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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Roper's recent conversation with Coriene Bloodsong revealed an unexpected debt to the Silvermoon Magistrix on Aszera Sunstrike's behalf, and Roper pays a call on Aze in Shattrath to find out the details, as well as pass on a warning for what nest of vipers of political intrigue Aze is about to step into. 4500~ words. Personal Plot RP. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
It's a relatively peaceful afternoon in the Lower City of Shattrath - a refugee city in a world that may be falling apart, but which has seen considerably less war and disaster in recent days than Azeroth. There's the usual bustle of merchants and their customers as one travels through the market, and then the sound of laughter and children playing comes from the direction of the city's well-occupied orphanage.
Just outside the front door of that orphanage, a blond and barefoot sin'dorei girl sits across from a dark-haired sin'dorei woman with a heavy blindfold over her eyes. Despite the blindfold, they appear to be playing some kind of cooperative hand-slapping game, rhythm set to words they recite together in Thalassian.
Perhaps a cloud passes over the endless strange sky's sun, and that is what brings the curling tendrils of chilled air, a fog that creeps up against the building and presses on it. Or perhaps it is the man in black leathers, a cloak over his face, dark gloves hiding his betraying hands, who cannot hide the essence of what he is, especially not from ever-seeing fel eyes. The people of Shattrath, in general, see nothing of interest in the man who walks easily and with a certain sin'dorei grace towards the orphanage, a body language that suggests he's no-one really, a faceless stranger in a city.
Aze knows better.
Roper's stroll catches in a casual pantomime of a man doing a double-check, as if he's just only now recognized Aze, as he sets a hand to his chest with a laugh that sounds so real that it's eerie knowing that it probably isn't. "[Kulo's Reading Lady! It's been an age since I've seen you around here.]" The Thalassian rolls off his tongue, his tone and pitch a mimicry of Syarra's own native speaking with a friendly openness that the other Death Knight no longer possesses, and he drops into a crouch, his forearms resting idly on his legs, hands dangling unthreateningly limp, his face hidden so well by the hood's shadows that it's impossible to read the key human features that give the lie away.
Aze doesn't turn towards the dark-clad man at first, though she tenses as he approaches, missing one of the hand-claps. So it is that the little girl is ranting in annoyance, grabbing Aze's hands and trying to force them to be in the right places, when he speaks.
"[Why, if it isn't the Coin Trick Man!]" Aze says, in mock surprise, jerking her hands free, lifting the little girl and settling her in her lap. That's enough startlement that the child falls silent, staring at Roper with wide green eyes. "[What brings you so far from the mountains?]"
The Coin Trick Man laughs again, that strangely relaxed natural sound from a dead throat, as he reaches his hands out, palms down, and then flips them over, three coins in each, and he moves them over his fingers and palms so smoothly that they seem to dance on undulating waves. "[I've got family in the city, and thought I'd pay a visit. There's been a bit of a mix up with some balances back home, a charge on the family ledger I wasn't expecting, so I figured I'd better go see what's happening just in case.]"
Coin Trick Man wasn't sin'dorei before, and his pleasant voice, lilting and cultured, fits another persona, and yet the flow of his hands is the same, the agility of his perfect balance on his heels the same.
Maybe he was always like that, is the whisper of an unseen voice into the fog of memory. But, then again, maybe some simply never met him, only heard his name, and are filling in the rest without contradictions.
["You headed up to the Scryer's Tier? I wouldn't mind the company for the walk. We could catch up."]
Aze seems undistracted by the coin tricks, but the little girl stares in rapt attention. Did she ever meet the Coin Trick Man? Whether she did or not, she seems to accept this one with no reservations.
"[A… charge…]" Aze says with uncertainty in her voice, and the little girl squirms in a tightening grip, reaching towards the coins. "[Shit, sorry, Liadra. You want to go play somewhere else? Coin Trick and I better catch up.]"
Liadra makes a disgruntled sound and slips out from Aze's lap, scampering off to find someone better at hand-clap games.
Aze pushes against the wall to stand and sighs. "[I don't stay in the Scryer's Tier anymore, but I can walk with you.]"
Roper sidles in closer, a companionable looseness to his body language, and you'd think — looking from the outside of it — that they're simply friends out for a walk. But gone is the smooth talking sin'dorei man in his voice.
