#sarjen

***

Sara groans. This video has taken so long to export she’s had time to draw three pieces – and not just tiny doodles, but full on sketches. She looks them over, adding touches of color here and there with a stray purple marker, when she realizes something about them looks familiar.

Sara doesn’t draw real people – it’s not what her art is about. But when she looks at these three drawings – three different shots of the same alien cat girl – she can’t help but feel like they remind her of something. Sort of an itch you keep scratching but can’t quite get right, like it’s set deeper than you can reach.

Maybe it’s the smile? Charming, mischievous, with a hint of self deprecation?

Or the way she holds herself? Going from tight like a coiled spring to laid back and open, but always a bit awkward.

Someone taps on her shoulder and she jumps.

“Oh sorry about that,” Jen says, taking a step back. “Didn’t mean to –“

– but Sara doesn’t hear what she’s saying, because Jen is wearing a purple t-shirt and cat ears. She does a double take from Jen to her drawings, flips the pages as discretely as possible so Jen doesn’t notice.

Jen only sees her noticing the ears. “Oh this?” she chuckles, poking them. “It’s for a video. A bit silly, but it’s cute.” She shrugs.

Sara tries as hard as she can to listen to Jen, but ultimately only gets that Jen needs her for something. She follows her, trying to get her inner turmoil under control.

So she drew Jen. Three times in a row, her brain helpfully supplies. This doesn’t mean a thing. You were daydreaming about going on space adventures with cat girl, of course it means something.

Why is her inner monologue always right? And gay?

Jen’s pretty cute today.

Sara chokes on her own spit at that, trying to look everywhere but at Jen, which is pretty hard since Jen is patting her back and trying to make eye contact to see if she’s okay. “Careful, lil lady,” she says. “We need you alive and breathing for the shoot. Y’okay?”

Sara gapes at her. “I – can I get some water?”

“You got it!” Jen shoots her some finger guns before bouncing away, and Sara can finally catch her breath.

But Jen comes back and winks at her, and rubs circles on her back while she drinks, and Sara’s brain goes wheeeeeeee! again.

“So what’s the video?” Sara asks, clearing her throat.

“Artists Try to Draw With Someone Else’s Hand. I’m holding the pencil and you’re drawing with my hand.”

“Oh.”

“Is this okay?”

Sara’s gonna have to hold Jen’s hand for like half an hour on camera while trying to corral a crush she wasn’t even aware of twenty minutes ago?

“Of course.”

***

“So how’s this supposed to work?” Sara’s standing next to Jen’s chair, wondering where to put herself. “You’re a leftie, right?”

Jen passes a pencil from one hand to the other. “I mean I can hold it in my right hand since you’re the one drawing. God, that’s weird,” she says, making doodling motions in the air with her right hand.

“Okay, so...” Sara pulls up a chair right next to Jen, but she has to lean in a weird way to be able to hold her wrist, and even then she doesn’t see the paper.

“Um, how’s this?” Jen pushes her chair back and sits on Sara’s lap, holding her hand ready for Sara to take it.

“Oh, um, sure.” Sara takes Jen’s hand and starts drawing.

After a bit, Sara forgets she’s on camera, forgets she’s got a cute girl in her lap, she’s just letting the drawing guide her.

It’s not pretty or good by any means, it’s pretty hard to draw with someone’s hand, but Sara loves it nonetheless. It’s her alien cat girl and her blue flower witch, holding hands as they stroll across Saturn’s rings.

“Whoa,” Jen says, holding the drawing up to the camera, “this is amazing! Did you have fun?” she asks Sara.

Jen is still sitting in her lap for the wrap up of the video, and Sara realizes that while she was focused on drawing, her left hand came to rest on Jen’s hip. Jen doesn’t seem to mind.

“Yeah, I did,” she says, beaming.

“So did I. Can I keep this?” Jen asks, gingerly holding the sheet like it was a priceless masterpiece.

Sara nods. Out of the corner of her eye, Mike turns the camera off and slinks out of the room. Jen grins and hooks her arms around her neck.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“Is it the fact that you orchestrated this whole thing to sit on my lap?” Sara asks, grinning.

“No, that’s just an unexpected perk. The secret is that I’m gonna add this to my collection of Sara art.”

“You have a collection?” Sara’s eyes widen.

