Deal with Tichondrius

[moonshadows]

Illidan frowned at the body of the human being reclaimed by the earth, by roots and vines, the sick taint of demons and death being dispersed. “This is bad,” he said slowly. “A powerful demonic artifact and a very powerful demon.”

I said nothing; despite all the centuries we’d worked together, he was still the expert in slaying demons. I knew, too, that this had to be scraping the scars of his wounds. I could feel the panic, like the claws of terrified squirrels, scratching at him, feel him struggle to think and plan despite it.

“Sister-doe, I need you to enchant me an acorn,” he said suddenly, expression still distant and tight.

Less than a minute later, I passed it to him and he stared at it with loathing.

“We will only have once chance at this,” he said, voice low and urgent. “To kill a demon is no small feat, much less one so powerful as this Tichondrius must be. When they are near death, they will often possess their attacker instead and turn him on his allies.”

Dark whispers from behind his eyes told me this was something that had led to his name being forgotten, along with all the others from before the Sundering.

“With…what I am…I can absorb the power of the artifact enough for nature to disperse the rest without any more serious harm than has already been done, but such dangerously concentrated demonic forces will corrupt me swiftly.” He took a deep breath. “I will use them recklessly, spend them to reduce Tichondrius to almost nothing. He will most likely attempt to inhabit my body at that point.”

“Brother-buck..” I took his hand, the one holding the acorn, in mine. “You’re terrified. We don’t have to do this, we can do it another way.”

“No, sister-doe. This is the best way.” He gave me a sickly smile. “I want him to try to inhabit my body. I will enchant the acorn as well, and swallow it. Slowly, it will draw the demon’s essence into itself.”

Behind his eyes, there was shrieking terror. “Illidan, if you’re thinking you have to do this out of some sort of need for redemption…”

He clutched my hands in his. “Kayne, Kayne, sister-doe, I’m the only one who can do this, but I can only do it because I have you. The demon…when he takes control of my body, he will not have access to my memories. He will be disoriented at first, and rely on outside cues to tell him how he should act. Once he is settled, however, he may well detect the acorn and take steps to keep himself in control. I will need you to keep him distracted, sister-doe.” Crystal-blue eyes searched mine. “Please, Kayne.”

Gently, I shook my hands free and cupped his head, his forehead hot and salt-slick beneath my lips. I’m here for you, brother-buck. I’ve always been here for you, and I’m not going to stop now.

Thank you, sister-doe. Thank you.

 

“There it is,” he murmured. The tremor in his voice could almost be mistaken for excitement rather than terror. Sister-doe, stay melded with the shadows until the demon has taken possession of me. His mind clung to mine, shrieking wordless pleas to remember the ten thousand years we’ve been together when the fel magic turns him into a monster.

I squeezed his hand once and let go, letting the shadows claim me. Elune adore, brother-buck, and so am I.

Boldly, scared nearly past rational thought, Illidan strode to the Skull of Gul’dan and melodramatically declared that the power should be his, proving that he could have had a career in acting by spitting out a brilliant impression of a greedy Highborne mage. Then he started draining it, sucking in more and more power even as his stomach threatened to rebel over the feeling of that much demon energy sliding greasily through him, coiling in the smooth, cool runes that swirled and jagged over his arms and torso. It kept coming, and coming, and coming, and I grew queasy at the thought of all that energy, enough to sicken an entire forest, sitting inside my brother-buck. When the Skull finally shattered into brittle pieces and crumbled into dust, those tattoos glowed a sick, fel green under his clothes and while most of him shuddered and cringed away from it, a part of him laughed madly and embraced it.

It didn’t take the demon long to show up, bellowing his demand for the identity of the one who had destroyed the Skull. Illidan snarled back, cocky and brash, and flung a fistful of fel-green fire into the dreadlord’s face. The fight was swift and brutal, and I could see that Illidan was burning through his stolen power just as recklessly as he’d said he would. Still, I feared he wasn’t spending enough. I could see his tattoos still glowing through the wide slashes in his clothing when Tichondrius bellowed “Enough!” and dissolved into a black mist that poured into my brother-buck’s mouth, his back arched, his body rigid as though in agony. Illidan’s mind screamed, then went silent.

