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| Details |
| Author: | inkie |
| Summary: | Siamus Fallon embarks on his first major policy initiative with the Stormwind House of Nobles, by meeting with Roper to discuss, uh. Death knight rights. That's gonna be a popular one. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Arc: Death Knight PR
The sunset beyond Kamagua’s ice-framed harbor stains the sea scarlet and gold; high overhead, the waning sunlight fades to ribbons of rose and apricot that twine and shimmer in a dimming sky.
The tuskarr village answers with the ruddy gleam of firelight that paints the snow-packed ground. The air is thick with the smoke of bonfires and pipes, and ripe with the smell of fish. A low, brisk breeze off the bay scours away the strongest of the odors with salt and the tang of sea-ice.
Beyond the turtle dock, two human ships stand moored out in the harbor, tranquil at anchor, their sails struck. Both fly the Alliance flag and the Fallon pennant. In the crow’s nest of the larger ship — the barquentine whose prow names her Lion’s Grace — some anonymous figure cuts a black silhouette against the curtain of sunset as he shifts position and lifts a spyglass to survey the waters farther west.
A small knot of human sailors wait at the near end of the turtle dock, warming themselves at a campfire and with mugs in hand, making low conversation. A longboat is pulled up on the shore nearby — conveyance out to either of the ships, for anyone who might require it.
A shadow arrives by gryphon, landing with an agile motion. The shadow resolves itself into the suggestion of a man, although he’s slim and short for one, a black cloak with its hood drawn up and over his face concealing some of his form, but enough shows through to reveal a well tailored suit, and two slim swords at his waist secured like a gentleman might wear. He makes no conversation with the goblin flightmaster, moving instead through to the village, stopping to speak to first one tuskarr, then another. They greet him with familiarity and an ease that suggests they know each other well; he is not a stranger here.
The second tuskarr points to the turtle dock, and then to the Lion’s Grace, and the shadow man starts to walk away, turning his head over his shoulder once, possibly saying something, before he strides with purpose to the sailors and their longboat.
“Hey,” Roper greets them as he gets within range. The accent puts him as from Stormwind, lowborn. The tone is friendly, easy going, not a threat. The voice, however, has an echo to it, not concealed, and that reveals him to be not simply a human man, but a death knight. His hands go up near his chest, elbows bent, as though in a gesture of surrender or peace, his palms open and empty, facing them. He keeps his head down, the hood concealing his face.
The conversation stills, an uneasy silence rippling outward from this sudden stone dropped into it. Four sailors consider the arrival with varying shades of wariness.
At length, the blandest-faced of the lot — a small, wiry, dark fellow — says mildly, “That’s Roper, then.”
It might be a question for Roper himself; it might be an explanation directed at the other three. It might be both of those things.
“Yeah,” Roper confirms. He tilts his head to the side, gesturing with his head over his shoulder back at the village. He doesn’t move the rest of his body, standing with an eerie stillness, although he’s visibly, if subtly, breathing. “You can check back with the tuskarr if you wanna run my identity by them, make sure I’m who I say I am. I’m known here. Elder Atuik, Tanaika, or even Naqtuk, if he’s around. I’ve worked with him more than a few times.” He still has that easy going sound to him, a faint drawl touching some of his vowels, the echo lending a slightly uncanny sound to it all the same.
The wiry man surveys Roper, head to toe, and glances past him at the tuskarr. He shrugs a shoulder. “Dunno there’s many a’ your sart come lookin’ for us at the moment. I expect you’re who ye say.”
One of the other sailors sucks his teeth, and the wiry one cuts him a look. “Arright,” he says, “G’wan, then.”
The second sailor sets off determinedly toward the tuskarr, and the wiry fellow looks at Roper again. “Mac,” he says. This is presumably his name. “Expect ye don’t take coffee.”
“I fucking love coffee,” Roper drawls back. “I usually take it cold, though, these days.” Was that a joke? Maybe. Also maybe true. He sounds amused, and slowly, he reaches a hand out for a handshake to Mac. He otherwise makes no movement whatsoever, feet planted to wait for the sailor to come back.
Mac shifts the tin mug of coffee he’s holding in both hands to his left hand, and reaches out equably to shake Roper’s hand with his right. “If ye want a cup for the jarney, say the ward. It’s hot, though.” His tone is dry.
Neither of the other two sailors has moved. Mac tilts his head toward them, still looking at Roper. “Cammon and Frye,” he says. He does not elucidate as to which is which. The two men in question do not look like they want to be elucidated, especially, though one of them nods curtly at the death knight.
Roper’s gloved hand is cold, but his handshake is a mirror of pressure of Mac’s own, nothing more or less. “Sure, I’ll take a cup,” he says to Mac, his hood moving a returning nod to either Cammon or Frye.
Mac looks past Roper to the returning fourth sailor, nods, and eyes Roper again. “Let’s be over, then,” he says, and steps aside to indicate the longboat.
Roper moves at Mac’s words for the longboat, something in his stride that suggests – for all of the quickness of the confirmation – impatience, as though it had been a long wait and he had been counting down the seconds as though they were hours.
Mac produces a battered, enameled thermos and another tin cup from beneath one of the boat’s benches; the cup’s cleanliness is uncertain but it seems likely that death knights, much like many sailors, are not terribly fastidious about such things. He pours Roper a cup of still-scalding black coffee and offers it out.
The best that can be said of the coffee is that it sure is coffee. But perhaps this doesn’t matter to death knights either.
