(2023-06-24) A Paladin and an Ex-Paladin Meet by a Necropolis

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Author:	Alli
Summary:	Syarra happens across Kitharian in the fighting near Naxxramas, and the two share information.
Rating:	T for Teen

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Somewhere in the frosted hills around Wintergarde, a lone paladin fights a hopeless battle. Re-dead geists sprawl in an untidy semicircle around her, and far too much snow is spattered red from wounds that are, it must be admitted, only partly healed by the paladin herself. She snatches in a sharp breath, but before she can complete the summons of her charger, another geist flings itself at her. "Leave…" She swings her sword. "Me…" Golden light slams into the creature. "ALONE!" A wave of holy light sanctifies the ground at her feet.

It doesn't listen. Geists rarely do. In fact, even as it shrieks from the wounds inflicted on it, another geist comes to see what all the fuss is.

"Motherfu—" Kit doesn't get to finish the invective, and that's probably a good thing. Blue light slaps the first geist, momentarily granting the paladin a bit of energy. She uses it to stagger backwards, boots dragging in the snow.

Suddenly there are even more undead circling the paladin. Ghouls clamber up out of the snow, closing in. Oddly, though, they viciously attack the geists without hesitation.

For a moment, Kit goes paler than the snow. Then her brain catches up and she takes another step back. "O…kay," she says. Taking advantage of the momentary pause, she yanks a potion off her belt and downs the blue liquid in two full gulps. A prayer finishes the half-healing she'd done, closing the last of her wounds. "Ghoul," she says, avoiding one of her new allies. "Geist!" Her sword glows golden before it slams into a geist-skull, dispatching it with ghoulish aid. With only one geist left, and it well-occupied, she looks around. Possibly to be sure it is the only geist left.

A figure approaches in dark saronite, runes gleaming on her sword. As the last geist falls, the ghouls crumble back to dust. She pulls off her helm to reveal the familiar face of Syarra Sunstrike. She looks at Kit, unsmiling. "Kitharian du Lac."

Kit reaches up under her chin to yank her helmet off, too. Sweaty red hair tumbles out, held back in a pony tail. Kit grins, taking a few deep breaths, each exhalation etched in the cold air. "Syarra!" she says, lowering her swordpoint to the snow. "Nice timing." She swallows hard, then gestures around. "I had them right where I wanted them, of course. Part of my strategy." The cough at the end is probably from the dry air. Probably.

Syarra's expression sharpens at the cough. Is this an injured paladin, perhaps? But she doesn't move closer. "Of course, your clairvoyance told you to count on an army of ghoul assistance."

The paladin laughs and hangs the helmet from a loop on her belt. "Higher knowledge," she says. "It's a paladin thing. How are you?" Kit kicks over a geist corpse, showing absolutely no shame in looting the body.

"I am…" Syarra hesitates, then continues, "…well, I think. It is good to be following a purpose. And you?"

"Busy," she says, pocketing some coins before repeating the process on the next geist. Gimme yer stuff. "But this close to Wintergarde, that's to be expected." She up-nods, eyes looking toward Naxxramas in the not-too-distant sky. "That thing was an unpleasant surprise."

"I remember the day it first appeared," Syarra says, turning her burning blue eyes toward the necropolis. "I was still alive, out in the Eastern Plaguelands. I don't remember what I felt, but… it was unexpected then, as well."

Kit watches Syarra closely as she speaks. "I guess we'd all hoped that when it disappeared, it was because it'd been destroyed." Kit continues rummaging from corpse to corpse, all the coins going into one belt pouch. "I heard the Ebon Blade might be making some overtures to the Argent Crusade. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

Syarra shakes her head slightly. "I have… tried, a little. There was a situation, where we needed their advice. But many of them are not friendly to the Ebon Blade, and it is hard to reliably locate those that are. I… seem to have located you."

Kit spreads her hands out to either side. Taa daa. "Guess you couldn't stay away," she says, grinning. All the dead geists having been looted, she rises to her feet with easy grace, despite the battered and mismatched armor. "What was the situation?"