I nearly blew the whole thing right then and there, fighting off a panic attack at the horrible nothing behind my eyes where there should have been Illidan’s mind. The last time I had felt him slip away, he nearly died. But no, I couldn’t allow myself to give way to my panic. Distract him. I had to distract the demon and trust to the plan, trust that my brother-buck hadn’t succumbed to fel taint, hadn’t been killed, even though all I wanted to do was scream in agonized fear. As the last of the mist vanished, Illidan straightened, rolled his shoulders, and flexed his arms, testing the muscles and joints. But it wasn’t Illidan; he moved nothing like my brother-buck. The demon was wearing his body in a cruel mimicry of the not-brother I adored. Feeling sick, I stood and stepped out of the shadows. The demon turned to look at me, Illidan’s crystal eyes glowing fel green, and a hungry look crossed his features.

“Did you defeat the demon?” I asked, playing to that hunger with my voice and my posture, assuming the role of supposed doxy.

“Oh yes,” the thing wearing Illidan’s body purred. “He’s gone, and the power is mine.”

I sashayed up to him, one finger tracing a glowing whorl coyly. “You’ll share it with me, won’t you?”

“Oh, I’ll share with you,” he agreed, one hand going around my waist. When I looked eagerly up at him through my eyelashes, the other hand rose to my breast and he squeezed as though testing it. Again I looked at him, licking my lips and silently begging him to go further, and he bared Illidan’s teeth at me in a lascivious grin.

I writhed and moaned and pretended that I was being driven wild as the demon distracted himself nicely by removing my clothes and exploring my naked body, fingers caressing every inch before he laid me on the ground, one hand on my shoulder as though holding me down, and slid inside me. He had none of Illidan’s gentleness, none of my brother-buck’s concern, but I kept up the act as he thrust, grunting, his control slipping as the pleasures of the flesh overwhelmed his mind. He was close to climaxing before I sensed Illidan again, heard his horror from behind my eyes as he watched the thing inside his body taking its pleasure from me, and when the demon threw his head back and shot his load, my brother-buck made his move.

Instantly, the body on top of me jerked and flailed, Illidan pushing the demon away, down into the acorn. He didn’t want to go, and I scrabbled a few feet away as they wrestled with one another for control. Finally, something snapped and Illidan began to heave, head down, on his hands and knees. After a few moments, he brought up the acorn in a rush of black bile and collapsed, panting. I could feel the demon’s seed being pulled into my own acorn, and grimly fished it out once it had all been absorbed. Moonfire turned it to smoking ash easily enough. Just to be on the safe side, I spoke the words of a higher blessing and felt my skin tingle with Elune’s light. Illidan looked up at me as I stepped closer to the puddle of filth he’d vomited, his eyes still flickering fel-green.

Do whatever you need to, sister-doe, he said, mental voice rough and raspy.

He was afraid he was beyond saving; that he hadn’t expended enough fel energy, that he would turn on me, on my parents, on our people in a demonic rage. He was afraid that this time, he would be going back to the dark prison with no hope of a convenient young girl wandering into his dreams and the bitter knowledge that his sister-doe would know him for the monster he truly was. His heart wept, but he was prepared to do it, to once again suffer so that his world could live. Too bad; I wasn’t prepared to lose him.

Elune’s light was a silver column shooting down out of the sky, nearly a physical weight pressing my brother-buck against the ground. Illidan gasped, choked, forced himself back to hands and knees and then began to retch again as the fel magic was forced from his body by that silvery flood, expelled as globs of a foul black tar. When the tattoos on his back glowed silver, I let the magic go and hugged him tightly, pulled him back to sit on his heels, my face pressed into his shoulderblades, letting the tremble of my arms say what words never would.

“I did not hurt you?” he asked, the words vibrating through his body and into my cheek.

“That wasn’t you, brother-buck. That was the demon.”

“My body, then. Were you hurt at all?”

I nuzzled the broad warmth between the swirling runes on his back. “I didn’t really enjoy it, but I’m alright. Just scared for you.”

