"… And HE said 'No more, you mangy dog!'" the Orc warrior bellowed. Everyone at the table erupted in laughter, including Eve. Eve's laughter was, by far, the most noticeable at the table, because it sounded so hollow. After the laughter died down, the Warrior smiled.
"We all know why we are here today," he said, gesturing towards Eve, who sat at the end of the table.
"Eve has returned to us, and she has done a marvelous job in aiding the Horde against the Alliance and the Scourge!" he said. Everyone clapped, a few cheered, but the warrior looked grave.
"But, at a price." he said gravely. Everyone at the table looked down, as if they were ashamed. Eve scowled at the Orc. Did he really have to go there?
"Why, Eve?" said a Warlock, who stared at her as if she was obligated to tell her tale. Eve smiled at him, and sat back in her chair.
"I remember becoming this just as clear as any of you remember being born." she said, her empty voice echoing throughout the dining hall. Some shivered, most didn't.
"But surely, you must remember why?" asked a Troll hunter. Eve liked this woman, she was the only one who seemed to want to know out of curiosity rather than spite. Eve shook her head.
"Alas, Zarbeka, I do not. If I did, I would tell you." she lied. Eve had a very vague memory of what happened that night. "Please! I'll give you anything… Just save…" was all she remembered saying. That was six long years ago to this day. It was only two years ago that she broke away from The Lich King's obsessive grasp and allied herself to the Horde. There was also the memory of being stabbed in the stomach by some Night Elf. She couldn't see his face, it was blurred in the memory, she just remembered the pain of a dagger slipping into her stomach.
The party continued on, everyone dining except Eve, who had no real need to eat. Afterwards, she said her goodbye's and was left to wander the streets of Orgrimmar alone. She mounted her Death Charger and sped off. She was in the middle of another nostalgic moment when she heard a shrill scream. She stopped, and dropped off her Charger. There was a goblin lying next to her charger. Eve picked her up and put her to her feet.
"'oy, Death Knight, you could 'ave killed me." she said, coughing a little. 'Dirty.' thought Eve. The goblin looked at her.
"Hey, I's been lookin' for you. Good thing I got ya' here. Got a message, yes I do." the goblin said. She rummaged in her bag and pulled out a crumpled, yellowing envelope. Eve tried to take the enveloped from the green, wrinkly hand, but the letter was snatched away from her before she could close her pale, white hands on it.
"Delivering' a letter ain't a pretty job, y'know…" Eve scowled and threw a silver coin on the ground. The goblin snatched it up, pushed the letter in her hand and scurried off. Eve tore open the wrinkled thing, and read it with indifference.
" Dear Eve,
We hope this letter finds you unharmed and unopened. I have a job for you, a job that I cannot fail again. You seem to be just the right person…'
The letter went on to tell her that she had to kill a valued member of the Alliance. A general, or something like that. They gave the exact whereabouts, and his background. 'Nialas. Where have I heard that name before?' she thought. Something stirred in her memory, but she ignored this. Probably just some acquaintance. Before she could mount again, someone called her name. She turned around, and found that it was Akaii that called her name. Akaii was a priest who had taken interest in her, and Eve found that she, too, had been feeling something for him. Well, anything that wasn't hatred was good.
He trotted up to her, and embraced her. She settled into the hug with a small smile on her face. He was warm. Warmth was something Eve coveted these days, since all she could really feel was cold.
"What did that Goblin want?" he murmured into her ear. Eve looked up at him and shrugged. He kissed her softly, and she gave him the letter. He read it, his brow creasing in a concerned frown.
"This should be easy, I'll only be gone for a week at most." she said, slipping her hand into his. He squeezed her hand.
"I still don't like you doing things for them, it gets a lot of people in trouble. So many things could go wrong, Eve…" he voiced his concerns, looking up at the moon.
"Are you leaving tonight?" he looked back at her, running a thumb across her cheek. Eve nodded.
"Yes. Best get this done now instead of later. I expect they'll be expecting me though, since two have fallen before me." Eve said this, not worrying. She was powerful, else they wouldn't send her. Aka pulled her into another hug and kissed the top of her head.
"Be careful. If you're not back within two weeks, I'm coming after you."
She mounted her Death Charger and sped off past the entrance of Org. She caught the zeppelin to Tirisfal Glades just in time, and ignored the jeers she got by the goblins of the zeppelin. They were particularly malevolent creatures, who took pleasure in making fun of passengers.
