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| Details |
| Author: | Alli |
| Summary: | Sisters Syarra and Aze meet up for their first getting-to-know-you-again appointment. Less than a week later, Syarra comes by with news about Northrend. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Arc: Sunstrike Story
It is late in the day when the visitor arrives at the door in Scryer's Tier with the moon carving on the front. She stops in front of the door for a long time, still as a wax figure. If she were a wax display, the theme would likely be 'sin'dorei traveler', an unremarkable woman with black hair tied in a braid, wearing a red blouse and brown pants. In that case, the artist would have made the eyes wrong. Sin'dorei don't normally have eyes of blue flame.
The stillness and the blankness of her expression might be taken for calmness, but for the fact that surely she intended to knock on that door, sometime this century. After far too long, she finally steps forward and raps her knuckles against the wood.
"It's open," a muffled voice says from inside.
Syarra hesitates for only a moment more, and then reaches for the handle and opens the door. She scans over the room, and then quickly steps in, closing the door behind her with a sharp click and locking it.
The room is relatively tidy, which might be a good sign for her state of mind. No dirty dishes or empty wine bottles strewn in the kitchen. The bed isn’t made, but that’s not unexpected. Syarra remembers that bad habit. The one surprise is Aze, facing her from across the small room. She’s straddling a backward chair, her chin resting on crossed arms on top. Her loose black hair hangs over part of her blindfold, and her arms, on which the jagged lines of her blue tatooes are clearly visible, are bare.
"You were sitting here, like this, with the door unlocked?" Syarra asks, and she can't help but make it sound like an accusation. "You need to be more careful."
"What do you care?" Aze pushes up from the chair and circles around to the kitchen, soft black boots making no sound on the floor. Around the loose black tank-top she's wearing, Syarra can clearly see more of the arcane tracery over her shoulders and down past her collarbone. Aze turns away, messing with something on the counter, and adds over her shoulder, "I can take care of myself. Or I can't. Either way, it's not your fucking problem anymore."
"It's my problem if I make it my problem," Syarra says, and then takes a breath, trying to calm her anger. This isn’t the right direction, she didn’t mean to start with an argument. "What are you doing?"
A ticking sound answers the question, as Aze turns to lean back against the counter casually and holds up a small metal timer. She sets it down next to her and smiles coldly. "I agreed to an hour. This rings, you get the fuck out of here."
"An hour every week," Syarra nods, moving over to take a seat at the table without waiting for an invitation. She hasn't been stabbed yet, so at least that's an improvement. She lets out a sigh. Small steps.
"I don't know what you're so glum about, corpse," Aze says, still with that cold smile. "You got what you wanted, and it hardly cost you anything. I still don't really get why you want it."
tick, tick, tick…
"Maybe I don't understand why you don't," Syarra says calmly, keeping her expression carefully blank. "You read my journal, you know what's happened to me in the past few years. But I don't know anything about what you've been through."
"The journal, right," Aze reluctantly pushes off the counter and walks over toward her bed. And there it is, on a small table on the side of the double bed with mussed sheets. Within reach to someone lying there, Syarra notes. And it looks in good condition, though Aze was usually something of a force of destruction. Something… cherished? "I remember you wanted this, too."
Aze picks it up and tosses it carelessly toward Syarra. Pages flutter in the air as it arcs across the room and lands spine up on the floor in front of her. A brief, delicious prickle of pain from Aze catches Syarra off-guard for a moment, and then she leans to pick the journal up, smoothing the pages. She looks down at the book in silence until the sense of pain fades.
tick, tick, tick…
"I feel like I deserve to know what's happened to you," Syarra says, finally setting the journal aside. "I never gave you permission to read my journal. And you knew I wasn't… there was a chance I might care."
"You said it was fine," Aze says, turning around and sitting on the sheets. She seems perfectly comfortable talking across the length of the room, their voices slightly raised over the ticking of the timer. "And that wasn't part of the deal. If you wanted information, you should have fucking clarified."
"It’s fine because it makes things easier," Syarra answers, gently tapping a finger on the table along with the timer. "I don’t have to explain as much. The same goes for you. If you keep a journal, I would like to read it."
"I don’t."
"Fine, then tell me," Syarra sighs, "It's not part of the deal, but it's fair."