It's Roper, the real one, he of the harsh rasp, and the dark drawl. "Oh, I know that. Roaen didn't though, simple sin'dorei male that is he. You've got the place in Lower City. Nice little spot to crash in between time here in the city and out on your hunts. But we'll take the longer way around by way of the Scryer's Tier, and make sure we shake off any curious little fucking tail we pick up here. There's a place we can jump down from behind the inn." A spy's constant paranoia, maybe.
But maybe warranted in this case, as a figure starts moving along their path, trailing behind; a draenei youngling, by relative accounting, trying to hide out on Roper's blindspot of his hood, assuming too much that Aze cannot see her through the blindfold.
Aze gives a low, quiet laugh, with no sign of discomfort at Roper's proximity. Her own voice is quietly amused as she says, "Right, of course, how dare I assume you haven't been keeping tabs on me. Then you'll know I'm fine with the Scryers, I just… didn't want to live there, not after everything from last time."
Then she jerks her head slightly in the direction of the draenei and adds, "They're just curious, there's no harm in it. I keep the kids better separated from the hunting these days, but some of them wonder." Then she pauses, her smile losing a little of its cheer. "Still, if I owe you something, let's not mix them up in it. I'll follow your lead."
"Yeah, I know the one following us. Onilea. She's not bad, but she doesn't gauge distance well enough around corners. We'll get a lead on her from the elevator, and by the time we edge around the inn and drop down, it'll take her too long to reposition, and she'll lose us," Roper drawls, striding along towards the elevator of the Scryer's Tier. "Someday, she'll be real fucking good at it. But not today."
True to her word, Aze follows his lead without question, keeping her own side of the casual, friendly stroll to match his. Softly enough not to be overheard, she murmurs,"Onilea. Didn't know the name, but that one does like following sometimes. I think I'll never tell her I'm an anti-stealth monster."
Shattrath's low hum of activity is subdued, for a city, and the broken gaps where none wander make it difficult for a tail to hide her following, and as Roper predicted, she can't quite get close enough in time without wandering into the open line of sight of Roper's hooded direction, forcing her to wait while Roper and Aze take the elevator up to the tier of the Scryer's purview.
Once they're up, Roper stalks towards the inn with purpose, an impatience in him making the ruse of the casual sin'dorei to evaporate like mist in a blaze of cold autumn sunlight.
"It's not me you owe," Roper says as he slides along the side of the inn, moving fast, that agility of his former life showing. "Like I said, found out you'd started a tab with someone else, and that someone knew that it went on the family name. I paid it off. That's what family does. What they should do." Something strange enters his voice for a moment, some midnight darkness that reaches back into life through the death knight of now, and then is tucked back away like a coin he hadn't meant to let slip out.
He stands on the precipise of the wall of the Scryer's Tier, halting for a moment longer. "What I want to know is how the fuck you came to owe something to Magistrix Coriene Bloodsong." Roper takes a step backwards, dropping down onto a rocky, broken ledge, landing with a cat's grace, his head tipped upwards, watching Aze's face perhaps.
Once they're on the tier, the sudden change takes Aze by surprise, and she hurries to catch up with him. The tension and sharpness of her manner rises as he begins to explain why he's here. After he drops, Aze visibly relaxes, the worry in her face disappearing in lines of mocking scorn and anger, neither seemingly directed at Roper.
"This is about Cori fucking Bloodsong?" Aze asks, stepping off the ledge. There's the flicker of a belling out of ragged, leathery wings, and she lands as lightly as a step. She barely seems to notice it happening. "I thought I was pretty clear it wasn't a trade - didn't think she'd go after you." Her tone sounds like an apology, even if it's missing actual apology words. "What did she want from you?"
Roper makes a tsch sound, as he continues his way down another step to the ground, landing easily, the angle of the step such that anyone above has lost their line of sight on the two. Sorry, kid. He's not an amateur.
"What the smart ones always want from me: Information," Roper answers, a touch of approval in the words. "Trouble is, meeting with someone like her now comes with a fuckload of potential risk. What was an asset is now a possible problem. Blurred lines around factions don't fly in times of war. Especially for someone trying to build her reputation in the Alliance, and that close to its fucken leadership." His voice is pointed, a press of a dagger against the skin, but not with hostility — like he's caught a spider on the edge of the blade, crawling dangerously close to Aze, and now has drawn her attention to it. "They ever suspect that you're a spy for the wrong side, they'll crush you before you can so much as squeak. So, what the fuck did you do, Ace. And when."
