Do Death Knights Dream of Zombie Sheep?

[Langara]

Langara found herself unable to focus on the various objects in the room. Actually, the room failed to fully take shape. Everything around her was missing details. None of the books had titles on their covers. Light spilled in through the window, but Crystalsong Forest had been replaced by fog. Not even a crystalline branch was visible through the haze.

Worse still, Langara had no memory of how she had gotten to her quarters in the Pale Heart's Grey Tower. She was just, simply, there. Her last memory was the Silvermoon City Inn. These memory problems were becoming damn tiresome. Too much lost time. Probably too much burbon. She decided to go find someone else and ask what was going on. There should be at least one other person around, so she turned on her heel to—

The door was missing.

She growled and kicked the spot on the wall where the door should have been, her plate-clad boot leaving an oddly exaggerated dent. This was some kind of twisted prison, that had to be it. Maybe the blue dragonflight was messing with her. They seemed to enjoy harassing the Pale Heart.

At least her desk chair was right, and Langara threw herself into it. Frustrated.

A light-hearted, tentative voice chimed in the room."Um. Can you hear me? Oh... do you have a name?"

She couldn't help but grin, there would be some answers after all. Then recognition began to flutter into Langara's mind, and her grin turned to a scowl, it was all too familiar.

"You go first. You brought me here, so say what you've got to say." Impatient as usual.

A light chuckle responded, at first it reminded her of Ellysiah's laughter—but this voice was different, and still too familiar.

A nudge, from hands placed on the back of her chair, the voice became manifest, and was standing right behind her. "You came to visit me! At least, I think you did, didn't you? I guess I'm confused. What's your name?"

Bloodwither turned round to face the presence, then, horrified, instinctively backed away. She could only manage a soft "No," while backpedaling into the wall.

The apparition continued, unphased by her visitor's reaction,"Call me Dawnsinger. That's what everyone at the Argent Dawn calls me. It's my family's name." The doppelganger smiled easily, with an exaggerated innocence, not like the grin Bloodwither could only summon to intimidate. For the death knight, real smiles were accidental. "I've been waiting a long time to talk to someone. I'm not sure how long it's been. Hey, are you cold all the time, too? It's really cold here."

This was too much to take. Bloodwither bolted for the window, and found the glass unbreakable.

"Well that's rude. I'm pretty sure you're dreaming, so if you don't like the setting you can just change it. Don't you know how dreams work? At least it's not a nightmare! Those are awful, I have really bad ones sometimes."

Bloodwither leaned back against the wall, sliding down into a crouch, cursing softly and constantly. Finally she let her cold gaze meet that of the trapped soul from her past life. "That depends on your perspective."

[Raynell]

((I would have preferred "Runeblade Runner." Do continue, though :P))

[Duroxas]

(( heh, now im glad I got to konk you out. Please, lets see a bit more of this!))

[Langara]

((Was super tempted to put evil demonic laughter in the background. Thought that might have been going too far tho. Oh and Runeblade Runner made me lawl, yay postmodernist dystopia references! ))

[Duroxas]

(( personally I woulda been flattered, but oh well))

[Langara]

((Will continue, with 60% chance of demonic overtones.))

[Langara]

The death knight didn't relish the idea of having to converse with this... thing. Dawnsinger didn't have any role in her unlife except making room for it in the world by vacating the space. Bloodwither was actually somewhat ashamed of her foolish Paladin past, a past that wasn't really hers.

Still, she couldn't be more cornered than stuck in a room in a dream in her own mind. That was about when she started considering the situation. I don't sleep. This is why I don't sleep. What fel-inspired thing could have happened that I'm asle—

"Hey, are you ever gonna answer my question?"

"Bloodwither. Now leave me alone."

"Figures! First person I get to talk to in who-knows-how-long and she's a jerk. You know, if you were to open yourself up to the Light's teachings, which you obviously haven't, maybe you'd—"

"Stop. There's about sixteen different reasons you're barking up the wrong tree with that statement. You're better off not knowing why."

Dawnsinger stiffened, a new sternness falling over her previously happy-go-lucky expression. "Enough games. I'm not the fool you're probably assuming. I only get impressions of what's going on outside in your world. What happened that I'm stuck in this purgatory and how do I get out?"

Bloodwither couldn't help but laugh despite herself. Suggesting that the blind would be leading the blind could only begin to explain the situation.

