[RP/Story] A Long, Dark Night

[Solivar]

Meton's house, located in one of the more intact residential districts of Silvermoon, was what happened when young, bachelor death knights set up housekeeping without the guidance of older, more experienced comrades in arms to tell them what they were doing wrong. It did, as he had indicted, contain shelter (it was an actual house, after all), equipment, and food. Like most of the City's houses, it was taller than it was wide, blessed -- or afflicted -- with an architectural form that produced the illusion of a vast, open, airy place in relatively little space, an impression enhanced by the general paucity of furniture. He had, somewhat obviously, still been in the process of filling the place with necessary and useful things. Four bedchambers, but only one bed. One table in the ground-level common area -- a large one, admittedly -- and more pieces of weaponry and armor in the downstairs armory than there were chairs, or pillows for that matter. The bookshelves in the terrace-level study were mostly barren of books but the desk was an impressive piece, fully stocked with pens and quills and parchment of assorted weights, a drawer full of different nibs, cleaning and sharpening tools for the same, and bottle after bottle of plain black ink. Fortunately, the alembic set up in the corner on its own small table was obviously scavenged from some unfortunate scriptorium's assets sale. The extra keys were stuck inside a small glazed pottery bowl of obvious trollish design and manufacture, on a high shelf just inside the front door.

Meton's runeblade hung in the armory, in its own corner, the straps of its harness wrapped around a stand that should have held the pieces of saronite-alloy armor instead piled on the floor behind it. He did not need to touch it to know the truth of it: the weapon was nothing now but a piece of steel, deadly to be sure, but no more an extension of its wielder, soul-ties broken. He touched it anyway, drawing a half-foot of blade and letting the emptiness of it resound through him from the contact, no endlessly gnawing ache of unappeasable death-hunger, no sense of its master's sharp, bright spirit. Nothing. He slid the blade back into its sheath and lifted it down. It took a longer time to find Meton's Ebon Blade colors -- they were balled up in the very bottom of the traveling baggage he had obviously been living out of in the absence of a clothing press, indifferently cared for at best. Which was, he supposed, fairly vintage Meton. He tried is best to smooth out the worst of the wrinkles but there was really nothing to do about the smell, compounded primarily of the effluvium to be found in the bottom of every mercenary venturer's pack and a significant amount of blood besides. He laid both the sword and the tabard on the length of black runecloth he had purchased earlier, wrapped, tied, the closest he could come to a genuine shroud, lacking as he did a body to send back to the Ebon Hold. The rest he repacked with the care it deserved. And refused to make the bed because, honestly, the man had been more than old enough to tend to such things himself and if he wasn't going to do it, Solivar was not going to do it for him.

It took most of the night to find where Meton had hidden the candles -- in the back of the dry goods pantry -- and by the time he did, morning was creeping over the walls of the rear garden, casting rosy warm fingers across the white stone paths and the heavily overgrown foliage and the enormous black worg laying on the verandah, head on its front paws and ears set at a woeful angle. Malethom lifted his head and whined, a low sound of distress, and ignored the bowls of fresh water and meat laid before him in favor of demanding the best part of an hour spent in comforting belly-rubs and ear-scratching, after which he slunk inside and lay at Solivar's feet in the study, lifting his head and whining hopefully at every other sound from the bustling street outside.

"Patience," Solivar murmured to him. "Soon. I promise."

The Lady Annassi, paladin-lieutenant of the Blood Knights, was insofar as he knew still a resident of and protector for Silvermoon. He had not found cause to speak to her in person since their last meeting and he doubted quite sincerely she had any wish for such a meeting, no matter its purpose. He wrote to her, instead, as the closest thing he could name to Meton's next of kin. He had no idea if the news of her former apprentice's death would give her sorrow, or cause her relief; he suspected, from what he had discerned of her, that it might be a mixture of both. He stepped out only long enough to dispatch the missive to its intended recipient and to purchase an appropriately oversized chew-toy for the worg, then gave the rest of the day's light to cleaning out a place in the garden to work, raking away years of accumulated leaf-fall from the permanently rot-stained parterre stones and scrubbing them clean as best he could, pulling up weeds and cutting down some of the heavy overgrowth, none of which he had any desire to accidentally set on fire. Malethom, as it turned out, possessed a puppylike desire to chase thrown sticks as well as the thigh-bones of full-grown kodo and a perfect willingness to roll around in piles of dead leaves until emphatically shouted at to stop and shooed inside in disgrace. Early in the evening, as the sun's warming golden touch on the alabaster walls of the city was giving way to twilight, he left the house again on an errand more suited to the hours of darkness.