"Who the fel ever said the world was fair?" Aze chuckles bitterly. "Anyway, you know the broad strokes. Ask me whatever else you want to know."
"And you'll answer?" Syarra eyes her with wariness. "You'll answer truthfully?"
tick, tick, tick…
Aze takes entirely too long to respond. Eventually, she says, "Fine. I’ll be fair. In exchange for reading the journal, I'll give you three questions. And I swear I’ll answer truthfully. Anything else I'll answer if I fucking feel like it."
Syarra rests her hands on the table. It sounds like a concession, but is it? She thinks of Roper, of his take on the cost of asking questions.
"You have to ask it," Roper drawls. "Which tells me what you don't know, and more importantly, what you want to know. And that…gives me more on you."
She would need to be careful. Syarra considers what to ask, trying not to let the timer set her on edge. "Why did you defect, in the end?"
"From Illidan?" Aze asks, but Syarra doesn't answer. No tricks, nothing that might be construed as a second question. Aze opens her mouth to speak, hesitates, stops. Her cold smile disappears. There’s a brief, pleasant ache of old pain, and she mutters, "Fuck, the Lich King really taught you to go for the kill, huh?"
"You said you'd answer truthfully," Syarra answers calmly, refusing to rise to the barb or the pain.
"You know what's involved in this, right?" Aze asks, running one finger along the trail of blue on her arm. "What I did, what they did to me?"
"I'm not asking about that," Syarra keeps her voice neutral. No more questions muddying the water.
"I disagreed with what they…" Aze shifts uncomfortably on the bed. The sheets rustle. "No. I said I would answer truthfully. I panicked and ran. The first five of our kind that they made into demon hunters, only one made it through. Three of them died, or had to be killed. One went mad. I thought I could handle it, right up until I woke up with…" she puts one hand up to touch her temple, and winces. There's another sweet prickle of pain there, but distant. Nothing Syarra's causing right now.
tick, tick, tick…
"But you can handle it," Syarra says, taking care to phrase it as a statement and not a question. She looks over Aze's body, what she can see of it. There's the tattoos, the blindfold, but no other signs of demonic transformation.
"For now, yeah," Aze agrees.
"What happens if you can't?" The question is out before she thinks through it fully, and she winces inwardly. Only one left.
"Depends," Aze says. To Syarra's surprise, she stands up from the bed, crossing the room to pull her chair around to the other side of the table and sit. "Everyone's different. Some people just burn. Some fucking lose themselves completely, and there's nothing left but the demon. Then there are some that go part way. They remember themselves sometimes, but then they can't keep control. No way to tell which way I'd go."
There’s something in the sharpness of Aze’s movements, the way she drums her fingers against the table top, the speed of her breath. Anxiety? This is not something Aze wants to talk about, which may mean it’s more likely to be true.
"As for me, I'd either set a fire or cut a bloody path through Shattrath until someone stopped me," Aze says, trailing her index finger in a zigzag pattern on the table. It seems familiar. She flashes another smile, but it fades almost immediately. "I have nightmares about that. But that doesn't mean anything. I still have nightmares about…" she raises her hand to gesture vaguely at the whole of Syarra, "…which you'd think would stop after it came true."
"That's why you wanted to join me in Silvermoon," Syarra says, watching her reaction. "You wanted me to kill you, if it came to it."
"Maybe originally," Aze says, shaking her head, nothing guarded in her expression now. "Not now. I don't trust your judgment."
"You don't trust my judgment," Syarra says, and it’s a prompt for elaboration. Not a question.
"Obviously," Aze chuckles, and for once she sounds genuinely amused. "I do know a little bit about how you work. No matter what you say, I know there's some little part of you that would just fucking love to bind me to a rack and take me apart piece by piece. You're biased, death knight. You don’t get to decide."
Syarra keeps her face carefully blank, her hands perfectly still. Aze isn’t wrong, but this is definitely not the time to let the hunger show. "If you're trying to bait me, it won't work. I'm not going to hurt you. We have an agreement. You can't get out of this so easily."
"Worth a shot, corpse," Aze says, but there seems to be less venom under the word this time. "Anyway, I assume you want the same from me. To watch, to make sure you don't go over the edge, to… put an end to you if you do."
A memory of another conversation with Roper surfaces, one regarding her insistence on keeping Aszera alive and unharmed. And the conditions on that…
…know that if you don't come back at least somewhat intact… …I will make her fucking pay for it. If she's lucky I will kill her.