Roper takes it. If he’s fastidious or not, he doesn’t have any hesitation at least. It’s not like it’s gonna kill him, after all. He lifts it in a cheers sort of motion. “Thanks.” There’s a chill in the air that grows a little stronger, as frost forms on the outside of the mug. It was scalding a moment ago. It’s not anymore, as he takes a drink. He up nods the Lion’s Grace. “It’s the barquentine, right?” He doesn’t really wait for confirmation as he starts walking…
…right past the longboat and off the dock. As his foot would hit the water, there’s a snap of fingers, and then a snap of ice instead, just beneath his foot, as steady now as solid ground. “I’ll bring back the cup,” he says over his shoulder, as he keeps walking, his left hand reaching out and pulling shadows from the waves that coalesce into a horse in complete silence. Roper steps up into the saddle in the middle of his stride, and sets off at a recklessly fast pace across the path of frost forming beneath him. You know. Like a normal person.
The sailors stand and watch this for a moment in silence, and then one of them mutters an oath under his breath.
“Weel,” says Mac philosophically. “Saves us a trip.” He offers out the thermos to the others. “Mar coffee?”
Meanwhile, aboard the barquentine that is Roper’s destination, the shadow in the crow’s nest has turned his spyglass toward the death knight’s approach. He calls something to the crew on the deck below — unnecessarily, as several of them are already gathered at the rail to watch this spectacle warily.
As Roper draws close, an enormous, bearlike fellow on deck gives some curt instruction, and a moment later a rope ladder is tossed free, unfurling down the side of the ship in at least a bare welcome.
The cloak ripples like a dark pool of water disturbed by a heavy stone as Roper drives the deathcharger straight to the edge of the boat at that same dangerous speed – how is he going to stop? – a question that is answered as the horse disappears, pulled down into the shadow of the ship, a foot away from the rope ladder. Roper catches his balance easily, a step onto the ice of the water, and then he’s scaling the rope ladder at a speed that suggests another life, familiarity with needing to move quickly and silently up a rope. He’s doing it one handed; his right hand still holds the cup of coffee.
He steps up and onto the deck, landing like a shadow in soft, expensive looking shoes clearly designed more for style than comfort. He takes a sip of his coffee, the hood still concealing his face. “Hey,” he greets the crew. That distinctive echo is there, a slight drawl to the word that makes it a casual greeting.
The bearlike man nods curtly and folds his arms across his chest. “Ye’re the one the Vice Admiral’s expecting, then?”
“Yeah. Roper,” Roper says. He takes another sip of the coffee, gestures slightly with the cup. “Figured I’d save Mac the trip, in exchange for the coffee.” There’s an easy, relaxed attitude to him, no sense of a threat, his cloak over his runeblades.
If the burly man has opinions on the generosity of this gesture, he does not speak them, but only nods curtly again. “If ye’ll come wi’ me, then, Mr. Roper. The Vice Admiral’s in his quarters.” He doesn’t wait for a reply, but moves across the ship’s deck toward the narrow door beneath the quarterdeck that leads to the officers’ rooms.
He has to duck and turn himself slightly sideways to fit inside the door. The hallway within is wider but the fellow still has to walk stooped to avoid brushing the ceiling with his head; twice he has to lean to one side or the other to avoid clocking himself on lamps suspended from the ceiling. The ship has been built to tight, military proportion, without a wasted inch of space.
Roper does not have any difficulty with the ship’s size. At five and a half feet, with a slim enough build, he moves easily through, if with a silence that might be a little disconcerting, following behind his guide like a shadow.
At the end of the hallway the sailor knocks at a door, and a voice from within calls, "Enter."
The Captain's cabin is built more generously than the narrow corridor, running the beam of the ship beneath the raised quarterdeck. The bearlike sailor can stand upright again. So can the Captain, for that matter; he may not have the barrel-chested build of the other man, but he's only two or three inches less in height.
He stands at the far end of the cabin before a rank of windows. He is for a moment just a silhouette against the bloody sunset light, but then he moves, stepping off to one side, and becomes properly visible. He's not looking at either arrival, however, but frowning fiercely at a letter he's holding in one hand.
Vice Admiral Siamus Fallon, the ninth Duke Esprit, does not look particularly like either an officer or a gentleman at the moment; he looks like a sailor. He's wearing a loose linen shirt, open at the neck, with the faded Alliance-blue sash tied around his hips, loose trousers and salt-stained leather boots. The cabin in which he stands is spartan, furnished for a practical economy of space, though what furnishings it contains are of fine if sober quality. He's standing at present by a heavy wooden table that seems to serve in additional capacity as a desk, judging by the arrangement of chairs.
In the light of the Captain’s room, Roper’s clothing is more obvious. He doesn’t look much like a death knight at the moment – the bespoke suit he wears is a dark red, a matching vest, with a dark gray shirt both buttoned fully but left without a tie, and exceptionally well tailored dark red slacks, a crisp line pressed down the center. The material looks expensive, a well dyed netherweave. The black cloth gloves covering his hands show no sign of wear, still as inky as if they were just taken out of a box that evening.
There’s just a brief hitch of a pause before Roper reaches a hand up to the hood of his cloak, and slides it off his face to reveal – well, actually, a pretty ordinary looking man, all things considered. He was young when he died, somewhere in his mid-twenties. His features are regular enough to not be notable in either direction of beauty or ugliness, with no other marks on it. His hair is half jet black, and half white, making for a now soft gray overall, cut short and styled back from his face. There’s stubble on his face, a 5 o’clock shadow all along his jaw, revealing that if he had time to grow it out, he’d have a full beard.