Solivar was not entirely certain how Murder Row had earned its name -- a certain lingering taste hung everywhere in the air of Silvermoon, icy deathchill like a late winter morning rising off the Scar and flavoring the local ley-currents like a favorite childhood treat or an old lover's perfume, no stronger there than anywhere else in the city. He did not recall the area having an unsavory reputation when he dwelt in Silvermoon years before, though those memories were less than entirely reliable and much had clearly changed in the meantime; he rather suspected the whole matter had more to do with the fine, upstanding citizens of Silvermoon preferring to keep distastful things hidden away from public view, even as they wished to freely avail themselves of the goods and services such things could provided. Thus Murder Row and its denizens.

Cygn'ar Lighthaven, whose name could not possibly be more inaccurate, kept a small apartment of rooms in the neighborhood, above the local apothecary who was both his landlord and perfectly willing to gossip about his tenants, properly plied. Like many former members of the Cult of the Damned, Cygn'ar had "regained" his freedom of mind and will just in time to turn on his former comrades and, by virtue of singing like a first-returning spring bird to the Argent Crusade, avoided sharing their fate. He took himself and his dubious talents back home to Silvermoon upon finding little welcome in Dalaran or the disparate quel'dorei exiles in Stormwind and had since established himself as a compassionate speaker for the dead, making use of the skills he had learned to rob the bereft in exchange for a few words from something that might or might not be the spirit of their lost loved ones, and doing a brisk side business in forbidden knowledge for those with the coin to pay for it. Under normal circumstances, he would not have wasted his time with a necromancer so minor -- but the circumstances were not normal and Cygn'ar Lighthaven, though minor, had also in his time served Prince Navarius, and thus possessed specialist knowledge he was willing to share for a perfectly ridiculous amount of gold and the opportunity to keep his head attached to his shoulders. Certain aspects of necromancy -- the design and construction aspects, for instance -- had never really been part of his own purview, and so he departed weighed down with books and papers and with the slimy intimation that his informant would not only be eager but willing to engage in whatever further assistance was required.

[Solivar]

[At Meton's house in Silvermoon, Solivar discovers the door ajar and two new visitors...]

Foehand glances up at the deathknight he once knew as Mercy, eyes narrowing in recognition.

Solivar , carrying a handful of books and an even greater number of loose papers messily clipped together, pauses as he recognizes the taste of another death knight's power in the air.

Foehand: "Mercy, is it not? I was told I would find you here."

Dayari: That's not my name....

Solivar: "...It is." A momentary pause.
Solivar: Have we met before this?

Foehand: "You may not remember me. I am Foehand. Formerly -" his expression is blank, placid almost as he struggles to remember - "I was once Vanyel Blackfeather. You were present at my - my rebirth."

Solivar sets his mountain of paper down on the nearest bench.

Foehand sits back down post-introduction and it is obvious that his right arm is bound in a tight linen sling.

Solivar: "Ah." Dryly. "I recall the name -- you were attached to Navarius' command in Northrend, were you not?"

Dayari: Staring blankly, the rogue watches the interchange quietly.

Foehand: "If one could call it a command, yes." It could have been a joke, but is not, not in his flat affect. He falls silent as though thinking of what to say next, and pushes his hood back.
Foehand: "I apologize if I am bothering you, but of late I have been -" Another pause. "Do you remember this? He unknots the sling and reveals the frost-marked saronite that makes up his right arm.

Solivar: "May I ask who -- " Another pause, frost-pale brows rising slightly. "May I?"

Foehand grasps his right hand with his left, as though holding it still - the thorned fingers tremble.
Foehand: "Please."
Foehand: "As to who - I was recovered by forces out of Vengeance Landing when I regained my will, and have served with R-" he corrects himself before he uses the old honorific "the Banshee Queen, Sylvanas Windrunner."

Solivar: "My thanks." Solivar settles next to the newcomer and lays a careful hand on his arm, eyes going half-lidded.

A pattern of lace-frost runes speads across the surface of Foehand's arm, glowing palely blue.

