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Description: Now that Arthas is gone and his Scourge is falling back, their purpose is dwindling. And an unused blade rusts. ** Thassarian and Koltira search for their place beyond the Ebon Blade. Potentially disturbing content. No pairing, but there is subtext.

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A Cascade of Garnet

by silverr

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Takes place after the fall of Arthas the Lich King but before the Battle for Andorhal.

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Midnight. The heavy sleet that had started late in the afternoon—driving humans and animals alike to find shelter, battering the trees leafless and wearying the thinner, weaker branches with ice until they snapped like bones—had run itself out after sunset, leaving a frigid howling that swirled in through the wide ziggurat entrance to flay the skin of his face with icy crystals.

He was indifferent to the cold, of course, but the noise of the wind and the flickering of the lamp-flame and the way the pages of the book buckled and curled from the snow were mildly distracting. He pulled off one of his gloves, smoothed the lacy frost from the page with his pale, dead hand, then resumed reading.

Your song is caught in a cup of gold
the shield of light turns the blade of cold
and in my arms you live again
my lost love so merry…

He closed the book and stared out through the arched ziggurat entrance into the night.

He had told his sister Leryssa that he would fight no wars but his own, follow no orders but his heart's. He was grateful that she had not asked what could be in the heart of a soulless man, because he wasn't sure himself. His death and rebirth had mixed him with an Other, but rather than becoming a third thing, the way blood is stirred into salted milk to make paint, he had been interwoven with the Lich King's will, a witness to every death he had caused. Even before Light's Hope he had at times almost felt himself to be the Thassarian he had been in life—brother, son, soldier—but he had come to understand that such feelings were simply the Light's judgment, a harsh reminder of what he had lost, had become, had done. He, like all Knights of the Ebon Blade, was merely a corpse of who he had been, diseased carrion floating in the sea, relentlessly decomposing, dissolving into a silt that drifted down through lifeless, icy water…

There were times he wished it was over, but he had debts to repay. No matter how inadequate, he had to try to make restoration where he could.

He opened the book again. Like breathing, reading had become something he now did from habit rather than necessity. In his human life, he had read what was pertinent to his livelihood: now, in his undeath, he filled the hours of the night with whatever books he came across. Currently, this meant he was reading a great deal of poetry, for as it turned out, many of the Scourge darkfallen in Naxxanar had caches of romantic erotica hidden in their rooms – something that Thassarian found mildly amusing.

So he read. He had just found his place when he noticed a faint counterpoint beginning to emerge from the storm, a sound that certainly did not belong to the usual noises of the night. He shuttered the lamp and waited in the darkness. After a while he saw a faint movement, a speck trudging across the glassy, pitted snow. Someone, something was searching for him: they had gone to his camp near the shore and were now coming his way.

He wondered if it was Koltira: it seemed likely, for who else would be out on such a harsh, moonless night? Still, he left the lamp dark until his visitor had climbed the steps to the ziggurat entrance and stood, swaying as if drunk, one hand on the stone wall to steady himself.

Thassarian recognized the slim, dark shadow; he had, in a sense, fathered him. "What is it?" he asked, unshuttering the lamp.

"I don't know." Koltira's voice was uncharacteristically ragged. "There's something… wrong." His dark armor was caked with ice, and his long pale hair was frozen to his skull, as if he'd been wandering in the storm for hours. His eyes looked oddly dark, edged with something glistening.

"You look worse than death," Thassarian said. If it was what he suspected, he was surprised that Koltira had waited so long before coming to him, but then he knew the extent of the elf's pride. "Is it the shadows?"

Koltira made an angry sound.

"I'll take that as a no." Thassarian stood. "Tell me, what have you done these past few weeks? For Darion? Or the Horde?" He gathered up the papers on the table—maps, missives, correspondence—and set them aside in a tidy pile. "Kill anything?" He used his gloved hand to pick up the dagger he'd been been using as a paperweight and put it on the stack of papers.

Koltira snorted. "I've been a messenger boy." It was clear he considered this far beneath him.

Thassarian nodded, pulling a worm-eaten cask from a dark corner over to the table and then motioning to Koltira to sit. "I heard. I'm surprised it took them so long to find something you're good at."

"What?" Koltira had taken a few steps toward Thassarian, but stopped when the words sank in. He bristled.

