#jakiel

The young rogue hissed in pain, pushing on his sprained wrist and rolled to the side like a cracking whip, swift and light as a feather. “CAN WE STOP?” he shouted behind him, his shadow releasing off him in the same snapping manner it makes when he shrouds his body.

Very suddenly, a deeper black shadow lashed through the cut wood, and a taller, broader elf landed in a crouch at the spot he had just tumbled from. The other Sin’dorei was older than he by quite a few decades, his black hair was in a shaggy ponytail with the tuffs of hair at his ears already silver. The other rogue was dressed in all black leather, tight against his body, but well worn so it stretched with his muscled limbs. The older elf gave Theidran a grimace, his good eye still very luminescent with Fel magic even after all these years of loose dependency on such magic by his race. The other eye remained a whiter green, the pupil stark white; he was blinded there.

“Not until I beat your debt out of your hide,” rumbled the unknown rogue, his lip peeling back over a sharpened canine. The moment the last syllable left his mouth, he lunged again.

Theidran rolled to the side and kicked his boot off the attacking rogue’s shoulder, propelling backwards onto his hands and completing a flip onto his feet. His daggers were pulled up defensively, and it was apparent now that he was standing still, he had already taken injury from the chase. Running down his forearms were lines of blood, and down his back was a slash through his leathers, displaying the long gash in his flesh. And the way Theidran favored one leg over the other made it apparent he’d twisted or wounded his right leg from vaulting over and under shadow attacks.

“I think I’d be dead by the time you got half way through that debt,” Theidran grinded out through his teeth, catching the assailant’s sword with the hook on his dagger blade. But, the other elf was quicker, and twisted his sword with more strength than Theidran had, and as a result, the dagger in his hand flipped out of his grasp and into the leaves. Almost too quick to see, the same disarming sword turned back in a professional hand, and came very close to stabbing the younger rogue through the throat.

Theidran had enough sense to loosen his legs and dip backwards as if he’d lost all strength in his knees. The sword passed over his jaw, slicing his skin open, but luckily that’s as deep as the cut went. Before he could even think about what to do once he had to pick himself back up, Theidran lifted his good leg up and very precisely struck his knee into the taller elf’s side. The man above him grunted and was thrown off balance just enough that his off-hand dagger shred just a hair’s breadth from nickingTheidran’s leathers over his stomach.

“LISTEN, I know someone-- I can GET you your fucking money!” groused the young rogue, leaping back at a sword aimed at him, and pushed out of range of his dagger on the ground.

“Who? Are you back dealing on the streets?” retorted the older man, chasing Theidran back through the woods of Ashenvale.

Theidran was here because of the Highborne ruins. And anyone who knew him would understand why; because of the artifacts and treasures left behind. He was a rogue and a thief, disrespectful to temples and so-called ancestors of the Quel’dorei.

And his enemy? Well, he was chasing Theidran, obviously.

“No, actually…! He’s more… ah!--,” he ducked under a blade, hopping back, “--He’s my husband. A rich one!”

“You’re a pathetic elf! USING your family still!” growled the assaulter, his other blade twirling after the first missed slash.

“Fuck off! Money’s money to you, isn’t it, uncle?” barked Theidran, grumbling the last word while dodging the slash.

“We’re not family anymore, Theidran,” said Jakiel a bit too calmly, taking a moment to pause and catch his breath. Both rogues were out of breath, one far more injured than the other. It had been about thirty minutes of chasing each other through the forest, clashing blades and dancing around each other in a dangerous waltz of swords and daggers.

Theidran tried his damndest to block the off-hand dagger Jakiel swung at him while at the same time weaving and ducking the sword slashing the air where he would have been a moment earlier. But Jakiel was bigger and stronger, the only sign of his fatigue was a strong huff at every hard swing of his blades. Theidran though, he tripped and stumbled a few times already, losing the strength in his legs and the blocking power of his grip on his last dagger. Often times he panicked when he thought his dagger would be simply bashed out of his hand by Jakiel’s stronger attack.

He managed to keep Jakiel at arm’s distance for quite a while as he retreated back through the forest. He counted forty steps before very abruptly the other elf stopped on a pin and whipped his hand out in a blur. Theidran recognized the motion as it happened, but his body was already propelling backwards mid-step, and barely stepped his other foot down before the powder was in the air around him.

He coughed once, shutting his lips tight and closed his eyes, but the fine powder was on his lips and eyelashes, sticking. Before the sharpness could be felt on his skin, Jakiel had lunged at him, taking advantage of Theidran closing his eyes.

The young elf felt an unsurprising sharp pain in his wrist when his relative hooked Theidran’s arm with Jakiel’s bladed sword hilt, slicing through his leather glove and easily cutting through his wrist, shattering bone, and coming out the other end. It made Theidran stop immediately in his tracks with a loud, pained yelp that shattered the otherwise silent forest.

Jakiel twisted his sword and with another scream, Theidran falls to his knees, his fingers quivering.

“J-Jak… Please… I’m sorry, I’ll.. nhhg! I’ll get it b-back,” Theidran choked out, not daring to move his impaled wrist and try to escape. There was no escaping now that he’d finally been caught. All he could do was try to barter for his wellbeing.

But, sadly, Jakiel wasn’t so full of sympathy. Despite the fact they were relatives. The last two descendants of the Duskstalker lineage, to be exact.

“In the end, Theidran…,” murmured Jakiel, kicking the younger elf in the chest and sending him to the ground with a yelp. He twisted his weapon hilt, letting Theidran’s wrist slide off his blade while he fell. “It’s not about the money. It’s that you sold out your father’s property. His hard work. The business is gone, there’s no claims left to the Duskstalker trading company.”

