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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Roper, true to his word, shows up in the Argent Stand to help people get accustomed to death knights, but has some trouble finding a dancing partner. Aze steps up to the plate for a second time, and a game ensues. 6800-ish words. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Arc: Death Knight PR
It's a nippy October day at the Argent Stand, the cold of Northrend starting to sink into bones and joints with a fervor that rivals the religious one of some of the Argent Crusaders. The wind has picked up, enough to scatter bits of brown and gray leaves around into untidy piles on the edges of tents and tables like little children huddling around a mother's skirts. A slate gray sky looms overhead, amplifying the tension of a lull of sure purpose drifting through the camp.
This situation is not aided by the presence of a death knight in his saronite armor, spiky and adorned with dangerous looking knives, a hood obscuring his face rather than a helm. His runeblades are fully away, strapped to his lower back, but nonetheless visible, a not-subtle reminder of the potential for violence. The fact that he's currently doing nothing but standing next to a wooden table with a large pot of coffee, a mug in his hand, sipping from it, does nothing whatsoever to detract from the inherent menace of what he is, what he represents.
The Argent woman in black and silver mail armor that he's speaking to seems like she's one comment away from possibly fleeing in full, nervous and uncomfortable, but there's a determination to it — a sense of someone deliberately holding a hand close to a to a venomous snake behind a glass, while repeating that it isn't going to hurt her.
A sin'dorei woman walks by in a red-lined black cloak, flowing over dark leather armor, the hood pulled back to show dark hair, a blindfold over her eyes. She trails to a stop without looking at the table or the two people, and then turns toward them.
"Oh, wow, imagine finding you here," Aze says brightly, as if recognizing an old friend. She tilts her head toward the Argent and adds, "Sorry to interrupt."
Roper laughs, a low, echoing sound. He might be genuinely amused, as he raises his mug of coffee to Aze. "Hey," he drawls back, that echo still in his voice, unusual for the death knight who often hides it.
"No, you're not — I was just, uh, I just remembered I should go wash my…" The Argent woman hesitates a beat too long, too obviously. "Pillow cases." The inner wheel of choices has failed. She covers a wince with a cough.
"Yeah, I hear those pillow cases can be a real hygiene problem," Roper says, shifting his feet to better face Aze. "See ya around." There isn't anything deliberately threatening about the words, or even the way he says them. But that deep undercurrent of amusement and attention, like her fear is an interesting bug, makes it less warm and friendly.
"Walk in the …" Oh. Right. Death knight. "Light," she finishes, weakly, giving Aze a wave, and belatedly realizing the error with the blindfold. It is not her day. She doesn't run. She walks away, clutching the remains of dignity to her.
Roper makes a scoffing sound, tipping his head to Aze. "You'd think I poisoned the coffee or something." He gestures to it. "Coffee?" He offers, without saying one way or another if its poisoned. It probably isn't. Maybe.
"Sure, been a hell of a…" Aze's brow furrows. "…decade. Could use some coffee. What're you doing? Trying to make friends?"
Roper leans over the table, plucking a tin cup off it, and filling it with coffee — cold and dark as you'd expect from him.
"Making friends is for grade school," Roper says, the echo now gone, and a slight rasp to his voice in its place. "I'm here to be a Death Knight, willing to be fucking poked and scorned, while the Argents work up to more. You know, that paladin and his priest's whole initiative. Vond and Etone. Meant to be helping Argents with getting used to fighting around one of us, but, for some reason, no one wants to actually fight me." He puts a hand dramatically to his chest, as he holds out the other with coffee to Aze. "Starting to feel like one of those sad spinster girls on the edge of a ball that no one wants to dance with. Think if I wore a prettier bow in my hair next time someone'll take me for a spin?"
Aze takes the coffee from him and takes a sip without hesitation, suppressing a bit of a wince as she swallows the cold liquid.
"You could try it. I told people you were pretty fun to take for a spin, but might be hard for somebody to take that on trust," Aze shifts over to stand next to him, now publicly connected. "Maybe you could get somebody to do two-on-two? Get to be with you instead of against you?"