"Or more likely, they're just trying to keep you out of the way. Out of their sight. And who could blame them?" Now that Koltira was closer to the lamp, Thassarian could see the faint reddish-brown film swirling over his eyes. It was astounding that the elf was capable of coherent speech, but then they were legendary for their ability to maintain control even when in agony. "They've probably heard that you weren't all that reliable when you were alive," Thassarian said, sitting down and leaning back in his chair. "After all, you failed your most important missions. Failed to defend the mooncrystal at An'owyn. Failed to protect your family. Failed to defeat me. I can see why your superiors don't think much of you."

There was a flash of bewilderment and then Koltira started to boil, his narrow nostrils flaring.

"And look at you now," Thassarian said, a bit disappointed that Koltira was taking the bait so quickly. "Fraternizing with a member of the Alliance? Really, Darkweaver, did I knock out all your brains when I killed you?"

Koltira's eyes widened and he snarled, snatching the dagger from the table and plunging it deep into Thassarian's shoulder.

Thassarian bellowed, but he did not have to playact the pain: it was real enough. His blood bubbling and smoking against the gleaming blade, he tried to pull the dagger out with his gloved hand, but the angle was wrong and he could not get a firm enough grip on the slippery hilt. As Koltira—his eyes back to normal—backed up in shock, Thassarian groped on the table for his other glove and used it to pull the dagger free.

"What is that?" Koltira asked as the dagger, black with Thassarian's blood, clattered to the floor.

"Sanctified blade," Thassarian said, wincing: he hadn't known it would hurt this much. "Belonged to a priest friend. Extra damage against undead." Fortunately Koltira had stabbed too blindly to damage anything important, but damn it all, the sacred burned. "And I'm not too happy about having been a sheath for it." Still, the necrotic magic in his body would repair him; already the wound was closing. "Sit down, Koltira. We need to talk." Thassarian wished he had something strong to drink: even the faint taste of something on his tongue would have been welcome.

Koltira still refused to sit: he folded his arms and asked with cold fury, "You goaded me into attacking you. Why?"

"A cure for what ailed you," Thassarian said.

"What do you mean?"

"Have you thought much about what we are, Koltira?" Thassarian said. "I have. We are paragons of disease and suffering and death. First we were told that we were the Scourge's perfect weapons, resurrected to crush the Scarlet Crusade and the Argent Dawn."

Koltira scowled but said nothing.

"But that was only partly true. We were mostly valued by Arthas as bait. Expendable. After Mograine and Fordring freed us, we became a new weapon: the Ebon Blade, turned against the Lich King." He moved his shoulder experimentally. "And now that Arthas is defeated, and his armies are falling back, that purpose too is dwindling. Once the Scourge is gone we likely will have no place here, in this world of Light."

"Will this monologue conclude before morning?" Koltira asked, walking toward the ziggurat's entrance.

"An unused blade rusts," Thassarian continued calmly. "What happened to you tonight I first went through a few weeks ago."

"Is that so?" Koltira paced. "Are you… why did it take so long for me to be affected?"

"I suppose it's because you've been busier delivering messages than I have," Thassarian said. "Let me describe it, and you can tell me if it sounds familiar. If I were a poet—"

"If you were a poet?" Koltira asked dryly. "Still reading that San'layn garbage?"

"—I might describe it as a hunger beyond hunger. A thirst beyond thirst. Becoming stronger and stronger, more and more painful, until it was—"

"Let me guess. An agony beyond agony?" Koltira raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I'm acquainted with that sensation."

"I wasn't about to just sit here, waiting for whatever was happening to claim me," Thassarian said, "so I went out walking."

"Walking?" Koltira's excessive disdain made it clear that he'd never consider undertaking such an activity.

"I came across a villager near the cliffs," Thassarian continued. "Disemboweled. Dying. Rather than leave her carcass to be eaten, I carried her to the edge, to drop her in the water."

"Where her corpse could be eaten by sharks? How charitable of you."

"The point is," Thassarian said, ignoring this, "as soon as she regained consciousness, she began to scream, and as soon as she screamed, I was cured. My pain vanished because I had caused her pain."

"Really?" Koltira was pretending to be impressed. "So any time this happens, all I need do is find the nearest mortally-wounded creature to torture for a few moments?" He harumphed. "Impractical."

"You're right. It is." Thassarian waited. "No guarantee of finding an appropriate target."

Koltira looked at him sharply, puzzled, but then as Thassarian knew it world, comprehension bloomed on the sharp-featured face. "Ahhhhh." Koltira nodded. "So that's what you did. Clever. That dagger's been on your table for weeks. Long enough for me to have taken note of and then disregarded it, so that your leaving it in plain sight tonight and within reach aroused no suspicion I me. Impressively devious of you. Well-played."