"No," Syarra says immediately, certainty in her voice. "I'm not asking that of you. If I'm out of control, you get out of the way. I'm serious. Someone else will deal with it. It's not your responsibility."
"But I'm your sister," Aze insists, and then freezes, a flicker of surprise on her face. Abruptly, she gets up from her chair and turns away, walking back over to the timer.
tick, tick, tick…
Syarra lets the silence stretch, uncertain how to push that statement one way or another. It feels heavy in the air.
It's Aze who finally speaks, not facing her. "I said three questions, corpse. That was two."
"You told me why you left Illidan Stormrage, but not how," Syarra says slowly. "Aren't you concerned someone will come after you?"
"Not really," Aze says, turning back to face her, leaning on her hands against the counter behind her. "I think they're all dead? I didn't hear anything about them coming out of the Temple after the assault, anyway. Even Altruis is gone, which is fucking weird. He wasn't anywhere near the temple."
"But you don't know for sure," Syarra says. "And that's a recent development. You've been here for months."
"Mm-hm," Aze says, and doesn't elaborate. Syarra waits, but there doesn't seem to be anything else forthcoming.
"That's not an answer, Aze," Syarra says mildly, and there's a flicker of something from her sister. Pain, yes, but… shame?
"Why would they look for me?" Aze asks casually, but there's something a little too careful about her words this time. "Like I said, there's a pretty high loss rate in the transformation, and they must be fucking fine with it because they kept bringing in more people. Some die, some are killed, and some… I left a note. It would have seemed sincere. Because it was, at the time. I don't recall them ever looking for confirmation. Just one more mark in the column of acceptable losses."
It takes a moment for Syarra to understand, and then she does. And she remembers a moment, just after the Battle for Light's Hope Chapel. The moment when she first fully understood what had been done to her, and she just wanted… to stop. Syarra rises from the table, and for once there's something in her dead heart besides determination when she looks at Aze. Something like genuine sympathy.
ding, ding, ding
At the sound, Aze's expression closes like a book. She turns to silence the timer and says quietly, "Time’s up, corpse. Get out."
On the Following Tuesday
Aszera Sunstrike is at the table in her pajamas, soft woolen garments embroidered with decorative turtles, when there's an unexpected knock. She looks at the door, shifting to get her sore muscles into combat readiness. Is it Sil? Or some Warden who spotted her at the Sunwell? Either way, not answering won't help the situation.
Cautiously, she fetches a dagger from her coat closet and holds it at the ready as she approaches the mystery visitor. With her free hand, she undoes the lock and cracks the door open an inch. And…. not Sil, not a Warden. It's her sister again.
"It hasn't been a week yet, corpse, go away," she snaps, putting her weight behind the door to close it.
The death knight stops the door in place with one hand, and Aze gives an irritated growl, shifting to leverage more force.
"Aze, stop it," Syarra says. "I need to talk to you today, and then you won't have to see me for a while. Just let me in."
You won't have to see me for a while is enough of a hook for her to want to hear more. With a sigh, Aze steps back, letting the corpse into the room. She's in the saronite armor today, looking every bit a Scourge minion except for the Ebon Blade tabard.
Syarra turns to close the door, and then looks at Aze. And stares. Aze reaches up self-consciously to rub an embroidered turtle near her shoulder.
"I guess you still sleep," the corpse finally says, and Aze gets a suspicious feeling that there's amusement under the words. She gestures to the dagger. “Planning to attack me again?”
Aze feels a quick flash of anger, covering something that feels dangerously like guilt. Just like when that smug asshole called her on it in front of the street kids. She shakes her head, walking back to the closet to put the dagger away. “No, I already made my point. And anyway, you’re in armor. Where’s the fun in that?”
“Your point,” Syarra repeats blandly. “I suppose that’s one way to put it. I didn’t think it was so late that you’d be…” she trails off, staring at the woolen pajamas again.
“Don't you sleep? Or wait, you wouldn't, would you?" Aze asks. She smiles, trying to reach her usual carefree manner, and continues, "But yes, I'm tired. I was fighting to reclaim the Sunwell all yesterday, after all."
"The Sunwell?" Syarra repeats blankly. She seems set off-balance by the statement, which means this is a good direction to push, to get back control of the conversation. "I was there."
