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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Roper returns from both his adventures in Stormwind and his efforts with death knight diplomacy with the Argent Crusade to the warm welcome of his wife. Well, the warmth might be relative. The two hatch a plan to keep Tabiana from becoming the latest victim in Kaela Mondragon's machinations, and to no one's surprise the answer appears to be violence. 3700-ish words. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Arc: Death Knight PR
Roper arrives in Ebon Watch quietly, with no fanfare, nothing to draw attention to himself. If you didn't know who he was, you might assume he was no one at all, just another faceless knight of the Ebon Blade, another cog in the wheel.
Pay no attention to the man behind the shadows as he walks through the camp looking for his wife.
His wife is there, in her usual saronite armor and no helm, speaking in a low voice to a blonde sin'dorei death knight. Syarra's expression is perfectly blank, but the blonde woman taps a foot in impatience.
Roper stalks around them, on the outskirts of it, slinking through to a corner of the camp where he can watch them. He is standing there for less than fifteen seconds before his left hand starts rapidly tapping against his left thigh, faster and even more impatient than the sin'dorei blonde, but to be fair, Roper's impatience is a very high bar to clear.
Syarra's gaze fixes on the faceless knight and the faintest hint of a smile flickers on her lips before she turns back to her companion, cutting the conversation short. She turns her back on the sin'dorei blonde without concern and steps toward him, nodding gently when she's close enough and murmuring in Common, "You've returned."
"Hey," Roper replies, the tapping ceasing once she's in range enough to touch. He isn't wearing the usual gauntlets, spiked and dangerous, but the sturdy leather gloves that belong to his other set, and he takes full advantage of that fact, left hand rising up to curl possessively over her braid, pulling her closer. His hood hides his face, but he tilts it up enough that she can see the curve of his lopsided smile. "Miss me?"
Syarra does not attempt to break free of the grip, and instead lets him pull her closer, the faint smile more obvious on her face for a moment before it fades. "Always." She raises a hand to touch the edge of his hood with one gauntleted hand, but doesn't push it back. "Let's go somewhere a little more private? There's not much here, but… further away from the others."
Roper's head tilts a little to the side. "Sure." Their options out in the tundra are limited, but less so probably for the death knights than most others, since "infested by the Scourge" is almost a small bonus than a detriment. A little snack before the inevitable privacy after the Scourge has been crushed into paste.
Syarra pulls back and leads him out of the camp - not far, but far enough that their voices won't carry and any eavesdroppers would be obvious. Thus far, there's no visible Scourge to hurt, but one can always hope. Syarra turns to Roper and says, "No disasters here since you left. If Mondragon is moving, it's elsewhere. How was Stormwind?" She is probably not talking about the weather.
Roper keeps his head tilted towards Syarra, the hood narrowing the projection of his voice, low, with that true rasp of his. "We're either fucked hard or we're about to pull off a gods damned coup over Kaela. I thought we might break even when we traced the priests back to the Cult of the Damned, but it's even better than that. You remember that Vice Admiral Fallon I met with?"
Syarra nods, barely perceptibly. "Did he turn on us? Or what is he offering?"
"No. Opposite. Doubled down on his bet. He's got Westwind set up with security in a fucking palace of a house surrounded by former marines, and he's bankrolling a lawyer apparently famous for winning Mordecai's trial against his father last year." Roper's fingers do a slow slide down Syarra's braid now that they've stopped, although he doesn't take it out. Yet.
"I expected Fallon'd cut out of it with the fucking timing of it, save his own reputation. He didn't. Listened when the evidence started showing up that Mourn hadn't fucked up, been set up. Fallon just kept going. Don't know if that's just his MO, or if he's got something specific in mind for the Ebon Blade that he's willing to step this far into it, but he didn't pull a fucking Valiance on us, letting us take the hit and waiting to see if we succeeded before keeping going. So that's something."
Syarra tilts her head closer to his as she takes in the information, a slight widening of her eyes the only sign of surprise. "He's made us his cause, then. And publicly. If he's far enough in, it might not even matter if he knows who I am. Or it may matter to him, but he wouldn't be able to back down. Still, I doubt it's altruism. What might he want from us in return? A specific military expedition? Or something more personal, contractors that can keep his hands clean?" Syarra closes her eyes, thinking. "At least Westwind is safe, and the others, Jenzelle and Brendol. One less thing to concern ourselves with, and no more interference from Westwind's feelings."