Jak walked up and pressed his boot down on Theidran’s chest, earning a grunt of pain. He hovered the tip of his sword down on one of the other rogue’s palm, threatening to pierce through. “He must have raised you to be a thief, a dishonorable thief. A backstabbing turncoat of a son… Your brother may not have become a Duskstalker, but he was always more favorable…”

Theidran squirmed, his uninjured arm coming up, placing his hand over Jakiel’s boot, trying meekly to push it off. But the other just stepped harder on him, and Theidran stopped. “Don’t talk about Ashrim like that…,” he coughed out with a hoarse voice.

The other man lifted his boot up over Theidran’s throat, and the rogue beneath him began to squirm again, lifting his knees up to try and catch the taller man behind his leg. But he was once again halted when the threatening sword over his hand pierced through with one sharp, brutal thrust. He felt it jab through the leather, his bones, and into the soft soil. But, alas, the only noise Theidran let out was a sharp, muffled cry. His fingers twitched once before he forced himself to relax.

“Ashrim was a sore thumb to our family, he couldn’t move shadows like you and me… Despite that, he had more heart, more motivation. From what I hear, you left him. Left him when he was still a boy, right after the Scourge came to Corrin’s Crossing.” Jakiel pressed his boot further against Theidran’s throat, and the smaller rogue grunted and winced before leaning his chin further back to breath. “But somehow, if the decision was mine, I would have given the name Duskstalker instead of you.”

After a silent moment between them, Jakiel raised an eyebrow with mild intrigue and lifted his foot off Theidran who in turn took a soft gasp of air. “But… that’s not your name anymore is it…?” asked the older man with a hushed curiosity, his glowing eyes no longer focused on Theidran’s face.

He tore his sword from the small elf’s hand, a pained hiss streaked through the silence of the forest, and Jakiel straightened back up momentarily. He pointed the tip of his bloodied sword at Theidran’s throat, the black steel reflected the light of the dim sunset, tainted with red blood at the sharp edge. Pinning the younger elf to the ground with the threat of his blade, Jakiel knelt down onto the cushioned ground of thick green leaves and moss near Theidran’s outstretched arm. The rogue was compliant and obedient with the danger of death at his neck.

“What is it now?” asked Jak, switching his weapons between his hands, leaving the sword in his left hand and his dagger in his right hand. He glanced sideways at Theidran on the ground and pushed his question further with the point of the dagger pressing down on the younger rogue’s ring finger. Around it, sticking over the leather glove, was his wedding band.

“N...Nilhandril,” whispered Theidran, wincing over at Jakiel, his fingers trembling again with the sharp numbness of damaged bones and nerves. His fingers felt like they were falling asleep, and he could barely feel the hot blood dripping from his palm onto his shaking digits. “It’s Theidran Nilhandril.”

“Very well then…,” rumbled the older elf. “You’ve abandoned your birthright. You’ve given up the honor of our family name for… Nilhandril,” hissed Jakiel. “You’re no longer in this family, and you will never give the name Duskstalker to another. So then, by my own judgement as the last head of our house, you are… released.”

Theidran listened with growing anxiety. His panicking green eyes were paler than Jak’s, instead they were barely glowing from the taint of Fel magic anymore, the original blue he was born with showed through the green, making his iris’s a faint cyan. As Jakiel’s speech went on, Theidran’s limbs began buzzing with the urge to try and escape, the words spoken were only foreboding after all. But the sword tip at his throat pressed its edge against the side of his neck, directly over the thumping artery, holding him there while Jakiel finished speaking.

And then unexpectedly he turned his dagger to the side a bit, and shoved down on the handle. The silver dagger sliced easily through his flesh and leather. Jakiel aimed the blade just under his golden ring, cutting off his finger with one simple jab with the speed of pricking a needle into skin and then removing it a moment later to draw a bead of blood.

Theidran lurched at the shearing dagger, a cry caught in his tight throat suddenly, his eyes widening even further as he watched. He squeezed his eyes shut, his eyes misting at the pain, and a quick keen left his mouth.

Jakiel was quick to leave him, stepping off and removing all his weapons from Theidran’s body, stepping back two steps to watch the young elf on the ground writhe and clutch his wounded hand to his chest with shaggy, hoarse whimpers. With a whip of his sword and dagger, Jakiel let the drops of blood slip off the metal. And with a slow, calculating motion, moved his long sword which was almost as tall as he was, over to the severed finger. The same technique all the Duskstalker rogues were taught comes to his blade.

Theidran would have recognized it if he weren’t on his side, holding his hand still. A solid black shadow comes from Jakiel’s hand on the hilt of the sword, coming to cover the edge of the blade with the stark, unreflecting blackness. Much like the appearance of shadow magic, it squirms and wiggles once reaching the tip of the weapon, lashing out like a small creature’s arm and snaps at the wedding ring specifically. And in the last moments, Jakiel melted the area around with a flurry of black tendrils that burned with shadowflame. There was nothing left but a melted ring of gold and sliver laying in a bed of blackened foliage, red embers burning at the cuts made in the grass and plants.

“You’re exempt of all names seeing how you’ll one day inevitably disown Nilhandril too.”

“JAK!” shouted Theidran venomously, whipping around to face the standing man. His hand was still clutched to his chest, but he wore such a look of hate on his face, pushed to it by the events leading up to this point in time. He didn’t have his daggers anymore, but the shadow he cast on the ground by the light of the setting sun came to life, shifting and shivering as if alive, much like the movements the shadow blade technique Jakiel performed moments ago.

Theidran’s very shadow suddenly lashed out, creating pikes of shadow, leaping off the ground and into the air, never separating from Theidran. They aimed at Jak and sliced through the air. All of them missed and cut the air instead.

Jakiel was already leaping back, dissolving into the muted blue twilight of the forest, and was gone.