Roper makes a ha sound. "Sure, if a threesome's hard to set up, how much worse could a foursome be?" The drawl is deep and amused. "It's a good idea, what they're looking for to get used to, if I could get any of them to really fucking talk to me long enough to suggest it without them discovering they suddenly need to go check on their cat or embroider their tabard."
His head moves again, more deliberately facing Aze. "But, I appreciate the mentioning." Is that a thank you? Eh, close enough maybe. "You getting many dancing partners yourself here?"
"Plenty of fucking trolls and undead," Aze says, turning her face slightly toward him. "Though they can't follow the steps for long. But no, seriously, people are a little wary of me, too. Supportive, but wary. It's understandable. I haven't tried… I don't know how it would go over, if I used everything I have at my disposal."
"What, you don't think they'd get some marshmallows out if they saw the felfire?" Roper drawls it, probably rhetorical. "That's paladins for you though. They can be judgy as a fucking hammer." There's a pause, and a shift in his tone. "If someone does give you shit — real shit, I mean, not the friendly hazing of reading sermons at you or whatever — you say something. I'll make it my problem."
Aze gives a short exhale of a laugh. "Thanks. You're not the first person to say it. I'm fine, though. Really, this time. Nothing I can't handle, and I've got friends." There's a flicker of amusement on her face, and she adds, "Maybe it's grade school shit, but it's still nice."
"I never went to school, I don't think," Roper says, that rasp a little more pronounced. "Not unless you count Spy School." Is he serious? Is that a thing? Who knows. He takes a long drink of his coffee, and sets the mug down. "Your question, by the way."
Wait. Were they playing Ask and Answer? Since when?
"My…" Aze stiffens, caught off guard, but then she lets out a breath and smiles again. "My turn. Sure, okay. If that was, yours… no, I don't think they'd get any out. Marshmallows and sulfuric flame mix badly. What's something you remember from Spy School?"
"You get caught by the small things, not the big ones. It's not whether or not you know who the king is, or the mayor. It's do you know that in the little town you're supposed to be from they had a spring festival where they roll cheese down a hill, but they stopped that four years ago after little Tommy got crushed by one, and who you are was the kind of person who would have railed against that or been for it. It's always the details that you get you." Roper says it like he's repeating something, a cadence that isn't his own. "Who are your friends here?"
"In the Argent Crusade here… Kit du Lac, Etone Greennote, Vond Satterly… maybe Sevastyn Black." Aze considers for a moment, then nods. "Yeah, those are the main ones. What quel'dorei did you know, back when you were alive?"
"At least one person, someone named Amidel Dawnheart, quiet soldier. Liked humans, and drawing." Roper's voice gets a touch of the echo to it. "I don't remember her. Syarra recognized the name from something she left me." He straightens from the table, stepping forward. "If you're done with that coffee, we could dance. People are looking at us. I could show them I'm just like the other girls, and that the only one here who should have cold feet is me. What's something you liked about Alaisa?"
"I'm assuming we're talking metaphorically, because those spikes would fucking ruin my form otherwise," Aze says. She takes another sip of the coffee, then sets it down. "Don't frighten people, and I won't. I liked how fast she was, in changing languages, changing topics, whatever. That she kept up, or more than kept up. Kept me on my toes. What's something you… no."
Aze reaches for the hilts of her blades, moving into a more preparatory stance as she moves away from the table. "Who's someone you loved, before my sister?"
The hitch is obvious, because Roper's in the middle of moving, about to draw his runeblades, getting far enough from the table to not hit it accidentally. There's a greater chill in the air, and it's apparent in the silence that Roper is taking a moment to weigh something. Decision made, frost covers his armor in a wave of ice. "Colson."
He pulls his swords free, and with no other preamble, steps forward into a quick paced lunge, both swords moving together across the diagonal for a hard hitting opening. "What's something about your father that you miss?"
Aze draws in a breath, with a sudden jolt of pain deeper than one might expect from the simple question. That didn't take long.