“A scrapbook. All the small doodles you leave behind. I give them a home.”

“Jen, that’s...”

“Creepy?”

“Lovely.”

Even their chief was more resigned than normal, turning his shoulder to almost everyone who approached him, smoking cigarette after cigarette and saying next to nothing. He too was impatient, bouncing his knee, tapping his fingers, licking his tusks. The Plaguelands got to everyone.

The shrill cry of a gryphon pierced the unearthly quiet and Sarjen looked over his shoulder to the necropolis behind him: A dark rider from Acherus. He landed in a flurry of dust and slid from the saddle, hurrying over to Sarjen with a roll of paper in his hand. Small, thin, puffing out his chest like anyone cared. Probably a blood elf.

“Sir?” The elf held out his scroll, sealed with a deep green wax. The sigil stamped into it was nearly unrecognizable, but the wax was familiar enough. They’d used it to light the candles in their workshop so long ago, stitching ghouls and geists and people back together. “A letter for you. Urgent, supposedly.”

Sarjen took the scroll from its messenger, carefully turning it over in his patchwork hands. “You don’t have to call me sir.” He spoke, still looking at the letter. “I’m not a sir.”

“We are all knights, sir.” The messenger offered a low bow and turned with a flourish of his cape, sliding back onto his mount and off towards Acherus. Definitely a blood elf.

Still, he had a point. Sarjen smiled to himself as he popped the seal, the elegant, practiced script of his former comrade unfurling before him. They WERE all knights. All of them former scourge, all of them dead and walking, all of them nameless, faceless soldiers of the Ebon Blade. People thought they all knew each other.

“My dearest Sarjen,

It’s been nearly a year since I’ve heard from you, but a little Sparrow tells me you’re doing well enough. Did the shopping list I sent you meet your expectations?”

Sarjen smiled. Her shopping list, delivered by her only living relative, was nothing more than a direction (south) towards the silver shield of the Alliance and the names of those who carried it.

“If you must know, I’m back in Acherus for the time being and would very much like to see you. We have much catching up to do, and the dungeons are only sew-sew without the pleasure of your conversation.

Aledonna”

He shook his head and folded the letter, tucking it into his breastplate for safe keeping. Juzmik wouldn’t be too happy with him heading up there without him, but his old friend was fickle, and likely to leave if she didn’t get a view of his rusty red hair before sundown.

He had his papers spread out around him on the ground, lacking in office space now but not about to drop the pretense, screwing up his hands as he licked his ink-covered fingers to turn a page. The death knight standing before him watched this happen for several minutes, saying nothing but filing it away for later.

“Sarj.” Rasek finally spoke up, not lifting his eyes from the ledger.

“Sir.” Sarjen offered a brief nod.

“We gotta get in on some a de stuff out here.” He paused for a moment to let Sarjen respond. Nothing came. “I seen people, every day I tink, people comin out here sayin dey got jobs for dis an dat ting, stuff all ova. Dealin wit cultists an tings for real money.”

Sarjen nodded. “Certainly, sir. It seems several groups have been contracted out to deal with a slight resurgence in cult activity across the kingdoms and Kalimdor.”

Debt cultists. The cult of the gold. The Benevolent Order of Shinegrab. The Evil League of Anti-Good Moneytake. Badfist Coinsuck & Co., Bend Me Over and Rob Me Blind, LLC.

The smaller troll ran these obvious threats through his mind, nodding along to his own narrative as Sarjen watched, hands clasped behind his back.

“So here’s what I got for ya, Sarj. We need one a dem contracts for ourselves. Ya know, get our name back out dere, make some chedda, maybe kill a guy or two, eh? Dat’s what guys like you need, eh? Killin a guy? Drinkin de blood? Fistin de corpse? So maybe we get one a dem, an I send ya out dere an ya get to work, get whateva it is dey ask for, an dey be so damn impressed dey give us anudda one. Whateva work ya do, Sarj, I know dey gonna be real impressed. Heads on spikes an tings. Right?”

Sarjen shifted his weight. He wasn’t surprised Rasek called on him, nor was he especially unhappy about being dragged away from babysitting duty—Juzmik’s newly born twins were a bit much to handle and he’d never been excellent with children—but there were a few snags. A few very big, obvious snags. Bear trap style snags.

