WoW: Descent
It took an exceedingly long time. Even without a voice, he had resources to call on -- inner strengths forged over a decade of warfare with an enemy that needed no rest and comprehended no fear and could only be faced, and fought, by those willing to flense such weaknesses from themselves for the sake of all humanity. The ability to simply endure, when all other strategies, when all other means of survival, were spent was the gift of both the Scarlet Crusade and the Argent Dawn, the Silver Hand’s last true legacy.
In the end, endurance was simply not enough -- not in the face of an enemy armed with weapons torn from the soul of another, edges honed and poisoned with regret.
You were the pain I used to break him, paladin. Even the sure knowledge of his brother’s death was not enough to accomplish that -- but you. You were the end of him. The end of his willingness to fight. The end of his willingness to deny me. The end of his willingness to exist. Your hand, as much as mine, more, destroyed what he was and made him what he became. You could not have killed him more surely had you held the knife yourself.
It sank in, cut, twisted. (In the depths of his own being, he felt the Lord of the Crossroads twist and writhe, cut just as truly, just as deeply.)
And you were so close -- so close to having him back. So close to gathering all the pieces of himself that he lost -- so close to putting them together again. So close to healing the wounds you caused, undoing your own folly, making right what you put wrong. So close.
It spread across the fractured surface of his will, thousands of filaments of hungry darkness, sinking barbs into his mind and soul, forcing wider every crack and drinking deep of what they found inside -- his own human pain, the Old One’s agony -- suckling at a thousand knife-edged memories as they drew blood. He writhed, inwardly, at the sickening intimacy of it, unable to escape, unable to resist, as --
”Come with me.”
It wasn’t quite a question. It wasn’t anything close to a command.
It was an outstretched hand in the firelight and there weren’t enough words in any language anywhere in the world to describe how much he wanted to feel those hands on him, how much he wanted to touch and let himself be touched, it was luminous green eyes too bright to hide how hot they were themselves with that exact same desire, it was a smile that shook, just a little, at the edges with something that might have been fear. He could not, even as his own heart skittered around in his chest, afraid and hungry and beating too hard from the fire-dance and whatever the fel it was Sir Calston used to spike his festival mead, imagine what Solivar had to be afraid of right now, but he was. His hand shook as his fingers closed tight, as they drew him out of the circle of the firelight and into the warm darkness beyond, the shadows dappled with drops of crimson and gold, fire-flowers hung in woven garlands from the trees, the air thick with their rich perfume, their light just enough to show the way to the woodland bowers where lovers celebrated without shame beneath the midsummer sky.
Lovers. Without shame. His own hands couldn’t stop shaking. Couldn’t stop as he tugged loose the knotted silk tie Solivar used to hold his braid closed, couldn’t stop as he finally -- finally, at last -- combed his fingers through that silky, sunlight mass, red-golden in the flowers’ light. Couldn’t stop as he let himself be pushed down into the mess of blankets and flower petals and his best friend’s, his lover’s mouth ghosted over his own and his hair fell around them both, a curtain against the world and frankly he didn’t at that moment give one damn who might see them. Couldn’t stop as Solivar’s fingers laced with his own, sweat-slick and shaking in their own right.
He didn’t want that to stop. Never. Not for anything.
”I cannot say that I will never hurt you.” Softly and the gentleness in it pushed the tears lurking just beneath his eyelids over the edge, gave the sob locked in his chest permission to escape. “I cannot say that, for it would be a lie -- a lie meant well, but still one that would cause you more pain in the end. I am not perfect, my heart -- I cannot be perfect, I am as human as you, and as flawed. I have said and done things in the past that I regret, caused pain to others that I cannot take back. But I will tell you this, and I vow it before the Light and the love that I hold for you and will always hold for you, that I will never ask of you what you would not gladly, joyfully give. I promise you that, Keldris Pellegrin, and if you believe nothing I say to you again beyond this moment, take belief in that.”
A gentle shake, warmth and light on his eyelids, an equally warm mouth against his ear, pressing a kiss that sent a jolt down his spine. A low chuckle. “Wake up, sleepy-head. Greatfather Winter has been here and if you want any of the currant cakes, you’d best get up before Ari and Gil eat them all.”
”Peaches.”
“Really. Peaches.”
“Peaches,” In a tone of jokingly lofty superiority, “are a perfectly adequate fruit. I fail to understand why you’re so distracted by them.”
“I’m more than aware of the adequacy issues, Solivar. My real question is...why?”
“Why peaches?”
With infinite patience. “Yes. Why. Peaches.”
“Because the climate and soil in the Eastmarch is quite ideal for their growth. A small orchard, perhaps a large one if the local market will support it. And a large garden for vegetables and herbs. The decorative garden will lead up to the steading. Perhaps a water garden if the riding is close to a lake or a stream? I will have to think on it. And pasturage for your horses, of course -- “
“My horses? Now I’m involved in this somehow?”
“Of course you are. I could not possibly manage a whole farmstead myself -- I don’t know anything about animal husbandry, and your family breeds horses, so don’t give me that look. How do you feel about sheep? Or possibly goats?”
“I feel, quite strongly, that both sheep and goats are fundamentally stupid creatures that smell terrible, which is why my family generally pays other people to look after them for us, and bring us the wool and other assorted by-products without any stupid, smelly animals actually attached to either. Why?”
“Well, we will require some sources of income beyond the Order’s quarterly stipend. We should save as much of that as we can. Wool and meat for sale could help with the living expenses. And I understand that goat’s milk is quite...a delicacy.”
“Solivar. Have you ever even tasted goat milk?”
“...No?”
“I think I’m really going to have to insist on being there when you do...”