"I'll try to be brief here, and don't pester me with too many questions after. You did something stupid with the Argent Dawn, I don't know what, and got killed. The Scourge don't waste much, and made what was left of you into me. Your soul got put into my runeblade. That's where you've been, and still are, probably. This all happened years ago. So don't lecture me about the Light. I don't care for it, it didn't help you and it certainly doesn't help me."

"So you're Scourge? And you're napping?"

For being a supposedly battle-hardened third-generation death knight, Bloodwither had a lot of hot buttons, so it was hard to have a conversation with her without hitting at least one. Or five. Yet, picking a fight with Dawnsinger didn't hold any benefit, and there was no escape available. Bloodwither chose to take the high road for once and answer the question straight away.

"I was. I'm not anymore and haven't been for awhile. I actually have my own will. Separate from yours, too." She slid down a little bit further from her crouch to actually sit against the dreamt wall. Like everything else in the room, it wasn't quite right, and felt more like packed earth than stone.

While Dawnsinger processed the sudden influx of information, her 'decendant' looked around the room pondering exits. That's when she could have sworn she heard very quiet, unsettling masculine laughter.

So he's got a role in this.

[Duroxas]

The flight from the Silvermoon inn with the sleeping body was smooth and without complications. Under the cover of night the onyx raptor and its rider, an unwitting passenger hidden beneath a cloak, slipped outside the city walls inconspicuously past the drowsy guards. It was only until they were completely out of sight of the Shepard's gate that the rider whipped the reigns of his mount and sped off towards the south. With the aid of the fleet-footed raptor, the man and the sleeper were on the outskirts of the amani territory within minutes, the creature gnawing on a freshly seared amani corpse as its master, passenger in his arms, ascended the stairs within the troll's dwelling.

Wordlessly, but wearing a wicked grin, Duroxas set Langara's sleeping form gently in the troll's shoddy hammock. From the contents of his pocket he pulled an elegant bottle, the stopper decorated with a glass skull.

"Undeath in its most powerful, untamed form: an unchained Death Knight." he whispered as he held the bottle over Langara's mouth and uttered words of magical command in demonic, and as he spoke the final one a wisp of ice blue essence rose from between her resting lips as if drawn from her very core, writhing curiously in the air for a few moments before being drawn into the glass bottle.

The second that the last wispy tendrils of essence had retreated into the confines of the bottle, the warlock slid the stopper back into place and pocketed it. He drew a finger along Langara's cheek, grinning at the knowledge of how easily he could obliterate her right there, caught in such a tender, unprotected state. But that was not his way, easy destruction in sleep brought no excitement, no rush of bloodthirsty glee.

"Thank you for your contribution, miss Bloodwither. Have a nice rest..." he cackled, turning to the exit, but as he stood he brushed roughly against the hammock and heard something loud and metalic clang to the wooden floor below. Fallen from the Death Knight's hilt was her precious Soulblade...

With a grin he bent down and took the blade by the handle, admiring its craftsmanship and the power that practically dripped off it, as well as feeling something...more. There was a presence within the blade, perhaps a soul. After all, warlock that he was, he could identify that sort of essence that only souls truly gave off, and this blade was saturated in it. Never letting his twisted smile fade, he carried the blade with him as he left, a trophy for a night of work well done. For now, though, it was back to the lab in Northrend...

[Langara]

It didn't take long after hearing Duroxas' laughter, that things started to make sense for Bloodwither. Dawnsinger was pacing a bit now, trying to get a grip on the revelations Bloodwither had offered, and left her some peace to think.

The Inn was the last thing I saw, that's right. He was there. I hadn't had much to drink at all, then he collapsed... Maybe I fell too? But I'm probably intact, or serviceably so.

"Hey. Paladin. Got a second?"

The soul only responded by giving Bloodwither her attention. She didn't seem to be quite so willing to chat anymore.

"Have you noticed anything odd lately?"

"Other than the fact that I just found out that, though I've been dead for years, my body seems to still be ambling about just fine without me?"

"Other than that."

The lost paladin scowled briefly, but then offered a slight smile, "Alright, there's one thi—" Dawnsinger stopped short, the dream shuddered and the soul tried to steady herself against a wall before falling to her knees. She disappeared.

The remaining Langara stood up, quiet panic passing across her features. It was only a moment before she, too, was doubled over, trying to stop the world from spinning. The dream world crumbled, all of existence swallowed up in the vacuum of Dawnsinger's absence.