Thassarian inclined his head, accepting the compliment.

"It was, however, unnecessary," Koltira said, slightly reprimanding. "You could simply have told me to stab you."

"Oh?" Thassarian asked with a smile, "so you would have obeyed me in that, simply because I asked?"

"Hm." Koltira pulled off his gauntlets and stooped to pick up the priest's dagger, which he set on the table. He studied his fingertips, which had been charred by the holy magic. "Why did you do it?"

"We are despised by man and god, and have only each other."

Koltira made a sour face. "A poet's answer."

"Then think of it as efficient," Thassarian said, slightly exasperated. "We'll harm no one, anger no one, if we take our pain from each other."

"We shall see," Koltira said airily, and walked back out into the night.

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* * *
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A few days later, Thassarian was carving up a seal carcass for Dusk when Koltira rode across the snow. While the deathchargers sniffed and snorted and rattled their bridles at each other Koltira handed Thassarian a small wooden box.

"What is this?"

"A gift." Koltira said. He looked almost mischievous. "Open it now."

The box contained a half-dozen thick sail-maker's needles as long as his hand.

"Consecrated by a bishop, I've been assured," Koltira said smugly. "The physical damage they do is minimal, but they cause excruciating pain if one knows where to place them."

"And you know this how?"

Koltira tsked. "Branding irons and neural prods might be suitable for Alliance troglodytes, but there are much more elegant interrogation methods." He handed Thassarian a sealed envelope, then swung on his horse and said as he started riding away, "Mistress Suzette at Vengeance Landing is an expert in the agony points."

"Vengeance Landing is a Horde outpost." Thassarian scowled at Koltira's retreating back. "You're expecting me to waltz in there on your say-so?"

"Mistress Suzette," Koltira replied, "travels weekly to the Dalaran sewers to conduct business. Neutral ground. I'm sure a room there could be rented for your edification."

"Will she understand Common?" Thassarian shouted after him. "Or Orcish? Or will she expect me to use Gutterspeak?"

"That would be just like her, the inconsiderate trollop," Koltira said, his bitter laugh echoing across the icy ground. "No, all you need do is give her the envelope. Learn her lessons well, Thassarian: I have no desire to be an oaf's pincushion."

And then he was out of sight.

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* * *
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Koltira was taking far too long to answer the summons. Normally Thassarian wouldn't have cared, but he had been traveling in the Eastern Kingdoms, and his return to Northrend had been delayed for so long that the symptoms had started on the boat.

He had sent word to Koltira immediately, and then went to Moa'ki to make the arrangements. It felt as though it took most of the day to convince the Tuskarr that he would indeed like to rent a boat, then to convince them to find a boat that could actually carry two men in plate plus a heavy chest, and finally to convince them that he was more than willing to tow any orca he caught back to them as a bonus payment. By the time it was all settled the hornets were buzzing in his ears and the red mists were pulsing at the edges of his vision.

If Koltira didn't get his damn undead carcass to Moa'ki before sunset, the beach was going to be carpeted with entrails.

Koltira arrived at last. "I was detained," he said, striding onto the dock. He looked pointedly at the chest next to Thassarian but didn't ask about it.

"Get in," Thassarian hissed.

"And how delightful it is too see you, too," Koltira said, stepping in and then sitting at the end opposite the oarlocks. "You'll have to row, I don't know how."

Thassarian hefted the chest and then stepped in heavily—noting with small satisfaction how Koltira inadvertently gripped the edge of his seat when the boat rocked—set the chest down between them, and then used an oar to push off from the dock.

It was one of the rare days when the Northrend sky was almost painfully blue, and filled with silvery-gold light. Thassarian felt a small regret, off in a secluded corner of his mind, that his frenzy was arriving now instead of in foul weather, but it couldn't be helped. He rowed past the floes and icebergs, out of sight of the far-off towers of Wyrmrest and New Hearthglen, until they were in the open sea. The water was like black glass, rippled only slightly now and again by a faint breeze.

Koltira was watching him speculatively, stroking the small patch of beard below his lower lip. "You're unusually grim today."

"This isn't a pleasure cruise," Thassarian snapped, enjoying the flash of unease in Koltira's eyes as he turned his head away.

"I know," he huffed. "I'm not an idiot!"

Thassarian opened the chest. "Hold out your hands."