She dodges back out of his strike before drawing her own blades, then takes a defensive pose.
"His voice," she says, a faint tremor in her own. "Maybe how he used to tell bedtime stories when I was a kid, with illusion magic. Dreaming up a world that makes more sense than this one. What's something you miss about being alive?"
Roper's inhale is audible, and when he speaks, there's a warmth to his voice, something that makes the answer sound even more human, the yearning audible. "Fucking." He sighs, even as he uses momentum from the dodge to flow into another strike, that same double parallel of blades, with a power that Aze knows from experience can be brutal to block directly.
"I can't even remember the specifics really. It's all gone, but I can remember the general feeling, the way it was. Now, I don't even get fucking desire. Even kissing isn't the same. There's an emptiness. I've got nothing that feels good like that but feeding the Hunger. Who's the woman in the portrait hanging up on your wall in Silvermoon?"
"The… it's still…? Fel, no, that's not my question," Aze drops her center fluidly to avoid the strike, sweeping her own blades around at his legs in a strike more meant to affect balance than harm directly. As she sidesteps and rises after, she brings one hand to her throat, unlatching the cloak and letting it fall to the ground. "Might not be a good likeness, but it was meant to be me. Gift. From a lover. Lali… um… Isa… Fuck, I don't know, it was a long time ago."
She takes a breath, and then continues, "I didn't realize… no desire… I guess it makes sense. Does it bother you that you can never have that with Yara?"
Roper's pause isn't just because he's switching presences, the cold dimming as a faint scent of decay surrounds him, his speed picking up a notch as he twists and sidesteps to avoid her blades, separating his own out back into two movements. "Yeah." His left blade is terrifyingly fast, aimed to hit against her own in a direct feint, the right carving a line from the other direction, with all the power he can muster. "I never had it with anyone I — cared about, like that. Now I never will. What's your favorite food that isn't baked in any way?"
Aze doesn't answer at first, too preoccupied with defense. She doesn't use any of the more supernatural abilities that Roper might expect from their last sparring match. Instead, she halfway blocks the quick feint with one blade and shifts her weight to catch the heavier strike with her other, stepping back to sap the force of the blow.
"Not baked… blackberries," Aze says, her expression intent. "Wild ones. Unexpected gift of nature. Hm, feels like I should ask something similar, but. What's your favorite type of pain?"
Roper chuckles, the sound still so human for all of the question. "Wow." He keeps his own tricks mild, more of a display of the natural speed and strength of a death knight, but otherwise looking like no more than a heavily armored human man dual wielding swords with an average amount of skill.
He presses forward, moving into Aze's guard, not in full attack, but what seems to be a way to lower his voice. "When they know they're going to die, and it's going to be fucking slow, and they're going to feel it the whole time, completely aware through every second of the fucking agony, with no help coming, where the only thing they can think is that at least they're not dying in the mud and praying that someone, anyone, will come and save them against all odds." There's a beat, a pause. "That's the way I died."
He pivots, a motion difficult in the plate without doing himself injury, but it's not like he has to worry about Aze catching scent of it, and once again tries for that backwards strike against her back. "What's the worst way you've ever killed someone?"
Aze doesn't try to dodge away as he moves in to speak, and there's a little give in her defense as he speaks, the lightest flinch. When he pivots, she lurches forward out of the strike, falling into a roll and then coming up on her feet again, blades still in hands as she spins to face him.
"Guess I did ask for that," She says with a touch of dark amusement in her tone. "Hm, the worst way. I'm not a death knight, so you'll be disappointed. There's satisfaction in a clean kill, an efficient hunt, for me. The worst… a while back a friend of mine got mugged, stabbed, could've died. The perpetrator got exiled. I hunted him down, stabbed him three times, and waited for him to bleed out. I thought it would feel more like justice." She moves in quick as a flash, feinting high and striking low, then asks, "Have you and Yara ever talked about her past loves?"
