A/N: Originally posted at /works/300072 for Yuletide 2011. Thanks to Silverr for helping me sort through my ideas! Additional notes and comments at AO3.
For the first time in quite a while, Koltira shook himself awake with a start.
He hadn't slept since he died —he hadn't felt the need — and though he'd frequently been pushed almost to the limits of his physical capacity for pain and endurance, he had never once fainted or fallen unconscious. But whatever magic had opened the portal to Undercity from Andorhal had stripped his consciousness from him as he passed through and deposited him senseless on the other side.
He wasn't sure how long he'd been here, but it had clearly been some time. He could push himself into a sitting position well enough, but the clink of chain behind him and the heavy, pressing weight on his neck and shoulders told him that they had taken the liberty of restraining him while he was unconscious. Koltira's hands moved to his throat, and he hissed as his fingers brushed a heavy circle of iron, engraved with sigils that sent needles of icy cold running down his arm at the slightest touch. Wards of binding, he surmised. That would explain the heavy, sluggish feeling in his head and the weak trembling of his limbs. At his full strength he estimated he could have torn the chain from the wall with enough effort; right now he could barely lift his head.
He gritted his teeth against the numbing chill and ran his fingers along the perimeter of the iron collar. It was forged solid, with no seam or bolt that he could find. They must have had a mage weld the damned thing directly around his neck.
Chained to a wall by the neck like a dog…well, at least they'd left his arms and legs free. That was something, at least.
As if on cue, the door to his cell creaked open and flooded the room with thin yellow light. The first Koltira saw of the Forsaken was a skeletal claw grasping a sputtering lantern, fueled by some oil that reeked of rotting fish; the creature that the hand belonged to looked almost as far gone as one of Thassarian's ghouls, with colorless skin stretched tightly over creaking bones and hair that hung limply from his scalp. The lower half of his face was covered by a surgical mask — a ridiculous affectation, given that the Forsaken could hardly find themselves infected by a stray splatter of blood — and he was shrouded in black and silver from neck to foot.
In the dim light, it took Koltira a moment to recognize that this shuffling ghoul was Master Apothecary Faranell. They had met upon occasion during Koltira's time as Andorhal's commander, and Koltira had rapidly discovered that the Forsaken's prodigious intellect was only matched by his slavish, dog-like devotion to the Banshee Queen and his callous indifference to everyone else. Koltira had only once cracked that cold facade with pointed questions about the circumstances of Putress's revolt, and he had taken some small comfort in the idea that Faranell hated him for that. Unworthy as he was of receiving the admiration and love of good men, Koltira had learned to settle for earning the hatred of wicked ones, and he counted gaining the ire of the Master Apothecary as a small victory.
As Faranell drew closer, though, Koltira found himself denied even that. The Apothecary gave Koltira a perfunctory glance, as though he were a not-particularly-interesting specimen about to be cataloged and classified.
"I thought you might be awake by now. I suppose the wards kept you out longer than anticipated." His tone was dispassionate and his interest in Koltira's suffering was obviously strictly academic. Koltira shoved himself forward until the collar began to dig into this throat, threatening to cut off his ability to draw breath, and Faranell was still out of his reach. "I can only assume you're expecting a rescue?"
"I'm not expecting anything," Koltira said guardedly, and Faranell chuckled. Koltira wanted to throttle him.
"The report was accurate, I see. You're clinging to a false semblance of friendship with that human of yours. Are the other rumors true, then? Do you really think you love him, too?" Koltira bristled at the word; he and Thassarian had never spoken it. It had always seemed too gentle, too delicate a word for what they shared. "It's a shame, really. You seem fairly intelligent. Not the sort I'd expect to be that vastly deluded."
Koltira sat back, the collar shifting forward to hang heavily against the back of his neck. In the dim light he saw Faranell motion towards the open door, and two more somberly-robed Forsaken slid into the room, carrying an object between them wrapped in black cloth. Koltira drew in a sharp breath as a familiar presence began to probe the edges of his mind — insistent, comforting, and cruel. He flexed his hand in agitation and imagined tearing out Faranell's throat. The other Apothecaries mutely set the long object in the furthest corner and disappeared as efficiently as they had arrived.