Aze drops down with him, with another flutter of wings. It might just be an instinct when she's falling. She flinches at Roper's words, and shakes her head vehemently, like she's trying to push away the danger by force of will.
"I didn't— I'm not– she's just Liv's sister, whatever her fucking title, and I never went to Silvermoon," Aze says almost frantically. "It was months ago, anyway. Back in summer. And the Aspenwoods were there, they asked her to stay and help. It wasn't just me."
Roper closes in, a hand not touching but hovering outside the range of her shoulder — almost a calming gesture, or better described perhaps as a shield, as if he's blocking the view of this momentary panic from someone to see. There isn't anyone around them that could. He's chosen well in a private place of the city, where the crumbling edifices and broken walls have no appeal for either official placing of a stall or unofficial squatting by a refugee unable to climb out of the poverty of the city.
"Hey," he says. "You need to remember something. The Fucking Aspenwoods can do what they fucking want. They have a shield ten fucking miles high of their name. Cressidha could go out there and marry a gods damned orc, and her family would bend over and break their backs to protect her from any backlash. They will not step out like that for you. They're not your family. Their fucking honor and goodness won't be enough for them to go against the law for you." He breathes out a harsh, cold exhale.
"I handled Bloodsong this time. If she makes this a problem, I will fucking handle that, and she will regret it. On your side, you need to keep this absolutely fucking quiet. No mentioning of her, no trying to make yourself seem like you've got connections in places outside the Alliance to people like Fallon, or any others of the Alliance. Because she is not just Liv's sister anymore. She's a Horde aligned Magistrix, loyal to Silvermoon, ambitious as all hell, and she will fucking play her cards accordingly."
Aze takes in a breath and lets it out in an irritated huff. "I know. I know they're not my family. And you don't need to, I know how to handle– no, no you're right, I can't."
She reaches up with one hand to rub at the side of her forehead, like she has a headache. Maybe a headache named Bloodsong. "I don't think I mentioned Coriene to Fallon. I went on about Liv for a while once, when I was drunk, but she's…" Aze swallows, "…not a connection anymore. I don't really talk about the magistrix because she makes my skin crawl." Aze drops her hand onto a nearby broken wall, and adds dully, "It was spring when she found me, up in Northrend. Found out she couldn't touch me without crossing the Argent Crusade, took another angle, acting like she had a working heart or some shit. I figured I'd take whatever she gave, give nothing back. I wouldn't have called her in summer, but I was just trying to help. We needed a portal. I won't do it again."
Roper crosses his arms, leaning back on his heels. "Yeah, I scattered your trail before, from the zeppelin you came in on. Made sure to muddy the waters with false leads if she followed you up north, but you were out with the Argents. Not that hard to follow that back, especially with that fucking Tournament loosening people's tongues. You should have told me that she'd fucking found you again. The only kind of people you can take like that from are those too fucking stupid to know how to play the game, and Bloodsong isn't one of those people." Admiration wars with something dangerously cold, a soft rasp of his voice like a caress — if that caress were fingers around a throat wondering if they should squeeze. "What portal did you need. The details matter, Ace. Some cards can be played to bust if you don't know they're coming. What did she do for you, and who asked for what."
"Bloodsong might not be fucking stupid, but I don't think she realizes who she's messing with," Aze says, with a brief flash of a smile at his tone. "Portal - to the Throne of Kil'jaeden. We were going for a sin'dorei mage, because they're the ones who set up the portal before, from Quel'Danas."
Aze shifts from one foot to the other, turning towards Roper. "Maybe I should start further back. I was dealing with a closed demonic portal that got unclosed, on A'dal's orders. I was clearing out the landing area when Mordecai and Colson turned up, and they joined the hunt for whatever opened it. A terrorfiend and a pit lord, in the end, if you're wondering. Anyway, we followed the trail to the mountain, and needed mage assistance to follow quickly enough. Then Bloodsong invited herself along for the hunt, and the Aspenwoods were okay with it. She was useful, when we cornered them." Aze sounds mildly annoyed to have to say something positive about the woman. "That much wasn't trickery on her part. Maybe she actually earned that title."
