moonshadows

He pauses at the door, human guise wrapped securely around him, and looks back at her over his shoulder. "I trust you will be all right until I return?" He tries to make it sound like a statement of fact, but fails. Behind his eyes, she can see the writhing knot of worry, guilt, and confusion.

She has replayed this memory countless times in the last few days. After the unexpected opportunity during the last visit, she didn't expect him to return anytime in the next handful of days, and he didn't disappoint. She spends most of her time listening to music playing softly as she pokes and prods at the snapshot she took of his mind while he was vulnerable, expanded so that she can see it from all angles and nudge the broken pieces to see how they move. So far, all she’s been able to determine is that he’s very, very broken and has likely been that way for a very long time. There’s layers of damage that go beyond the quick model she has, and to all appearances, he’s managed to beat the broken bits into a semblance of functionality – although it’s not entirely stable.

With electricity to sustain her and no other responsibilities, she loses track of time. She sips at the power when she feels like it, naps when she’s tired, and the puzzle of his mind nags at her. There’s only so much she can do with a static model, and she wishes he’d return so that she can get a better look. It’s been about five days, she thinks, since he was last here.

“What are you doing?”

Engrossed as she is, he managed to enter without her being aware and she meets his eyes guiltily over the top of the model that she is relieved to remember is a projection of her mind and visible only to her. A thought, and it is banished.

He glowers at her, human form fading away. “The guards say you’ve been poking at something no one can see. I’ll ask again: what are you doing?”

“It’s a kind of puzzle,” she says meekly, her own disguise fading.

Another time, he would press for more information; there’s a lot she’s not telling him. But right now, he has other things on his mind. “Sit,” he tells her shortly, pointing at random. She sits on the couch indicated, and he paces back and forth a bit, gathering his thoughts. “If you are going to serve me,” he begins, “then you are going to know who and what you are serving.”

She listens intently as he gives a remarkably cut-and-dried summary of his life. Some of it, she already knew from various classes, and her devotion grows even more intense as she realizes that he’s not just any half-Nathrezim – he’s famous. The majority of what he explains, however, is like a guided tour of his broken mind. Although his words are the bare facts, the thoughts that accompany them are rich in details, associations, and the tangled emotions she recognizes from the snapshot she’s been staring at. The actual events become almost irrelevant to her compared to what effects they had on his mind, and she is very aware of how much it is costing him to tell her these things.

When he reaches the end of his sometimes-rambling explanation, he braces himself for the horror and revulsion he fully expects to see on her face. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her as he laid out his sordid past, but he could feel her watching him intently. Now he faces her squarely, and is bewildered to see the expression of rapt adoration she wears. His first reaction is to snap at her, to lash out as he usually does, anger masking confusion – but he remembers her kneeling on the floor for two days because he commanded her to stay where she was until he returned.

“After hearing all of that,” he asks quietly, “you still wish to serve me?”

She tilts her head to one side. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Most people get offended somewhere between ‘turned into a demon’ and ‘served the Burning Legion’,” he says dryly.

“I was raised Nathrezim,” she says with a shrug. “Most of them see the Burning Legion as a viable means to the end of conquering worlds. As long as you have no plans to hand me over to Sargeras-“ She pauses while he makes a sound of disdain. “-then it doesn’t bother me that you served the Legion briefly. As for being half-demon…” Her voice trails off as her eyes follow the curve of his horns.

He smirks. “Would you like to oil them?”

Any coherent thoughts in her head are promptly scattered. “Oh, yes,” she breathes, pulse racing as he smirks again and settles into a chair.

“Very well,” he says, and she leaps for the oil and polishing rag. He is still smirking as she hesitantly steps forward, oiled cloth in one hand, and reaches for his right horn.

She didn’t see it coming until it was too late; one moment she’s about to live an adolescent fantasy, and the next, the smirk is gone and he’s on his feet with a face like a thundercloud, her wrist gripped painfully tight in his clawed hand. His face, voice, every line of his body and the aura of power around him all speak eloquently of just how powerful he is and how easily he could kill her if he wanted – and he very much wants to, but first, “You know more than you’re letting on. What is the true reason you wish to serve me?”

He was expecting fear. Terror, maybe. Intimidation, certainly. He’s done this before, and it has never failed to get the reaction he’s looking for – until now. It is as though he’d been showing off in attempt to impress her, and succeeded wildly. She looks about to faint from ecstasy and is making adoring sounds. Rage boils up, spills over and he shakes her by her captive wrist. “I should kill you right now,” he hisses.

Finally, she says something coherent, even if it is in a tone of sheer wonder. “It would be worth it, to be killed by someone so magnificent and powerful! Oh, oh! Is this what you looked like when you took the Black Temple? No wonder the Legion was afraid of you!”

For just an instant, all the rage is replaced with total confusion. He threatens to kill her, and she praises him for it? He shrugs it off; he’ll deal with that later. Right now, it’s not the tool he was expecting, but a useful tool none the less. “Tell me the true reason you wish to serve me,” he growls, every bit as intimidating and furious as he can be. It works; like a switch has flipped somewhere, she stops near-swooning and starts talking.