"You've brought me Byfrost," Koltira said. His voice came out halfway a growl under the influence of the runeblade's presence — they must have kept him separated from it for quite some time. "How kind of you." Faranell shrugged, and Koltira narrowed his eyes. "What are you going to do? Torture me with my own sword? It takes two of you to lift the damned thing."
"What am I going to do to you?" Faranell echoed, raising the ragged remains of an eyebrow. "Why, absolutely nothing. Good day, Commander Deathweaver."
And with that, Faranell swept out of the room and shut the door behind him, leaving Koltira in the dark with Byfrost whispering murder in his ear.
Faranell was as good as his word. Koltira quickly lost track of how long he had been down there, alone in the darkness and the silence with Byfrost calling to the pitiless monster that lay buried deep in his heart. He counted time by the moments he lost his nerve and strained desperately at the chain until it threatened to snap his neck, or ground his teeth into his fingers just to taste blood and failed to stop until he hit bone. One, two, ten, a hundred, a thousand.
He wished that Faranell or one of his underlings or Sylvanas herself would open the door and, out of arrogance or ignorance, step too close. Sometimes he even dared to hope that Thassarian might get it in his head to do something foolish again.
Then, a thousand moments of frenzied longing became one unbroken desperation that no longer had any room for Faranell or Thassarian or counting time at all.
Thassarian laid out fifteen Forsaken at his feet before the Deathguard finally overwhelmed him. He'd managed to reach Brill before being discovered — he could pass for a well-preserved Forsaken if he kept his face shrouded, his runeblades covered, and his mouth shut, but someone with more finely-tuned senses had cottoned onto him and apparently alerted the Deathguard to his presence. He supposed it was inevitable, but he hadn't been expecting what appeared to be an entire battalion of the Banshee Queen's finest. A few here and there he could shake off or kill, but someone in the Deathguard high command wanted to be damned sure they got their mark.
They ambushed him outside an abandoned Apothecary campsite near Agamand Mills, and Thassarian had allowed himself to smile a bit when he saw how many armed men the Banshee Queen thought were required to kill one lone death knight. He fought running until they hemmed him into an abandoned barn like herding dogs, where he settled down and fought them off by twos and threes, but was careful not to kill too many — his blades hadn't drank this deeply in months and he couldn't afford to lose control now. If Koltira were here, he wouldn't have worried — they'd always complemented each other, more sane together than alone — but if he allowed himself to simply massacre the battalion he'd risk losing that fight against his bloodlust and doing something that might be tactically unsound, to put it mildly.
After about the seventh highly trained Deathguard had fallen to his swords, he realized that the reason he was having so little trouble dispatching them was that the combat was unevenly matched. He was fighting for his life, and they were fighting to subdue him.
After the fifteenth, they called out a Light-wielder. Thassarian barely had time to savor the beleaguered priest's choked-back shriek of agony as the Light's power blasted open his senses before the spell engulfed him too and everything went bright, blinding white.
He didn't actually expect to wake up at all, let alone all in one piece, but wake up he did. They'd divested him of his armor and his blades, but that was only to be expected. He keenly felt their loss, and hoped the Forsaken would treat them respectfully, or at the very least slip up and accidentally impale a passing Apothecary.
Thassarian sat still, waiting for his eyes to adjust, but soon realized he was in total darkness and no amount of waiting would pierce it.
There was a thumping groan, as of metal being dragged along stone. Thassarian leaned towards the sound. There was definitely something moving there — and Thassarian caught a muffled snarl. So they'd trapped him down here with one of their monsters, presumably intending it to devour him. Typical Forsaken melodrama.
Thassarian slipped closer to it, cautiously, and the creature scrambled forward with a growl that clearly issued from a human throat, choked off suddenly by the screech of metal and a heavy thud. Something thrashed in front of him wildly, as though straining to get at him. Whatever it was clearly couldn't reach him quite yet. They'd put him in a cage with a leashed monster. Raising one eyebrow, Thassarian cautiously raised one hand and willed all the cold of winter into it, bathing the space immediately in front of him with a pale blue glow.