Smirking, Koltira complied. "All this drama and mystery for a few needles? Thassarian, you surprise me."

"I'm not going to be using the needles," Thassarian said after he clamped iron manacles around Koltira's wrists.

"Why not?" There was the faintest tone of concern.

"Because you're expecting them," Thassarian said, taking a thick chain from the chest. Passing it between Koltira's arms and over the shackles, he then padlocked both ends of the chain to the heavy forged handle of the chest. "In fact, considering Mistress Suzette's reaction to your letter, I'd almost say you were looking forward to the needles." Thassarian did not add that he was certain that what he had endured while at Suzette's mercy far surpassed anything he could have imagined a living—or even an undead—being could bear, but fortunately the only clear memory that remained of his session was his astonishment that the jawless Forsaken had been able to laugh at him.

"You're… certainly you're not going to throw me overboard?"

Koltira was pretending to be casual, but Thassarian could sense his incipient panic. The anticipation of seeing the arrogant elf brought low sparked a slithering, dimly-familiar sensation in his belly. "I don't think you'll drown," he said calmly, reaching behind Koltira to take away his runeblade Byfrost, "and once it drags you down to the bottom I doubt anything will swim that deep to eat you." He set Koltira's sword aside, then tossed the open chest in the water.

"Stop!" Koltira commanded, bracing his feet on the gunwale as he tugged at the chain, trying to pull the chest back into the boat.

"The cold water will preserve you." The slithering was stronger, pulsing hot and eager down his legs, across his back, pushing the bloodrage back, but not enough, not enough… Koltira wasn't co-operating. "It'll take a very long time for you to decompose, weeks at least. You'll probably be able to feel it as your skin becomes waterlogged and sloughs away. Your eyes will go at some point too, though you won't notice down there in the total darkness. You might not die until your brain starts to dissolve." He wanted Koltira to beg. He wanted him broken and begging, and knowing that sickened and excited him.

"Thassarian!" The chest had taken on enough water that it began to sink, the links of the iron chain making a torturous chopping sound as they inexorably dragged Koltira over the side, tipping and then capsizing the boat. "Please!" Koltira struggled to keep his head above the water as the chest slowly dragged him down. "Don't do this!" He was genuinely panicked as he went under.

The frenzy was sated; it liquefied and withdrew. Thassarian clutched the padlock's iron key tight as he dove down after Koltira to release them both.

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* * *
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Zul Drak. The grave that Koltira had dug for him was impressively deep, the piles of loamy earth like sentinels.

"Wouldn't somewhere more remote be better?" Thassarian asked.

Koltira was grim. "It's noisy here. They won't hear you scream." His eyes were the color of dried blood.

With a sigh Thassarian jumped down. "I'm disappointed. All you've done is substitute earth for water."

"Give me your swords and your gauntlets. I don't want you digging out."

"Bad planning not to take them earlier," Thassarian said, but he tossed them up.

Koltira's shadowed face looked like a skull. He had avoided Thassarian since Moa'ki.

"Face down," Koltira demanded. "Arms at your sides."

"Anything else?" Thassarian taunted, just before the dirt hit his face and muffled his words. As the earth fell down on him and began pressing him down with its weight, he was still: there was no point in pretending to be frightened.

He wondered if it would be enough for Koltira to assume that being buried alive would cause him pain.

And then it occurred to Thassarian that he was calm because he was confident that Koltira would dig him up, but Koltira must know this… and if he knew that Thassarian wouldn't at any time be afraid, why was he going ahead with the burial?

Burial.

No… Koltira would come for him. Sooner or later, he would come.

And then, because it was dark and silent and he was immobilized and, even though he was not breathing the dirt in his nostrils began to irritate him, and so he started to work his fingers through the soil…

He lost track of how long it took him, using his thumb to scoop tiny clods and push them under his cupped palm, edging his hand sideways, twisting his forearm. It seemed easier once he'd moved enough to bend his elbow, but by then his hand was cramping, the insects had accepted him as part of the earth and were mapping routes over his face and across his neck, and the dirt in his nostrils was the least of his irritations.

He wondered if he was wrong. What if Koltira had gone mad? What if he had come to hate Thassarian so much that he had been lying in wait all this time, gaining his trust, waiting for the opportunity to punish him for raising him into undeath?

What if Koltira planned to leave him here to rot?

No. He wouldn't. Thassarian was sure.