“My mother is an orc named Ryxl Ironheart. She was conceived through fel magics designed to produce a child who would have the best traits of both parents and serve the Warchief with absolute loyalty. She is the Champion to Warchief Thrall, of the Horde. When she encountered my father, she was trying to recruit his minions to fight the Lich King.” She pauses as a strange pang of guilt-laced pain flares in him, and is repressed. “My father tried to break her using every trick in the entire history of Nathrezim conquest, but she was able to shield her mind somehow, and nothing would break through it. Then she used the same spell that caused her conception, and got with his child – me. My father bargained with her and gave up all Nathrezim claim on Azeroth in return for her giving up all claim on the child. When the Lich King was finally defeated-“ and she pauses again as vicious satisfaction radiates from him. “My father took the Lich King’s broken remains and my-“ the word she uses is Nathrezim, but she flicks the meaning of it at him and he understands the concept of an astral womb, an egg of sorts that her unborn self resides in until she has finished forming and hatches as an infant newly-born.

“I was supposed to be a Champion of the Burning Legion,” she says softly, the pain of old taunts stinging. “But I didn’t inherit my father’s strength and I didn’t inherit my mother’s unbreakable mind. Sargeras was less than pleased with the report my father brought him, and he wound up fleeing the Legion and Sargeras’s wrath. When I started approaching the age of consent, my grandmother began looking for a suitable man to marry me off to – that is, one who would be strong enough to hold my father’s position in Nathrezim society, but weak enough for her to control. I left the night before I became of age.” Her voice is full of bitterness now, and her eyes have dropped to his chest.

“I followed my mother’s trail through the Twisting Nether. She wasn’t happy to see me, and I didn’t think she would have been, but she at least told me about my conception and hers. I’d always thought I was just a defective freak for not being able to do what she did, but she told me-“ she pauses to swallow, and he can sense the nervousness in her. “-she told me that I couldn’t do it because I…didn’t have a ‘warchief’ to serve.”

She’s looking at the floor now, her arm limp and unresisting in his hand, her voice a fearful whisper – but she’s still talking. He wonders why she is afraid now, when he’s let the aura of painful death drop.

“My mother banished me from Azeroth on pain of death. She said that she was Thrall’s Champion, and her son – my half-brother – was Thrall’s child’s Champion, and there was no other ‘warchief’ that she was willing to risk me…bonding to. So I left, and I came here, to a world that no other Nathrezim would come to because it had fought off an attempt to conquer it and I thought that here, I could just be myself and there would be no one to know that I should have been so much more…”

She closes her eyes now, looking like she’s about to cry. He feels he should say something – hadn’t he also felt the sting of banishment, of being faulted for not being what others thought he should be? – but words of comfort were never his forte.

“…but then you came, and I couldn’t stop you, and then…” He has to strain to hear her, now. “Then I felt you for the first time, after you killed the Prime Minister, and I knew that I’d found the one I would serve with absolute loyalty.”

This fear, this trembling – yes, this is what he expected when he threatened to kill her. “Why are you so afraid now?” Too late, he realizes he’s snapped at her again and attempts to gentle his voice. “What are you afraid of?”

She shudders, and now tears run unchecked from her closed eyes. “I’m afraid you’ll reject me.” The words sound drawn from her against her will, all misery and hopelessness. “You’ll reject me because you’re so powerful and awesome that anything I could do, you can probably do ten times better, so what would you need me for? So you’ll reject me, and banish me because this is your world now and I’ll be worthless, and useless, and…”

Her voice breaks, and with it, something inside him breaks as well. A tug on her captive wrist brings her body within reach of his other arm and he snakes it around her and pulls her to his chest. Someone like me. What should he say? What could he say? He never expected a Champion. He’s not entirely sure what a Champion is supposed to do, but just knowing that the thought of not being able to serve him reduces her to tears-! It’s as heady as it is unexpected. He tells himself that he’s still going to test her loyalty because he’s had too many turn against him, but the feel of her in his arms distracts him. Has anyone ever clung to him this way, even before the events that changed him? No, he doesn’t recall ever being a pillar of strength like this before, although he wished more than once that he could be.

Tentatively, he strokes her hair with one hand, being mindful of the wicked talons. It is straight and black when she’s not disguised, and falls midway down her back. Her shuddering eases somewhat, so he runs his fingers down her hair a second time, then a third, feeling as though he were smoothing away her inner turmoil. When she stirs against him, he moves his hands carefully to her shoulders and gently pushes her far enough away that he can meet her eyes.

“I accept your service,” he says quietly. “My Champion.” Ecstasy fills her face once again and he again dons the aura of power, even though he knows it does not frighten her. “But I will have no one in my service who is useless. When I return, I expect you to have prepared a report of your skills.”

“Yes, my Lord!” Her voice is strong again, her breathing steady and even. Only the wetness on her cheeks remains to testify that she had been crying.

The word resonates between them. Yes. Yes.