Mattias Shaw did not look like the commander of the deadliest organizations in the Eastern Kingdoms. Sitting behind his desk nearly hidden behind the stacks of papers, Shaw scribbled his name at the bottom of a short contract with a picture attached to its front before looking up.
"I must have misheard, did you saw you wanted reassignment?" Shaw inquired, leaning back on his chair. "
Elias's eyes tightened. "You heard me fine, Shaw. I want out."
"Not possible." Shaw said dismissively, eyes flicking back to the document, "I saw how hard you worked to get this promotion. Basic in Redridge. Survival training in Stranglethorn. The Crucible. Quite a record. We've poured time and money into your raising. I'd be losing a valuable investment."
"Investment?" Eli's hands curled into fists. "is that all your Fingers are to you? Men reduced to figures on your budget? I have to support a family now, and I can't do that if I'm lying in a ditch in the middle of nowhere."
"You're not a coward, Eli." Shaw said, strategically ignoring Eli's blatant disrespect. "You started for the rush, for the adrenaline. And you were good at it. I'd be a fool to let you go so easily. You ate up forty mile hikes like they were nothing. Jungle survival was like a vacation for you. The rest of your unit merely endured it: you conquered it. Grieg, Florian, Engel, all had strong bodies but you have something much more valuable to me: a mind"
Eli couldn't help it. He laughed. "Have you ever even been in the field? Imagine, the great Mathias Shaw, leader of SI:7, commander of secrets unknown has never known what its like to fend for yourself in a bog, waiting for weeks for an enemy that might never come." He choked, throat tensing as if it didn't want to say what came next. "Never seen an ambush too late, had to watch a blade sink into the gut of someone you've spent every minute of the last month with and know that he's never going to make it back home.
Thinking will get you killed. If you ever stop acting and have to think about what you've done, you'll choke. You'll sink into self-pity and misery. You'd seek out death because anything is better than feeling like the next day is your last."
Mattias leaned forward, his body tensing. He reminded Eli of the jungle cats he'd seen. Sleek, smooth beasts that looked docile, but could leap forward in less time than a man could draw a blade. "Boy, I've seen and sent more men die than Death himself." He said simply.
Before Elias could react, Shaw swiped. Papers that had been staked in neat rows scattered. Pens, charts, maps, all scattered across the desk. Death certificates. Warrants. Assassination orders. Hundreds of lives all ready to be condemned with a single stroke of his pen. Men, women, children, human and not, some had crimes listed, others only a sentence.
Elias realized his mouth was hanging open. He stood forcefully, powerful legs sending his chair rocketing back. "You're not human."
"I am what I must be. You're too young to understand yet, but what we do here saves lives." Shaw's face slackened and he slumped in his chair like a corpse being tossed into a shallow grave. "This is because of the others, isn't it? We learned early on that Fingers don't work well in groups. That's why the first mission is always, always the hardest. There has to be a process that weeds out the weak."
"You did this on purpose?" Eli said, his voice a deadly whisper.
"Not usually so blatant. Agents monitor the newbies in case something goes wrong. Those newbies that fail are discharged once they return home safely. We stopped hearing from your supervisor a week in. I came personally, but by the time we made it…" Mathias shook his head. "It wasn't meant to be this way."
"'wasn't meant to be this way?'" Eli parroted, "You mean you sent four unprepared men and women into the thick of hostile territory? What did you think would happen, that'd we'd all be singing songs and dancing around a campfire!" Eli slammed his fist down on the desk, sending cracks splicing through the ancient wood. So many lives that could have been saved. Grieg, who they had to leave behind once he couldn't walk through the gash in his leg. Leaving a man to certain death on the countryside with only the comforts of a sharp knife and rations that wouldn't last until the hunting party found him.
"What did you think SI:7 was? Did you think we'd send you on a dangerous undercover mission with fancy gadgets and women dancing all over you?" Shaw flicked the paper he'd been signing when Elias had walked in at him. "Pictures. People. Places. We gather information. Information that help us defeat the enemy. Sometimes its easy, most of the times not. We train newbies hard so they can fight easy. Because, Elias, it keeps people alive in the long run. Its not glamorous. Its work. "
"You play with lives. I'm done. I have nothing more to say to a man who thinks he can control the threads of others fates." Eli spun on his heel and walked to the door. With every step he took he expected a sharp and fatal pain in his back, but he reached the door unmolested.
"You'll be back. I don't have loose ends in my organization."
Without turning around, Elias flicked his buckle. His sword clattered angrily to the floor "I'm done, Mattias. Let the streets run red with the blood of you and your Fingers. Let Stormwind burn, so long as I can be with my friends and my girl when the end comes." He let the door slam behind him, the last image he had of SI:7 was Shaw's face staring daggers at him. He didn't look so tough after all.
Shaw stood, staring daggers at his sturdy door now forced into its hinges from Elias. He sighed as he slipped back into his chair. "That might be closer than you think, Eli, closer than you think." He slipped a blank sheet of paper and began the necessary requistion for what he was planning. He'd have to be subtle, this could not look personal or the king might get suspicious.
The sun had crept behind the cathedral when he finished. Shaw tossed the sheet on an unmolested stack and began drafting another sheet.
He needed a new desk and door.