Oh, and he’s dead. Definitely dead. There’s not the slightest ambiguity about it, even without the telltale blue glow of his eyes. The skin has a dark, somewhat unpleasant grayish tone, a paleness around some of the bonier parts of his face that speak of blood loss, and a gaunt, dehydrated look to him, his lips slightly cracked with it, the hollows of his cheeks more obvious, and a dark red stain around his eyes.
“Hey,” he says to Siamus, that same conversational word with that echo. The universal all purpose Roper greeting, apparently. Without the shadow of his hood, it’s more obvious that his face is mobile, animated, as he flicks his brows up and down once. “This a bad time?”
Siamus glances up from his reading at the unfamiliar voice, and for a moment his expression does a thing — a slight recoil, an involuntary curl of the lip. But one would have to be a skilled observer of people to note it, because the moment passes so fleetingly as to seem illusory, and then his expression is an equable mask: one brow tipped up, his smile faint and sardonic. "Not at all. I was only considering whether a sister is more accurately characterized as a trial or a penance. Mr. Roper, is it?"
Despite the aristocratic shape of his sentences, the slant of his vowels and a certain lapse in his consonants gives his accent a less-than-Lordaeronian crispness: a version of the accent of Mac and the others, polished like sea glass to softer, rounder edges.
Roper’s answering amused, lopsided smile, higher on the right than the left, starts not at the smile from the Vice Admiral, but the initial, brief recoil. He shifts the coffee tin to his left hand, balancing it on his index finger rather than holding it around, and reaches out with his right hand for a handshake. “Just Roper. ‘Mr. Roper’ is for when I’m taunting the spam mail to renew my dexterity boot enchantment insurance,” he drawls. There’s a faint rasp to his voice now as well, just enough to roughen it.
The Vice Admiral does not seem wholly clear on how to take this remark. Is it funny? It's possible Vice Admirals don't get spam mail. His smile is fleeting and bemused, a polite social reflex in answer to humor attempted.
"Roper, then. Siamus Fallon; 'Fallon' is fine." He takes Roper’s hand genially for the handshake, as firm and civil as any other handshake he might dispense. Behind his affable air, his black-eyed gaze is intent and assessing, taking some invisible measure.
Roper’s handshake is a mirror of Siamus’ own in pressure, nothing more or less, his glove cold but it’s Northrend, and not exactly unusual. Roper’s face is mobile, as his smile moves across it, expressive of a wry amusement, a touch of a nod. “Alright.” There’s nothing especially threatening about the death knight, but the cold from the exterior has followed him in… and isn’t leaving. The chill in the air around him seems perpetual. The way he meets Siamus’ gaze has a banked sort of intensity of someone on his best behavior, the glow of his eyes just that, rather than burning flames. “There’s some things you should know about me. Some cards to set down on the table.” Not much one for small talk, it would seem.
"By all means. Will ye sit, or do ye expect it to be so brief an interview once I've seen these cards of yours?" There's a dry thread of his own humor in the question. Before Roper can answer, Siamus looks past him to the looming giant and nods equably. "Obliged, Thom. That's all."
The burly sailor sweeps Roper with a dark look, nods once at Siamus, and takes his grudging leave.
Siamus gestures to one of the chairs at the table, his expression of frank, dark-eyed curiosity fixed on Roper. His expression is a mask — a skillful one, but perhaps discernible to an observer versed in masks and artifice — behind which his thoughts are inscrutable.
Roper himself doesn’t seem to be wearing a mask of any sort, at least not at the moment. He removes his cloak, folding it neatly into exact little folds, and stows it into a black imbued netherweave bag near his sword at his left, as he sits down with that same casual sort of air, something of a sprawl back into the seat, still balancing that cup of coffee on a single finger. “Yeah, well, I’ve had living who tried to destroy me for stopping by to lend a hand to help after they’ve crashed a gryphon to the ground in the middle of the Plaguelands right in front of me,” Roper says with a shrug. He raises his left brow in a little jump up and down. “Don’t worry. Everyone walked away fine. I don’t mess with my allies, even when they mess with me. I just walk away. Actually worked with the guy a few weeks ago, in fact, cooperatively. Paladin. You know how they get.” There’s something dismissive in his tone. “I don’t mind taking the occasional hit and walking away if I’ve gotta, and get a better working relationship another day. But I like this suit. So, if you’re gonna shoot after you see my cards, if you could hit somewhere easy for a tailor to fix, I’d appreciate it.” It seems, possibly oddly, sincere, as though if Siamus did decide to just shoot him, that Roper would just get up and walk away from it, try again another time. Which might say something both about Roper as much as the durability of a death knight that he’s not concerned about the body, just the suit.
"Ye can see, surely, that they might be particularly sensitive about the risen dead in the Plaguelands, aye?" Siamus's tone is a little too dry to be sincere reproach. "And Light-paladins in particular strike me as delicate in their sensibilities."
He settles into the chair across from Roper. Despite the apparent knowing humor of his remarks, his mask has lifted enough to reveal a degree of grim gravity behind it; he watches Roper sharply. "I'm afraid if I were of a mind to shoot ye, I'd first have to collect my pistols, so your suit's chances of escaping unscathed are good."