Never in her unlife had she let her runed soulblade leave her possession. Even while living in Silvermoon, she'd only operated within a one-mile radius of her safe-deposit box in the bank. No one ever explained why she couldn't leave Bloodborne, but she didn't need to find out. Didn't want to know. It was just as simple as breathing for the living, death knights always kept their soulblades close.

The soul-ripping feeling began to pass, and Bloodwither began to recollect her senses within the dream. Her quarters had been replaced by Acherus, though again the details were subtly wrong. One major flaw stood out among the rest.

Where Highlord Mograine should have been, among bookcases and attendants, a San'layn stood, holding a jeweled box.

"Langara! Been awhile. We've missed you so very much. You never visit anymore. But I'm relieved you haven't forgotten me! We were so close after all."

"Keleseth." She managed to spit the name, despite her severely weakened state.

"Fantastic! You do remember. Shall we get started with the nightmare then? I may just be a shadow from your memories, but I don't want to keep you waiting." The lower half of his face was covered by a mask, but Langara could tell he was grinning.

[Langara]

"Come closer, Bloodwither." He waved his hand in a wide arc in the air. Keleseth always had a rather flamboyant sense of occasion, and he seemed to employ it even the darkest of surroundings.

Langara lifted her chin, her face wrinkling in disgust, but she moved forward all the same. "I'm not your minion anymore, are you bitter about it?"

His glowing eyes flashed, "Perhaps. But that's what I want to talk with you about." He shoved the box into her hands, much to Langara's surprise. "You were always so skilled with these. And you've missed them, on more than one occasion."

"Your persuaders..." Painful nostalgia wavered in her voice as she opened the box. Two apparently-iron rods lay inside, their pointed ends glowing livid-hot.

"You took such joy in using them on those Scarlet hypocrites. You told me how satisfying it was to watch them crumble at your feet. You were ruthless, Langara."

She winced and looked away from the implements, ashamed at the thought of her actions. "It wasn't my will. I didn't choose that."

"But you enjoyed it, and you miss it now, don't you?" Keleseth patted her hand lightly, as if trying to console a lost friend.

"I don't." She growled, defensive at the mere suggestion.

"Liar! When that troll betrayed you, when he made you look like a fool... you wanted to string him up... you wanted to watch him bleed." He began to circle her as he spoke, a laywer stating the evidence for his case.

"I... I was angry. But I didn't want to really hurt hi—I didn't hurt him!"

"You're breaking so quickly, dear. My, my how the mighty have fallen." He stopped behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder, whispering into her ear, "That's alright, the sooner you realize your true path, the stronger I can make you."

Langara shut her eyes tight, as if she could shut him out of her mind. Nightmares, unfortunately, don't work that way.

He continued pacing around the dais, gracefully avoiding the messy stacks of books and ledgers on the floor. "You don't even know where your runeblade is, do you? It is rather pathetic, the more I think of it. That's not the Bloodwither I knew. You earned your name, Langara. Even I was proud of the interrogator you were."

"I'm not going to defend my choices to you. It was my will, that's all that matters."

"Then take up the persuaders and do what you're so eager to do to me. Your will is urging you to! Do what you know you're going to do to all those fools who call you an ally. On that day when they cross you badly enough. After all, weren't you threatening to take off Duroxas' finger, just for teasing you?"

Keleseth paused to look Langara in the eye, and she withered under his gaze. It struck her just the way he intended. "Just accept it, you can't change it, you're Scourge. You can't even take a joke without trying to spill your friends' blood. Even the word doesn't suit you, friend."

Jewels went skittering across the floor, the persuaders clanged against the dirty stone, Langara had let the box fall from her trembling hands.

[Duroxas]

Like a window hit with a stone, at the ringing sound of the clanging metal prods the entiere immage shattered and reformed with a jarring shock. The walls of acherus, its bookcases and attendants, its risin Dias, dissapeared to leave room for what seemed like a strech of barren, wasted land, remenisce of Hellfire Peninsula. But the area was enclosed in high black stone ridges, the corners and farthest reaches where the walls were in acherus fading into an endless infintiy of shadows. The only thing that remained from the previous immage was the jeweled box and persuaders lying eerily in the dirt a few feet away.