“With all due respect, sir,” He put a thick layer of ice on the word, “The warband hasn’t been paid in several months, myself included. Juzmik is feeding Tik and Tak out of his savings, and most of our soldiers have been laid off and found work elsewhere. How do you expect to compensate me for my time, exactly?”

He looked down at the ledger and Rasek’s scowl hovering above it.

“I know the math, Major-General.” He nodded at the book. “It’s quite clear you have no means to pay me for my service and I can quite easily reach that salary doing nothing at all.”

Rasek slid the ledger closer to him, his scarred face twisted with annoyance. He was used to the largely illiterate rabble reporting to him, and a good desk to keep pesky death knights from reading everything he had written. It was a miracle, in all honesty, that the old knight was able to read Rasek’s handwriting at all. His largely self-taught alphabet was riddled with mistakes and personal quirks, but numbers were numbers and Sarjen’s strength lay within.

“And Juzmik?” He spat, still scowling. “He want ya just LAZIN around, playin mama to him kids, pickin up de groceries an foldin clothes, eh? Dat why ya still carry dat axe wit ya? Eh? I know ya need to use it to stay sane, Sarj. I ain’t stupid. Ya stay stagnant like dat too long ya gonna lose it, an dey gonna put ya down like dey did to Ezzran.”

Sarjen stiffened at the thought. Ezzran standing at the heart of Zul’Aman, laughing and shouting as the elves moved in on him, the ability to think, to feel , to make a good choice long gone. His woman and her loss after it was over.

It was true, he’d been struggling with the domestic life since the warband went under. Taking out dwarves and Vilebranch who ventured too close to Revantusk land was keeping him grounded enough, but eventually they’d stop coming close, and he’d have to go farther and farther into their territory to eat. Dangerous. He had a family of sorts now. And if the warband was able to make money again, well… maybe Juzmik would…

Rasek smiled at him, gravestone teeth between a mess of scars and framed by yellowed tusks.

“Whatcha say, Sarj? A job for old time’s sake?”

The old knight straightened his shoulders, the fires of Icecrown burning cold deep within his eyes.

He stopped beneath a swinging gas lamp and a sign post pointing east, elegant Darnassian script directing travelers to the nearest outpost.  Sarjen looked either way and further down the road, squinting his eyes at the growing darkness.  He could just make out the silhouettes of watch towers in the distance, not close enough for the sentinels to take note of who and what he was.  Two pinpricks of icy blue would suggest a death knight and nothing else, if they could even see that.  Kaldorei eyes were rumored to be superior to those of “lesser” races, but it was nothing more than rumors, as far as he knew.

A shadow moving behind the signpost caught him off guard.  He tensed, hoping it had gone unnoticed, tightening his grip on the reins of his raptor.  “Aledonna?” He asked, voice low and soft despite its metallic din.  “Is that you?”

“Not quite.”  An unfamiliar elf stepped into the light. She was dressed entirely in leather, her vest halfway unlaced with no shirt beneath.  A pair of daggers were strapped to her hips and she wore no hood. She smiled impishly at him, twirling strands of silvery pigtails between her fingers.  Sarjen returned the smile.  Pretty, but ineffective.

“Pardon me.”  He dipped his head, speaking slowly in Common. “I am looking for someone else.”

“No, you’re not.”  She stepped closer to him, placing one hand on his raptor’s nose.  She was an unused to speaking the human’s tongue as he was, and her melodic accent made it all the harder to understand her.  “Aledonna isn’t here today.  She sent me instead.”

“Prove it.”  Any answer he didn’t like, and her blood would decorate the road for morning patrols to find.

She shrugged.  “She said her friend Sarjen would be waiting for her here.  She said she had some news, but couldn’t make it.  I collected it for her instead, and now I am here.  You ARE Sarjen, aren’t you?  The stitching boy from Acherus?”

True enough, though it had been more than twenty years since anyone had called him a boy.  The old knight watched her circle his mount, running her fingertips along scales, leather, plated legs.  He couldn’t recall Aledonna having any family, at least none that she’d mentioned.  Though their days immersed in work, up to their elbows in ghouls and geists and worse constructs still left them little time for idle chat, and few knights cared to speak of their past regardless.

“Your name, then?”

“Sparrow.”

“Not good enough.”