There isn't the sound of his teeth grinding together, but that's only because there's enough noise from his armor and footwork on the ground to cover it, as he flips the blades around, moving more like a knife fighter on defensive, deflecting and parrying rather than absorbing the impact directly. She can hear it though, the way he speaks around a clenched jaw.
"No. They don't fucking matter." It has an odd note of a threat, as if he can potentially destroy them just by thinking about it, jealousy an obvious streak through his words. "This Syarra is mine now and forever. That's what matters." It'd almost be romantic, possibly, if not for the darkness in his voice.
"How have the blades been working out?"
"They're perfect," Aze says and laughs, demonstrating their perfection with another lightning-quick flurry of attacks. "I'm taking care of them properly, so they should see me through the war. What's your weapon of choice, if it didn't have to be a runeblade?
Another hesitation. Maybe he's just focused on defending, parrying at speed, but unable to get a single riposte in. "Knives. I fought with knives. Until the Scourge instructors tortured it out of me, so that now if I even fucking touch one, I can still feel them stripping my skin off, burning my hands in acid, letting their plague insects burrow into the remains of my flesh still healing." You know. Tuesday afternoons in Death Knight School. "Makes it a little harder to fight like that, sorta distracting," he drawls. "Is your sight getting better or staying the same so far?"
"Mm, can see that might be hard," Aze continues fighting quick and agile, like a knife-fighter. Be distracted, Roper. "The Illidari instructors didn't really torture us, pain was just a cost. I guess my vision is the same, but it's getting easier. At first it was just… chaos. Couldn't make any fucking sense of anything. And I couldn't close my eyes. Still can't do the latter, but I've gotten a lot better at the former since the early days. Do you really like coffee, or is that just a thing you made up to be approachable?"
"I fucking love coffee. I can't really…taste it the same way, and you don't want to know how much I have to drink to feel the caffeine. I wake up every morning asking for it. It's why Syarra bought it for me, as a first deathday present." Roper is, if anything, less distracted now. This is his happy place. It's also still clear that the burst of effort is as simple for him to maintain as before — there's no slowing down, no change in his ability to make every strike at maximum effort. "Of all the things I've ever said to you, what do you think is a lie?"
"Hm," Aze says, and for the moment she's not slowing down either. It won't last forever, but it'll last a while. "I don't think you usually lie to me in words. You and Yara both, you lie in other ways. But if I had to pick something…" she flashes a quick smile and darts a strike in at the shoulder joint of his armor, slow enough that it's clear she doesn't intend to hit. "I don't believe you're allergic to fel. Do you still think she's unlucky to have me as a sister?"
"When I was alive, I swear I could smell the fel from two rooms away. Made my sinuses itch with it, like allergies." Ice coats his armor, and he doesn't dodge the strike at all, going instead for a dangerously powerful strike against the knife, hard enough that he might be aiming to jolt it out of her hand. "Unlucky? Naw. You showed up when it mattered to her in the end. You still wonder if I'm playing Syarra?"
The strike nearly makes her drop the blade, but she keeps her grip, stepping back with a faint hiss of indrawn breath. "No, no, I heard your fucking wedding vows. Whatever it is you're playing at, it's together." She doesn't attack for a moment, flexing her wrist. "To be fair, I knew almost nothing about you back then. Yara was really careful about what she told me and when. Why were you hanging out with the orphans in Shattrath?"
Roper laughs at the mention of their vows, and for all of his aggressiveness, doesn't immediately push the advantage, repositioning his footwork and angle instead. "I always do. Every city I go to, I find the street kids. They're the best place to get information. Like spies in training. They see almost fucking everything, and no one pays any attention to them. You're looking at what happens when one of those kids goes to Spy School. I grew up like that, gutter trash no one gave a fuck about." There's a cold note in his voice, and he rotates his wrists in echo of Aze. "So, they get money, I get information I couldn't get otherwise. Why haven't you gone to Dalaran, where the real parties would be?"