But where the San'layn stood previously, a new figure had taken his place seamlessly in the transition, as if it had been there the entire time, grinning his mirthless grin. Familiar, but subtly different: The elf's skin was darker and reddened, onyx claws tipped his fingers, dark horns protruded from his forehead and curved back and the tips of fangs could barely be seen through his twisted smile.

But he was still easilly recogniseable as Duroxas, or at least a variation of him, and even the voice was the same, though it dripped with a sadist's malice as he stepped closer and picked up the two persuaders.

"Shame, you should have struck when you had the chance...but I shouldnt have expected anything more of you"

And as he spoke, a bright circle of runes appeared beneath the Death Knight's feet and above her head as glowing chaines shot up and down between them, wrapping themselves around her wrists, ankles and neck tightly.

"And now, theres no where left to go..." he whispered sinisterly as he twirled a persuader in his fingers

[Langara]

There was a certain relief in finally facing the force that had forced her to dream. Facing him was preferable to facing her own ghost. Though Langara would have given anything to have her runeblade and the soul within it, at her side again. Which, it clearly wasn't, by a long shot.

She couldn't be sure of the circumstances of her own body, but his presence had been tugging at her since the dreaming began. He must have been involved. Too weak to struggle, Langara allowed herself to slouch against the demon-chains that held her.

So he's the thing that's been hissing whispers into my head when I'm awake. Sounded like Duroxas, now it looks like Duroxas, and it isn't Duroxas. And of course he picks up the perusader, that Fel-damned wretch.

"There never was anywhere to go. You've been camping out in my head for a long time. I suppose two-way conversation is overdue, isn't it?"

I really shouldn't be hoping to reason with it. She could hardly summon the strength to glare at him, even asleep, the loss of Bloodborne left her too vulnerable. Did he know?

"Also, I think it's clear you've got the upper hand here. You can go ahead and put the persuader down..."

[Duroxas]

The image smirked "I doubt this will be two-way at all, with all the screaming you're going to do.."

he stepped closer, leaning in so his face was a mere foot away from Langa, her hands strung above her head. "I've had the upper hand the entire time, silly little scourgeling, I dont need these to prove anything, but..."

he drew the tip of the persuader slowly across her neck with a gentle hand, but the slightest touch of it burned with a searing white hot pain. Curiously, it left no mark in her skin, no sign of injury in the slightest.

"Mmm.." he hummed, holding the tip lightly under her chin for a moment. "Not a scar on the body, no real harm is being done. Yet I can see it in your eyes...theres pain. I can torture you here for as long as I wish, and you will take no injury, theres no death, theres..." he tapped her chin. "No..." he tapped her nose. "End" he tapped her forehead

He leaned forward and whispered into her ear, ever grinning. "Untill I see fit..."

[Langara]

Langara grit her teeth, which she hoped was the only indication he was getting to her. The persuader seared just the way she remembered from Keleseth's initial training sessions. It occurred to her that, looking back, she should have hated the Darkfallen more than revered him as a mentor. He was, after all, a colossal bag of filth disguised as a flamboyant elf-kin. She made a brief mental note that she really ought to find him, and gut him when she got the chance.

This situation was what she had been preparing for during that training. But now she wasn't protecting Scourge secrets or resisting the Scarlet Crusade. She didn't have her will cooled by frozen whispers from the Lich King, steeling her against her own sense of self-preservation as it always did.

No, now this thing was simply entertaining itself at her expense, as far as she could tell. Langara was loathe to show it, but that thought incensed her.

"I've been here before, and I'm not going to give you whatever it is you're after, you must know that, pathetic infernal fiend that you are. Not even useful enough for the Burning Legion, I'll bet." Just because it suited the moment so well, she spit at him.

Now that things were obviously taking a turn for the worse, she subtly started wringing her hands in an attempt to find any sort of give in the restraints. There wasn't.

She glared daggers at the image that simply grinned right back.

[Duroxas]

The immage cackled again, obviously entertained not only by the obvious pain he was causing, but to see the reactions and thoughts flicker through her. It had been a while since a victim had been so defiant, not had thier fury drowned by the fear and pain. He propped her chin up slightly with the searing edge, tilting her face up to meet his own twisted gaze.

"Save your insults, I dont care in the slightest about the opinion of the whithered husk of a rotting servant. Thats all you were back then, your "power" was and is in no way your own, just borrowed and stolen from your master"

he lashed out suddenly with the poker, striking her hard across the face, yet still speaking in his smooth tone.