Still…

He started sifting the dirt through his fingers again, only now he wriggled them upward instead of to the side, and started working his other hand free as well, and all the while his anger was growing, anger that Koltira had done this to him, had rejected their thin bonds of friendship. Well, he would dig himself out and hunt the elf down, even if it took decades, and force him to admit that he had left Thassarian to rot because he was ashamed that Thassarian had seen his fear.

Thassarian pushed against the earth, trying to swim up out of it, exhausting himself, disappointment overtaking anger. The only one who had not avoided him, the only one who understood that a man still lived inside the monster, the one who… was important to him wanted to throw him away, cancel him out, blot all traces of him from the earth.

It was not to be borne!

He wanted to flail and strike at the dirt that muffled his wild sobs, but he could not, but then suddenly the digging was easier. His arm jabbed upward into air.

Koltira was pulling at him, angrily brushing the dirt from his beard and hair. "Why did you endure this?" he asked. His eyes were piercing, furious, blue, but his hands and arms were crusted with earth.

"We do what we must," Thassarian said, and did not add for a friend. His hands shook as he picked up his runeblades. "You will not be rid of me so easily, it seems," he said, trying to alleviate the gloom, but when he turned around Koltira was gone.

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Thassarian left Mardenholde Keep and walked across the green to wait near the Hearthglen flightmaster. All around him, Argent Crusade recruits paused in their training to stare, some curious, some fearful. A few congregated in the stable, peering through the tiny windows at him as if they'd never seen a Knight of the Ebon Blade before.

He turned his back to them and smiled faintly. Let them stare: it would be fun to see their faces once Koltira arrived.

He knew that this was not quite the attitude he should have: Darion had reprimanded him more than once for not making more of an effort to assimilate. You need to remember, he has urged Thassarian over and over again, your allegiance is first to the Alliance and then to the Ebon Blade. Thassarian always resented the unstated message behind this rebuke: Koltira is pledged to the Horde. The Horde is your enemy. Therefore…

Thassarian scanned the sky: Koltira was approaching. Of course he could always sense others of his kind, but with Koltira it was especially strong.

He landed a moment later, saw Thassarian, and walked toward him. That unmistakable gait, the huge runeblade Byfrost across his back… Thassarian didn't have to turn around to know that the stable was a-twitter.

"You couldn't have found somewhere more remote?"

Thassarian wasn't sure whether Koltira was complaining about the location itself or the large audience to their meeting. "I thought this would be good for you, close as it is to the rui—to Undercity. Would the inn at Menethil Harbor have suited you better?"

"Very funny." Koltira looked around. "This place is quite the anthill."

"Yes, they're accomplishing an impressive amount," he said, starting to walk toward the small house to the right of the massive statue of Alexandros Mograine.

"I don't see many friendly faces here." Koltira was sour.

"You're not looking hard enough then," Thassarian said good-humoredly. "It's almost half and half."

"Yes, well, the recruits perhaps," Koltira replied. "But not the officers. They all seem to be humans."

Damn Koltira. Far too observant. "The commander is allowing us to use the guest quarters for our meeting," Thassarian said, trying to change the subject.

"In other words, they don't want us in the Keep with the living."

'There's no privacy in the Keep," Thassarian replied.

"Privacy?" Koltira raised an eyebrow. "Oh, so it's that sort of meeting."

Thassarian smiled again as they entered the guest house. He had something he wanted to say to Koltira, and it was what he would say to Leryssa, if she ever asked him what was in the heart of a soulless man.

The same thing that is in the heart of all men, he would say. Not to be parted from those who are important to us.

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The ground floor had little furniture other than two beds and several chairs—and at any rate the group from the stable was now clustered near the base of Mograine's statute, watching them through the doorless entrance.

Koltira was glaring at the logs burning in the fireplace. "Typical," he sniped, "to waste firewood on mockery."

"Mockery?"

"What use to us is a warming fire?"

"It probably wasn't meant as an insult," Thassarian said, starting up the stairs. "It's common courtesy. A sign of hospitality."

"Hospitality?" Koltira laughed and followed him. "Did you see them staring? They don't want me here. They don't think I have any reason to be here. I'd hardly call that welcoming."

"Most of them don't want either of us here," Thassarian said wearily, and Koltira was silent.

There was a table on the landing at the top of the stairs, with a bottle of wine and a small covered basket.

Koltira walked into the bedroom, making a small contemptuous tsk as he saw another fire. He contemplated the large canopied bed. "The honeymoon suite? Really, if you're hoping to frighten me it's not working — the idea of bedding you is far too ridiculous to be frightening."