"They were good kids, too - war makes a lot of orphans. But Dalaran… I did go there, once," Aze admits, adjusting her own angle not to face him exactly directly. "For Yara's wedding dress. Through and back later, because it was what she wanted. Hope you liked the dress, if thats the sort of thing you can still like. Still… it's not a place I can relax. I was imprisoned there, once, awaiting execution. I remember wondering why everyone else just went along with it. They would again, I'd guess. Who's someone you regret killing?"
"No one," Roper answers, immediately and without hesitation. "When I was alive, I killed maybe six, or seven people depending on what your criteria is, as far as I can remember. Maybe I killed someone I cared about and don't remember it, but I doubt it. I wasn't a fucking assassin," he says, the job description sounding like an insult like dung grabber. "A good spy doesn't have to kill people to get what he wants. I talked my way out of most problems, and if I couldn't, I was real careful about who I killed. And now… well, I'm still fucking careful about who I kill. And feelings like remorse after the Hunger is harder to feel." Roper circles her, that same menace of a shark looking for an angle to dart into a school of fish.
"What was the charge they imprisoned you on?"
"Officially, treason," Aze says, matching his pacing but not attacking yet. "Honestly, following orders and finding common cause with, according to the Alliance, the wrong people. You ever been arrested?"
Roper considers it. "Me, no. An identity, yeah. It's how I got my agent name, Roper. I went into prison undercover, under an order of eventual execution. Something went wrong, a judge expedited it. I could have taken an extraction, but the mission wasn't over. So I stayed, finished the last drop of information, and let them hang me. I was 19, and it was the first time I died. Took them almost an hour to get a priest to resurrect me. But I came back. What do you miss being able to see?" He asks it, launching forward before he's finished asking it into a quick series of strikes meant to hit at the same hand he aimed for before, as if testing how much lingers.
Aze's hand seems to have largely recovered, but she does sidestep, trying to balance the defense. "Hanged, huh. I didn't stick around for my execution, so I didn't get a new name. I miss seeing people properly. Both because they can be so fucking pretty, and… it's harder to read people. I end up more blunt than maybe I should be." She pauses, then launches back her own attack with the next question, testing the strength of his defenses. "How do you feel about Colson's husband?"
"Mordecai's fine. If he hadn't gone to the Light, might have been able to be a decent spy, with the right training." This is the criteria by which Roper lives. "Grateful to him, in a way. If he hadn't been there, I'd have been wasting my fucking time with Colson, maybe missed Syarra entirely until it was too late."
His defenses are better than his offenses, given what he's limited himself to. The frost returns in a rush of cold air, as he lets some lighter strikes land deliberately, not slowing down at all to use the opportunity to attempt to get at her from the side, but his swordwork is now more familiar — easier to predict, easier to recognize the lead ups. "What's your favorite thing about me?"
Aze dodges the strikes, circling to keep him from getting behind her. "About you? Hm." She aims a shallow slash at his face, easy to back out of. "Maybe call it… resilience? That you don't shock easy and you don't hold back. At least, metaphorically. You're holding back physically now, for good reasons, but so am I. And you'd still cut me if I let you. What's something you like about me, then, if there is anything?"
Roper isn't wearing his helm, so he moves out of the strike, a rapid blur of motion. "That you don't trust people easily. You're wary and suspicious, and you question people's motivations." Roper's tone makes it sound very complimentary, which probably says something about Roper. "Why join the Argent Crusade, of all your options?"
"All my options," Aze says, a touch sardonically. "Stormrage is dead, so that avenue's out. But no, seriously, if I'm wary and suspicious, it's because I learn from my disasters. Each mistake I make is a new one. Argent Crusade… a lot of reasons. I needed allies. And the people I've met with the Argent Crusade, they seem… good. Like Kit, she was kind when she didn't need to be, when I wasn't kind back. And… when someone turns you into a weapon, you have to be careful who you let wield you. I talked to them enough to believe they have good goals, and they care about the means and the end." She launches into another attack, and says, "What would you do if I told you their names? People who took Yara to bed, or at least the ones I think are still alive. Just curious how much they don't matter."