"He definitely wants us for the Alliance. And I can guess why after Wrathgate. Lose five thousand soldiers, replace them with a few hundred death knight one man armies. As for why now, why him, and why through Stormwind first…" Roper gives a left shoulder twitch of a shrug. "Dunno. Could be just his own ambitions. He seems big on personal loyalty. And he's got his own Fleet, recent promotion, new wife. Man's looking up and maybe seeing how high he can climb. He might be hoping for a favor down the line, and he's got it now. Kaela could have fucked us hard, and instead she ran right into a Vice Admiral with her face. We owe him one. We prove ourselves willing to tit for tat that loyalty, we might have a real foothold at least on one side."
Roper's leans in closer, breathing in as if can actually catch a scent of something, although he likely can't. "Splitting the Ebon Blade is a bad idea. Too easy to get us into a fight with one side that we can't win if the other left us out in the cold. But it might come down to that, if they go to war and we can't stay out of it enough. If it did, if you had to step over the line to the Alliance until we could shove back hard enough to neutral, would you?"
Syarra stiffens in alarm. "It is a bad idea, you always said that would ruin us. If we join the Alliance, the Horde will turn on us. I have my work with the Coterie, and my sister… she's Argent Crusade now, but she's still a citizen of Quel'Thalas, unless they strip her of that, and…" Syarra trails off, falling deathly still for a moment. Then she moves her hands together, touching the gauntlet above her ring finger. "I'm with you, whatever we need to do. Whatever the consequences."
Roper doesn't need to breathe, so the exhale out is noticeable for it, as if he'd been holding it, and he leans forward fully to touch his forehead to hers, the hood falling back at the movement. His eyes are open, and bright on hers, a deep satisfaction in them.
"The Ebon Blade has to stay neutral. Mograine tries to push us into one, we've got too many who wouldn't follow, and if we split up like that, fuck. We could have groups losing control left and right. But, the shit that's been happening, with the Fucking Forsaken, with Kaela…some of us might have to be over the line, lose the round to win the game. I don't want to be one of them, but if it came to it. I need to know that there isn't going to be a line I'll step over and not have you with me. I don't fucking go anywhere what's mine can't follow," Roper says, his voice low, intimate, and possessive.
Both gloved hands come up to cradle her face, or perhaps to hold her there to him, the grip a little too tight, his fingers too much curled into claws than holding gently. "SI:7 offered me a job, as an agent." There's the smallest of beats. "I said no."
Syarra blinks, surprised. "I thought you weren't…" She pauses and starts again. "They wanted you, as a death knight, in the Ebon Blade?" She reaches one hand around his waist, tight enough that it would be difficult to twist away. "You said no. Because of me?"
"I remembered the skills. Been using them, and I caught their notice. If things go the way they might, a death knight, human and of Stormwind, could circulate enough." Roper's grin shows up, almost alive, almost soft, but not quite. "I said no. Because there's a reason I wouldn't have gotten married before, as a spy. You gotta be able to shed everything you are to slip into being someone else, and I am never not yours. I knew that, when you put this ring on my finger. It doesn't come off." In metaphysical as well as physical ways. "And a spy has a spymaster, their ultimate authority. I told you, didn't I? Fucking no one above you. That's what that means, Sya. If it's the job, or you, it's a fucking easy choice, and I made it already."
Syarra leans forward to kiss him lightly, and even if there's no desire behind the physical movement, it still has meaning. "That was part of my vow, too. And even if the Ebon Blade crumbles, if the Horde and Alliance go to war, if anything worse comes to pass, I'm still yours. Forever."
She doesn't try to pull back, possibly because he's holding her in place, but she adds, in a more conversational tone, "We can try to convince your Vice Admiral. Talk about how I fought alongside his countrymen in the Second War. Common people don't get to make decisions of factions. My heart is Alliance, if he'll buy that when it's no longer beating. You can tell him how I died, fighting the Scourge."
Roper's grin turns into a laugh, a faint echo that wasn't always there in it. "That's my girl," he purrs, and his fingers relax, some tension leaving him. "Yeah. We'll figure it out, if it gets there. I'd planned for that to be Mourn, be the test case to see how much has changed since Thassarian's breach into the Alliance and got fucked over. Mourn's got all the right things on fucking paper, or he did. But after this? I don't know. Someone's gotta do it, and it's gonna have to be a human, someone of Stormwind if we can find 'em, able to pull out enough polish to look good doing it, seem upstanding citizen, all that bullshit."
