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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | In Year 27, Melancholy Grimlocke went about her usual business after her birthday of visiting the local ghost, only to find an unexpected new presence, one whose knowledge and former life pointed her on the path of her Fate. Meanwhile, Theris Lysander made a new, unusual friend. 2600~ words. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
January 25th, Year 27
It's a perfectly gloomy winter afternoon in Duskwood, and Melancholy Grimlocke is skipping through the forest on the way to a cottage with a basket wearing a red hood. This is somehow not that type of fairy tale, though.
Mostly because she isn't on the way to her grandmother's, but to the little shack occupied by the local ghost known as Blind Mary, and there aren't any worgen on this path, and there haven't been in some time. In fact, it's been pristine, as if someone's been keeping them completely at bay away from the area. It makes for an easy journey for the young noblewoman, who doesn't even need to use any of her U.G.G.s (Undead Gone Grenades) either.
Melancholy arrives to the door, which does exist, and tippity-tap-taps with her long red nails on it politely, but she doesn't wait for anyone to open the door, because she believes only a ghost lives here. "Hello," she calls out cheerily, stepping inside. She's dressed in a tight black dress with a cinched waist with a dozen belts overlapping, and a skirt half made of more belts (it was a phase), with red metal accents, along with a big black hat and a dramatic black veil that covers the whole of her face, made up with huge winged liner and black lipsticked lips (it was also a phase).
Gloomy Duskwood daylight shines into the cabin from the front window, which is missing its tattered curtain. The sound of sweeping stops. (Someone was sweeping.)
Blind Mary is not in the front room of her cabin. She is likely in the bedroom; she never goes far.
There is someone else in the room, though: the man holding the broom. He wears a black gambeson, pants, and socks, without a hint of color. The color is in the armor that sits in pieces a nearby table, a black that gleams with hints of blue in the dim light, and the color is in the runes etched onto the broadsword leaning against the table.
He turns toward the door, and his face is very pale. His eyes gleam blue. He is shorter than Melancholy. For a moment, he stares, clearly taken aback - he was not expecting a guest. Then, he bows to her, the proper bow for a nobleman to a peer. "Good afternoon. Are you here to visit Miss Mary?"
Melancholy blinks rapidly, holding onto her basket, and then she lifts up her veil so she can see better. It did not make the other man less pale or his eyes less glowing blue. She is even more taken aback than he is — she was not expecting a Death Knight. There is a small amount of fear that rises up, but she doesn't yet do anything to turn or run.
"You're not alive," she tells him, and then puts a hand to her mouth. "I'm sorry. That was rude. True, obviously, but that doesn't make it less rude to sort of blurt out like that." She winces. "No, this apology isn't right either — I'm muddling this. Let me start over? I'm sorry, that was a rude way to start this conversation. I'm Melancholy Grimlocke. Good afternoon. I am here to visit Miss Mary. You are?"
Theris holds the broom calmly as though he has just paused in the middle of sweeping, which is exactly what has happened. He has no intention of using it as a weapon, and he doesn't make any movement towards the actual weapon in the room. "I'm Theris Lysander. There's no offense taken, I am dead. I have no objection to discussing it, if you have any burning questions. Miss Mary has been kind enough to allow me to stay in her sitting room for the time being. Shall I fetch her?"
Melancholy leans forward, squinting. "Oh my garters, a Lysander. You're one of ours, of Duskwood. I don't think we ever met before though. Well, that must be complicated," she says as delicately as she can. "I've never met a death knight, or really expected to. That is what you are, isn't it? Is that… the right word? I've really not thought to brush up on any of the vocabulary."
Theris nods. Because he is here in Duskwood to do his part, rather than off fighting in Northrend with all the other, cooler, death knights, he explains, "A death knight, yes. I was raised from the dead to join the Lich King's armies - until his hold on us was broken by a miracle of the Light. I am a member of the Knights of the Ebon Blade, a neutral organization that formed after the Battle of Light's Hope when we had our free will returned to us." It's the official speech, such as it is.
Then he adds, quieter, "I was never knighted. I don't know why they call us all knights - probably because it sounds good. My older brother is a knight."
Theris shakes his head and focuses on her. "I don't remember you, but I feel like I should. Grimlocke… There's… I lost some pieces of my memory, during the transformation process. Are you wearing red?"