He sighed in relief. “I am myself. I was afraid I would not have the strength to contended with the will of a demon lord, having failed at that once before, but it seems that I learned the lessons of my defeat.” Slowly, he leaned back enough to press one hand over mine where it was splayed across his chest.

We stayed like that for many minutes, just reveling in the nearness of each other.

“Shall I destroy the acorn?” I asked softly.

He stirred and groaned. “No. That will free his spirit, and it may return to make more mischief. Plant it, nurture it, and trap him in it. Perhaps, if he is a tree long enough, his soul might find peace.”

Reluctantly, I looked at the pool of filth that was all that remained of the Skull of Gul’dan and the demon lord Tichondrius. Still holding my brother-buck, I reached for the powers of nature. The roots and grasses came willingly, feasting on the noxious black stuff and growing into horrific brambles, sick and warped, a living prison keeping the corruption from being too concentrated. Out of the center of that matted thicket grew a sapling, a dark and foul mockery of the beautiful tree it could have become. Within minutes it was a dozen feet tall, malformed branches groaning under the weight of thick, bloody-looking leaves.

Illidan leaned against me, looking at the tree with mixed loathing and awe. “I’ve spent many hours pondering what I would have been without you,” he said slowly. “What a thousand, five thousand, ten thousand years would have been like with Maiev watching vengefully over me. How I would have turned out if there had been no one to take pity on me, to care for me and help me overcome my wounds. If that human had found any of those other versions of myself, no doubt the promise of that much power would have been too difficult to resist. I was so badly broken, sister-doe. I can only imagine how much worse I would have been without you. If I had remained alone with my wounds, my anger and my pain, I would have turned against the world. I would have consumed that power and cared only that it had made me stronger.” He shuddered and half-turned, holding me now as tightly as I was holding him. “Kayne, my sister-doe, you saved the world from me and you saved me from myself. I wasn’t even tempted by the power of the Skull offered – I craved it, yes, because fel magic is an addiction and there was a time when my eyes burned green. But it was not as sweet as all that you have given me – the light of the White Lady, the respect of Malfurion, the smile of Tyrande, the scent of the night air, the taste of a mountain stream…” He broke off, swallowing, pulling back to caress my face with his eyes as his hand slid through my hair. “Your unwavering love. You have been my guiding light, sister-doe, and everything that I am is because you had faith in me.”

I kissed his forehead, my fingers trailing through his hair. “And I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat,” I said, my voice trembling the way my arms had as the giddy relief of having survived swept through me. “Let’s get back to the camp and tell them what happened. If Tichondrius had a master, that master’s going to be very unhappy with us.”

“Let’s get back,” he agreed. “I think I need to curl up around you for a while.”

“I need to enchant a new acorn,” I added, teeth grazing the upper edge of one ear.

He shuddered as my breath hit the sensitive organ, his body reacting the same way mine was. “Let’s get away from here, enchant that acorn, and then go back to camp,” he amended.

Two owls, we ghosted through the trees until we reached the edge of the demonic corruption. I fished a new acorn out of my pouch, enchanted it, and settled it deep inside me. Perhaps other night elves would have clawed desperately at each other in a frenzy to affirm their continued life by losing themselves in the heat of passion. We held each other tightly, drowning in the feel of skin on skin, two becoming one in body as we had been in mind for nearly our entire lives. When our climaxes finally found us, it was a glorious sigh that swept us gently into an ocean of oneness. A nearby stream slaked our thirsts, and then two nightsabers ran through the forest, swift and silent.

 

“Kayne! Illidan!” The relief in Dad’s voice was nearly painful. “It’s been hours since you went to check on that magical disturbance. What happened?”

Sister-doe, I can’t… Illidan moaned, low and sick, and pawed at his muzzle. If I have to talk about it, I’m going to be ill.

I nuzzled him. Shh, brother-buck, it’s okay. I know you’re bleeding in your heart from this. “Inside,” I said with a nod to the tent as I stood up into my own body. “Not out here.”

Dad nodded and gestured for a Sentinel to bring word that Mom was needed in the command tent before following us. He fussed silently over Illidan, grim-faced, golden eyes worried as my brother-buck curled into a ball of misery on the bedroll laid out in the back. I knelt next to him, hand on his head, and Dad snagged one of the low camp chairs where he sat, elbows on his knees, leaning forward with the intensity of a hawk. When Mom came in, she took in the situation with a glance and promptly snagged the other chair, somehow managing to look graceful and imposing in it.