Roper's head cocks to one side, as if he's listening for something, maybe something in her voice or some other tune only he can hear, his left hand tapping slow, silent beats against the leather of his spy casual wear. "You're leaving something out. Who got her involved in the first place? How did she know you needed the portal? If she was just conveniently around just when you needed a sin'dorei mage, that says something, the kind of something that SI:7 would solve by silencing it."
Aze sighs, shaking her head. Almost reluctantly, she says, "No, she wasn't spying on us. I called her in. I offered I had somebody who could probably do the thing, and faster than getting sent in circles on the Scryer's Tier - which I probably also would've had to handle, since I was on the best terms with them of the three of us. I told her it wasn't a trade, but I guess… maybe she got what she wanted coming along anyway. Well, not that she wanted to be crushed by rockfall, you know, but the rest of it."
Roper inhales slowly, a little hah escaping his lips, as though imagining that circumstance, and if not actually feeding on the pain he can sense, some imagination still scratching an itch within his skull. "Someone healed her though. Mordecai or Colson." Roper's head tilts side to side. "Doesn't necessarily matter, but knowing the details might come in handy. Against the Legion is good. Common enemy that no one will argue with if they find out. Colson Fucking Aspenwood can be leveraged to take more of a fall for the responsibility of it. It's what he fucking does." There's that something in his voice, that strange twist of lingering emotion from the past and the current death knight.
"Better though is burying it," Roper says, harsher than maybe he might have. "Don't brag about it. Don't put it on your resume, not now. A year ago it would have been fucking worth gold for every rock. But the Horde's turned that kind of gold into shit on your shoes. Bloodsong's isolated in her information right now, and she doesn't know what leverage she holds over you. Has no idea about you in Alliance territory or Fallon, and she isn't going to know." There's a midnight darkness in his voice at that, the dubious protection of a spy with a gray moral compass.
"I think the Aspenwoods will let me bury it," Aze says, wrapping one arm around her torso. "Sure, their family would shield them, but there's no reason for them to fucking force the issue. And they wouldn't burn me on purpose, that I'm sure of. I don't even think Bloodsong…" Aze frowns. "…no, she might, if she was confident she could handle the fallout. I don't think she'd do anything to get me killed." Aze shrugs. "Anyway, it was Mordecai who did most of her healing. Colson and I dug her out of the rubble. It might be the only time I've ever seen her without that smug little smile of hers."
Roper laughs again, quietly, deadly. "It's good to know she's got a weak point in that confidence, but that's not an easy one to press," says the spy. "If things deteriorate in her world, her sphere, and it benefits her to leverage you, she will. Count on that. Whoever you knew before, that was a different Bloodsong, before the Horde. Silvermoon has been fucked too hard to do anything but bend over now if push comes to shove against the orcs and their armies. If she wanted something from you, and knew she had a way to compromise you here, nostalgia isn't going to stop her.
"But she doesn't know that she can right now, as long as she doesn't know about Fallon or the Alliance," he continues, moving his hands in an open gesture. "She doesn't know Syarra and I are on this side, or in Redridge. So long as she thinks we're all neutral, she won't know to play that hand. Keep it that way. I don't know about Mordecai as certainly, but I do know Colson Fucking Aspenwood won't mention his doings unless someone comes prying into it specifically. If they do, he'll be honest about it." Roper snorts. "At least, as honest as a paladin gets."
He eases back something, a chill loosening. "So that's it then. You're still protected for now. Bloodsong has her payment owed." A pause, a telling sort of pause. "You know anything about Voldrune, from last year?"
"Thanks," Aze says, and frowns at the change in subject. "What she wants, I think, is to know more about the Illidari - for some actual purpose or just because she's a fucking magic nerd, I don't know. So that's what she got out of it. She thanked me for the 'demonstration' after we killed the pit lord, once she was healed. Anyway, Voldrune… I know it, yeah, vrykul outpost in the Grizzly Hills. But a year ago, what…?"
There's a stretch of silence, of Aze sifting through recent memories, setting them in place.
"A year ago," Aze repeats. "That was when you and Yara did something there. Against Westwind and Tabiana's death knights? A rescue, I think? You'd know better than me." Then she snaps her fingers. "Sil was there, right? That was back before a hot guy asked him if he could be less afraid of your kind. You'd think I could be as convincing, but I guess I never really asked him to get over it. I think that was while I was in Zul'drak."
