to keep up." She sticks her heels into Mercy's sides and he takes off into the woods. Enaliya is clearly a skilled rider as she darts through underbrush and around trees with ease.
There's another equine scream of pain and terror, as a Deathcharger is yanked from the shadows, Roper mounting with a rapid jump up, as he kicks the beast into a full gallop that would be incredibly dangerous and reckless for a living horse.
Roper rides with less skill, and the air of someone who is barely tolerating this form of transportation, but with a clear passion for the speed at which they're traveling. He holds pace behind Enaliya, a Death Knight shadow to the other.
Enaliya seems to ease off a little bit, seemingly satisfied with Roper's attempt to keep pace with her, "Just sit back and watch. I want to play with him a little before I close in." She pulls out her weapon again, "Shouldn't take more than a few days."
Roper makes a tsk sound. "Now, see, that's commitment to the art. But I can't go a few days hungry, or I'll start fucking with your tableau, and neither of us want that. I've got the rest of today, and then I'll have to just imagine the rest."
Enaliya sighs in disappointment but keeps a straight face, "Very well. Now be quiet, I can smell him up ahead. His heart is pounding, so I'm sure he's heard us coming." Enaliya presses Mercy to a gallop once again and leads him towards a large fallen tree trunk that bridges the gap of a small ditch.
Roper follows behind, and the horse is a horse — it's as loud as a horse, but the Death Knight riding it has gone silent, and eerily quiet for a man in plate armor.
Enaliya brandishes her weapon and flashes her fangs. She stands up in her saddle as if about to do battle and thunders over the tree, conspicuously loudly. She keeps up a gallop for a good while longer afterward until the ditch is long behind them, then she slows down and comes to a stop. She glances over to Roper and grins, "Now we wait."
As soon as they stop, the shadows rise up for Roper's Deathcharger, yanking it down into the Realm of Shadows so hard and fast there's barely a sound. The Death Knight moves to a spot that is clearly an excellent place to wait, listen, and remain out of a line of sight. It's obvious from how quiet and confidently he moves that he is good at this — he knows what he's doing, and there is a natural, predatory aspect to him as he gets into position, going utterly still once there, giving nothing away as anything more than the landscape of dark shadows.
Enaliya sits still on top of her steed, ears perked up. She begins to chuckle and slowly builds into a deep laugh, "His heart is still racing. Oh, I think I'm going to enjoy this even more than I thought." She keeps cackling, "It's taking everything in me not to go and run over that ditch where he's hiding again, just to hear this wonderful rhythm a while longer."
Roper, for his part, seems to be taking his instruction to be quiet to heart, but he does move again, tilting his head back so his lower face is visible in the dark light of the forest, a twist of a smile on his lips that seems cruel and cold even with the upper part of his face still obscured by the hood's angle.
Enaliya smiles and chuckles quietly to herself. She remains in place for some time until eventually she twitches her ears again and begins to trot off in another direction, "Alright, I think we've given him enough time to relax."
Roper moves as Enaliya starts moving, keeping pace with her easily. He makes more noise as they move faster, an inevitability with the plate armor, but it's clear the Death Knight has minimized it as much as possible. "Your hearing's fucking amazing," Roper mutters in a low, low voice, his sibilants softened to make them even less likely to carry. For most, if he wasn't speaking just an inch or two away from them, he would be fully inaudible.
"I'm a little unusual." Enaliya explains without looking back, "I crave blood far more than an ordinary death knight. I can hear it, smell it even from miles away sometimes." She never breaks focus in choosing her path as she speaks, "Which is why I was a little surprised when you caught me off guard. I'm not yet used to having to deal with being followed by my fellow dead."
"I know how to be quiet," Roper manages to drawl, still in that incredibly low voice, as he follows Enaliya like a well trained shadow. "Blood, though? Specifically? You're a bit older than some of us, though, if I'm remembering the rumors right, aren't you?"
"That's right. I was raised shortly after the war. I have a feeling they were just toying around with how they wanted to make you, though." She speaks dispassionately, "You were very easy to train. I was still little more than a slavering beast in the amount of time you have been about."