“What happened?” she demanded with the same crispness that shook novices into answering rather than quaking.

“It was a human mage,” I said with an equally emotionless brisk tone. “One that had been tainted by something demonic and was hosting part of a greater power within it. He’d come to tell Illidan specifically about the demonic artifact being used to corrupt the forest, and the demon lord guarding it. He made allusion to the things that happened at the end of the War of the Ancients and seemed to believe that Illidan would leap at the chance to consume the artifact’s power.” Dad and Mom both looked grim, while Illidan moaned again, eyes closed. “We destroyed him, then took care of both the artifact and the demon,” I continued.

“But how?” Mom’s eyebrows drew together as she frowned. “I do recall how difficult it is to slay a demon so powerful.”

“By turning the artifact against the demon. Illidan took its power into himself-” I paused to scratch behind his ear, but I could feel him tremble all the same. “-and used it to severely wound the demon.”

Mom and Dad exchanged an ominous glance.

“Illidan warned me that severely wounded demons often try to possess their attackers, so we took steps to ensure that wouldn’t be a problem.” I knew my expression had to be bordering on hostile, but hearing my brother-buck whimper and claw mentally at himself wasn’t doing my temper any good.

“So the demon didn’t possess him?” Dad asked, a distinct edge in his voice.

“It did. We planned for that. We enchanted one of my acorns specifically trap the demon, and Illidan swallowed it. Once the demon was possessing the acorn instead of him, he threw it up.”

Dad didn’t look reassured. “Illidan, change back and let me see your eyes.”

It’s a valid request, he said reluctantly as he felt my anger, sitting up in preparation for the shift.

No, I told him fiercely, and he laid his head on my lap with a whimper. “They’re blue, Dad.”

“You mean they were when you last saw them, but-”

I cut him off with an angry gesture. “No buts. They’re blue again. I wouldn’t have brought him back to camp if they were still green.”

“Still green?” Dad’s eyes flared dangerously.

“Yes, still. He took the power of the Skull into himself so he could use it against the demon. Give me credit for being Mom’s daughter enough to take care of it; I poured Elune’s light into him until his tattoos glowed silver. You think I want that kind of energy inside my brother-buck?”

Dad reined himself in visibly, looking ashamed and impressed. “You’re right, Ellekayne. I apologize for doubting the both of you.”

Forgiven, Illidan moaned weakly.

“Forgiven,” I repeated. “From both of us. I know what you must have been afraid of, Dad. He was terrified of the same thing.”

“Kayne,” Mom said sharply, “why do you have acorns?”

The spike of panic coming from Illidan nearly made me want to be sick No doubt the only reason he wasn’t, was because there was nothing left to come out. I hauled his head up enough to lay it on my shoulder, my arms around his nightsaber neck, both hands scratching and petting. “Ask Elune,” I said briskly. “That’s what you’d end up doing anyway, and this was hard enough on Illidan as it is – he was fighting sick terror before, and having this conversation is sending him into flat-out panic. I need to give him all my attention right now, so just ask Elune, and if there’s still a conversation to have, we can have it later.”

I plunged into my brother-buck’s mind, soothing and reassuring, dimly aware of the startled look on my mother’s face. I could feel it when she opened herself to the Goddess, but I was too busy reminding Illidan that Elune Herself had created that patch of mint and put it in our paths. An indeterminate time later, Illidan started as two warm hands laid themselves on his flank and love and affection and apology poured into him, wrapped in one of the greater blessings.

“Illidan, forgive me,” Mom said in that way she has of just dropping everything and leaving her heart naked, not so much begging or surrendering as presenting herself as an offering. He moaned, but this time there was relief bleeding through the pain. “I did not mean to cause you pain, Illidan. You are one of my dearest friends, and while I am eternally grateful that Kayne was able to do so much for you, it will always grieve me that I could not heal your wounds.” Mom took a deep breath. “Elune put you two together, and it is not my place to disapprove or try to tell you how to live your life. If you are happy, then I am happy for you.”

