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| Details |
| Author: | Alli |
| Summary: | Dara comes to visit her family's recent new tenants, the Sunstrikes, and to bring a bit of holiday cheer. She learns a little bit about why not to drop in unexpectedly on death knights, and Syarra learns a lot from her as well. ~2700 words. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
The northern region of the Redridge Mountains is relatively clear of orcish encroachment these days, a situation which can be tracked to several distinct efforts: the initial defense of the region, the efforts of Dara, Sophiette and Shine in preventing future invasion, and then, finally, the continuing defense provided by the two death knights who have made their home here with the consent of the Tennerow household.
It has been months since Roper and Syarra Sunstrike have settled into a hut in a previously-contested and now-abandoned camp. They continue to live at the edges of society, not avoiding the living but never seeking them out, allowing their service to speak for them when they do not.
Today, in the midst of the Winter Veil season, they have a visitor. Dara Tennerow arrives on horseback, wearing a stylish hunter green dress with festive red embroidery, her hair twisted up in a way that is almost successful in hiding its lack of length. She shows no sign of trepidation as she approaches the hut and dismounts, though she tilts her head in a little bit of puzzlement at the fire-blackened garlands around the front of the building and the vicious, thorny wreath hanging on the door.
With a faint shrug, she turns back to her horse and rummages in the saddlebags, pulling out a small satchel and several festively-wrapped packages. Thus armed, she heads to the front of the door and knocks.
At first, there is no answer. Dara has enough time to start thinking of where to stash these gifts so they’ll be seen but not stolen, when a woman calls from inside in a flat, emotionless voice, “Who’s there?”
Dara brightens and hoists the gifts under her arm. “Lady Dara Tennerow, here to deliver a supply of coffee as well as Winter Veil cheer to Mr. and Mrs. Sunstrike.”
There are the sounds of footsteps inside, and then the door opens. One of the Sunstrikes is there, Syarra, and she was clearly not expecting company. In her soft black under-armor, with her black hair coiling in a braid behind her back, Syarra is a far cry from the imposing, saronite-clad figure Dara once met in Light’s Hope. She seems a little paler than Dara remembers, her eyes a little less luminous, but that may well just be kindness glossing over her own memory.
“Lady Dara,” Syarra says, and there’s a sense that she’s choosing her words carefully, even though they’re the obvious ones to use. Her gaze drops to the packages, and then rises again to Dara’s face. “You could have sent a servant.”
“Well, yes, naturally, but I’m home for Winter Veil, and I thought I should see how our new tenants were settling in,” Dara says, glancing pointedly past Syarra into her home. Maybe death knights just need a little guidance in displaying the proper courtesy. Then she blinks, as she notes the nightmare carving on its shelf and the dark-reflection Winter Veil decorations - a half-dead tree decorated with skull ornaments, two black-wrapped presents beneath, and candles with bases of what must be petrified holly, or possibly just briarthorn. “Besides, most of the servants find death knights terrifying, and I have experience.”
“Do you,” Syarra says flatly, but she pulls the door open more widely, stepping back almost as if daring Dara to enter. She does not invite her in.
Dara steps forward, close to the threshold but not crossing over, caught between two protocol responses by the ambiguous welcome. She shifts the presents in front of her. “Is your husband home? I thought I might drop these by, and perhaps take a small amount of your time for a visit.”
“If you like,” Syarra says, which isn’t an invitation either. But then she steps back, takes a breath, and says in a slightly smoother voice, “No, Roper is out. I was about to armor myself and depart as well, but I have no strict schedule. Come in, Lady Dara. Make yourself at home.”
Dara frowns a little at the reluctance, but moves into the oddly-decorated home. She says very politely, with a friendly smile, “It’s quite lovely, what you’ve done with the place. You’re fond of Winter Veil?”
“Yes,” Syarra says, and it doesn’t seem like she’s going to elaborate. She continues, gesturing to the low table in the middle, “Please, set your things down there. May I offer coffee? We brew it cold.”
“Oh, no, I brought you coffee, I shouldn’t drink it,” Dara says with a light, bell-like laugh, leaning over to gingerly set the presents and the bag on the table. Indeed, the faint scent of coffee emerges from the bag, for those with keen enough senses, un-dulled by death.
“Then have a seat,” Syarra says, gesturing to black-and-silver cushions around the table.
Dara puzzles about how to do this exactly in her skirts, and finally kneels carefully on a cushion, smoothing her skirts around her. Syarra sits opposite her with the grace of familiarity, and stares at her. She keeps staring at her. Dara reaches up a hand to brush her cheek, just in case there’s something on her face.