“It will have to be.” She smiled.  He stared at her, she stared back, unashamed and unflinching.

It would have to be good enough.  He didn’t come all the way down from Silvermoon to trade quips with a night elf any more than he’d come to pick flowers, and if Aledonna wasn’t coming it meant the girl was either telling the truth or his old friend was dead.

“Alright, Sparrow.” He sat up straight in the saddle, towering over her.  “What do you have for me?”

Sparrow cast a quick glance toward the outpost.  Sarjen followed suit, and when he looked back, she was smiling again.  “You have friends south of Lordaeron.  At least, we assume they are your friends.  Forsaken, not the Death Guard, poking around there. Not unusual, except for the fact that we too have friends with their nose in that business.”  She unsheathed one of her daggers.  Sarjen reached for his axe, his eyes on her hands.  “They plan on sticking the Highlands like a little pig and letting it bleed.  They’ll worm their way in little by little until their roots are too deep and too strong for the miserable little towers you all have guarding the road south.”

She stabbed at the air twice with her blade before sliding it back into its sheath.  She shot another look at the outpost.  Fires were being lit at the corner of every tower. The sentinels would be too fire blind to see them, even beneath the lamppost.  Sarjen drank in the little elf’s unease.

“But it’s not that easy.”

“Why?”

Sparrow shook her head. “You should be able to figure that out by yourself, you big brute.”  She held out her hand to him, blue veins showing through near-white skin.

Sarjen eyed it with contempt.  “What? Am I meant to pay you for this? Aledonna—“

“—Isn’t here.  My sister owes you a debt, but I do not, and I am faster than you, and my voice loud, and I expect to be compensated.”

He started at her for a moment, right hand itching for his axe.  He could cut her down where she stood, of course, probably before she opened her big mouth.  He could carve her up, ribs broken, organs laid out in order beside her ruined corpse. She could be measured and counted and stitched back together, just as he and Aledonna used to do, but then again…

The clink of a heavy coin purse was quickly muffled by her contented purr.  She weighed it in her hand a moment before tying it around her belt. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“No.”  Sarjen leaned over, tipping her chin with the side of his hand.  “But I won’t do it again.  Aledonna comes next time, or no one at all.  You can tell her that when you see her.”

Sparrow spun away from him, her pigtails catching the lamplight in an almost poetic flourish. “I’ll do as I please, thank you. I’ll tell my sister you said hello.”

She slunk back into the shadow of the road, toward the towers like spears that stuck out against the sky.  Sarjen straightened himself, pulling his raptor in the opposite direction.  If what she said was true, then the warband’s dismissal of Forsaken concerns over Stromgarde were unwise.  He wondered for a moment as the fascination with the lost kingdom, but weren’t the Amani too rocked to sleep on stories of reclaiming elven lands for their own?

The old knight dug his heels into his mount, urging it north towards Lordaeron and Quel’thalas.  Even if it wasn’t true, even if nothing happened and no one was coming, Juzmik had too much waiting for him in Revantusk for a threat to be ignored.  Scouts to the south, out of the safety of the city, to the border of the Hinterlands and beyond.

Yes, well.  Sarjen wiped blood from his mouth, smearing it down his chin.  There was still hunger in his gut, gnawing at his mind.  Eyes wide, hand on a pair of head tied together at the hair.  He’d come here expecting Juzmik to receive him as always.  His stiff and timid breaths as the old knight told him of his exploits, covered in drying blood, his hand in the Juzmik’s hair.

But Juzmik had been busy lately.  Perhaps he was at his desk late, squinting at ink on paper, a bottle of port beside him. Maybe he’d gone to bed.

Sarjen shifted his body towards their hut, nestled a bit away from the village hub, but his eyes didn’t follow.  A thick head of hair, tied back in a braid.  Unsure, eager to please, quickly gaining the favor of his officers.  Umcha was a younger Juzmik, and Juzmik… Juzmik was busy.

Sarjen dropped the heads. It wouldn’t take long.  A boy that small wasn’t strong enough to put up a fight, and the unassuming little fool wouldn’t know what was happening until his belly was open and every bone broken, reset, counted and rearranged in order. Would he die screaming?  Would he beg for mercy?  The old knight took a step forward.