Melancholy's fear is fading the more he talks, and she moves a hand to the hood keeping her hair contained under her large hat. "Yes, I am. Is that a problem? Like with one of those bull training situations? I read once that bulls aren't actually angered by red, it's all a whole training thing."
Theris's mouth twitches, and he shakes his head. "No. It's nice. I don't see color often."
Melancholy thinks about that for a second or two. "Is it another thing that didn't come back all the way in the transformation process? Or is that more of a Duskwood Is Gloomy and Monochromatic commentary?"
"The former. It's worse the more Hungry I am." There's an audible capital H in there. Theris rotates the broom slowly in his hand. "When I'm starving, I can't see color at all. I don't think my retinas were damaged. It's likely magical."
"That sounds bizarre. When I'm hungry, all that happens is that I get a bit cranky," Melancholy says blithely. "I am pretty sure it's not magical." She pops him a black lipped smile.
Theris looks a little sad, but doesn't elaborate any further at the moment. He turns and goes to knock on the interior door. "Miss Mary, you have a guest. Lady Melancholy is here to see you."
From behind the door comes the banshee's voice: "She mustn't look at me! I'm hideous!"
"Oh, right!" Melancholy flips back over her thick veil quickly over her face. "Don't worry, Mary, I can hardly see a thing, and I brought you another brush to try! Madame Eva says the bristles are made of ghost boar, so they won't tear even a single strand out of your hair." She lifts up the basket to pull out an ornate antique slim silver brush that looks…like it doesn't have any bristles at all? But it is ~glowing~ faintly on one side. Maybe it's enchanted with something? It could be ghost boar bristles. It could be bullshit. Who knows.
"Oh, did you? Well… I suppose if you really won't look…" Blind Mary drifts through the door, and Theris steps aside.
"Mind the dust on the floor, here," Theris warns Melancholy. "I'll just finish getting it out of your way." He begins to sweep again.
Blind Mary glides right on through the dust without being impacted. She is a much more ghostly sort of dead than her houseguest. "Ghost boar bristles, you said?" She reaches blindly out.
"Ghost bristles," Melancholy confirms, as she moves only slightly better than the ghost towards the glowing entity, to pass over the brush. She shives slightly as she makes contact, but doesn't flinch, and she deliberately pats the ghost's hand with her own black laced gloved one.
"And do try to remember, Mary, right — 'My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; / Coral is far more red than her lips' red; / If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; / If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head,'" she quotes. "'And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare, as any she belied with false compare.' Poetry always sees beauty in the world, in everything."
Blind Mary accepts the brush from Melancholy and then reaches up until her fingertips touch Melancholy's veil. She seems to find some reassurance in this, likely more so than the poetry.
"You're such a dear. Let me give this brush a try." The banshee begins to run the brush through her hair. "I used to have such beautiful hair, you know…"
Theris is respectfully not watching - he is sweeping the dust into a dustpan.
"Well, I like the hair you have now," Melancholy says, holding still for her ghostly inspection. She's truly unafraid of the ghost, as Theris can tell. "It's so interesting, and not a single person can find a dye to match it, though I'm sure someone in Dalaran is trying. What a trend that might be someday!" She taps her basket closed with a click-clack of her nails.
She turns her head vaguely towards where Theris is, and it's obvious she honestly can't see well through the veil. "So, then, what would you like me to call you? If you're not knighted really, after all — death person sounds so odd, don't you think? — and I don't know what's going on with the whole dead-not-dead aspect of everything. Are you still Lord Theris? Mr. Theris? Sir Theris?"
"Do you think so?" Mary preens a little as she brushes her hair.
"Theris is fine," Theris replies. "My father… no longer recognizes me as his son."
Melancholy twitches back slightly at Theris' words. "I'd hope you might mean because of senility combined with a new look, but I know enough about the name Lysander to know the odds of that are virtually nonexistent. Well, that's rather appalling," she says frankly, in the tone of someone who has never really considered not sharing her opinion as she has it. "I can't even imagine my parents ever doing something like that." And someone who has never not known parental love.
She does turn to Mary at that though. "And I do think so, Mary. We do dye our hair a lot, the Grimlockes, so I keep up to date on it — I'm sure my sister Miserie would love to have your color if she could manage it with magic."
