TBTT 58. He's stark raving sane

[moonshadows]

The sniveling man who oversees the details of the Warlord’s household is blathering on about the preparations being made for his trip to the delta and the arrangements for the delegates’ comfort and security while they are in the mountains, but he’s not really listening. His attention is on the monitoring node, greedily drinking in his Champion’s actions and fondly watching her tailoring dilemma. It’s an amusing distraction, but something about the way she was speaking to her guard…

A cold thrill shoots down his spine as he remembers the sensation of phantom fingers in his mind, the sharp pain of something breaking and the horror of suddenly remembering two different versions of the same event and being unable to tell which was the real memory, and which was delusion. He just watched his Champion pluck a memory from her guard’s mind, and suddenly he knows that she has done the same to him. Yes…the memory of his death. That was her doing, both the remembering and the fading of the details. How could he have been such a fool? He knew that dreadlords had the power to twist living minds and alter memories, and hadn’t she confessed her race that first day? By the stars, what kind of serpent had he embraced? Had she warped his mind even then?

Rage boils up within him, churning hot in his belly and streaking like lightning through his bones, making his skin itch as his true form strains to break free from the illusions. Control nearly shattered, his vision slips from physical back to pure magic. She deceived him! Betrayed him, as everyone else had! How could he have ever thought she would be different, and what else has she done to him? The need to sate his fury by killing something, anything, grips him in its jaws, and he only just barely prevents himself from ripping the head off the terrified little human cowering before him. He punches the wooden table with both fists, thrusting them through the surface to hide the fact that his control has slipped enough that he now sports wicked talons.

“Out of my sight!” he bellows, and the room clears out. The sniveling little man hesitates in abject terror until one of the guards grabs his arm and yanks him through the door, and the table shatters against the doorframe as he escapes.

Shaken but stoic, the guards close the door and prepare to keep anyone from interrupting. The silence inside the room unnerves them more than any furious cries or crashing sounds could have. They’d be more unnerved if they knew he was no longer in the room.

Like the wrath of an angry god made manifest, he follows the trail of magic through the Twisting Nether, ready to sink his claws into her lying face and rip the truth from her flesh. How could he have ever been so stupid as to trust a demon, even a half-demon? She has the power to meddle in his mind, to shape his memories. How can he be sure that anything he thinks about her is not simply a delusion? Her flawless interrogation, the adoration and devotion, the tears at the thought of being rejected – all of these could have easily been planted in his mind, just like the memory of standing before the gates of Zin-Azshari on the back of a felhound, pledging himself to Sargeras…and at the same time, the memory of being dragged through those same gates in arcane chains by a laughing doomguard while three dreadlords whisper dark promises of pain for having prevented Tyrande’s capture.

He passes through stone walls like they were curtains of smoke. As he crosses the last one separating him from the lying filth he thought he could trust, her spirit becomes clearly visible and the sight of it stops him cold. The gentle colors of her emotions are more active than when he watched her sleep, darting about like arcane fish within the swirling lavender clouds of her being. Despite his rage, he remembers the quiet wonder of his touch making her smile in her sleep. A false memory no doubt, but-

-but what if it’s not?

Up, up, up through the mountain. He has to get away from her, up into the uncaring skies before he does something that cannot be undone. What if it is – but what if it’s not? What if it’s not, and he’d- then she would- and he’d be-

The roar that echoes back from the mountainside does little to vent his wrath; the blast of pure power that sends chunks of rock tumbling does little more. He wants to hurt her, torture her, rip the truth from her flesh and break her – he wants to hold her, bathe in her smile, surrender to the soothing touch that frees him from his pain. But most of all, he wants to be the master of his own mind again, a mind undivided by delusions and eons of torture, whole and unbroken as it hasn’t been since he was her age, secure in the knowledge that he will never descend into madness, free from the siren call of insanity that sings to him like a thousand jagged knives grating against bone.