Roper sounds amused when he speaks, the drawl deepening. "Never underestimate the power of a hot guy's word of approval." But he shakes his head. "There was a lot out of Voldrune, but what you need to know now are details, small ones that most who were there have probably already forgotten about. We were there to rescue Jenzelle Halveris and Brendol Westwind, and when we got there, Bren was out in the fucking middle next to this cannon, from the Darkmoon Faire we got in Elwynn. A people launcher one. Fucking weird thing to have in the middle of a vrykul stronghold. So I traced it back. It led me to a guy, a Count and House of Nobles seat, named Lester Amerith who got a mage to get it there. Not that long after, on October 2nd, Amerith's fending off an assassination attempt, and Mourn's got himself compelled to murder three cultists.
"Now, most of that's settled dust, but for some reason, Fallon came by asking after that mage and Amerith. I don't know yet why, but if Amerith's getting a string pulled, he's gonna be looking back at Fallon," Roper says, as he closes a small distance between them, head tilted, and his voice changes, growing cultured and smooth. A gentleman's voice. "Which means he might be looking when you come around. Amerith's dangerous in his own way. When I was in SI:7, his dossier was over thirty fucking pages between known and suspected involvement. Blackmail and leverage is his game, and he knows how to fucking play it. He's got a hardon for the Weird and Unusual. If you think Bloodsong got a sniff and started sticking her nose in, Amerith'll be just as bad, and just as much of a player. He sounds like this, but he talks like he's the mysterious villain in a fucking play. He's a mage, arcane. You run into him, you play Boring Possum, as hard as you can. He hates war and soldier talk. Always found it boring. Dig in deep into your love for military drills, and he'll slide off at least enough for breathing room."
Aze nods, taking in names and details with an unusual level of focus. It's almost like she does take her safety seriously, sometimes. "He'll sound like that? I'll remember the voice, and match it to the arcane. That'll be easier for me to recognize than a description, anyway. If Fallon's poking Amerith, though… what if they want me for bait? He doesn't have any leverage on me - he doesn't even know me. Only Bloodsong and the Aspenwoods could point to the summer stuff, and they either wouldn't or wouldn't to him."
Roper weighs it, in a silence, his left hand idle on his leg. His voice shifts to his own, a faint echo along the rasp. "Timing doesn't fit, but… Fallon did ask if Syarra and I would be by visiting you when you get there, right around when he was asking me about the mage. But if I had to bet one side or the other, I'd bet the other way with that Fallon." The way he says it makes it sound like maybe another Fallon would maybe have considered the other route.
"He might just be tightening security, knowing he's got the eye of someone who would want to know how Fallon's got an Illidari and a pair of Death Knights coming for tea. Siamus Fallon sees to his own. You're safe enough with him, at least as long as you're in. And if shit goes wrong with Amerith poking his nose where it doesn't belong, well. That's what the other Fallon is good at." A cold laugh sounds from his mouth that has a cruel enough edge that the amusement is chilling.
"But, Ace, you remember this with Amerith, and fucking Bloodsong as well. Deep down, they're like me," Roper says, a dark, dangerous purr to his voice. "There's one thing you can do that will guarantee they'll chase you. Make them set their eyes on you and shred through the armor until they can get at the skin. Run." The word echoes like a chasm's song through the stones around them.
And then it ends. The casual sin'dorei returns, as Roper stretches out a hand to call the shadows to his fist, a gate opening to a place of cold, dead air. "So. Fucking don't run."
Aze shivers involuntarily, her living flesh not immune to that level of dark echoes. "I won't. Not again. No reason to, anyway. I wouldn't let anyone chase me away from something I wanted."
As the gate opens, she asks, "So, when I'm at the Fallons… are you coming for tea?"
"No. Not unless someone gets Ralaea Westwind to come around on her attitude towards Syarra and me," Roper drawls, and he sounds amused but there's a sharp feeling in the air around him. "She's got a hate streak for death knights not named 'Mourn' a Ragefire Chasm wide. But if she could get to neutral on us? Well." He clicks his tongue against his teeth. "That'd be a real fucking coup, wouldn't it?"
He disappears into the portal, swallowed up by the cold and dark of the death gate, as it snaps closed behind him.
Aze tucks her hands under her arms, her focus on where death magic just made some kind of hole in space and time.
She says quietly, to no one, "Maybe someday, getting what I want won't be so fucking complicated." Then she laughs, and turns back to the wall, looking for a way to climb back up.