“Late night, eh?”  A soft voice cut through the fog of hunger, and Sarjen turned to find his rude intruder.  General Rasek, strangely absent from his cigarettes and his young son, standing with his hands on the pommels of his swords just out of reach of firelight.

Sarjen said nothing.

“Looks like you had some fun.”  Rasek nodded at the heads.  “Didn’t even bother to clean up before coming home.”

The General had slipped back into his comfortable Amani dialect as soon as they’d returned to Revantusk.  It was huskier, slower, more fluid than the quick jabs of Sarjen’s native tongue, but he adapted quickly, and his ears opened to the slow roll of the northern forests.  He took a step forward, head cocked.

“I get it.  You guys need to eat.  We all get it.”  Rasek leveled his gaze with Sarjen’s.  “After what happened with Easy, I think we’re all very aware of what happens when a death knight steps out of line.”

Their old general, beloved by the matron Tiombi, his head displayed outside of Silvermoon City, and a pair of dead men asking elves for their mercy in returning his helmet to their pitiable warband.  Yes, he was very aware.

“And I don’t think anyone wants that to happen here, right buddy?”  Rasek’s eyes flicked to the fire and back again.  “If you gotta eat, you wouldn’t do it in town.  Everybody knows that.”

Sarjen considered for a moment the way they were standing.  The General was facing the fire, blocked only by the troll in front of him.  He’d have to be faster than Rasek, but if he got into the darkness quick enough, the poor kid would still be blind by the time he drew his swords.

“You look tired, Sarj. Didn’t know your kinda guys could get tired, but you managed.  Why don’t you go walk it off?”

One step forward, mirrored by the other.  Sarjen tilted his head the other way, fingers itching for his axe.  He wasn’t as fast, but he was smarter, stronger.  He could catch the boy before he got too close—

A shift in the grass caught his attention.  A mistake, made in anticipation.  Rasek had slid back, bent just enough at the knees.  His hands hovered above the hilts of his blades.  And the fire?  No. Sarjen looked from feet to swords to eyes.  Rasek hadn’t been watching anything but his eyes.  Two bright, unblinking targets anyone could follow through the dark. How could he have been so stupid?

“So.”  Rasek’s low voice, choked by years of smoke and rum, his thick pine and sea salt accent.  “We’re not having any problems that can’t be solved by you taking a walk, right Sarj?”

The old knight’s tongue caught in his throat.  He felt dry, hungry, unfulfilled and nervous.  A feeling of dread and shame washed over him, his back to the boy on the wall.  He licked his lips and bent down, scooping up his pair of forgotten heads.

Just a little mistake. Just one.  Wouldn’t happen again.

Two sets of mirrors in the moonlight.  Yellow and blue, both hungry.  Only one reeked of old blood.  The dog left him alone.

The woman in front of him had put up more of a fight.  Her nails were caked with his blood, little ribbons of dead brown skin clinging to her broken and ruined fingers.  Thick, ragged lines ran down his neck as proof of her work, not that it bothered him. She was on her back now, her stomach split up the middle, ribs pulled apart.  Everything inside had to be counted, set, measured.  He was very particular.

This young woman, this grand listener, beheld his quiet, stuttering stories with silent awe.  He spoke to her with his hand in her hair, still tied in a velvet ribbon, eyes as vacant as the moon, as he smeared native blood against native skin.

His time in Northrend. His time in the warband.  The handsome young man whose heels kicked at the side of their bed in Booty Bay.  Paint around his eyes, small tusks, dark hair that he loved dearly.  He spoke to her of Juzmik as if he were dead and she were alive, and at times he felt himself heaving, sobbing, digging the palms of his hands into his eyes before going back to work.

She needed to be properly dressed.  This was HIS corpse, and he was damned if it wasn’t going to get it right.

Her ribs were laid out next to her, in order of length.  He left her eyes in her head this time—he didn’t like Draenei eyes—but removed her fingers and lined them up next to the bones.  Legs as straight as they could be, ribbon intact, arms at her sides. Years ago he would have sewn her up with something inside; a nice surprise for hapless crusaders, or taken her working parts for one of his ghouls, or turned her over to the pits to see if she could be made to be like him.