Roper doesn't dodge it, letting it hit him as ice covers him again, deliberately absorbing it, as if in demonstration of what he can do. "Pass," he drawls at Aze. "What are their names?"
Aze laughs and dances back after the strike. "Pass." She tilts her head, considering him. "What next. Hm. You mentioned what they did to take knives from you, but… what's the worst pain you've ever experienced?"
Roper's hesitation might be that he's considering passing again. Or maybe he's focused on trying to press forward into her guard, the cold fading as his strength increases, his strikes harder than before. "If you mean other than the Hunger, then Battle of Light's Hope, Colson was there. I got hit, and he healed me. It hurt so much I forgot my own fucking name, seared away everything I was for a few seconds that felt like hours. Rest of the Battle is a blur after that until I was unchained. What do you actually believe about the Light?"
"I believe…" Aze is still deflecting the blows, dodging where she can, but there's a little bit more give in her movements now. There is still, however, not even a hint of fel fire, or any other signs of the demonic. "You know what, pass on that one too. I'll be a good Argent Crusader, they won't be disappointed." Another beat, and she adds, "Unchained. What was your first thought, then, when you realized it?"
"'Why?'" Roper answers. There's no give in his movements, that same intensity, the speed, the strength, unchanged from the first attack. "That was the thought." He pauses, maybe to put extra effort into a twist of motion to bring his right hand blade down harder in a sweep of a strike. "Syarra was the one who found me after, set me back on the mission to retake the necropolis, kept me from spiraling down further. Did you get to pick the demon you got in there?"
"Yeah," Aze says, wincing a little at the hard deflect and dancing back again. She's breathing a little harder now, but still keeping up. "Wasn't random. Had to kill it myself, rip its heart out, eat it. You know, the whole thing. And really, who wouldn't want to pick the monster that binds to… that's not a question. Rhetorical. What answer have you figured out so far, to your first thought?"
"Because I deserved it." Roper doesn't elaborate. It might be, much like the original thought, applicable to more than one thing. "Do you think the Syarra you knew would have accepted you as you are, if you'd been the one out in the Plaguelands, killed and raised up into one of us?" He shifts again, that scent of decay in the air, moving faster, if the strikes are lighter, meant to be deflected by her blades, rather than seeking a real opening now.
Aze falls into the rhythm, not trying to press for advantage. "Hard to say. She might've killed me, truce or no truce, but I don't know. She's never been tested like that, not really, though of course she did kill some raised sin'dorei during the war. The way she used to be, could've gone either way. Whichever way she went, I doubt I would've been able to talk her out of it." That was a a lot of talking. She lapses into silence for a little while, saving her breath, and then says, "If Alaisa died, and you could, would you raise her into one of you?"
"Never," Roper says with such dark force that the echo fills his voice, reverberates in the air in a deep midnight sound, and some Argent Crusaders who had been lingering, watching, suddenly find that they have the urge to check on their, uh, pet…rocks in their tents.
Roper pulls it in, his rhythm still oddly jerky, the cold around them more intense. "It's not a fucking gift. It's an existence of torment, and it twists things inside you. I wouldn't do this to my worst fucking enemy, even if he wasn't already fucked up. Death is just death, and Alaisa's soul can go where it's fucking meant to be when she dies if I get my say in it. And if it did — anyone who did it to her would die screaming with their blood filling their lungs slowly drowning them by my hand." The echo is still there, and something in his tone, an odd humanity on the other side of the echo that sounds sincere. "But if she did. If she was. I wouldn't destroy her."
Aze shivers, and focuses on her footwork, and twists away long enough to give a cheery smile and wave to departing watchers. The smile drops when she turns back to Roper, and says, in a low voice, "Never said it was a fucking gift. I understand more than most, out of people who aren't one of you. I knew Yara then, and I know her now."
"Syarra is the fucking gift. But no one worth still existing in the Ebon Blade is the kind of person who looks around and thinks there should be more of us. We're here, we'll deal with it, but it takes a certain kind of evil to do this to someone, and we're monsters, but we're not fucking that." Roper's voice still has that echo to it, but he sounds calmer. It'd be more believable, if he wasn't pushing forward like he might actually land a strike on Aze. "Would you make another demon hunter?"
