"The problem with troubleshooting

Is that trouble shoots back."

~ Unknown, but If I ever meet them I want to hug and French them!

If I never mentioned the DKs last name then ignore this note.

If I have then ignore the previous mention.

~*~ Chapter Three ~*~

~ Easter Plaguelands, South of Light's Hope ~

Thanin Deadsong was speechless. His tall and imposing frame was absolutely immobile, held firmly in the grasp of the chains of Light that snaked around and around and rooted him firmly to the ground. Already the many excuses for how he came to have holy burns from neck to deck were spinning away in his mind. Assuming the lone figure survived the encounter, there was no way he would admit what transpired.

If he didn't survive, well then several of his brothers and sisters in Acherus were about to cash in on long-ago bets as to just how long the Kaldorei would survive His service. His kind were usually too weak to make the transition from tree hugger to life ender. Most of those raised became training tools for the neophytes, often earning their entire race a bad reputation amongst the Scourge.

"This isn't fair." The echoing voice of a Death Knight was not often raised in complain. What passed for sweat broke out under constricted arms and straining shoulder blades, "I wasn't going to kill you." Thick steel of black and silver plate armor did nothing to protect an undead body from radiating Holy magic.

"Maybe not just yet, or not you, but I'm sure someone would have." The young human priestess sitting in front of him continued to eat. The heavenly smell of non-human meat elicited soft growls from behind her, enough so that she asked, "Is that you?"

"No." he lied. A blinding streak of Light shot threw his gray matter, piercing blinded eyeballs from behind. "Ok, ok! It's me! By the Throne, you wicked thing, when I get out of-"

The disbelief was hard to miss, "Is that your stomach?"

The dangerous pair of bare hands worked at the Light-made chains as if he would rub them hard enough and they would open, "No-ohw! Yes, yes, it's my stomach!" He blushed, slight blue rising up in his pale purple skin. Since his teeth and hands were the only things he could move he settled for worrying at the chains and grinding his pointed teeth. Next time he would not drop his gloves in the bushes in order to avoid damaging his prey with their sharpened metal points. The burning under his fingers was ignored.

How she pretended not to be afraid of the Scourge, of Death Knights, of the Plaguelands or it's many walking and crawling horrors while still being free to feel these things astounded and puzzled her prisoner. That power – the raw power- captivated in more ways than one and the only though was of how much praise would be heaped upon the one who delivered her to Him. It would all be his.

The child and novice had shackled him, cleansed the diseases he spat and turned him around – shackles and all – to face out into the night and all without moving or pausing between bites. Being treated so casually by someone who would and should be screaming in fear and forgetting the words of her spells as she stumbled backward over the dead bodies of her fellow villagers was … well there was no way to describe it. This just wasn't going as planned?

After a few minutes curiosity overcame wariness, "Are you hungry?" The tone suggested she didn't believe the risen dead were capable of feeling hunter. It was the same tone one might take when they saw a large predator eating grass: just unnatural.

Even as the lie formed in behind the sallow expression the Scourge warrior knew the pain would come, "N-yes. Yes. Ok, I'm hungry. I missed lunch and now I'm missing dinner." Why did I volunteer that last line? What if she asks me why I missed lunch?

"What do you usually have?"

Deep and hollow, the voice dropped to a terrifying echo that sent mortals fleeing in terror, "You're mother."

"Cute."

The searing pain didn't stop until his shrill scream echoed into the beyond. Body slumped inward and panting, black tears froze on bloodless purple skin. "You wait," he panted, "when I get out of here…" But that was all he had to say. She still had no moved an inch. Do you fear anything? You must teach me this trick once we've assimilated you…

"Here's the thing," she began, finally standing up and turning him back around. She was an average looking human, brown hair pulled back in a long braid that laid over her shoulder in the Kaldorei fashion; brown eyes of the same shade and a good-enough completion, if a little pale from lack of sunlight. Her robes were blue and white in the Kaldorei fashion as well, marking her as a novice priestess of Elune. "You see, I'm on my way to Light's Hope and I was minding my own business till you came along. Now I'm annoyed. Perturbed even."

Hanging limp in the shackles he laughed softly, "Perturbed? You sound like Alonea. She is often perturbed." Her compulsion spell is going to get me killed.

"Girlfriend?"

It was a jest but still made him smile a little. "The master necromancer who raised me. My soul-mother, as you mortals would put it." I'm not sharing too much, am I? The Master will understand it was her spell… right?

That had the priestess thinking for a moment as she regarded him. "Do you feel anything for her?"

"Love? No." The absurdity of the Scourge feeling love, at least the ones who were already dead, caused him to spit is gray tongue out in disgust and fake puking. Koltira's habits of showing disgust were rubbing off on him.

"Does she feel anything for you?"

"No." The Lich King does not love and so we who are bound to His Willl do not love.

She stood and put her mess kit away. "Then why do you bring her up?" She even moved like a Kaldorei.