Blind Mary smiles a truly hideous smile at Melancholy. "You're very kind, my dear. Thank you for the brush." She glides back through her bedroom door, humming to herself, and the brush travels with her.
Theris looks down at his feet. "My mother recognized me, of course. It was… a shock. She collapsed. And my father took that very poorly." He sets the broom and dustpan aside. "She's recovered since, more or less. I haven't gone to see her, but I wish I could. She's a Royal Librarian. I used to work there as well, but despite the king's words about treating the Knights of the Ebon Blade as allies, I doubt the patrons of the library would be comfortable with me returning to work." He shakes his head, faltering. "I'm sorry, I don't usually talk so - it's just that I haven't had a proper conversation with a living person in a while."
"Oh, that's quite all right," Melancholy says, tippity-tappiting her nails together. "I don't really expect a normal conversation on my Blind Mary days, so we're still well within range for me at least — even if I wasn't really anticipating the whole extra person aspect. I'm sorry to hear about your mother. A royal librarian! I hadn't even thought we had such. Do you miss it?" She pauses only briefly. "Is it an insensitive question to ask? I can't tell what might be sort of strange territory in all this. I might not have asked it if you had left voluntarily, or if you were fired, but you were neither, and on further reflection, I can't quite think what the right question would be in this situation."
"I miss it very much," Theris says, glancing away. He turns back to say, "The library in Stormwind Keep is actually open to all members of the Alliance, provided they are willing to leave their weapons with the guards outside. It has both nonfiction and fiction. It's free of charge to browse, but to borrow books you'll need a card."
"So it's just like a house library, but anyone's allowed inside as long as they have a card instead of an invitation — what a concept! What does a librarian do, exactly then? Is it like a special guard of the books?" Melancholy puts up a little fist, tucking her thumb into it, as someone who has very obviously never thrown a real punch in her entire life. "Or is it more like a butler of the books?"
Theris's mouth twitches. "Closer to a butler than a guard. A librarian is knowledgeable about their collection and how to sort it so that people can find specific things - there's a system, and when you come in hoping to do research on a specific topic or even read a certain kind of fiction, a librarian will be able to help you find what you're looking for. We also maintain the collection, which means recommending new books to order, reshelving books, replacing damaged books…" Theris doesn't seem to notice he's used the word 'we' this time.
Melancholy sets her hand down on her basket, tippity-tappitying the top. "A system. Now, that's something I hadn't thought of much at all. What sort of system? We have one for our library at home, but I don't think we're ever going to all agree on it as the right sort, beyond an agreement that the alphabet must play into it at some point. I am certain I have the best one, and I'm sure I can prove it — I've been thinking of how I might rearrange the whole library now that most of everyone's out of the House more, and once they see it, they'll realize. But now I'm curious if there's something even better out there that I haven't known about. I might still use mine, of course, because mine might be the best for ours, after all, but I won't really know that, will I, unless I look at both options?"
There's a bit of an undercurrent of a young woman's assumption that of course she will have access to this knowledge, simply because she wants to have it, of someone who has never really been denied something that she desires.
"Well, yes. It's fairly complex." Theris pauses. "If you're interested, you could speak to my mother. Lady Renna Lysander. Tell her Theris sent you."
Melancholy's expression is quite literally veiled, but there's enough in the rest of her to suggest an exclamation mark in the air above her.
"Oh! What a thought that is! The Royal Librarian of the Library and the System to Know," she says, and there are audible capital letters going on. "Sent by Theris, met by chance, on the Ghost Day. This has all the markings of Fate, I can feel it. I have goosebumps all over." Under the swathes of black lace and velvet, it's hard to tell, but it doesn't sound like she's lying; she sounds completely genuine. "Well, I simply must now, mustn't I?"
It might be a rhetorical question, as she seems determined to march off right then and there towards the Stormwind Library, and — apparently — her Fate (?) as if pulled by a magnet she has no power to resist, and is obliged to obey immediately now that she's pointed it out.
"Oh, goodbye!" she calls over her shoulder.
Theris stares at her, baffled. "Ah, farewell," he says. "Come back any time."
Poem: "Sonnet 130" by William Shakespeare