Roper laughs at the mention of Light-paladin’s delicate sensibilities, a brief ha. But he sobers a bit as he moves the coffee tin gracefully along his fingers, finishes it off, and sets the cup on the desk. “Good to know. I’ll tell you in a moment why I’d surrender my blades here, but I can’t. But first, my cards.” He sits back in his chair, and keeps sitting back, until the first two legs of the chair lift off the floor slightly, as he balances there. It seems like an idle habit, as he spreads his hands out in a wide gesture. The drawl is gone, but the rasp remains. “So, I’m Roper of the Ebon blade now. But when I died, I was Agent Roper of SI:7, and a couple of yours knew me, and none of them by the same name, if you catch my drift.”
Siamus sits silently with this information for a time. "Ah," he says at last. "Which explains Ta's meddling. D'ye answer still to that warren, or are ye…" He looks the dead man up and down. "Retired?" His tone carries a twist of polite irony. "And by 'a couple of mine,' ye mean…?"
“Spies don’t really… retire. You know, an assassin, they can send them off with an ‘okay, well, don’t kill random people, and don’t forget that if you do, we can reveal all the people you’ve killed, enjoy your summer house in Redridge,’ but spies, we always know too much. Unless,” Roper says, spreading his hands out. “We don’t. Every death knight gave up something to find a way to exist like this, and me? I gave up memories. I don’t remember anyone I ever cared about, with one exception that doesn’t matter.” His tone is dismissive, the intensity in his expression is not.
“And apparently I liked my coworkers, because I remember none of them. So I’m not a security risk. And I can’t go back, because I can only play one part.” He runs his right hand along his jaw, pressing a little too hard into his dead face, fingers digging into the hollows around his eyes, something disgusted rolling over his features, before he shrugs, a single rise and fall of his right shoulder, and moves his hand back down. “So, I’m just Ebon Blade, and I’ve got an arrangement with the rest of it, a buy me dinner kind of friendly, and I don’t mess with any of them by trying to know more. Not that I would ever burn a spy of the Alliance.” His eyes are hard, even if he keeps his tone modulated into something reasonable, but even from his own suggestion there’s a flash of anger at the thought of someone who would burn an Alliance spy. “I’ve still got that much of me left.”
Roper moves the chair a little more, until just one leg is on the ground, shifting his weight. “As for yours, two that matter for Not Roper. First one, your wife. Duchess Esprit. She knew ‘Tibault Beringer,’ a wealthy merchant hobnobbing with the upper class, the kind of guy who cried at poetry about sunsets, and could go up and down from nobility to tradesmen. Tibault bought pieces of military contracts off her, because of his connection with House Lysander. I don’t remember her, but apparently I liked her because she made me work for it, the kind of person who would notice cracks in an identity and be able to unmask me if I screwed up.” The immediate quirk up of that crooked smile again, as though he’s genuinely amused at the prospect, suggests he really would have liked that kind of challenge.
Siamus raises his eyebrows and is contemplatively quiet again for a moment. He nods. “Her Grace is an uncommon canny woman. I don’t doubt it speaks to your skill that she didn’t catch on to ye.”
He sits back and folds his arms across his chest. “And the other?” he prompts.
“Your warlock out of Cobalt, Lena Coit. She knew ‘Private Roger Reynolds,’ an illiterate moron of an Alliance soldier.” Roper gestures to his face with its stubble along his jaw with scorn. “The kind of guy too stupid to know how to time his shaves. He was the last identity I had before I died on my final mission. Primary mission parameters were a success, but secondary of agent survival – failure.” There’s an odd mix of pride and irritation in his voice. “Himself cleaned it up, so Reynolds is marked as just MIA, not dead or deserted. Coit doesn’t know the guy died, and doesn’t know he never actually existed. But she knew Reynolds well enough to know his nickname, and he didn’t give that to everyone. I don’t remember anything about her at all. And my source for the memory wasn’t there, and had no contact with me at the time, so now the only one with answers to that is Coit herself.”
Siamus weighs this as well. “If Reynolds was a lackwit, I doubt Miss Coit knew him the way I might otherwise suspect.” He’s silent for a time. “Are ye looking for remembrance? D’ye want to speak wi’ her? Or will that be… to a detriment, in your former missions? Are ye telling me so I can keep ye apart, or be ready for a reaction, or… ? Ye should be aware I do not have secrets from my wife as a rule, so if ye expect it in this case, ye might tell me now.”
(This last news might come as a surprise to Avrenne. Maybe he has kept it secret from her.)
“I’ll be honest with both, because Coit will recognize me if she sees me – I look like the guy she knew, and I’d rather tell her the truth, for some closure if nothing else. Not gonna share any details with the missions, obviously. But I’m not a spy anymore.” Officially, anyway. “I don’t have to maintain any identity. With your wife and ‘Tibault’, though – I’ve been told to deal with her straight, and eventually she would recognize me if she saw me, so she might as well know. But I don’t want Tibault burned. ‘Tibault’ was friends with Alaisa Lysander. ‘Tibault’ wasn’t real, but the friendship was.” That rasp in his voice is a little stronger, a little more like a scrape, and there might be actual affection in his voice, something woven into the echo. “Alaisa knows who and what I was then, and she knows who and what I am now, and that friendship is still real, if a little weirder.