Foehand: "Of late my right arm has been - it is trembling, and sometimes grasps as though attempting to act of its own volition. Sylv- The Dark Lady informed me that I could find you here in Silvermoon and we thought you might know why it is doing so."

Dayari: Looking toward the newcomer's right arm, Dayari mumbles "could always cut it off..."

Solivar: "The Dark Lady's wisdom is, as always, one of her finest attributes." Solivar's brows knit slightly as his fingers trace the rune-patters coating the arm's surface. "It is an entirely magical construct? No flesh at all beneath it?"

Foehand: "That would be superfluous," Foehand says with the faintest hint of amusement, in Dayari's direction. "According to my service records I lost my right hand in the Second War. No doubt this graft served as a replacement when I was claimed... afterwards."

Dayari: "Oh, so you can't cut it off twice?"

Solivar: "Cutting things off twice is almost never the best answer."

Foehand: "Besides, it is difficult to cut through saronite."

Solivar: "It is at that. Turn your palm up, if you would..."

Foehand: Close examination suggests that the "cutting off" option has been tried at least once or twice, from the scratch marks in the saronite's patina.
Foehand lets go of his own wrist and turns the palm of his right hand up with a soft screech of metal.

Closer examination also shows a beautifully articulated, rather irritable pair of jaws in the palm of his hand. It's not snapping at anything, but it is gnashing as though ... well, irritated to say the least.

Foehand: "Watch your fingers."

Solivar takes the hand in his own, holding it carefully but firmly.
Solivar: "What purpose does that...aperture...serve?"
Solivar's tone is halfway between outright fascination and carefully modulated horror.

Dayari: "Fingers"

Foehand: "... It was originally built to channel runic power through, but of late it has made - noises. Attempted to bite once."

Solivar: "Noises. Speech?"

Foehand prods at the palm of his own hand with a gauntleted finger - the movement elicits a soft screech like metal plates scraping against each other.
Foehand: "Not yet, but - like rusted armor, mostly."

Solivar says: "I...see. And when you say 'act of its own volition'...what has it done?"

Foehand takes hold of his right wrist again and holds it cruelly tight - it would leave bruises were that arm flesh.
Foehand: "... it has attempted to stab me with my own sword."

Dayari: "Not much of an arm then."

Foehand: His expression is still mostly emotionless - as though recounting a boring afternoon at tea. Something is not entirely right here, but then there have been deathknights who didn't come back entirely right.

Solivar rests his free hand on Foehand's elbow, a powerful grip for all its seeming gentleness, and laces his fingers tight with the saronite digits.
Solivar: "More than once?"

The saronite teeth gnash against Solivar’s palm, breaking skin.

Foehand: "More than once, yes. At first a twitch - as though grasping at the grip of my sword, and then more purposeful. The only time it obeys is when I fight."
Foehand: He thinks for a silent moment. "If I were to ascribe a motive to it I would say that it wishes the satisfaction of my death to be its own."

Solivar 's own expression remains oddly tranquil as the saronite teeth slice and draw something vaguely reminiscent of blood.

Foehand: There is again, the soft screech of metal on metal, and a vague trembling through the whole arm.

Solivar: "I see." Softly. "You have had this since your awakening...and it has only now begun doing this?"

Dayari: "Don't think it's a good thing, but one arm isn't good either." Dayari appears to be counting his fingers.

Foehand: "I have fought... while missing a hand... an entire arm would be difficult to say the least."

Dayari: "Lost mine once too, found it at the end of my arm."

Solivar: "Agreed. We must do something to tame it, at least temporarily, while we investigate a more permanent solution to your...situation."

Foehand glances up at Dayari with the faintest hint of amusement in his eyes - a smile on someone else, maybe.
Foehand: "I have kept it bound for the most part, where it cannot do any harm. It chooses not to bother me in the field."

Still counting, the rogue asks "who made the arm?"

Solivar: "You cannot be permanently in the field or forever on guard against your own body, though. Come with me." Solivar does not detach himself from the hand's saronite jaws even as he rises to his feet.

Foehand: "That would be ... the smiths of Acherus."
Foehand rises unsteadily in Solivar's wake, completely unused to the notion of moving in tandem with another.

Dayari: "Scourge."

Solivar: "Easy. If it tries to move of its own accord, I will restrain it."

Foehand: "Mind your own hand, then."
Foehand: The saronite is cold - colder than it should be. It exudes a palpable aura of frost, which explains where all the hoarfrost on Foehand's armor came from.