The ride was smooth, no thanks to the goblins, who had to be threatened with their life before they shut up. As she jumped off the zeppelin, she heard the relieved sighs of the goblins, who hated having Death Knights onboard. Evelith rode southward, towards the place mentioned in the letter. On the way, she met a lone Draenei Shaman. At first, the Shaman attempted to run from her, but Eve used Death Grip to bring him close to her, and his face flashed with anger, fear, and then surprise.
"Eve?" he asked. Eve paused, her sword raised in the air, ready to deliver a blow. 'How does he know me?' she wracked her brain for answers, but it gave her none. She sheathed her sword on her back and grabbed him by the collar of his blue robes. She pulled him close to her.
"Who the hell are you? How do you know my name?" she hissed, staring him down. He shivered, and looked up at her.
"My name is Dael, and I worked for Nialas' father six and a half years ago." he whispered shakily. Eve threw him to the ground and kicked him on the stomach. How dare he tell her such lies. He yelled out and clutched his stomach, which was probably now nursing a flowering bruise.
"You were never this cruel Eve, never." he said, between coughs. He retched, and Eve stepped back, disgusted. Eve kicked him over so that he lay on his back.
"Do you want to know cruel, Dael? Do you really want to know cruel?" she yelled. He shivered harder and shook his head. Eve looked down on him, getting some sick pleasure in his pain."Cruel, Shaman, is not knowing who you are, and being plagued by the guilt of things you don't remember doing!" she yelled at him. Her voice echoed through the clean night air. There was silence after she yelled, and Dael looked up at her from the ground, looking at her with pity in his eyes.
"Evelith, one day, you asked me what love was. I can see now that you have lost it all." he whispered, a small tear running down the side of his face. Eve laughed at him, and cast a curse on him. Dael screamed and clutched his chest."It will not kill you, but you will be in more pain than you have ever been for days. If I see you again, then I will not be as merciful." she said, kicking him as she walked past. She mounted her Death Charger again, and left his screams behind as she rode south.
The ride south took half the night, due to the quick pace she set for her Death Charger, who was more than happy to oblige her wishes. It had been growing steadily cooler as she rode, and by the time she reached the wrought iron gates of her destination, she could see her breath. She dismounted, and silently killed the two human guards that stood, unawares, in the front of the gate. She kicked the gate open, and to her dismay, someone rose the alarm. She cursed under her breath and summoned her ghoul, face ripper, who crawled out of the ground with a "nyegh!"
There were many guards that came running at her that time, maybe five or six, and Eve skillfully got rid of them all. Blood dripped off her armor, and she smiled. She loved carnage. Wiping the blood from her cheek, she stood in the middle of a circle of frightened guards.
"Where is Nialas! Come out, coward!" she yelled. She used Death Grip on one of the guards around her, and they all rushed forward. Her ghoul took care of three, and she took care of the rest. Their battered bodies lay on the ground, all in different states of destruction. Eve remembered something, and cursed herself. Nialas was a rogue. She looked around, tuning her ears into the silence around her. There was a sputter from one of the guards, who was still alive. Evelith brought her foot down on his throat, and the sound stopped.
Her ghoul heard him seconds before she did, and as she whipped around, she was blinded by some sort of powder that was thrown in her eyes, and pushed to the ground. She squinted up and rubbed her stinging eyes vigorously. She heard her ghoul valiantly fighting him off a few feet away, but soon after heard the sounds of him breaking in half. By that time, Eve's vision had returned slightly, and she stood. Nialas stood, as well, wiping the grime off of his dagger. He stared her down, readying his dagger. Eve twirled the runed sword in her hand, staring right back at him.
The cold wind stung her face, and her eyes were still watering, but she stood her ground.
"You are Nialas?" she asked, breaking the silence first. The rogue nodded.
"Who are you?" asked Nialas, flicking more ghoulish dirt from his dagger. Eve stood, silent, contemplating whether or not she would tell him. What would be the point, after all?
"Evelith." She had decided, after all, to tell him. Nialas paled and gaped at her.
"You did all of this?" He asked, gesturing around them. His hands were trembling a little. She stood, silent. He turned back to her, rage coloring his face.
"You should have just let me die. You've turned into a monster." he said in a hoarse whisper. Eve ignored his confusing comment and ran at him, brandishing her sword. Before she could bring it down, Nialas dodged it. Eve tried to hit Nialas again and again, but he insisted on dodging her blows instead of returning them. After a few minutes of the ridiculousness, Eve used the flat side of her broadsword to smack him down.
Nialas threw his weapons up weakly, and instead of seizing the opportunity to rend him in two, she knocked his daggers out of his hands. One went spinning away from him, while the other landed at his foot. Eve was not the type to take an easy kill, so she kicked the remaining dagger away and sheathed her sword.