“Well,” Dara says, clearing her throat. “You may open the gifts if you like. I’m afraid I don’t know either of you all that well, so I apologize that it may be a touch impersonal this year.”
There’s an awkward moment when it seems like Syarra will just continue to sit there staring at her, but then she does reach forward, taking the first of the packages. She strips it of wrapping with unsentimental efficiency, and looks down at a red throw blanket with little green pine trees decorating the edges. She doesn’t look back up at Dara. “You do realize we don’t feel the cold.”
Dara glances at the perfectly-made bed, and then back to Syarra with a raised eyebrow, though she wilts a little inside. “That doesn’t stop you from decorating, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t,” Syarra concedes, reaching for the second present. She strips the wrapping paper and finds herself holding two ceramic mugs, blue with white snowflakes painted on the exterior. She stares at them. “You do realize we don’t need to eat or drink.”
“That’s why I didn’t bring any cookies or eggnog. But the one thing I do know is that you asked for coffee,” Dara says, with a touch of discomfort. She is a little relieved to see a twitch of a smile on Syarra’s lips. Maybe she does like the mugs. “Anyway, I assumed you might not have brought all your… dishes and things… from Northrend.”
“We brought what was needed,” Syarra says, setting the mugs down carefully, reaching for the third and final present. Inside are two leatherbound notebooks. Syarra stares at them and doesn’t speak.
“I thought you might…” Dara starts, and then blushes in embarrassment. “Well, I couldn’t very well bring you someone to cut the eyes out of. It isn’t very festive.”
Syarra looks up sharply at that, and Dara tenses at the raw hunger in the death knight’s eyes, before it is tucked back behind a careful mask. That must be so difficult to deal with. Dara reaches out one comforting hand to rest on Syarra’s shoulder, and the death knight flinches away with a flicker of surprise.
“Are you well?” Dara asks, pulling her hand back. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. That was something Mercy - or I should call her Fionette - seemed to enjoy very much. The eyes, I mean. You should have seen how she lit up when the Argent officer gave us those orders. It was dreadfully… um, graphic, in the field.”
“Yes… I’m well,” Syarra says, and she smiles briefly, though it seems forced. “As I said, I was about to depart for hunting orcs. I have not… done that… for a while. Thank you for the gifts, and for your consideration. Your brother knows you’re here, yes?”
“Oh, goodness, I don’t tell him every step I take,” Dara says lightly, and then frowns as Syarra’s expression darkens.
“I need you to tell me,” Syarra says in a disturbingly quiet voice, clenching her hand on the leather notebooks, “that there is someone back at the Tennerow estate who knows where you are, and who is waiting for you to return. Please, Lady Dara.”
“Oh, well, naturally,” Dara says, looking at her in concern. “The man who was set to bring you the coffee. I told him I thought you and your husband might be lonely, here in the holiday season without family, and it would do well to see a friendly face.”
Syarra’s hand relaxes on the notebook, though the tension doesn’t leave her frame. Still her voice is calm enough as she says, “I do have family, as it happens. Living family, though they aren’t here now.”
“Oh, yes, Tarenar, I suppose,” Dara says with a slight nod. “I expect he’s still quite busy up in the Plaguelands, and you down here.”
Syarra is very still, her expression entirely blank, but the intensity of her stare at Dara becomes a little uncomfortable until she says, “I was referring to my sister. I had a relative by that name, once, but…”
“Tarenar Sunstrike?” Dara repeats, peering at her. Is she reuniting lost family? Will Syarra laugh or cry or cover her mouth in shock? She doesn’t appear to be doing anything. “He’s quite young, only just a paladin. He has… oh, blond hair and green - well, all your sort have green eyes. Lady Sophiette and I traveled with him and his dwarvish friend Gidwin, together with Mercy, all across the Eastern Plaguelands.”
“That…” Syarra falls silent, staring blankly. Then, a few seconds later, she starts up again, like a recording restarting. “…sounds like an accurate description of the Tarenar I recall, though he was a child the last time I saw him. A distant relation, living in the Ghostlands. The village in which his family lived was destroyed, so I assumed… I had not realized he was a blood knight.”
“Oh, dear. He did talk about fighting Scourge at the Dead Scar, back in the Ghostlands, but I didn’t realize… ” Dara starts to reach towards Syarra for sympathy again, but the woman is just sitting there like a marble statue. “And yes, I suppose your people call them blood knights. It is a paladin order, though, as I understand it.”
Syarra doesn’t answer that for a long enough time that Dara almost gives in to the urge to wave a hand in front of her face. But then Syarra speaks again. “I was a blood knight myself, in the early days of the order, until I died in the Plaguelands. I believe the Lich King… enjoyed turning and dominating those who used the Light. But Tarenar must be barely of age. He will have joined recently. Yes, it is a paladin order.”