Things were different now. A flaying knife came from his boot and caught the moonlight as he tilted it against her skin.  His arm never quite recovered after the rot took to it. Every graft he’d stitched on was rejected, eventually, falling away and stinking of death, much to the embarrassment and disgust of those who knew him.  Her skin was darker than his and softer, more beautiful.  She had freckles along the shoulders but nowhere else, and that was fine.  He could be patchwork without being spotted as well.

He cut a square from her thin arms, worn only by the salt and the wind from the sea by her home, and thanked her for the gift, tucking it in a worn leather bag along with his tools.

Tomorrow, someone would travel the road above them as they always did, and perhaps something would catch the sun, or they’d smell something.  Perhaps the war would leave them afraid and aware, always observant. Either way they’d see her, find her, and bring more to behold what he’d made for them.  Suffering extended far beyond death, he learned, and it tasted sweeter for it.

They passed the lamp, fading out of its soft glow and back into the growing darkness.  The road was treacherous still, years after it had been marred by the cataclysm, and Sarjen felt the raptor beneath him growing more and more unsure of his footing.  One bad step and they could go tumbling, either to the stone or the streams like gaping wounds that poured into the ocean from up above.  If they fell, the boy in his arms…

Sarjen looked down at him, pale and small.  He was clutching his arm to his chest, the moss around its ruined end red and brown with blood new and old.  “That was very foolish of you.”  His voice was soft and low; a rumble of ice and snow in the middle of summer. “Coming out here by yourself, as young as you are.”

In truth, he was not much younger than Juzmik was when he slid into the warband.  He was the same age as Raiyda, and older than he’d been when he came to them.  And Zinki, and Zuriki, and any number of the young trolls who wore green and gold and called themselves Gor’Watha.  But Umcha was young.

He was careless and kind, impetuous and unsuspecting, needy and overconfident and graceless.  Sarjen absent-mindedly ran his hand over the boy’s mess of orange hair, barely held together in its usual braid.  He could already hear the distrust in their voices and see it on their faces.

“What happened to him?” And they’d look over his armor. “Where did you find him?  Was he already like this?”  A flick of the eyes to check his chin and hair.  Was there blood in there, too?  What about his fingernails?  What about his axe?  They were never quick enough to go unnoticed.

The raptor slowed to a stop beneath him, tossing its head without a sound.  A break in the road; the same one they’d crossed on their way in. Sarjen shifted the boy in his lap, careful not to let his head fall.  “Umcha.”  No answer. Sarjen looked around helplessly.  “Umcha, I need to get off for a moment.”

The boy lay in a heap by the raptor, legs splayed, his stump of an arm resting on his chest.  Getting him on the damn thing was hard enough. Sarjen wasn’t willing to waste as much time getting him off again if he was passed out anyway.  Not like he would feel anything.

Still, the shifting scent of blood tickled his nose and gnawed at his gut, and he hurried away from the body and down to the edge of the stream.  It wasn’t especially wide or deep.  He could almost see the bottom through the current.  But it was too far to jump, and putting the raptor into the cold water was something he’d rather avoid.

The frost on his fingertips grew like lichen on his gauntlets, teased by the conflict of the summer heat and the endless dream of Icecrown contained within the body of an old night at the edge of a stream.  Sarjen pressed his hand to the surface of the water and watched his lichen spread across it, blooming and cracking as it froze and strained upon itself above the current.  The raptor wouldn’t like the cold on his feet, but it was necessary.  They’d travelled over them for far longer before.

The comstone at his hip crackled with static, blips of noise breaking through from the other end. “Sar—“ Silence.  “S—retu—n—be aware—“ And it was gone again.  He pulled it from his bag and held it up, the spiral at the center flashing green and red.  It had been only red a few kilometers back.

The coast began to bend past the river, and the grass melted away into sand and reeds and broken crab shells.  The treeline took a sharp turn inland as the Horde war machine cut further and further into it.  Sarjen strained his eyes to see how far off the nearest outpost was, with only the faint glow of a lamplight in the distance to guide him.

“We’re close now.” Sarjen said to himself more than anyone, though he scooped Umcha back into his arms.  “Ashenvale is just across the river.  At the very least, we’ll be able to let them know where we are.”  He scrambled back into the saddle awkwardly, trying to keep the boy from falling and his cloak from catching on the saddle. It took effort, and would have been frightfully embarrassing if anyone had been around to see it.  But the nearest outpost, the haze of a yellow lamp in the distance, was still too far off to see their nearest scouts, and the old knight stumbled on top of his raptor without shame.