“There’s nothing she couldn’t ask of me as a favor and I wouldn’t do, and this…” His jaw works. “About a year ago she needed help. Her younger brother is one of ours – Ebon Blade.” If that comes as news to Siamus, Roper doesn’t seem to care much. “He tried to go home, after Light’s Hope. His father tried to destroy him, and his mother had a heart attack.” Roper relates it with the sort of dismissive calm as he talked about his own brush with near re-un-aliving, but there’s a hardness in his eyes for a moment before it fades. “Alaisa saved him enough, but he needed help she couldn’t give. That’s where I came in. Got him out, fixed him up. But her mom’s still fragile. So, it wasn’t ‘hey, you remember my friend Tibault? He’s dead, too.’ ‘Tibault’ visited her, said hi to Mom, and as far as she knows, he’s just back from his trip to Kalimdor. And I’ll fake that as long as I have to – and I don’t, generally, use any of my old identities. I’m just Roper of the Ebon Blade now. This is an exception. I may be a crime against all nature of a monster, but I don’t want her or hers hurt by it. Your wife can know. But I’d rather Lady Lysander didn’t. That work for you?”
Siamus inclines his head gravely. “Her Grace’s loyalty to the Alliance rivals Master Shaw’s, I daresay. She’d no’ betray the confidence of an Alliance agent. Nor would she like to hurt Lady Lysander. I’d no’ realized, about Lord Theris. I’ve a deal of respect for the Lysanders, myself.” He smooths an end of his moustache, watching Roper. “Lady Alaisa is a friend of Ta’s, and a bloody sharp lass herself. Asks a great many questions. Notes a great many things most don’t.”
“Yeah. I like her.” There’s a brief moment – very fleeting – as Roper grins, that same crooked tilt to it as his smile, higher on the right than the left, baring intact, normal looking teeth, where he’s more of a person, the expression genuine. And then, it’s gone, fading back enough to leave a sense of the wrongness inherent in him, a deadened sense of a person.
“The last card, for you to decide if you wanna deal with me, or not, and part of why I’m here – I’ve got a wife, but I’m not married, technically. Can’t be. Neither of us count as a person enough, and the Ebon Blade’s not big on paperwork,” he drawls. Ah, when he says ‘wife,’ he means a death knight wife. “But we made our vows. Had a chaplain witness them and everything. She’s got my eternity, and I’ve got hers.” There it is again – brief, barely there, something like softness around his face, gone a second later, leaving more of a possessive coldness behind. “Which I’m hoping isn’t just a few months.” He flicks his right brow up and down, a bitter touch to the motion before it smooths back out in a serious, intent look.
“We want a future for the Ebon Blade. Right now, we’ve got a central threat, something to aim at, and Mograine’s got us focused on it, but when that’s gone, we’re gonna need something. We can’t sit idle, and we could be something – useful. I’ve known about it for a while. It’s what I talked to Mourn about a year ago, why he gave you my name. This world’s got its problems, and we could be a solution – the endless rising dead against a matching unrelenting dead, the eternal army of the Legion against an army that doesn’t tire and can hold a line for eternity if it has to. I’ve got reasons now to want that future, where we’re fighting to keep the world going. That’s why I’m here, that’s what I want – enough of a place to exist without waiting for the living to come with pitchforks and torches. Don’t need love, don’t need accolades. Just need enough for the living to work with us, and I intend to find a way to make that happen, without fear and intimidation.” Roper shifts his weight, landing the chair’s feet down on the wood with a near silent tap, watching Siamus. He spreads his hands out, shifting his wrists. “So I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“Aye, I do see why Morningdew gave me your name, then,” says Siamus equably. “These are all things I raised wi’ him, in our conversation. My interest, you understand, is practical: Death knights exist, they’re no’ going away, and it comes to us to decide how we’ll live wi’ them. The traditional exchange a society makes is that, in exchange for abiding by its laws, its citizens are entitled to certain rights.” He watches Roper and smooths his moustache again idly. “At the moment, ye have neither. And I don’t believe that serves the Alliance as well as it might, no’ to mention how it doesn’t serve your people.
“I can’t make proposals for the whole of the Alliance — I can only speak wi’ Starmwend in mind. But I’m willing to see Starmwend recognize Alliance loyalty. I believe Starmwend should recognize Alliance loyalty. And — to be a further step practical, but ye understand I’m a military man foremost — we’d be well-served to have weapons like your people on our side, especially if the Horde means to recruit some of its own.”
He sits forward and puts his elbows on the table. “What I’d like to know is what manner of rights your people would value. I talked of legally-recognized marriage wi’ Morningdew, who’s taken it into his head, but I did expect he’d be an outlier in that. It sounds as though… that’s no’ the case, however.” After a moment he adds — dryly? Or is that sincerity? — “Congratulations to ye, by the way, from one new-married man to another.”
The narrowing of Roper’s eyes at the mention of Harvey’s intentions halts at the last, in a sign of genuine surprise, brief and unfeigned, at the courtesy. It takes him just a second to smooth it out, but there’s a loosening of his face and shoulders, something slightly uncoiling as he tips his chair back again up onto one leg. “Thanks. You, too.” He shrugs a little, moving his arms out idly. “It’s sorta funny, because alive, I was the kind of guy who’d have said I’d die before I got married.” He makes an expression of lips turned down, brows raised up that says, and hey, he wasn’t technically wrong. His eyes go to Siamus, evaluating.
“Shit like marriage,” Roper says, cursing with a casualness that suggests he does it regularly. “That’s long term. That’s… the outliers who can think of more than just rage and revenge right now, and that’s not all, or even most, of us. It’s also the kind of thinking for why Mourn’s been working on this with us.