Aze doesn't answer right away, and she continues to parry even as she allows herself to be pushed back. "Probably no. But then I'm thinking what if there's circumstances and it's not like I have the hunger, but then I still… they would probably die anyway, so that blood would be on my hands and even if they lived… no. No, I wouldn't." She sounds like she's convinced herself by the end. "Why did you think Alaisa would like me?"
"Pass." That's two for both of them now. He isn't varying his swordwork much, not doing any of his tricks of mimicry, but he's relentless, no pauses, no slowing down as he talks. "If we did a two on two, me on one side, Syarra on the other, you, and an Argent, whose team do you pick be against — against me, or against Syarra?"
"Hm," Aze considers, her breath coming more quickly now. "Against Yara. She's harder than you, but I still know her better. Easier to hit her weaknesses. And I could work with you. Did you trash that recording crystal I gave you?"
"Fuck no. I like it. It's nice, having something to dance to," Roper says. "I've got it on me, actually." He does an odd movement, a quick step back, and then a surging forward, blades back in double movement, to hit harder. "How quick can you learn how to play something, if someone just sang the notes, couldn't write it out in music?"
Aze steps to the side, half-deflecting, half-dodging the strike with a grunt of effort, and then tries to use the momentum to get around behind the death knight. "Can't read music anymore, anyway. If I had a piano at hand, I could play out the notes right off. Probably improvise some embellishment, some harmony. Might not be exactly how you imagine, if you only give me the melody. You got a song in mind?"
"Yeah." Roper moves easily with Aze, as if they were dancing and just following a twirl. "Sorta. I'm working on it. It's harder than it was before. Writing it myself, I mean. It's for Syarra. For Winter Veil. Last year I made her ice skates, took her out, showed her how to do a death spiral. This year, we'll do it again but this time I'll be singing." Gotta one-up even himself. "You know how to play that instrument that was in your room back in Silvermoon?"
"The lute? Yeah, fuck, that wasn't a question. That doesn't count," Aze continues the turn and shifts more to defense. She's definitely tiring, finding it harder to focus on the game. "But yeah, I can play it. It's easier to move around. Not everywhere has a piano, and people go for music if you do it well enough. Anyway, I can record a thing for you, if you want. Just give me credit for that, when you give it to her. Question, um… how often do you have to hurt someone? To stay, you know, you."
"Depends. Kinda like asking you, how often do you have to eat before you get cranky? You eat just a candy, we're talking hours at best, right?" Roper sounds casual, like they're just talking about any sort of food. He switches again, back to the high strength, each blow coming harder, and harder. "Same thing for us. I scratch someone, it buys me, I don't know, maybe an hour. After the Sunwell, I was good for almost five days. I try to keep it around three. Four is pushing it. I go as long as I can usually, unless I know I'm doing something I need to be on top of it. I don't glut myself of hurting someone when I'm full up. I pace it. Some of us can go longer, or live on scraps for months. Others can't go more than a day." His voice is lower, as he stays close to her guard. "What do think Syarra's biggest weakness is?"
"Hm, context matters, for that answer," Aze says, backing in the general direction of the coffee table. "I'll give you combat. She thinks things through, but doesn't put enough value on herself. She never has. The number of times I had to fucking run and…" Aze pauses, catching her breath, "Seems the same now, even after it killed her once. How can I tell if you're hungry?"
"I'll shut up," Roper drawls. "Talk less. And I'll seem…nicer. Softer, especially if I've started to feed off you. The real me is an asshole. Abrasive. Sarcastic. It's not always a bad thing if I've turned it off. I'll do it for missions, when I'm focused. But if I don't have any reason to be quiet, and I am, it's a problem. That's where you don't fucking run. Talk about Syarra. Remind me who you are. Most of the time, I'll warn you if I'm that bad off. I've never gone all the way over before, into the berserker."
Roper readjusts the angle, pushing Aze away from the precious coffee. "You ever been tortured before?"