Solivar: "I am not certain I can unlock my own fingers at this point. The study is just this way...."

Dayari follows behind, well out of reach of the arm.

It trembles in Solivar's grip but doesn't do any more than that - of course, being muzzled by the palm of another death knight's hand will do that.

The study is a single room that runs the length of the building, facing east over the garden. Its walls are lined in mostly empty bookshelves but, in the corner, there sits a table occupied by an alchemist's alembic and an assortment of glassware.

Solivar: "Colder than normal...give me but a moment."

Foehand: "Aye." The metal screeches softly again, and the hooked, barbed fingertips twitch against the back of Solivar's hand.

With his free hand, Solivar opens a leatherbound case that occupies the furthest end of the table, extracting a handful of items from it: a ceramic bowl, a flash of oil, and a very tiny ampule of red grains that glow with the intensity of pinprick embers.

He pours the oil into the ceramic bowl and carefully taps out three of the red grains, which strike the oil with an audible sizzle, the warmth leaping up from it a distinctly more than physical phenomenon.

Foehand watches the alchemical process with the detached interest of a lizard.

Solivar: "Hopefully, this will not hurt more than it has to." And, so saying, he carefully positions their joined hands above the reaction vessel.
The hoarfrost retreats enough to allow Solivar to release his grip -- carefully.

Foehand: "What do you -" Foehand bites his lip as the burning kicks in, the frost riming his arm and armor melting into water that drips softly to the floor.
Foehand: "I see."
Foehand holds his arm stoically over the vessel as water drips from the thawing ice onto the tabletop, his mouth a thin, hard line.

Solivar: "My apologies." Solivar covers the vessel with a ceramic hood and slides it back.

Foehand: "It is all right." He tests the arm carefully and it moves as though well oiled, with a faint clicking of marvellously articulated joints.
Foehand: "I apologize if it has bitten you."

Solivar: "Does it require much in the way of maintenance?"
Solivar finds a loose bit of cloth to wrap his own hand in.

Foehand: "It never has, no."

Solivar: "Self-maintaining. Self-reactive. Hostile to its own...wearer for want of a better term."

Foehand: "Indeed." He makes a fist, looks at the bladed knuckles. "I don't know what you just did, but it seems to have become quiescent for now."

Solivar: "I fed it. When I touched it, I sensed...hunger in it."

Foehand: "Hunger," he says flatly. "I no longer remember what it feels like."

Solivar: "I am inclined to think you fortunate in that, brother."

Foehand: "My thanks for your aid today."

Solivar: "I am not done. Sit...'

Dayari glances once more at the strangely armed Death Knight, then fades into the shadows.

Foehand sits down cross-legged, faintest muscle memory kicking in as he lays his polearm on the ground at his side.

Solivar: "....Is this the only reason you came to me?"

Foehand: "... For the most part, yes. But I had also wondered if you knew why it was acting such."

Solivar moves about the room, gathering up what he seems to need as he goes: bone disks, strips of paper, a flat case that turns out to contain a selection of calligraphy brushes and a pot of carefully sealed ink.

Foehand watches Solivar with his usual detachment, his hands loose and relaxed in his lap.

Solivar seats himself next to Foehand, laying out the items he gathered around them.
Solivar: "May I touch your hand again?"

Foehand: "If you need to." He extends his right hand again, palm-up. The teeth are now locked tightly enough that it looks like surface ornamentation.

Solivar rests his fingertips against the closed teeth, eyes going half-lidded as he concentrates.
Solivar: "I am not certain why...yet. As I said...I sense something....hungry...within this artifact. Almost mindlessly so."

Foehand frowns faintly, the subtle furrowing of his brow the only hint of an expression on his face.
Foehand: "Mindlessly so, you said."

Solivar: "Yes. Though the fact that it attempted to do you harm suggests it is not always so."

Foehand: A silent nod.

Solivar: "Have you...fought recently? Killed?"
Solivar: "Or has it been restrained for a significant lenth of time?"

Foehand: "I was sent recently to patrol Hillsbrad and Arathi at the behest of the Banshee Queen. She felt it would help me restore my memories. I have had it restrained about a fiveday."

Solivar nods slightly. "When does it seem to be at its most independently active?"

Foehand: "I would say that it is being awoken by things familiar to me. As though my memories reside within it."