Dara looks at her with sympathy, a fellow follower of the Light turned to darkness through no choice of her own. “It does seem so. Mercy was a paladin, too. If it helps, I would tell you that Tarenar seemed well, and he has friends. If I see him again, should I carry a message for you?”
Syarra considers, and then shakes her head. “I was an adult when I last saw him, but he was a child. He likely does not remember me at all. There is no point.”
“Well, maybe he would want to know he has living - apologies, unliving - family,” Dara points out with a touch of stubbornness. “And the sister you mentioned. Wouldn’t you want to know, in his place?”
“I have no idea,” Syarra says without hesitation. There’s a flicker of confusion in her expression, and she adds, “Do as you think best, then. Was he killed by Deathwing, when you were?”
Dara shakes her head. “He and Gidwin were safe with the caravan. It was just me, Sophiette, Mercy, and…”
“It is good you were resurrected fully,” Syarra says. “I am… happy… for you.”
Dara narrows her eyes a little, uncertain of the sincerity of the statement made amidst the total lack of any sign of actual happiness. “I did try, you know. I thought maybe I could pull Mercy all the way back into life. I reached for her in the same manner I would have for one of the living. And her soul was there, though it seemed maybe… farther away? Still, I asked her to come back to us - and she did - but she was still a death knight.” Dara pauses, looking at the still, pale woman before her, and adds, “I suppose if I’d had any doubt before, it was clear then that your folk have souls, whatever anyone says about the matter.”
“We do,” Syarra confirms, looking down at the gifts and running one finger absently along the spine of a notebook. “No one could come through what we have endured unchanged, but… whatever has happened to our souls, we do still have them.” She breathes in once, holds the breath, lets it out, and then snaps her gaze up to Dara, cold and hard. “But we are dangerous. Lady Dara, thank you for the gifts and for the company. But please, next time, write in advance.”
“Is this… a bad time?” Dara asks, her eyes widening, as she shifts back on her little cushion. “Did I interrupt something?”
“Yes,” Syarra says, and then pauses, her brow furrowing. “And no. Did your friend Mercy ever… needle you, may be the word? Say things to upset you for no reason you could discern.”
Dara frowns, thinking back. “Well, she did go on about worms, after I was obviously disgusted with them. Why?”
“Sometimes,” Syarra says, pausing to gather her words before she continues. “Sometimes, whatever the person in us might have wanted, the death knight will want pain from you. It is… harder to control, at the wrong times.”
Dara blinks at Syarra. “From me? But… you’re not going to cut my eyes out. We welcomed you here. My family did.”
Syarra doesn’t respond right away, just meets Dara’s gaze with her own eyes of cold fire, her hand curling into a fist on the little notebooks. Dara shivers, and feels for a moment like the world is shifting on its axis, just a bit. Like this cozy little oddly-decorated home might not be a safe place for her.
“No,” Syarra says finally, looking down at her hand with the faintest hint of a smile on her face. “I will not. I would not. But please, write next time. It will make it easier. For me. And do not assume that all of our kind have such control, for your safety.”
“I… I didn’t mean… goodness…” Dara stammers, clasping her own hands in her lap. “Yes, of course. I’ll be careful, Mrs. Sunstrike. More careful than I have been. Thank you for the warning. You’re very kind.”
Syarra makes a kind of low, strangled sound somewhere in her throat, and rises to stand. She hesitates for a moment, and then holds out a hand to shake. “Happy Winter Veil to you, Lady Dara.”
Dara stands, brushing off imaginary dust from her riding skirts, and takes Syarra’s hand. But that seems so impersonal for a holiday greeting, and to someone so isolated and ostracized… Dara steps closer instead, to give Syarra a little hug.
Syarra doesn’t back away, but for a moment it is simply like hugging a statue. Then, Syarra’s cold arms curl around her back, not quite touching, and Dara wonders if this was a mistake.
“Happy Winter Veil, Mrs. Sunstrike,” Dara says quietly, releasing the embrace and stepping back. For a moment, it seems like Syarra will not react, but then she does, just a breath late, as she was in the initiation of the hug. “And next time, I’ll write in advance.”
“As will I, if I need to come by your family’s estate for any reason,” Syarra says, moving to the door to open it. “For now, I should let you go.”
“Give your husband my regards?” Dara asks, as she moves out of the house, towards where her horse waits. “And best of luck with the orcs. Make them suffer.”
“You may trust me on that,” Syarra says with a cold smile. “I will.”