"This will be a fair fight, since you are obviously incapable of anything but playing around." she said. Eve threw a punch at him, which hit him squarely in the jaw, sending him sprawling to the ground. He did not fight back, just looked up at her. Eve felt a pang in her chest. It was something between pity and sorrow, but she pushed it back and kicked him in the side. He rolled over twice and landed on his back again, looking up at her. She couldn't explain the emotion that was welling up inside her. It was giving her a splitting headache.
"Fight me! Get up! You pathetic piece of scum, get up!" she kicked him again, this time in the hip. There was a satisfying pop and Nialas sucked air in through his teeth and clutched his hip. Eve dropped down, seized him by the collar of his shirt and slammed him into the ground.
"Why won't you fight me! Why!" she screamed in his face. Nialas winced, blood leaking from the split lip she had given him moments before. He looked up into her hellish eyes.
"Please, Eve, just let me explain. I knew you, I knew you once." He murmured. He was really hurting. Eve frowned. 'Should I do my job, or find out what I was?' she contemplated, looking down at him. Curiosity won over, and she dropped him.
"You will tell me everything you know… knew about me." she demanded, looking around her. She didn't want any more surprises. Nialas stood up, shakily, and began to stumble towards the house. Eve followed him, watching his every move. He lead her into the house, and motioned to a worn table. She leaned against the wall nearby, refusing to sit down. Every instinct was screaming to get out of there, to ignore this half-wit rogue and end his life. Curiosity, however, had a stronger hold.
"Hands on the table." She commanded. He gently laid his hands on the table. He opened his mouth to speak, but Eve cut him off.
"Everything. From the beginning. They very second you met me until I left."
"Oka-"
"If you lie, I will kill you." she threatened. Not that she would actually know if he was lying. Hell, he could tell her that she was once a mountain troll who saved an entire village full of pink children by singing lullabies to an orange frog and she wouldn't know he was lying. Nialas nodded.
"I will not lie to you. I promise." he said. Eve scowled. She didn't want his promises.
Eve listened to his story, which at times, seemed completely absurd. She did not interrupt him, even when she thought she might launch across the table and strangle him.
"Laying on the floor next to the body of my dead father and my crying mother was... Awful. I knew I was going to die, and I thought that you had abandoned me." he said, looking sad. Eve was silent. Nialas continued.
"I had a dream… before I… woke up. Someone was holding my spirit, I couldn't tell who it was. You were crying. I assumed it was... a warlock, that you traded your life for mine. I had no idea..." he sat back, looking down at his hands. He was twiddling his thumbs in some bizarre pattern. Eve remained silent, looking at the ceiling. Was this really what she was like before… before The Lich King cast his spell and ruined everything?
"You say you know me?" she asked. Nialas nodded. Eve thought for a second. 'What's something that only he would know, then? Something that nobody else has seen? My scar? No, Aka has seen that. But who would he tell? How would Nialas know?' Eve thought about it for a quick second, then posed her question."Do I have a scar on my body?" she asked. Nialas smiled, and nodded.
"Yes, you do."
"Where is it, then?" she asked, putting her hands on the table as well. Nialas stood shakily, then walked over to her. Eve frowned at him, looking up at his pained face. She had one hand on a dagger that rested at her hip, even though he was empty handed and weaponless.
"How did I get it? Surely, I would have told you that when you knew me." she said. She thought she had poked a hole in his logic, but he only laughed at her.
"I gave it to you. I hated you once, you know. I thought that you were the lowliest scum on the face of the earth, so I tried to kill you."
He laughed. 'What's so funny? He is mad in the head.' she thought. Still, it pieced together nicely in her head. It all seemed to check out.
"I haven't touched the room since… since that day. Nobody has. Maybe that would… jog your memory?" he pointed up stairs, where there was nothing but darkness. Eve didn't wait for his permission, she jogged up the stairs. It seemed like one big Deja vous, going up those stairs. 'Maybe he was right, maybe this isn't just one big lie.' she wondered. She past the first room, the second room, and then went into the third room on the left. She pushed open the door, and gasped.
There was a thin layer of dust on everything. There were cobwebs in the corner, and the bed was still messy. The ground had bloodstains on it, probably from when Nialas had supposedly gotten stabbed, then attacked his own father with the blood-coated blade. The bureau was wide open, and Eve walked over to it, leaving footprints in the dust like it were snow. She opened it, and in the bottom of it were a pair of dusty, leather gloves. Shaking, she picked them up gingerly. She turned them inside out, and on the inside of one of the fingers, her name was etched. She gasped and dropped them as if they were hot coals.