"We captured a death knight," she says, looking down at the bodies of the geists. "A Scourge death knight. It was someone who was still loved by living humans, and we wanted to know if it could be repeated. What was done at Light's Hope. But in the end…" Syarra shakes her head. "We kill the Scourge."

"I'm sorry," Kit says, offering honest sympathy. "I can't imagine what was done could be done again, not without damaging Arthas enough to make him flee and pull back his control. Between me and you and all these dead geists, I have a feeling it was less about anything we did, and more about what Arthas did." She shakes her head, ponytail snagging on her gorget. "Or maybe he just wanted us to think that. Still, nothing that day is exactly repeatable."

"I expect that you're right," Syarra nods, looking up to meet her gaze, her own hair carefully tied back in a tight braid. "We're… the Ebon Blade, or my small part of it, we're after the rest of a team of them. I imagine it will be hard for the living woman to accept they are lost."

"Do I know the woman? Or the team?"

"I don't know. Ralaea Westwind?" Syarra watches her face for signs of recognition.

Surprised, Kit takes a step back and sheathes the double-bladed sword on her back. "I know of her," she says. "She's in White Squad with Cobalt Company. She doesn't know, then?"

"Westwind helped us capture the first one," Syarra frowns. "But then grew insistent that he be killed. My sister executed him, in the end. Westwind's erratic, emotional. We'll likely avoid her in hunting the rest, and trust Cobalt to keep her safe."

"Most living people would be erratic and emotional, faced with the need to kill someone they once knew. Who was once a friend." She shifts, resting her hands on the hilt of a smaller sword at her waist. "That's part of the horror Arthas inflicts on us, making us stare our loved ones in the face while we kill them." Her gaze drifts toward Naxxramas again as she speaks.

Syarra's gaze follows Kit's hand, and she doesn't sheathe her own blade."I do remember the Third War, but… I don't think I ever faced that with someone I cared for deeply. At the time, when Westwind was trying to work herself up to it, I was… concerned at allowing her to acclimate herself to killing death knights. She might have eventually forgotten the distinction between them and us." Her gaze looks through Kit for a moment, remembering something else. "I thought I was being reasonable, but was it simply cruel?"

"Cruel?" Kit asks. "To ask her to do it or to do it for her?"

Syarra shakes her head. "I wanted her to see him as a person, if she was going to kill him. So I let him talk to her. She was… distressed and ran away."

Kit winces and shifts a little in the snow. "You feed off of pain and cruelty," she says, quieter. "Don't you know which it was?"

"If I enjoyed it, or if it was only that?" Syarra takes a step back from Kit. "There is so much pain in the world, and not all of it is wrong. Or avoidable. In any case, he is dead, and she did not have to do it, or even to watch. Nor will she be involved for the rest, if I can help it."

Kit shakes her head. "I can only remark on the good that might have come from doing it the way you did. This war will not permit fighters who cannot give that sort of mercy, if mercy is even the right word. Better she have her mettle tested that way, than in the middle of a battle. I'll drop a word in her squad leader's ear that this may be a problem. If she couldn't do it, if she couldn't bring herself… He should know."

"That may be a good idea," Syarra falls silent for a moment before continuing. "My sister felt that she should not have to, that it was unnecessary harm. I trusted her on that - she doesn't feed on pain. But if you disagree… I will keep that in mind. I trust you have not found yourself with any difficult moral dilemmas lately? Have you had much contact with the Ebon Blade?"

"No, none. Aside from you, of course." She bows a little, a slight incline at the waist, a little lower with her head. "You mentioned your sister before. I'm glad you two have stopped breaking bones and chewing on each other. She has realized that you're really you, with a few new quirks?"

"Yes," A smile flickers across Syarra's face. It's gone in a few seconds, but it looks real when it's there. "Northrend has worked well for us. Aze is still… volatile, in some ways… but she's accepted that I'm her sister. That she's mine. We've been working together quite a lot lately."