"The voice of Arse-ass in our fucking heads definitely made that fucking easier," Roper says, and there may be some of the drawl in his voice, but clearer is the midnight edge to it, real anger coming through even in the low tones. "But after? You'd probably be fucking disappointed to see how many of us are wasting what we are, what we can be, now that he's not whispering to them. Some are too fucking stupid to live, killing anything, and they have to be put down. Others just have no vision. They don't think ahead for the days, knowing how good we can make it."
"Agreed. Whether they are denying their nature or simply making enemies for themselves needlessly, I do believe there are many of our brethren that are found wanting. Perhaps Mograine will make something of them yet, but it doesn't matter much to me."
Roper moves his head slightly, as though trying to catch the sound of something. "I'm not waiting for Mograine. Leaders are good for the rabble, and someone's gotta deal with the fucking bureaucrats telling him what is and isn't a fucking treaty. Fuck knows I don't want that fucking job. But. He's not paying attention all the time. And that's…" Roper nods his head slightly side to side. "So I took notice. Been working with the better ones, the smart ones, to make sure we're getting what we deserve. Paying attention to the people moving shit, and making sure we get a piece."
"That's good for you." Enaliya says, still sounding a little disinterested, "I have been doing fine for myself now. Perhaps if war breaks out again I can sate myself on the Horde." She glances back at him again, as if waiting for something.
"If you were waiting for a war to sate yourself…" Roper moves his right hand in a roll of his wrist. "There is one, going on right now. Quel'danas, against the fucking followers of Kael'thas, called the 'Dawnblades' and it's open fucking season on them." Roper tilts his head back. "For those that can get in, of course. And for that, you need to be in good with the living. That's why I can't linger here for days. It's what we're working on, making sure we get a piece of the living asking us to slaughter on their behalf, letting us drink our fucking fill."
Enaliya stops in her tracks. She turns around and smiles, "There it is. I was wondering when you'd drop the act."
"What act?" Roper snorts. "I told you what I'm doing, Enaliya. I've been watching Cobalt. They're a mover and shaker, and they're doing something with Karazhan. I'm in Outland, working on bigger things than carving out my own territory. I work with others who are smart, who know what they're doing." Roper spread his hands. He has, indeed, said all these things. There's not a trace of a lie in his words. His voice has gone colder though, as if she's insulted him. "And I'm interested in seeing what the rumors got right and wrong about you. If you're the kind of person who knows what she's doing, why shouldn't I make sure you know where to go to get the best fucking piece? What fucking 'act' are you talking about?"
"Then I take it you come up to every death knight you find and tell them about all of these moves you're making. I never said that you were lying, only clouding the truth. There's a difference, believe me, I know." She smiles, "I simply have little patience for such nuance. I spend enough effort suppressing my own desire as it is. If you think I can be of aid to your goal of ensuring we get to have our fun, then consider my interest piqued."
Roper snorts again. "As a matter of fact, I fucking do, talk to our kind and tell them about these moves when the Death Knight is worth talking to." He holds up a hand, ticking off his fingers. "Forge. Kiekel. Mourn. Theris. When I realize I'm talking to one of the smarter ones, I make sure they know what I have on offer. Others? Fionette? Corduin?" Roper shrugs. "When all they want is to sit in Acherus and do whatever the master tells them to do, I leave them to it. It's not an act you're seeing. I'm recruiting, when I see what I need to see to know I'm not just talking to the fucking canon fodder. Every one of us who knows what we're doing? We should be working together, getting what we deserve."
Enaliya chuckles and grins, "Deserve? I'm not particularly interested in what I deserve. I intend to take what I please regardless. However…" She chuckles, "I do know how to exercise scrutiny." Enaliya winks and smiles wider, "Did you know that the tailor's daughter went missing last month? No one knows what happened to her. All they ever found was a pile of bones near a worgen den." She cackles, "A shame, really."