""You would give anything for the positions here to be reversed, wouldnt you? To have me here powerless and restrained, able to exersise that fury I know is building. To take up the persuaders, but not have to persuade, just cause pain..."

"What wouldnt you give for revenge, right now? A life? The life of an ally? Would you sacrifice say...Exvind, to rid me of your mind for good and be satisfied?"

And as he spoke he reached down and picked up the 2nd persuader, shortly followed by two sharp burning blows to her stomach: the armor she was wearing seemed useless to ward off any pain. Even the chains that bound her were begining to burn. And still the 'elf' grinned.

[Langara]

Langara worked her jaw after the persuader struck her. There may have been no injury, but it still felt ached and popped as though her jaw had dislocated ever so slightly. She fumed at his litany of insults, letting her head hang low while she regained her senses.

Exvind? Is that what this is all about, he's spoiling for a fight with Exvind?

She was just about to rally a response when the first persuader struck her in the gut. Her consciousness blurred under the assault. Her rage roiled as the chains began to scald her. Any thoughts of Exvind were lost in the fray. Finally, she raised her head to look him in his red-glowing eyes, voice strained with anger and pain.

"I'm not making some kind of twisted bargain with you... I don't have to. You forget, that one way or another I'm going to wake up. And as soon as I can... I'm going to rip you out of Duroxas, myself!"

"You want to tell me I'm merciless and wicked? I'll be happy to demonstrate that for you. The best part is, even the most righteous Lightswingers would applaud me as I destroy you."

The temperature of the chains rose further, and in frustration she growled at him, "What are you anyway?!"

[Duroxas]

"What am I? Im just your good friend Duro...or at least what you dont see of him as often"

He broke out into laughter, his voice ringing out through the barren scene and echoing eerily off the stone and the air seemed to fill with a red haze. The haze thickened into mist, but the laughing figure was still there, his figure silhouetted within the smoke.

But at that moment the chains keeping the Death Knight captive reached a burning peak along with her rage and dissolved. And on the floor beside her was her soulblade, the only thing shining clear within the ever increasing haze. The figure was only yards away, and by the look of the Silhouette its back was turned...

[Langara]

Opportunity.

Normally, Langara would have been clever enough to recognize the suspiciously fortuitous nature of the situation. Normally, she would have been awake. Not-living as a Death Knight had a way of failing to maintain normalcy.

Langara's knees bit into the dirt as the chains vanished. Her arm lashed out for the blade. She leapt toward the silhouette, wearing a violent grin of her own. The haze was ever thickening around her, but she didn't need to see well to meet her goals.

She swung with enthusiasm. This was her territory and trespassers would be cut down. Things would start making sense again, I just have to end him.

Right about then, she heard Erohol cry out in pain. A moment after that, she was confused. Then she was very apologetic.

[Duroxas]

The body crumpled to the ground from the raging force of the swing and moved no more, but as the cry went out the fog clouding the scene cleared away almost instantly.

Erohol's body lay there face down, a horrific slash along his back. The spine was surely severed, and blood pooled out onto the dust, staining his back crimson.

The voice from before returned, but it had no source, merely echoing through her ears. "Do you see now what happens when you let your true self loose for even a moment? You have to hide your brutal instinct and urge to maim and destroy behind that rigid, somber mask constantly. And the people closest to you will suffer the most, but do you really care...?"

"It is as the Darkfallen said. Friends? The word dosent suit you..."

[Langara]

The soulblade sunk deep into the dirt by Langara's foot. She started to reach for the broken body, working her fingers in midair as if she could fix the damage and make things right again. Nightmares don't work that way, either.

"No." Barely a whisper escaped before she fell to her knees over the image of Erohol, "NO! I didn't do that, that wasn't...what I was trying...please..." The memory of tears fell down her cheeks, a borrowed memory.

The voice that sounded like Duroxas, but wasn't, struck her as keenly as a blade through her neck.

"I don't... I don't want to hurt any of them. I don't care if I don't deserve... I'm not going to...They chose me."

Anger rallied her again, and she cried out "I decide what I am, not you! You might be in my head, but you don't decide for me! Nobody decides for me!"

If she could have thrown the words as daggers, she would have.

"Stop with the tricks, that's all you've got. Tricks! I know what you are... you're the monster here. Not me."

Langara buried her face in her hands, muttering, "I care... I want to care."