"I'm fairly certain your sister has always been volatile, but you'd know better than I," Kit says, mouth quirking. "I do agree with her, by the way, about not forcing Ralaea to kill her friend. But it's important to know that she couldn't. Just to clarify."

Syarra looks at Kit curiously, and nods once. "Then we did well. Your people should watch for the death knights, too. The leader is Kaela Mondragon, and I believe she still has two more working with her. They're Scourge, to be killed on sight."

"I was just discussing them with a high-ranking member of the Argent Crusade recently," Kit says with a slight frown. "None of us have seen enemy Death Knights, not in any force. Maybe one or two here and there. I don't suppose you have any sense of where they are? None are in Wintergarde despite Naxxramas floating there so ominously."

"The one we captured was in the Howling Fjord, but he was there alone," Syarra shifts to sheathe her runeblade. "It may be that a few here and there are all the Lich King has at the moment, after losing us."

"Wouldn't that be a pleasant surprise," Kit says wryly.

"Considerable time and effort went into raising and training us," Syarra points out. "And he's lost Acherus. It's not unreasonable to think he could not recover such a force quickly."

"Facts which I'll pass on, though likely the leadership has thought of that. It's still good to know from a Death Knight that we may not be facing an army of them." Kit shifts in the snow. "Is it all right with you if I speak with your sister? I'd like her take on what happened with Ralaea before I speak with Ben Hazan, but didn't want you to think I was hiding it from you."

Syarra raises one hand, an armored shrug. "You're welcome to speak to her, if you can find her - she's been insistent on secrecy regarding her whereabouts. I suspect she's camping on her own. Given Naxxramas, though… she may be nearby. She has as much cause to hate the Scourge as any of us."

"I'll look around for her," Kit says, "and try not to attract all the geist attention this time. Anything you want me to pass on?"

"Pass on," Syarra blinks, and then looks at Kit. "No, not to Aze, but… I should tell you. I did pass on your message. I would… not recommend you to seek her out at this time, but I have told her she is not forgotten."

Kit frowns. "A message to Aze? I don't remember asking you to pass on a message to her; what did I say?"

Syarra shakes her head. "To Fionette Crawford. So that she knows there are people who still think of her, at least."

Kit's normally expressive face goes blank, her body still. She manages to break out of it, awkward and sharp-edged. "What did she say? Did sh— What did she say?"

Syarra's attention sharpens, and the edge of her lips twitch upwards. "She didn't say anything, just huddled there. I didn't give her your name, exactly. I just told her - I saw her on the ship, when we were coming over. Our kind are not usually exceptionally social."

"Huddled there," Kit mumbles. "I haven't seen her. I've looked, but I haven't seen her. Maybe that's for the best." She shakes her head, an attempt to dismiss the ache. "I'll find your sister," she says. "Then I'll find Hazan. Anything else?" My, isn't she snappish all of a sudden?

"You might see her, in the future," Syarra says, taking a breath and forcing her face back to stillness. "If my people better coordinate with the Argent Crusade, for the war."

"There's reluctance," Kit admits, "but no outright refusals. Maybe offer to ride with them, one Death Knight to a few paladins. Until they trust. Assuming you do."

"I'll consider it," Syarra says, and she sounds sincere. "There would be… unpleasant consequences, if trust was broken, in either direction. But no, I don't think I have any further information for you. Be careful. You may be truly alone next time."

"Don't tell anyone I got unhorsed by a bunch of geists," Kit says. "It's embarrassing." She reaches up, and her hand lands on the arched and armored neck of a paladin's charger, the faint glow that surrounds it echoing off the churned-up snow.

"Your secrets are safe with me," Syarra says with a gesture, and her own undead charger steps to her hand through a twist of shadow.

Kit swings up into the saddle. "Stay safe, Syarra. I'd say 'Light keep you' but you might take that as a threat."

Syarra smiles briefly as she swings up into her own saddle, settling the helm back over her head. "Light keep you, then. I can at least say the words."

Kit chuckles, and rides off toward Wintergarde Keep.