Thassarian drew in a breath. Koltira was on all fours in front of him, struggling against an iron collar and chain with all the desperation of a starving wolf.
"Koltira," Thassarian breathed, hoping perhaps that Koltira simply hadn't recognized him in the strange light. "It's me."
Koltira looked up at him with vague, unfocused eyes and tried to charge forward, so strongly that the iron collar bit into the flesh of his throat and black ichor started to well around the edge of the dark metal. Koltira tried to say something but it was lost in the choking pressure of the collar, and he lashed out with his mutilated hands, clawing desperately for Thassarian.
Thassarian's eyes darted around the room, resting on a dark shape that lay in the corner of the room. Something brushed up against the edge of his mind, something dark and familiar and long-hated —
Byfrost. Damn them, they'd starved Koltira in the presence of his vampiric blade, and of course the accursed thing had urged him on, added its own demands to his own and driven him past the edge of reason. Thassarian thought, wildly, that he could take Byfrost…maybe shatter the chain, fight his way out with Koltira in tow, but it was clear that Koltira was past the point of caring who suffered to slake their twinned thirsts. And Byfrost was a willful sword, likely to reject him and turn in his hands as Koltira inevitably fought to wrest it from him.
That was their plan, then. Leave them here, together, and either he would be forced to slay Koltira in self-defense or mercy, or Koltira would tear Thassarian limb from limb in his frenzy, and then be left to regain his senses with Thassarian's blood on his hands.
He thought of killing Koltira — it would spare him any further agony, and at least they could die together — but he'd long since given up on that kind of mercy.
To hell with that, Thassarian thought, and to hell with them.
If he stayed out of reach any longer, Koltira was going to tear his own head off with his struggling. Thassarian darted forward unarmed, meeting Koltira at the end of his chain. The elf fell on him like a wild animal, lashing out with the only weapons available to him. He landed on Thassarian with full force, knocking him to the ground; his hands found Thassarian's throat, locked, and dug in. Thassarian seized him by the wrist and tore them away easily, his heart sinking to see Koltira's lessened strength. He pinned Koltira's wrists as the elf writhed and screamed furiously in his grip, and stood up, pulling Koltira along with him.
There was a sickening crack as Orbaz's jaw shattered under Thassarian's mailed fist. He fell to the ground, spitting teeth.
"If you keep up like that, you'll destroy him before the week is out," Thassarian said, turning to where the elf lay convulsing on the ground, wracked with pain as necromantic energies coursed through his body.
"Sentimental about your fledgling, are you?" Orbaz snarled, his broken jaw already starting to knit itself back together.
Thassarian ignored him. He seized Koltira by the wrist to help him to his feet, and Koltira acquiesced. It was the first time Koltira had allowed Thassarian to come near him, much less touch him.
Koltira shrieked in anger, twisting in Thassarian's hands so hard that he swore he could feel Koltira's bones creaking beneath his skin, but Thassarian kept his grip. "That day with Orbaz," Thassarian hissed, "was the first time since my death that I'd touched someone with any intent other than murder. Yours, too."
It was an old story, but one that had an element of truth to it. When someone's lost their wits, simply jog their memory. Remind them of something all the magic in the world couldn't make them forget.
What was he to do, then? Pin Koltira to the ground and kiss him while he snarled and fought? Try to stroke his hair gently, like a lover, as Koltira tried to tear his throat out?
In answer, Koltira thrashed forward and sunk his teeth into Thassarian's unprotected shoulder, as deeply as they could go.
Koltira froze, startled, and for a moment Thassarian feared he'd misjudged the elf's intentions. Then all of a sudden Koltira was kissing him back, knotting his fist in Thassarian's hair, pressing against him with enough vigor to send them both reeling backwards and crashing against the wall. Koltira's mouth was cold against his and tasted of rot and sickness.
Koltira growled deep in his throat and bit down on Thassarian's lower lip, hard enough to draw blood, and Thassarian let him.