“Do you hear me, Umcha?” He kept his voice low, soft, as soothing as it could be.  The raptor hesitated a moment before the path of ice atop the water.  “We’re going to be home, soon, alright?”  Sarjen pressed against the raptor’s neck and it hissed at him, stepping onto the path and hurrying back to its hurried pace.

“Home…”  The boy in his lap echoed, distant and too warm, tusks scraping armor as he buried his face back into Sarjen’s chest.

Sarjen was one of them, bent over a steel table under a flickering lamplight, his latest creation coming together between his fingers. The arms of an abomination, fleshy and thick, were waiting to join their body, already complete and slumped over in the corner. The old knight had been there for several weeks already. He’d packed nothing and come as soon as the whispers reached him, leaving a bewildered husband behind in Dalaran, his green and gold tabard hastily crammed in his travel bag.

The Ebon Blade was black and blue.

A pair of cold hands wrapped their spindly fingers around his shoulders. He shivered despite his own chill and stiffened, a muscle in his cheek twinging with apprehension.

“You’re still working, Sarjen.”

“Aledonna.” He regarded her humorlessly, unkindly, as he had since his return.

“I thought you had letters to write. That cute kid keeps writing you.”

Juzmik, of course. Her hair might have been the same color as his once, deep and rich and dark as the night sky, but the color was drained from her with her life, and she was a pale dusk of what she once must have been.

She leaned in close, looming over his shoulder, judging his work even as she spoke. “You should tell him about me. All the things we get up to.” Her hand snaked down to his chest. “All the awful things we get up to.”

“You disgust me.” Sarjen growled, his voice deep and thick with Icecrown.

Aledonna laughed.

“Oh please, I do not. If that were true, you wouldn’t still be down here, putting together our little puppets. You would have said no to that tank in your side, and you’d have a blade to my throat already.”

She pressed her cheek against his temple, an impish sigh on her lips.

“What do you want?” He shook her from him, his work paused.

She had been his comrade when they were new, slaving away in the bowels of Acherus for their king and the others, churning out monsters stitched from the flesh of corpses. They breathed life into them and watched them die, stripped them apart, and made them new and better for next time.

When the Lich King stumbled so did they, parting at the death gates to find new purpose in the cities of the living. He stayed, and she returned to Acherus, to their workshop and their ghouls and the loneliness of the bottom of the world.

They spoke rarely and cordially, and when he returned, his boy general in hand, he avoided her as best he could. It was enough to hurt a girl’s feelings.

“The heart that stays the hand, my precious little knight.”

He shot her a time-worn look, unimpressed, disinterested. In another life he might have feigned a tooth ache and left. Aledonna, all black armor and pathwork skin, her once vibrant, moonlit eyes laced with rime, tittered like a child and slipped away from him.

“So hurtful.”

“You deserve nothing less.”

“Still.” She shrugged, moving to the door. “You should write to him. If he really matters to you, you’ll do it.”

“He does.”

“Oh?” Aledonna cocked her head to the side and smiled. “I wonder.”

Her heavy footsteps down the hall echoed against the stonework, crowding focus from his mind long after she left. It was true, and Juzmik knew it, that he struggled with feeling things the way he remembered feeling them. That anything the boy gave him could only be returned in part; the fading memory of what love was and what devotion should be to someone you adored and who adored you. Juzmik accepted it without complaint, patient and understanding.

Or was it indifference? His departure, his hunger, his loyalty to the other knights. Was Juzmik the picture of an understanding partner, or had time worn away at them, chipped the paint and left him dull, and cracked, and unwelcome? An old man with rust-colored hair and patchwork skin, frost on his fingertips and cruelty on his tongue, slipping further away from the flame of a boy beloved by everyone who ever met him.

Sarjen set his needle down, feeling clumsier than he had in years. He’d been too focused on his work, too keen on the prospect of the rise of another scourge. Lost in the fog of freedom from responsibility, eagerly awaiting his mind was scarcely his own again, when the hunger was always sated and victory was always assured by nightfall.

That wasn’t going to happen. It ended years ago in the Plaguelands, and only a fool like him would still cling to it like it mattered, like it was ever going to come again.