“You’re a military man, so you know that the usual way of this is you gotta dangle benefits to get people to do the work, the risk. For us, it’s reversed. What we need is the violence and purpose. The problem is getting us there.” Roper’s hands spread out, fingers wide and space. “What we’re missing are the hundreds of little social webbings that keep us safe enough to get there, and make it so we can do what we should be. You were in Valiance. What do you know about a guy named Thassarian?”
“Death knight,” says Siamus. “Of Lordaeron. Fell… wi’ the Prince’s first expedition to Narthrend? If I recollect aright.”
“Good memory, yeah. That’s the guy.” Roper rolls his right wrist, and a silver coin is in his hands, walking across his knuckles in a way that seems like another idle sort of fidget, his attention on Siamus. “Loyal to the Alliance enough that the first thing he did after Light’s Hope was go straight to Varian, and ask to be put back into the army. And Varian agreed. Sent him up here.” Roper clicks his tongue against his teeth. “Where he was assigned a mission by Valiance’s leadership intended to fail. Given a squad of soldiers to be used as fodder just to make sure the death knight couldn’t succeed. It was nothing but underestimating how hard we are to destroy that kept him going on that mission long enough for his living sister to send Cobalt Company after him, to finish the mission, because even after he figured it out, Thassarian held the line to try to finish it.
“But Thassarian saw the writing on the wall.” He flips the coin, catches it, and gets it walking across his knuckles again. “He left the army, to go work on his own. That’s where we are. Because right now, what was he gonna do? Appeal? To whom? Varian can write off an edict that says we’re not to be messed with, but it doesn’t mean shit if there’s nothing behind it, and it doesn’t detail what happens if someone does. And if anything happens to Varian, then what? Or worse – another one of us tries to join in, gets screwed over, and hits back instead of just taking the hit. The Ebon Blade got lucky, because Thassarian’s got enough of who he was to not take revenge on the Alliance, but that’s never gonna be everyone, living or dead. So. There’s gotta be enough in place that a death knight knows he isn’t getting set up by the living if he goes into a mission, and a way to deal with it if he does, that he can trust will lead to consequences, and not just shrugged shoulders that what could he expect to happen.”
Siamus digests this. His expression has gone hard, black-eyed, as Roper recounts the story of Thassarian’s mission, and when he’s finished speaking, Siamus remains silent for a time, his jaw tight.
“I do not mind saying,” he says at last – and there is something in the exacting enunciation, the tone of unfailing courtesy, that suggests a lid being held tightly over some more reckless sentiment beneath – “that I have found fault wi’ a great deal of Alliance command in the narth, since coming here. I say that, mind, as a loyal man of the Alliance. A man who does not care to see good soldiers thrown away on bad orders. It should not happen to anyone who dedicates himself to the Alliance.”
He sits back again. “I agree that we need more than the King’s edict to secure your people to the Alliance. I agree there need to be protections and assurances, codified. Service merits reward.” He steeples his fingers, and after a further silence adds, “I feel strongly, personally. About recognition of loyalty, where it’s due.”
Roper’s smiles, and it’s brief, but probably genuine. “Right now, pretty sure Mograine’s plan is to get to the Bitch King, fight, and then the world will see what we’re good for, and recognize that loyalty. And then it’ll all work out. Me? I see a different picture.
“I see people like Thassarian, more missions we’re meant to fail, battles where the living take advantage of the chaos to take a shot at us and no one says anything against it, and a slide of the Ebon Blade into the worst possible version, because we can’t be idle, and we shouldn’t be shoved into a corner shed and only brought out for emergencies, or left to all our own devices. I see what happened with the Sunwell, how it took me weeks to get me and my wife to that fight, and the only reason I managed to get us there came down to who I knew in Cobalt Company to vouch enough for us to get us in there. I see things like what we have now, with the Ebon Blade and the Argent Crusade working around each other, but not with each other, where they send us information we’ve known for weeks, but none of us told them because we can’t trust that we can walk into their camp and not end up going up in a column of holy fire, and we know that no one would give a shit if we did escape and say they struck first. I see things like what I saw at the Wrathgate, where the Ebon Blade should have been, but too many of us weren’t when I looked around.”
Siamus’s expression tightens again at mention of the Wrathgate, though there’s a different quality to the emotion behind it. He smooths it away almost at once, nods heavily. “It’s a bit of a bind, though, aye? We – you and I – can say that death knights require more integration and more assurance. But others will want to know what assurance we have in return. Public sentiment is, as ye clearly are aware, no’ on your people’s side yet. I can make ye all the assurance I like, but in order to take anything before the House, I’ll need to offer them something in exchange beyond, ‘They’re fighting the Lich King.’ Even the bloody Horde is fighting the Lich King, right now.”
Roper nods. “Yeah. That’s what I’ve been working on for the past year, to show the possibilities, not just hypotheticals, or point at revenge and rage and try to make it be enough. I believe in putting my swords where my mouth is. It’s where I was, few weeks ago. One of Cobalt’s was taken by a Scourge bitch of a death knight, name of Kaela Mondragon. Targeted one of Cobalt’s priestesses. When it happened, Cobalt’s Captain Sparkwire contacted me, because I’ve been building a working relationship with her for months, because this is the way it should be – that if the living get a Scourge problem, they should know they can call on us.