A raucous roar of approval rose from the floor of the great hall, one that shook a couple layers of soot off the ceiling timbers and vibrated the mezzanine floorboards under his feet, even before the muscians began playing the first bars of the chosen song and the dancers took the floor. Talia’s full-throated laughter carried over the whoops and cheers of the assembled throng as she and Aretegos spun through the first measures of a dance that his lady mother would most certainly have dismissed as entirely too peasant by half, along with assorted sorrowful remarks about the tragic paucity of taste in well-born young ladies marrying in wedding dresses a good ten years at least out of fashion. His lord father would, in all likelihood, also have had a thing or two to say about weddings solemnized not by hours of dreary sermonizing about the Awesomely Heavy Duties and Responsibilities of Marriage and the Continuance of the Generations In the Sacred Precincts of the Holy Matrimonial State but by Father Alarich Fairbanks reading a paragraph of appropriate love poetry, asking the couple to make their vows to one another, exchange tokens and kisses, and then jump over a sword for the edification of the crowd, while cheerfully declaring them husband and wife and demanding the first cup of the wedding wine.
“A copper for your thoughts?” At some point since the end of the official part of the wedding and his place in it, Solivar had shed his hideously overwrought borrowed dress armor and put on the last surviving pieces of clothing he’d brought with him from Quel’Thalas -- clothing, he could not help but note, that rather complimented the nuptial colors of blue and silver.
“....I have no idea what she sees in him.” Keldris admitted, nodding down at the happy couple, spinning arm-in-arm in the middle of the dancing crowd. “I still want to break that nose of his at least once a week.”
A low chuckle. “Now. He’s grown up quite a bit -- he’s not half the insufferable wanker he was when we met all those years ago in Stratholme.”
“Yes, well, even less than half the insufferable wanker he was is still more than insufferable enough, thank you kindly. What are you doing up here? Don’t you have some sort of official functions left to perform as the guardian of the bride?”
“Talia graciously released me from any obligation to humiliate myself in public on the dance floor. I may, instead, humiliate myself later when everyone is too drunk to remember it tomorrow.”
He couldn’t help but laugh. “So you came up here to hide out with me until that blessed moment arrives?”
“Where else would I be?” Solivar offered a hand and he accepted it, folding their fingers together below the level of the mezzanine railing. “I apologize. I have been neglecting you shamefully these last few weeks, between all the work I have had in the infirmary and preparing for the wedding.”
“It’s nothing. I -- “ Something small and flat and circular, contact-warmed, was resting in Solivar’s palm and now sat securely between their hands. “...What is...”
“No, I am afraid that it is not ‘nothing’. I have been greatly remiss...after all, your happiness is precious to me.” Softly. “If you wish it, I would spend the rest of our lives tending to that happiness.”
“...I...”
“I...know that this is a...rather large thing to ask. And a weighty decision. Do not answer me now, if you do not have an answer yet to give. It is not a thing I ask lightly.”
“I...will. Think about this. Solivar...”
“On a less serious note, how do you feel about publicly humiliating yourself with me in front of a horde of drunken house-knights...?”
The ring, he was forced to admit, looked as though it had been made to sit on his hand. Two intertwined bands of metal, gold-chased truesilver and thorium, sculpted in such a way that, held one way they looked like leaves and the other like dancing flames, with no raised edges to catch on cloth or leather, flatter by far than even the Order signet. On the inside, an inscription in flowing Thalassian script, no word of which he recognized. At first, he thought it was too small to fit on any of his fingers -- but when he slipped it on his shield hand, the band had altered itself to suit, expanding before his eyes to fit snugly in place. When he removed it, it did not return to its original size -- and, even though he didn’t put it on again, he felt it there, around the base of his second-smallest finger.
“It’s Thalassian,” Talia informed him, mock-loftily, when he asked her about it, three days later.
“I know it’s Thalassian, Talia. I know what the Thalassian alphabet looks like. What does it say?”
“And is that...thorium? It is thorium. This must have cost a fortune. Well, a small fortune. Maybe it’s an antique he got from someone who didn’t know what they were -- “
“Talia.”
“Oh, all right. It says, if I’m remembering my declensions correctly, ‘My heart is lost to you.’” She handed it back. “So...when’s the handfasting, Sir Pellegrin?”
”No...no. This is yours. It has...always been for you...and I would not see it on the hand of another.” Solivar folded his hand closed, the ring’s metal not even beginning to cool in the winter air, despite the damp, despite the snow. “I...Forgive me, Keldris. I broke my word to you, without meaning to do so.”
”Are you sure? Absolutely certain? It’s -- “
“If not me, then who? I’ve been granted passage beyond the Thalassian Gate.” Wearily. “If even one of the messages I carry reaches a sympathetic eye -- particularly if the eye belongs to General Windrunner -- relief will be here before the spring. They may not know how dire the situation truly is, particularly if the Convocation is restricting access to that information.”
“I know but...”
“But?”
“Stratholme, Solivar. You have to pass so close to it just to reach the Pass. Too close. The dead are -- “
“Thick as flies in summer, I know. I do not intend to stand and fight. Not now at any rate.” A tired smile. “I promise I will not be more foolish than I have to be.”
“I know. You’re never as -- as much of an idiot as I am, just to pick a random example right off the top of my head. I -- “
“Kel, for the love of the Light, just spit it out. I have to finish packing.”
“I...There was a letter for me with the last courier to come in from Stormwind.” He looked away -- Solivar’s utterly still lack of expression was almost worse than seeing him hurt. “My family is calling me home. As soon as the situation is...stable enough to allow it. I might not be here when you get back from Quel’Thalas.”
“I see.” Softly. A ragged breath. “If...we do not have the chance to see each other again...know that I wish you happiness. That is all that I have wished for since I first knew you were my friend.”
So close...
And it's at about this point that Ulduar begins to shake.