"We deserve to survive," Roper says, and there's a dark note in his voice. "Every one of us who wears the armor tips that one way or another. Those of us who know how to be subtle about where our monsters play," Roper rotates his wrist in an almost elegant gesture. "Me? I have my sources, and I'm paying attention to where the good hunting is." Roper tilts his head at Enaliya. "Amazing how little anyone cares about the living cultists up North, and how long you can keep someone alive who can heal themselves. No one gives a fuck if another Amani dies screaming until they can't scream anymore."
"You raise a good point." Enaliya turns back around and leads Mercy in the direction of the graverobber. She keeps her gaze slightly back at Roper as if to show her engagement in what he has to say while still keeping on the task at hand.
"This? Bounties like this used to be my staples. Nothing like the freedom they give you when they say 'dead or alive.' And a grave robber?" Roper lets a drawl back into his voice. "That just makes it fucking funny."
"The irony is not lost on me." She continues going along, eventually drawing close to a bush. She lingers there for a moment, but then tosses her glaive into the distance at nothing at all and dashes off towards it.
Roper starts moving when Enaliya does. He's fast, but he's shorter and the plate slows him slightly. An Unholy Rune pulses bright for a moment in his left hand sword, enough to show through the sheath, and Roper picks up speed.
"Fear is such a fickle thing. It doesn't work unless they have at least some hope that their life is not forfeit."
"I like the anticipation of it. Tell them what's going to happen. Let them think about it. Imagine it. Build it up, while you just…" Roper moves his fingers of his right hand almost like he's playing a piano. "Make them fucking go through it twice. Let them try to think of how they'll get out of it, and then show them the reality."
Enaliya chuckles, "Exactly. The stories I could tell you…"
Roper makes a rolling gesture with his right hand, a sort of 'go-ahead' sign. "You got one in mind for this guy? Not that I want to ruin the show."
Enaliya hums as she ponders, "Nothing so dramatic as I am known for this time, I'm afraid. I fear my hunger is getting the better of me these days." She taps her lips with a gauntleted finger, "For now I just intend to run him ragged for a few days. Make him think he's been narrowly eluding me right up until he can't take another step. Then…" she curls up her lips to lick her fangs.
There's something in Roper, for just a moment, a tensing and the air temperature goes colder around them, and then it's gone. It's unclear why. Perhaps he's anticipating the hunt. There's certainly something in his body language that goes relaxed as he tips his head back. "Use our stamina against them, so they're left with nothing to fight with at the end, but they can't stop trying anyway. Clever," he says, the rasp in his voice barely a whisper on the black edges of his words.
Enaliya shrugs, "A bit simple. I wish I had a bit more prepared. I didn't know I would have an audience today."
Roper shrugs, a rolling twist of his shoulders that draws attention to the knives welded onto the pauldrons, the deadly points making a circle in the air. "You know who I am now. You ever get a real fucking good one you'd want an appreciative audience for, you never know. I could be around." Roper flips his fingers around as though there's an imaginary coin across his right knuckles. "Always better when you really fucking know who you're hunting. Make it personal. Dig in deeper."
"Of course. I appreciate the offer." Enaliya gives him a serious look, "Is there anywhere in particular I should look for you?"
Roper rolls his head slightly as though loosening something in his neck. "You send it to Acherus, I'll get it eventually. I'm too many fucking places, all the time. I've been here, in Duskwood on and off. Stormwind. Elwynn forest. Shattrath. Nagrand. Shadowmoon Valley. And that's just this past fucking week."
"Sounds busy." Enaliya says curiously.
"Exactly. S'why I'm fucking recruiting. Lots of places we could be, using what we are to get in good so we can have what we want, but I'm just one guy. The more thinking, smart boots we have on the ground, the better it gets. Just worked a job for some Ethereals that used to be the thing they'd need to hire a full fucking mercenary company for. Now they know, all they need is a Knight or two." Roper tilts his head up to show Enaliya a toothy, lopsided grin pulled more to the right than left. "And then the next time they have someone we can…play with, they come to us with the fucking bounty."
"I've said it already, but you have my interest, Roper." She keeps Mercy moving toward her prey, "You can be sure that I will come looking for a little fun very soon."