Thassarian chuckled. "Not what I had in mind."

"What then?"

"I just thought we could spend some time together."

"Hm." Koltira came back out to the landing. "Yes, that will soon become difficult to do openly. My Queen wishes to reclaim Andorhal for the Forsaken, and I don't think she'll stop until she has put all of Lordaeron under her banner." He picked up the bottle of wine, studying the label as if interested. "I assume your King wants the same thing."

"I have no idea. He doesn't confide in me." Thassarian dragged a chair over to the table and sat down. Noting Koltira's contemptuous smirk, he added, "I go where I'm sent and follow orders. I'm not informed of the overall plan."

"And if you were, and told me, it would be treason, wouldn't it?"

"Like what you just told me about Sylvanas' intentions?"

"I could be giving you false information."

"Are you?" So this was the end of trust and brotherhood, it seemed.

"How is your shoulder?" Koltira asked, setting down the unopened bottle of wine.

"It's fine." Thassarian lifted the lid of the basket. "Bread."

"Let me see," Koltira said, then added peevishly, "Your shoulder. Not the bread."

Thassarian stood and took off his gauntlets, then unfastened his chestpiece and lifted it away. "See?" He rolled his shoulder. "Completely healed. Not even a scratch left."

"What is that?" Koltira nodded at the twisted grey-brown scar that ran from Thassarian's breastbone almost to his navel.

"Falric."

"Falric? The name is familiar."

"He was Arthas' lieutenant in life." Thassarian put his hand over the scar. "He was the one who killed and raised me."

"I see." Koltira looked somber. "The wound never healed."

"Of course not," Thassarian said, surprised at how bitter he sounded.

Koltira walked around him. "A grievous blow. It must have been a mighty sword. A wonder that you weren't split in half." He touched the scar on Thassarian's back.

A flood of memories… Falric. Arthas. Vivian begging for her life. Faltora staring up at him in terror at An'owyn. Koltira dropping from the trees, his blade against Thassarian's throat, goading him even to the last, silenced only by death…

"I've never asked," Thassarian said quietly, "Who did you have in Quel'Thalas other than your brother? Parents? Friends? A lover?"

Koltira took his hand away, and it was like a deep-thrust blade pulled free. "Only the dead."

Thassarian turned and seized his shoulder. "The shield that turns aside the blade…"

"Thassarian?"

"It's nothing." He let go of Koltira. "Do elf children play I Have One, Do You Have One?"

Koltira looked puzzled. "What?" But then, surprisingly, a moment later said, "Oh, I understand now." He unfastened his breastplate and set it aside. "You want to see mine." He pulled off his shirt. "Yes, I too have a wound that never healed. From the runeblade of Thassarian."

There was reproach in his tone, of course—Koltira could not help being Koltira—but even while the soft firelight coming from the other room emphasized the resentment in the gaunt face and frosty blue eyes, Thassarian saw something else there too, something he had no name for, something that made him reach out his hand. He meant only to touch Koltira's scar, but he found himself putting his arms around him instead.

Koltira did not resist.

As they stood there, leaning into each other, Thassarian realized that this was only the second time he had touched someone without violence since he became a death knight. It was certainly the first time that his skin had touched another's skin… although the sensation was so muffled he might as well still be wearing his armor. "I wish I could…" he said, looking at the smooth coverlet of the bed. "I wish I could…" He could not fathom—was this ache a blurred remembrance of the longings and desires he had had when he was alive? He couldn't tell, and it saddened him. "But I can't."

"I too…" Koltira tightened his embrace for a moment, then drew back. "No matter. Such expressions of affection are lost to us, lifeless as we are." There was a fleeting shadow of the way he must have been in life, full of passion and idealism instead of bitterness. "If I were one of those overwrought poets you seem so fond of, I might say that the loss is both our penance and our salvation."

In that moment Thassarian knew that their bond was permanent. The constant pain they would cause to each other, the raw wound that would only heal when both had died a second, final death, was that while each was a reminder to the other of what had been lost, what was never able to be, neither of them was ready to let the other go.

After this, no words were needed. They spent the rest of the night sitting together, drinking wine they could not taste and watching the fire—which did not, could not, would never be able to warm them—and after that its feeble, dying embers; and when those too had faded they rose and went their separate ways, leaving for the morning's light only a hearth full of ashes.

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~ The End ~

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Additional author's notes in my LiveJournal and Dreamwidth (URL in profile).

first post 22 Nov 2011; revised 7 March 2018