Solivar: "You have..." Solivar pauses, considers, continues in an utterly neutral tone, "...Little in the way of personal memory?"

Foehand: "Very little at all. Most of what I know of my former life is through research."

Solivar nods, a wry smile touching the corners of his mouth. "I know that feeling well."
Solivar: "If you find this question too intrusive, you need not answer it. You said you had little memory. Do you also possess little...feeling? Emotion?"

Foehand: "I remember it not."

Solivar's eyes flick closed for a moment, and again he nods.

Foehand: "Has that anything to do with my hand?"

Solivar: "It may."

Foehand nods.

Solivar: "You do, I think, have more than one difficulty, brother."

Foehand: "Is that so?"

Solivar: "Yes. The physical problem of your hand...and the metaphysical issues that pertain to it.

Foehand: "The metaphysical issues." Not a question.

Solivar: "Yes." A fractional hesitation. "I...do not remember raising you. I am sorry for that -- I wish I could tell you all that I might know here and now."

Foehand: "It would be unreasonble for one such as I to blame you for a paucity of memories."
Foehand: "Nevertheless, I thank you for your efforts on my behalf."

Solivar: "Do not thank me yet." Wryly. "I have yet to do you any good."

Foehand: "I need not fear my hand for the near future. I was getting tired of doing everything left-handed."

Solivar: "I can, I think, extend that time while I do a bit of research. The records of the construction should be somewhere yet...if not Acherus than Scholomance."

Foehand: "I searched Acherus and found nothing of note. Perhaps the records lie in Scholomance."

Solivar lays out a pair of long strips of paper, its substance obviously enriched with a stronger fiber.
Solivar: "I shall have to pay them a call, then." A slight, cold smile touches the corners of his mouth, and he selects a brush from the case, inking it carefully.

The runes he scribes the length of each strip have a dark sheen about them only tangentially related to the color of the ink, the investiture of Shadow in them obvious to Foehand's eyes. They dry with unnatural speed and Solivar folds them carefully.

Foehand: "What are those?"

Solivar: "I do not suggest you use these now. Your hand is quiescent for now -- though I am not certain how long that will last. You may wish to continue binding it in the sling for safety's sake."

Foehand nods and pulls the sling back on, tying the linen tightly around his chest.

Solivar: "These bindings are a method of communion. It will allow you to draw on my strength to restrain and feed your hand if it becomes unmanageable."

Foehand: "I see. And what about you? I assume it is being fed /something/."

Solivar: "It is. I felt it draw upon me."

Foehand: "..."

Solivar smiles wryly.

Foehand: "That is a degree of selflessness I am unused to."

Solivar: "You came to me seeking assistance, brother. I cannot yet give you the answers you seek, but I can give you at least this much help."

Foehand remains silent, as though unsure of an answer.

Solivar: "Come...This place was meant by our brother Meton to be a sanctuary for those in need..." Solivar pushes to his feet, and offers a hand up. "You are surely welcome here."

Foehand: "That rogue who was with you before."
Foehand pulls the hood back over his head in preparation to leave.

Solivar: "Dayari. A loyal servant of the Dark Lady."

Foehand: "I have heard something of him."
Foehand: The faintest hint of ... warmth? in his expression?
Foehand flexes his right hand in the sling, testing his fingers, before he picks his polearm off the floor in a left-handed grip.

Solivar: "This house is yours, brother, and if you need a place to seek shelter -- or desire to find peace away from the Undercity..."
Solivar: "...You may always come here."

Foehand looks around Silvermoon with a vague hint of loss circling behind his eyes - the fingers on his right hand twitch weakly behind the linen of the sling.
Foehand: "I thank you for your hospitality, but I do not think Silvermoon suits me at present."

Solivar: "...I know that feeling, as well. Farewell for now, brother."

Foehand: "Farewell. If you wish to find me, you may seek me out in Brill. I have retained lodgings there for the present."
Foehand opens a gate to Acherus.

Solivar: "Give Renee my regards."

Foehand: "I will, but I am not sure if she will accept them." The faintest hint of humor. "You know how she is."

[Meton08]

Nice story you wrote up there, Solivar! I really liked your descriptions about his house. I can see Meton doing all of that so easily, it's almost scary how well you've gotten to know my character over...the last year? I can totally see Malethom acting like a giant pup when in private. Hrrm...should I be distressed over the "Patience" line? ...What art thou planning, Solivar?!