"He's not going to be a good poster boy anymore, no, not even if they do decide not to hold the murders against him," Syarra says, matter-of-fact. "Do you have another candidate in mind? Or…" Syarra hesitates. "What would I need to do, if it ends up needing to be you?"
Roper shakes his head. "Don't know yet. I'm not meant for it, and I don't like that I'm even this close. I can pull off the grill from the House, but standing that far out in the light will make everything so much fucking harder." He shrugs, an oddly controlled up and down motion. "The next best we have is Theris. Fallon gets Lysander to not be a problem, and he could pull it off. Problem is he might be too far in the other direction, not selling the We Could Be Your Hero Monster hard enough, seeming too weak." His tone is dismissive, without mercy or sympathy. "But he's been in Darkshire long enough to have a reputation. We could use it."
"Theris," Syarra nods. "If his reputation is strong enough, he at least won't seem as monstrous as others one might choose. And if he's willing. He may not be - remember how you found him. Are you so certain they need to be human? No other Alliance races would work?"
"The opening we've got right now is through Stormwind citizenship. That's what Fallon's about — making it real, not an ally, but giving someone an in to go back, be in the Alliance itself, be a citizen of Stormwind, not just Ebon Blade's…whatever we are. Sovereign floating fucking existence. We use that to start getting them to see us as on their side, even those of us who aren't benefit from that aura of familiarity. We don't have any other easy in. Ironforge isn't moving on it, and the kaldorei we might as well assume it'll be a few fucking hundred years or some catastrophe before they change their tune of abomination. The draenei have nothing here but a crashed ship, and no political power. That Velen doesn't even have enough sway with the Church of the Holy Light to get a backdoor, even if they were willing to step into this."
"As for the Horde…” Syarra says. “The Forsaken will accept us, of that I'm fairly certain. If we want that acceptance is an open question. The orcs value strength, and we offer them that. The trolls… are not going to be swaying the opinions of the entire Horde. The Tauren likely want to heal us. Genuinely, I don't mean torture. And the sin'dorei, you know where we stand as well as I do."
"The Horde is always looking to get more in it. So it might be easy, if we can find an orc we can work with, to get that foot in the same door. But that's not going to change the sin'dorei's opinion any more than Stormwind opening up a hand is going to make the kaldorei do fuck all. So, we one step it." It's a good thing Roper is patient.
Oh, wait.
"Right now, what we have in front of us, is the fucking PR nightmare Kaela shat on us, and whatever else she might bring. Mourn's as handled as he can be from what we can do. Now, we have to worry about what happens here, with this initiative from that paladin and his priest. Tabiana would be a perfect fucking target to hit now, and shake the start of this hard enough to shatter it before it even gets going." Roper squeezes again, and then releases Syarra abruptly, dropping one hand down entirely, and the other to plunge into her hair as if dousing a hand on fire in cool water.
Syarra leans her head against his hand, but she says, "Tabiana should be safe. She knows she's a target, and she's with the Argent Crusade. Still, we shouldn't take it for granted. She believes Taya will come for her, and I've advised her as best I can for defense."
"She dies on our watch, it won't matter who we tell that we tried. You heard that Sir Atley. They don't give a fuck that we showed up unless it's a success. Tabiana has to stay alive, even if that means she gets some extra shadows to make fucking sure of it."
"Maybe we treat it like a trap," Syarra says slowly. "Keep Tabiana here, plan for the encounter. From what she told me, I also think Taya will come for her. There's bad blood there on Taya's side, guilt on Tabiana's. We make a plan, so that when Taya comes, she's walking into something she can't survive."
Roper inhales like he's caught the scent of something delicious, brushing his cheek along hers, the forever stubble scraping. "Sya. Fuck, did I miss you." There's that flash of a grin again. "I like it. Let Kaela think she's winning, so she doesn't think to try something else."
Syarra smiles, a brief flicker, closing her eyes at the contact. "Let her think she can pull something like she did with Jenzelle and Brendol, that we're letting the living defend themselves. If we could use that spy, feed her false information…"
Syarra is talking Roper's love language. Pretty soon they're going to need to get an actual room, even if only so he can cackle maniacally in the privacy of their own home. "It doesn't look like Kaela's using her, but we know that Kaela has someone somewhere that we don't know about. Dropping that information around could tell us who that is, by what Kaela does."