Aze makes a frustrated sound, and then focuses on defense, a bead of sweat trickling down the side of her face. "Torture. I… think so. Maybe not how you mean, but I'd call it torture. Nobody put my hands in acid, it was in my head, for the most part. But…" Aze skips back, raises a hand to her blindfold, with an echo of remembered agony. "It was bad enough that I did some extreme stuff to myself, trying to make it stop. That part was physical. Then I was in a coma for a while. And when I woke up…" Aze winces, and doesn't finish the thought. "Yeah, been tortured. They teach you that in Spy School or is torture a new post-death skill?"
"Spy School," Roper answers, shifting more and more, driving Aze back — away from where a few Argents have gathered, staring at them. It might be that they're not as audible to them as he walks them away. "But, I learned young, too. Someone I don't remember used to hurt me, over and over." A brief echo in his voice, the cold gathering around them, the wind picking up — and then it subsides. "And then I did it for work. A spy has to know how to survive torture. There's techniques for it, things you have to learn how to use. When was that, that torture?"
"Little less than two years ago," Aze says, letting Roper drive her back. "The pain wasn't the point, it was just part of the process. I was meant to endure it, though a lot of people didn't manage. What techniques?"
"Talking, for one. A lot of the time, if you're talking, saying anything, they'll keep at the level they are, because they think they're getting somewhere. But mainly it helps distract yourself. A lot of people think that when you're enduring, you gotta fucking focus on the pain. But that just makes you feel it more. Talk, remind yourself of other things, if you can, even just wiggle your toes one after the other, or your fingers. Everything you can get your mind to think on besides the pain."
A whole lot about Roper's constant fidgeting, talking, and movement might make sense. "Why haven't you been building more of your sin'dorei relationships back up, like that guy, Geth?"
"Not really the same person anymore. I did try, some, back in Outland. Geth could tell there was something 'wrong' with me," Aze stops talking for a while, focusing on the fight. Then she adds, "Most people only really knew me on the surface anyway, or they're dead now. Hard to know who I can trust. It's easier to branch out from people who know who I am now. But I do still have some friends in Silvermoon. Like the tailor. Yara's dress. Was the wedding how you imagined it?"
Roper laughs, and it's that oddly human sound — like a living person, filled with something like delight. "I never imagined a wedding. Alive, I was that kind of guy who thought he'd die before he got married, and I wasn't wrong. I can't really…think of things like that either. It's hard, to even imagine being fucking happy, or think of something beautiful. So, no. Doesn't mean it wasn't good though." Roper slows, rather than increases the pace. Some of that might be because the crowd around them is growing. "You think you'll ever get married, to anyone — sin'dorei or whatever?"
"No, don't think I've got the temperament for it," Aze shrugs, eyeing the crowd. "Then again, who knows. You didn't think you would. Not something I'm looking for, though. I'm not like Yara, that way. You ever wish you could remember the people who hurt you?"
"Yeah. I don't know if they're fucking dead or not." Something in his voice suggests that would be something he'd enjoy if they weren't already dead. "I don't think they're alive though. I get the sense of it sometimes. I just don't know if I killed them or not. I remember at least one, and I know he's fucking dead. You have anyone on your list of someone you want dead but can't reach?"
"Yeah, Lich King, obviously," Aze says without hesitation, and then adds, "And the bitch who killed my sister, who I probably could reach but wow did everyone I know have a fucking fit when I brought that up. And, I guess, there's laws or whatever. Who's the one you remember?"
"Pass," Roper says, and ends the game with a finishing brutally hard strike to her right hand blade, an attempt to knock it hard enough to get it out of her grip.
Aze grunts in pain and steps back at the strike, but her grip doesn't falter. Then she straightens, with the clear assumption that the game and the dance are linked, both concluded.
"Good ending for the show," Aze says, wincing as she flexes her wrist again. "I'm not a demon and you're still an asshole."
Roper throws his head back to laugh, a human sound, his voice a drawl. "Mission accomplished."