Free. The cold air caressing his wings is a freedom. It cools his rage and transmutes it to fear. The certainty that Tessa had been planting fake memories dissipates in the clean bite of the wind, irrelevant when compared to how badly he’d lost control. He’d nearly killed his Champion, and for what? The fear of her shaping him into her puppet? Harsh, mocking laughter is swept away as he flies in a direction chosen at random, physical exertion calming the churning morass of his thoughts. He has no conflicting memories of her; if the ones he has are fakes, they were done with greater skill than his long-vanished Nathrezim tormentors possessed. Yes, he has experienced worse fits and episodes since she entered his life than he had in a long time, but the constant pain and irritation had lessened as well. He wouldn’t put it past his damaged psyche to try to break him just when it seemed that something good might be happening to him. So what if she is making him her puppet? He’s clearly in no shape to run his own life, and if her gentle hand offers mental stability along with the yoke, then where’s the harm? What good is freedom if everything he is has been reduced to madness and wrath? No, he has no desire to fight the lure of her devotion, even if it is a sham. If she is a Nathrezim mastermind sent to make him an obedient servant, then so far all her manipulations have done is improve his situation.

Reveling in the feeling of control flying gives him, he wheels and rides the current of air. He can’t be trusted; this incident proves it. While the sobering effects of fear have cleared his mind of rage’s obscuring heat, he can admit grimly to himself that ulterior motive or not, he needs whatever she is doing to him, and needs it badly if he wants to become anything other than a mad tyrant.

A faint, buried memory cries for attention, and he lets the wind carry him while he struggles to unearth it. The same rage, the same certainty of deceit and betrayal – the order to destroy the most prized possession of…

Kael. He once turned against young Kael’thas the same way he nearly turned on his young Champion. He shivers, but not from the crisp air carrying him. Yes, he was…not stable…at the time of his death, and it appears that the effort of world conquest has only delayed that slide into madness rather than allowing him to strengthen his tenuous grip on sanity through distraction. So. The one he thought he could trust completely may be entirely untrustworthy. How should he deal with this uncertainty? His tiger-by-the-tail is indisputably clever enough to manipulate him while seeming to be a loyal servant, but given the effects he knows she has had on him, is being her puppet really so bad a fate?

Absently, he turns into the wind and fights his way back the way he came, obscurely pleased with the level of effort required and the familiar burn of physical exertion. Either she has been completely honest with him – even if there are certain things she has not mentioned and he has not asked about – or her sweet adoration has been a lie. But if that’s so, then she has also made Joshua her puppet, and to what purpose? He had a meaningless office job, what ambitions could she have been fulfilling as his ‘tame demon’? No, he will trust his young Champion since he doesn’t trust himself, and hope that she will find a way to mend his fragmented sanity before he turns on her and dooms himself with her destruction. Ah, but how can he encourage that which they have both avoided speaking about? He is all too familiar with his temper; she must believe that he would turn on her if he knew what she was doing, and hasn’t he just proven her right? No, if he wants her to keep doing what needs to be done, she cannot suspect that he knows, or she will stop doing it out of fear. Furthermore, since he can think of numerous ways her skills can be applied for his benefit, how can he condone their use without giving away that he knows they have been used on him?

With a single goal to focus on, his wounded mind ceases attacking itself and he almost smiles as he slips into the Twisting Nether and follows his path back to his stronghold. He did demand that she report on her abilities; if he simply acts as though he knew all along that she could pluck thoughts from a man’s mind, and still does not show any hesitation to let her oil his horns, she will fear to question his knowledge lest it bring his attention to what she hasn’t been telling him she’s been doing. Yes, her own fear of discovery will keep her from questioning him, and…

Grimly, he steps back into the room whose table lies shattered against the door and dons the illusion of Warlord Raphael. No, he doesn’t need to worry about encouraging Tessa to soothe his inflamed psyche and keep him from sliding into madness. All he has to do is give her the opportunity, and she will leap at the chance to serve him in that way. After all, didn’t he command her to do what needs to be done?

The guards jump as he opens the door, leaning awkwardly over the wreckage of the table to do so. “Get someone to get this mess cleaned up,” he snaps. “Have a new table brought in here, and fetch my sniveling servant back. We’re not through yet.”

“Yes, my Lord,” they chorus, and he shuts the door.

As he seats himself and waits for his orders to be carried out, he chuckles darkly. This is yet more proof that he needs her, puppet or not. Look how far he’s come in a few short weeks! He’s gone from killing rage to calm without even wounding anyone.