“Tyrande…”

The brief childhood fiction that he was my brother, and my parents were his parents, resurfaced tangled in the need for comfort. Wordlessly, we swapped forms and he threw himself into Mom’s arms, crying tearlessly as relief and tension bled out of him, taking the sick fear with them. I laid my nightsaber head on his thigh and purred while Mom held him as tenderly as he had ever wanted, stroking his hair and murmuring reassurance. It wasn’t long before Dad made it a group hug, and Illidan cried until he fell into an exhausted slumber, wrung out from the day’s events. Dad laid him carefully on the bedroll, where he snuggled subconsciously up against my chest fur.

“What did you do with the acorn?” Dad asked quietly, hand hovering over my brother-buck’s head as though wanting to touch him, but wanting more to not wake him.

I draped one paw over Illidan, purring to soothe him. “Illidan suggested I nurture it so that the demon’s spirit would be locked into the tree. He said if the acorn was merely destroyed, the demon might be freed to do more damage. You shouldn’t have a problem finding the place; by now, the entire clearing should be filled with thick thorn-bushes.”

Dad nodded. “We’ll want to keep an eye on that.”

“Absolutely. There was a lot of demonic energy still in him when the demon tried to take him, and it all got discharged into that clearing.”

“I still can’t quite believe you got it all out of him. I’m not doubting your abilities, it’s just…” Dad trailed off, the hovering hand waving in frustration.

“He said he craved it because fel magic is an addiction, but that he didn’t want it, and it wasn’t as sweet as your respect and Mom’s smile.” I gave Dad a minute to absorb that. “When he was taking in the artifact’s power, he was nearly ill from the feel of it.”

The hovering hand landed, stroked Illidan’s hair with all the gentleness I remembered from my youth, from the summer I discovered that berry patch and gorged myself until I was ill.

“Dad? You know this isn’t over. The demon will have had a master, and it’s more than likely not the same as whatever the human was a puppet for.”

He sighed. “I know, my wild fawn, and we will deal with them soon enough. For the moment, I just want to be with my family and revel in the fact that you and Illidan are both safe.”

“Kayne.” Mom kneeled next to Dad, one arm around his waist while the other hand rested on the paw I had draped over my brother-buck. “I apologize for my outburst. It was not the way I should have approached the subject with you, or with him. I hurt you both with my careless act, and I am sorry.”

I gave her as wry a look as a nightsaber face could manage. “I’m your little girl, Mom, no matter how old we both are. Considering the circumstances, we’d been anticipating that you would react like that, which is why he panicked the way he did. He didn’t want me to tell you; he still loves you and he was afraid you’d turn on him for ‘violating’ me, even though that’s not even remotely an accurate assessment of things.”

Mom looked sad. “I will not lie, there have been times when I wished I could love him in that way, if just to ease the sting of his feelings being unrequited. I…he first turned to Zin-Azshari because of me. He risked much and suffered more to grant me my freedom, and I repaid him with a dark stone cell and abandonment. I suppose this was inevitable, particularly with Elune getting involved so early in your life. It’s never easy for a parent to come to terms with his or her child becoming sexually active, but that’s no excuse for my behavior.”

“I forgive you, Mom.” I shifted my paw, trapping her hand beneath it on Illidan’s side. “You know Illidan feels there’s nothing to forgive.” I nuzzled his hair briefly. “Thank you for comforting him. He hasn’t cried like that in centuries, not since he saw me on his own for the first time.”

“I just wish I could do more for him,” she sighed.

“Mom, you held and comforted him when he needed it most. I don’t think you could do any more than that if you were the White Lady.”

She laughed at that, low and shaky. “I suppose you are correct. We shall leave the two of you to recover, then, and plan how to deal with these new threats later.”

They left the tent, leaving us draped in darkness. For a long time I lay there, watching my brother-buck sleep, feeling his presence like a tiny hand fisted in my hair. Once, he stirred and whispered, Kayne. I flooded him with love and reassurance, and the mental fist relaxed with a sigh as he slipped into a dream.

When I joined him, we were tangled together as children on a bed he hadn’t slept in since before he met my mother, and a woman with gentle eyes watched from where she sat on the edge.