“So, I helped find the priestess and the Argent Crusader that had been taken with her, made sure the Argent Crusade knew where their guy was, and worked in a joint team of Argents, Cobalt, and Ebon Blade led by Sir Dane Atley the Red of Cobalt Company to get both the priestess and the Argent out safe. The only people who took serious wounds were me and my wife.” And he’s, obviously, fine now. “Demonstration and action, not pretty words. But that’s the kind of thing you can’t prove if you can’t get invited.
“As for what we can offer after Arserag falls, some will have to see us in action to really get it. We don’t get tired. Ever. We don’t have to eat, drink, sleep, shit. You think in terms of just holding a position, of how many rotations of a watch, how many you have to keep fed, a good water source… none of that applies. We could be siege breakers. We could be put in places where the dead don’t ever stop rising. We could be guards to the living. So, been spending time showing it, bit by bit. You’ve met Mourn, on his 24/7 defense of Westwind. Lysander’s son is in Duskwood right now, proving the point over all these months, guarding Darkshire. My wife and I have a place in Kaskala, courtesy of the tuskarr, who let us stay there because their village has been under siege by the kvaldir, an unrelenting attack from whatever misty hell those things come from, and who better than to fight a force that won’t stop coming than death knights who don’t ever have to quit?”
Siamus has listened in intent silence, with the merest twitch of reaction only at the mention of kvaldir. When Roper is finished, he nods once and makes an open-handed gesture of concession. “I don’t know that anyone doubts what you’re capable of,” he says, “nor that ye’d be assets on our side. Examples like these will help wi’ public sentiment, and I may be able to get someone of Cobalt or the Argents — both respected groups — to testify on behalf of any legislation. But what would be better still isn’t proof of what you’re able to do, but proof you’ll do it in service to the Alliance, loyally. It’s no’ your power people will doubt, it’s what ends you’ll dedicate it to. In exchange for rights of citizenship wi’ Starmwend, we have to be able to convince no’ just the House but also the general public that you’re faithful to Starmwend’s interests, that it’s the Alliance ye want to serve and therefore ye deserve to be treated as any loyal Alliance soldier.”
He surveys Roper again. “I may want to trot one or more of ye out — pardon the expression, but I expect ye know what a pony show politics can be — to address the House and their questions as well, and in that case we’ll want someone who can….” He considers his words. “Someone who can, let’s say, refrain from displays, and speak in a manner the House will relate to. Someone who will comport himself as modestly and humanly as possible, to put a proper face on the thing. We can let the testimony of Cobalt or the Argents or others from the narth speak to your skills and service; we don’t want to be making displays in the House of Nobles that might read as menacing or upset someone’s sensibilities.” There is the slightest sardonic twist on ‘sensibilities’. “We’ll want a death knight representative who will emphasize the knight and no’ the death, aye?
“Ye clearly know your aims, so if ye think ye could rein it in for that, then ye might be a candidate. I’d say Morningdew could be a candidate as well, wi’ his manners and background, but he’s… I don’t know what impression he’d make wi’ his… thoughts on marriage.”
Siamus means that Harvey is maybe a whiff stalkerish.
(There is also the fact that Harvey is about to make a public and very bad case in general for death knight citizenship, but Siamus is not psychic, alas.)
Neither is Roper, unfortunately, much as he tries to pretend he can predict the future.
Roper shifts slightly, considering Siamus for a moment. He moves his fingers, the coin disappearing, as he sets the chair back down on the floor gently. “Mourn is a good choice, generally. It’s why he was recruited early on. He thinks forward, and he’s pretty controlled, polite. And he used to be Argent Dawn, a paladin. The problem with Mourn is he’s all well and good, until he gets irritated. Or impatient. Or someone pokes at his ego. Or starts bleeding around him. Me – the actual me in front of you – I’m too much of an asshole, and I curse enough to make some people not wanna take me seriously,” he says with an ease of admission, and a right shouldered shrug. “But, yeah. I can rein it in a lot, at least temporarily. It’s what I used to do.” It’s like he’s pulling something from the air, coalescing around him like an invisible shadow.
In the place of an abrasive, sharp-eyed death knight, a young man sits there, straight backed and his features arranged into a polite, calm demeanor. He folds his hands gently over each other in his lap, no sense of that restless energy whatsoever. When he speaks, that telltale echo of a death knight has been nearly fully tucked away, manipulated down, his Stormwind accent neutral, with no sense of a drawl or rasp, and a slightly crisp enunciation. “I agree that we need to seek a method of establishing the order of things. We can’t ask for Stormwind to recognize us if we will not be part of the work, willing to fight on the living’s behalf and not only in our own interests. So, if we get enough of a foot in the door, get people used to being around us, working with us, then we can talk about the rights of a citizen, and what is and isn’t reasonable. Some things won’t be, like inheritance and titles.” He gives a graceful tilt to his head. If not for the color of his skin and those eyes, you might be tempted to think he was a living, mild mannered man.
Siamus smiles: a full smile this time, brief but gleaming, no sardonic twist. “Bravo,” he says. “That might suit. And as to the last — I’m pleased to hear ye say it, because that’s where my reservations wi’ the whole business lie, and where I’d draw a line in my own support. We can’t be knotting up titles and lines of descent wi’ the dead, effectively disinheriting generations ahead, stagnating property holdings and transfer, all of that. No’ to mention the opportunities it might open for mischief and fraud.