"No? But she was a spy," Syarra says, the tone asking for confirmation. He nods to it. "Anyway, we need to be careful dropping information around. There's leading Kaela to believe our security is lax, and leading our living allies to believe we care little for them. I've made a lot of progress in the past month with the Argents, I would like to not erase that with seemingly careless words."
"Easy to make it seem like we're spread too thin. Gotta be working with all our allies, can't be babysitting one Argent Crusader." But they can. And they will. "Could make sure we get some in on it. That Briellen, Aze, that paladin Kit, Tabiana herself."
"Those are good allies," Syarra says, nodding her head slightly. "Briellen cares more than I expected, and Tabiana was skeptical but seems to be coming around. Kit is an ally, I think she would help. And Aze… is harder for me to read these days than she used to be. I think we can ask more of her now without a backlash. I think she's been actively making our case with the living. I didn't even ask her to do that, not directly. And… we might include Satterly and Greennote. They've been involved."
"She definitely has been talking about me to them. Said she told people I was fun to take for spin in a fight, but she's got her own problems with the Argents looking at her sideways for what she is that her word isn't exactly gold," Roper adds. "Could be good to tip both the paladin and his priest off, so they know what we're doing, if nothing else. They saw Taya personally, so they know what we know. They'll know that we don't want Kaela and her band of merry fuckers to succeed, but that we don't want Kaela escalating any worse than she already has. We make a fortress for Tabiana and Westwind with hers, we don't know who she goes for next. Someone else we aren't watching."
"She'll still have a fortress. Tabiana's will be made out of people, an invisible one that looks like nothing at all," Syarra agrees. Then she blinks, pulling back from Roper to meet his gaze. "When did you talk to Aze?"
"Today," Roper answers. "Went to the Argent Stand to join in on the standing around, seeing if I could get someone to take me for a spin. Aze and I put on a bit of a show. Everyone played nice," he drawls. "No one even got their paint scratched. She can't keep up the Ask and Answer so easily while fighting. She played it though."
Syarra gives a brief exhale of a laugh. "And no one harmed - she must have lost, by her standards. Get anything interesting from her?"
"All information is interesting," Roper drawls. "You never know what you might need or wanna use someday. It's always just about getting as much as you can."
"Of course, but anything useful for now? For the situation with Mourn… I think she had some rapport with Westwind, but that won't matter with the girl in her fortress."
Roper shrugs, a twitch of his right shoulder. "Aze hasn't had enough time to charm the Argents to be useful enough for something this big. She’s getting connections, but she's not trusted herself. She did have an interesting idea to pair up. Two on two, to get a living to pair up with one of us, instead of only against. And it's a fucking good idea." He tilts his head to the side, brows flicking up and down. "She'd pick to pair up with me against you and another. Thinks she can handle you better than me." He sounds amused, the drawl deep and dark.
"With you? Against me?" Syarra raises one eyebrow. "Not what I would have expected. Who would I fight with, then? Did the two of you have a candidate in mind?"
"I was thinking, now, Tabiana. She could get a real look at what she's up against, and a reminder of what's also on her side."
Syarra's gaze sharpens on Roper. "A real look… should this be a private match? We've been careful not to upset the Argents thus far."
Roper shakes his head. "Not for this first one. Let's see how she does with getting her feet wet, and put on a show for the Argents. She panics at even just this warm up, we'll know more. She seems fine, maybe she gets to really see something."
"Then a soft real look," Syarra says a touch dryly, then adds, "That is, if she agrees. And if you think Aze won't escalate. You've sparred with her twice lately, and I haven't at all. That was… a deliberate choice, on my part. I've been trying not to give her anything to fight against, in me. But if she suggested it…"
“Only time I've seen her lose control was when there was an actual demon to fight. You and I don't burst into fucking fel horns, she'll be fine,” Roper drawls, his hand winding idly through her hair. “And it doesn't really matter. No matter what I play at in a spar, the only one who is my partner is you. No one fucking above you.” His grin is a flash of white teeth in the dark of his hood. “Doesn't mean it won't be fucking fun though playing otherwise for the crowd though. We'll show them why you and I are here and not others who couldn't fucking make it."
"And Tabiana will see what she's up against, even if I do my best to defend her," Syarra nods, leaning her head back slightly against his touch. "And you and I… we've never held back with each other. This is no different."
Roper closes the distance further, until he's too close for eye contact, a breath away, the deep cold inside him palpable. "No different," he echoes. "I will stop." It's a vow, and a reminder to himself all at once.
"I know," Syarra says, quiet as breath. "And so will I."