"Yes, I know," Aze says cheerily, moving from the coat closet to the kitchen. "I saw you, you and your friend. If you're going to be a regular visitor now, do you want tea, coffee? He seems very attached to you. Did you fuck him or something?"
Syarra freezes in place. She doesn't seem to be able to process all of this at once. Good.
"I don't need… I don't want any of that," she says eventually, her voice even and calm. "Aze, you know I'm undead. But I can drink tea if you want me to."
"And Roper?"
"Fine, you've caught me," Syarra moves toward the table. "Not just an ally. But not a fling, either. I don't think I ever understood how to have those properly, then or now."
Aze pauses, and suddenly she’s the one off-balance. "Wait, seriously? I mean I definitely got the mine vibes from his side at the dance, but I was just messing with you. Is this some kind of Windrunner bullshit? Isn't he a little young for you?"
"I'm hardly going to go for a hundred and forty year old human, am I?" Syarra says dryly. "And if it works for a queen, why not for me? But the Sunwell…" She pauses, uncertain. "I didn't see you there."
"Don't worry, you weren't meant to," Aze says, turning to get a kettle out of the cabinet. Something to keep her busy, while Syarra figures out how to get to the fucking point. And something to distract her from thinking about the possible love-lives of corpses. She needs a new topic. "I know how to lie low, see? So you don't need to worry."
"You shouldn't have even gone," Syarra says, sitting heavily in chair. It creaks with the weight of her armor. "That would have been lying low."
"I had to," Aze says, and she doesn't turn back to Syarra. She pauses for a moment, then takes a breath and starts the heating pad for the water. She can’t keep the bitterness out of her voice as she continues, "It was our fight. It was ours and we fucking lost it, in case you forgot that part."
"I didn't," Syarra shifts, the chair creaking. "I haven't lost much, in terms of memory. And that's one reason why I'm going to Northrend."
"Yeah, I know," Aze says, scooping tea leaves into the pot. "Killing the fucking Lich King, blah blah blah. I'm on that too. For vengeance. For mom and dad. For Quel'Thalas. For you."
"In a more immediate sense," Syarra says quietly. "We're leaving on a boat tomorrow."
Aze loses her grip on the spoon, and it clatters to the counter. She picks it up, puts it away. Clumsy. "Tomorrow."
"So I won't be by for a while," Syarra continues. "But I'm sure there will be portals back. Unless you'll be coming to Northrend soon?"
"I… yeah," Aze says vaguely, pouring hot water into the kettle. There's a weird feeling in her stomach. It feels almost like sinking. "Probably. At some point. I'll talk to Geth, see what's up. Or maybe I could sneak onto your boat."
"Absolutely not," Syarra says flatly. "A boat full of hungry death knights? You wouldn't make it to Northrend."
"Or maybe they wouldn't," Aze says, forcing lightness into her tone as she turns to the cabinet for mugs.
"Don't even joke about that," Syarra says grimly, clearly demonstrating that she doesn’t know how to lighten up. "You'll have to find another way."
Aze picks up the tea kettle, considers the scalding heat, the death knight. For a moment, she just feels so tired. Would it be enough to goad Syarra, end this whole back and forth once and for all? Monster against monster. No more uncertainty. Surprisingly, the thought doesn't make her feel any better.
She can feel Syarra sitting at the table, silent and patient as a ghost. And she is a ghost, in a sense. But still. At the Sunwell, Syarra had fought almost exactly like she used to, back when they were a team. It was an uncanny resemblance. Syarra had a new shadow now, but Aze had been there in case she was needed. And now… was there even a plan for after the Lich King, for the Ebon Blade?
"I’ll deal with it," Aze says, carefully pouring tea into the two mugs and carrying them over to the table. She sits down across from the monster that wants to be her sister, wool and turtles and memory facing saronite. "Just don't try to pull any hero bullshit while I'm not there to back you up."
"I'm not a hero anymore, if I ever was," Syarra says, taking the mug in between cold hands. She looks down at the still liquid, as if she's not sure what to do with it, and steam stops rising from the surface.
"You were," Aze says under her breath, warming her hands on her own mug. Louder, turning her face towards the death knight, she adds, "Don't let them throw you away, okay? We have an agreement. You can't get out of this so easily."