“In addition, opening the possibility for the dead to inherit and carry titles would set an ill precedent when it comes to the lost lands of Lordaeron and the Forsaken nesting there now. No emigre or ally of Lordaeron would support the idea. It will have to be explicit, in any legislation I’m willing to put forward, that undeath divests the party in question of any right or claim to estate or title, and part of the reason I want to talk wi’ men like you and Morningdew is that, just as I need to know what it is you’re after in a citizenship, I need to be clear what I’m not willing to stand up for, and be sure we’re in accord on that much. So as I say — I’m glad to hear ye note it. But if ye think that might be a sticking point for your lot broadly, then I’ll need to know that, because it will affect my willingness — no’ to mention ability — to take this forward.”
“Broadly? No. The opposite, if anything. Most of us aren’t going to try to go back, fit back into their old lives. I’m sure there’s outliers, although I haven’t met them so far. That’ll be our problem to handle if there are, if they push hard, not yours to worry about.” Roper gives a dismissive shrug, the mild mannered young man breathing out a small sigh. “But I’m not expecting it. By and large, if we had anything at all that we’ve tried to get back, it was people we cared about, not places or things.
“People like Theris, he went back for his family, not to get back in line for succession of his House. Mourn, he went back for the girl, nothing else. Forge, a draenei, made contact with someone he’s known for thousands of years, and his home base is standing in a corner sometimes in Acherus if he stops moving for a while. Kiekel, a gnome, went back for a relative, didn’t try to go live in Gnomeregan just because it’s not like the radiation will kill him now. And that’s still rare. Plenty more of the Ebon Blade went out of their way to avoid anyone they knew, or any part of their life. Most of us, if not all of us, aren’t looking for a path back, to take back what we had alive. What we need is a path forward, as what we are now.”
“Good,” says Siamus. “Good.” The approval in his voice seems directed at least as much at Roper’s performance as it is at the information. “That seems workable enough. And we can even make the case — perhaps we leave Lord Theris out, as I don’t know how Lysander will take having it brought up wi’ the House — but we can even use examples like those to make the case that those who’ve come home aren’t after more than seeing loved ones again, that sort of thing. Missing the family, wanting to be accepted, that’s all good sympathy.” He steeples his fingers again, his expression thoughtful for a moment before he fixes it on Roper. “Understand that, as I say, I’m a military man, and I’m looking at the matter from a pragmatic view toward the advantage of the Alliance. But plain pragmatism won’t get ye as far wi’ everyone as it ought.”
Roper dips his head, that touch of a lopsided smile curling his lips. His eyes remain as they were, measured, deliberately calm. “Yeah, no kidding. I’m looking at it the same way. Survival, without turning this into a bloodbath down the road. We could go wrong, but we could be something else. More.” There’s a deliberate inhale, a settling of his hands, slightly restless. “Sounds like we’re on the same page, Fallon.”
Siamus nods curtly, decisively. “Does, aye. I’ve a meeting in a few days’ time back in Starmwend wi’ a fellow I mean to speak to about drafting legislation. I’ll talk wi’ Her Grace my wife, then, as well, and we can begin making approaches wi’ other members of the House, influential nobles, so on. I may be in touch wi’ ye again if I’ve questions, and ye should write to me if ye have more thoughts on the matter. When we come closer to it, I’ll speak wi’ ye again about testimonies and so on. Aye?” He peaks a brow.
“Yeah.” Roper tilts his head to the side. “Alaisa will know more about her dad. And I’ve got connections to the Aspenwoods, the younger ones anyway.” There’s a break in the mask, the performance, his brows diving down in a way that looks more like reflex, though there’s no anger in his voice or body language. “I knew Colson. Before, I mean. When he was a Knight-Lieutenant. Same reason I know your warlock,” he drawls. The expression smooths back away, leaving the mild man behind. “But Chaplain Mordecai Aspenwood was the one to officiate my wedding, and worked with me in Farshire when I was making them weapons. And Lady Cressidha made this suit I’m wearing, did all me and my wife’s enchants, and has come to have tea at our place in Kaskala. Don’t know how much pull they have with their House, but it isn’t nothing.” Roper presses up into a stand, lithe and agile, reaching out a hand again to Siamus. The cold has faded somewhat, repressed down as far as it can be. He isn’t warm, but the chill of the grave is less pronounced. “I’ll be making the commute to check my mail regularly, but there might be a delay here and there, assuming we don’t convince the Mail Powers That Be to get one with skulls on it.”
Siamus rises to shake Roper’s hand affably and without hesitating, but his expression does that slight, schooled blankness again at that last quip. Humor is subjective. Or maybe he just hasn’t seen a lot of death knight decor.
“Aye, well. We’ve mutual acquaintance in the Aspenwoods, then. I’ll speak wi’ my lady wife as to how we might approach them and their connection wi’ ye to sway the thing, if at all. The Duchess Aspenwood is no’ much one to be influenced by any, but if there’s a way, Lady Fallon will know it. She’s close wi’ Lady Aspenwood.”
He moves around the table and past Roper to open the cabin door. Thom Berdon has, it seems, been loitering grimly in the corridor just outside the whole time; this was apparently not on Siamus’s orders, to judge by Siamus’s slight, startled twitch when he sees him standing there, and the narrow-eyed look he gives the burly sailor.
Roper takes out his cloak, and puts it back on, pulling the hood over his face, before he picks up the tin cup. He makes his way out to the door, that casualness back in his stride. “Hey,” he says conversationally to Thom as he steps into the hallway on silent feet. “See ya.” That is probably meant for both. He’s got places to be and a cup to return that he said he would. He might be a monster, but he is a monster of his word.