She turned around, and Nialas was there, silently watching her as she pieced everything together."I am this… because you were… dying. I had to… save you?" she asked, thinking. Nialas nodded, and put a hand on her shoulder. Eve shrugged it off and turned to face him.
"Do you still love me?" she asked tentatively. Nialas nodded.
"Yes, I do."
"Was everyone out there one of your friends?"
"Yes, they were all very close friends." With this, Eve scowled.
"I killed every single one of them, Nialas." She spit his name. His eyes misted, he backed away from her. She stepped closer.
"It wasn't a painless death, you know. I made sure it hurt, and I always make sure it hurts. Is that the woman you love?" Her voice was bitter, angry. Nialas looked out of the dusty window, where all his friends lay, dead. He then looked back at her.
Nialas looked out of the window, and his heart wrenched. Yes, those were all very close friends of his. Their loss was painful, but it paled in comparison of what the loss of Eve put him through. He looked back at Eve, and looked in her eyes. All of the compassion that she once held for everything around her was burnt out, and all because of him. Nialas was lucky to be alive, and he knew that. If it weren't for the fact that Eve had always been curious, he would probably be laying in his own pool of blood, gutted by Eve or her disgusting ghoul. She was powerful, much more powerful than she had ever been in the past.
It had been years, and he had been waiting for all of those years. He hadn't gone looking once because he knew that he would not be able to find her... yet she haunted every dream and everyday of his life. There was not a single day that he would not think about her. Her eyes, which used to be emerald green and happy, were now an icy blue and full of rage.
Nialas shifted his feet, uncomfortable. He had thought… that it would be different. That maybe she would… remember him? He didn't know what he wanted. He just wished that everything were simple, like it was in the days when Eve was… Eve. He would much rather be dead than face this new reality. He looked back at her unforgiving eyes. So much changed about her. The way she carried herself, the way she looked at people. Even her skin. It was so white, like she was a ghost. 'Maybe she is a ghost, and this is all a lie…' Nialas reached out and caressed her cheek. He flinched. She was cold, but real.
Eve felt like she had received a shock when he touched her face. He felt so familiar. She was offended when he flinched, was there something wrong with the way that she was? She leaned in and touched his face, too. Compared to his pale, blue skin, she was as white as a ghost. Later, she would regret her next actions. She wrapped her arms around him, but all she could feel was the cold steel of her armor pressing against her skin.
. "I want to hear you beg, Eve…"
"How will you get down the stairs?"
"I'll roll, Nialas…"
"What is it like to be in love?"
Eve screamed as she surfaced from all of the memories. Nialas was clinging tightly to her, and as she rocketed back to reality, she shoved him away. Eve felt real emotion for the first time in a long time. Guilt, something that she was not accustomed to, seized her for the first time since she could remember. Something insider her snapped, and she gripped the hilt of her dagger and pressed it against Nialas' neck.
"I am not sorry I hurt all of those people. I will never regret anything I've done, especially no-"
Eve heard a distant scream, and scowled. She ran to the window, and saw there was a Human woman standing in the yard, looking at the massive amounts of bodies that littered the front lawn.
Eve shook his hands off and opened the window. The woman spotted her, and screamed.
Preparing herself for a fight, Eve jumped from the window and landed with a thud. Suddenly, a carriage rumbled into the yard, followed by at least twenty or so guards. Eve cursed and used one of the dead bodies to raise her ghoul. There was more wind than earlier, and it was whipping her hair about her. Eve knew that to everyone else, she looked like the very picture of Death. Dark hair, shining armor, and blood spattered all over her. The ghoul rose from the ground with a cry, and the guards immediately sprinted into action. They were all over the place. Arrows rained down on Eve, all of which bounced off her armor. The guards that ran towards her were met with a most gruesome fate, except for one rogue guard, who managed to sneak up behind her and wedge a rather sharp dagger in her right shoulder. It was the last thing that he did though, he soon found himself without a head.
Eve ripped the dagger out and threw it at random, and it hit someone in some vital place, she knew, because a scream soon followed. An axe connected with her chest and though her armor took most of the damage, she felt a small wound open up near her collarbones. Eve realized that she would not live through this ordeal without any help. She heard the dying cries of her ghoul, and raised another one with the dead bodies surrounding her. The ghoul was soon dead again, and Eve didn't have any Runic power with which to raise another. She was suddenly knocked to the ground by one of the guards, and many hands were holding her down. She screamed and struggled, but there were just too many of them. She spit obscenities at them, which she was sure that they couldn't understand.
After someone had bound her hands, they wrenched her up. The last thing she saw before they knocked her out cold was Nialas hobbling from the house.