"We rebelled against the Scourge, the both of us, in secret," Koltira jerked his head and tore a mouthful of flesh from Thassarian's shoulder, ice-cold blood spattering across Thassarian's face. His arm was twitching with the pain, but he held steady and did nothing, refusing to fight in memory of that moment — that first sharp shock of pain, delivered without malice and accepted gladly. "You forgave me. And I wanted your forgiveness. That was our first crime against the Scourge and we've committed a lot more since then." Koltira brought his knee up and kicked Thassarian in the stomach, surprising him enough to loosen his grip on Koltira's wrist. He staggered backwards, just out of Koltira's reach. Something of self-preservation flared in him, and the desire to shove Koltira down and strike him for the transgression, which he quashed in disgust. Byfrost was clearly working its charms on him.
Byfrost.
Thassarian turned, suddenly, and lunged for the opposite corner. Koltira howled in rage as Thassarian's hands seized the hilt, and the sword howled with its master, jolting recklessly as it flared with unholy power, raising blisters on Thassarian's palms. He clutched it harder and willed it to obey. He only needed it for a moment.
You might have a hundred first kisses, a thousand lingering glances, but you only really die once.
Thassarian drove forward. Koltira went for the blade hungrily, but Thassarian pulled it back, steeled his nerve, and rammed the runeblade home.
Twice, if you're very unlucky.
Koltira's strangled cry of pain wasn't like the first time at all. He'd been stoic then, facing his death with all the mute courage of a warrior, and hadn't made so much as a sound when Thassarian's arm had moved of its own accord and lodged his sword in Koltira's heart. Koltira's mania had all but stripped him of his bravery, and there was no light to fade from his eyes, no last breath to choke out. But when their eyes met over the gore-slick blade, the glance held the same meaning, this time reversed.
Remember who you are.
Byfrost leapt in Thassarian's hands, and he swore he could feel the sword shiver — whether out of delight or rage, he did not know. He pulled it out, spilling Koltira's corrupted blood in a gushing puddle between them. Koltira fell forward onto the slick black-and-garnet mess, lashing out weakly for Byfrost…or so Thassarian assumed.
Instead, his hand found Thassarian's knee, and rested there.
Koltira felt like he was dying in reverse. He could tell that the wound in his breast was mortal, but someone was pouring corrupt magic into the gash and forcing his battered body to undo the damage. Splintered ribs bent themselves back into place and sinew twisted together again. Koltira groaned and fell against the magic's source, and an ice cold arm drew him close.
"Thassarian," Koltira whispered, not having the strength to speak louder. "You did something foolish again, didn't you." He hadn't expected to see Thassarian again — in fact, he had almost hoped he wouldn't, that Thassarian for once would forget about him and save himself — but here he was, so close and he could reach his eyes from here, tear them from—
Koltira shook his head and banished the thought.
"I'll get you out of these chains," Thassarian said, moving to take Byfrost again. Koltira held out his hand.
"No. I'll only lose myself again, it's only a matter of time. Byfrost won't be sated by that, and I'm already—"
"Then kill me, Koltira, if that's what you need, but know my face when you do it. I won't be the instrument that finally breaks you."
Koltira looked at his hands, lacerated from his desperate attempts to calm his hunger. The wound in his chest was healed enough for him to move, enough for him to turn and taste the blood on Thassarian's lips and take Byfrost and kill, kill— "There must be some other way," Koltira blurted out, to silence the pounding urge in his head.
"There's always a daring escape, where you slake Byfrost's thirst on someone outside. I did some scouting outside Undercity before they took me and there's a chemical sluice large enough for a man that opens on the outside from the Apothecarium. It's not heavily guarded since even most Forsaken couldn't get through it without having the flesh stripped clean from their bones, and we don't have much time before they come for us, but if we're clever—" Thassarian looked at him. "But it'll be dangerous, and I thought you were done with foolish ideas."
Koltira sat for a moment, savoring the strange jolt of agony as his flesh began to knit over the wound, twisting into a gnarled scar. "Death and damnation, Thassarian," he breathed, closing his hand around Byfrost's hilt and allowing the faintest ghost of a smile to cross his lips. "When have we ever done what's safe?"