Your spell, halfwit. "I'm going to make a gift of you to her. Not before I repay your kindness of course." The hands that were worrying at the chains turned into claws that snaked threw the golden hoops as if gutting them.

"Why would you make a gift to someone you do not care about?"

"Loyalty to the one who reanimated me. Scourge policy." Soon enough, he figured, she would learn these policies first hand.

Arms crossed over small bosom, "Yeah. I suppose there's a handbook and everything?"

"Shhh. Can't tell." He laughed again softly as he hung his head. The Light weakened him, sapped his energy. He could die the final death if he stayed here long enough. The pain he though would come at refusing to answer the question did not. Curious…

Her observation is one that most mortals came to when dealing with the free-thinking Scourge, "You're a little insane." Not that any minion of the Lich King was truly free in their thoughts, but the Death Knights were granted privileges as His chosen champions to be allowed their own opinions and expressions as long as they were the same as their Masters. If not then whatever memory or instinct causes the opinion to be different was erased.

"On the winds the memories go, removed like a taint and it's done; You'll know the last strike that took your first life, a body to serve with a soul too far gone."

"Is that it then? Your insane, hungry, needy for mommy's attention and a flat out terrible at being a minion of the Lich King." It boggled her little human head and she shook it trying to get more out of him.

Unable to lash out to avenge his honor, a new tactic was tried: changing the subject. "And you?"

Eyebrows rose, as manicured as Koltira's back at the hold. "Not about me. It's all about you right now. Lets talk about you."

Something affixed itself into his mind, into that vast chasm of memories that were clouded over if not completely ripped out. A priestess. Of the EluneLight. Yes, he had been familiar with them at one point, had worked with them often in his former life. They latched onto people like leaches, sucking the will to resist out of them until they crumbled down into a sodden wreck and did whatever the Light or that heretic Goddess wanted in order to be allowed release.

Yes, he had known a priestess in his life.

"Don't want to talk about me. Don't have much to say."

He snorted and started to inquire further but she cut him off, "How many innocent people have you killed?"

The unhelmed head shook, filthy aqua hair barley moving under the weight of all the years of butchery and buildup, "Wouldn't tell you even if I knew."

"Resistance is futile."

"That's my line."

She smiled and observed with a voice a little too chipper, "You're an animal. You smell like an animal. You-" and she had the audacity to laugh- "fight like an animal. All teeth and nails, running at your prey loud as the coming thunder and howling like fury itself when you get trapped." She got up and ran at him with arms out strait and manicured nails clawing at the air in an embarrassing reenactment. "You'd chew your own arms off to get out of those chains if you could move your neck." She tsked at him, "Where is your sword? Don't Scouries carry swords?"

The Death Knight stared at her blankly, wondering what a 'scourgies' was. What is it with teenaged girls that made them want to psychoanalyze everyone around them? And a priestess to boot! Sinking into the chains he let them support his weight, ignoring the burning that seared even threw the thick plate armor.

Dear Anyone Who's Listening, if you get me out of here I shall make a sacrifice of two virgins and an Alteracan puppy. Two puppies if you make it before anyone back at Acherus finds me like this…

There was an indignant snort at being ignored and then the very real threat of, "I can make you howl again if you need a reminder."

"I would rather the Argent Dawn ram the whole of Light's Hope up my ass than answer your stupid questions." He was never, ever going to admit-

- "I give! I give! My sword hates me, ok. Are you happy?!" The ringing between his ears was loud enough to be heard to the Throne, he was sure. If he though the administrations would become easier to tolerate as he was tested it was false hope. Unlike a good High Inquisitor, of which he had been in the company of no less than two times, she didn't start at a low setting and build. She cranked it up to ten at the get-go and only wound down as she got what she wanted. In this case an explanation of why he was weaponless.

"Seriously?" A handkerchief was out dabbing at the frozen tears on his cheeks.

He pulled back as hard as he could but could not move far, a feral threat growled from deep within, "Can't stand to see your victim cry?" Though the irony of this turn of events was not lost on him. There would be no rescue party coming for a long mongrel warrior too weak to fight off a novice priestess by himself but if he made it out of this and they ever found out there was no way to live it down.

It was worse than the time an assassin made it into the hold looking to kill the man who murdered his father. Only he stumble into the brothel instead and wound up married to the matron. Said matron, a fierce troll woman of the Amani variety, was still looking for a good Scourge lawyer to annul it. So far her series of pregnancies and half-human offspring were all that stood between her and proving her marriage to the human was never consummated.

"You're a weakling. Why do they even keep you?"

He didn't answer. Didn't dare even think of why they kept him.

"Say?"

Still nothing.

When he stopped screaming she dabbed more pain from his face. This time he didn't resist. "You're a bit of a masochist, you know that?"

"You think you're the worst pain I have had to deal with? Look at me!" She was, had been since the beginning. Maybe if he though it hard enough there would still be a chance he could turn this situation around. Ha!

"How many innocent lives have you taken?"

"One hundred and twenty nine." Almost as soon as they words left his mouth the world bleached white again as Light exploded inside his skull. He felt it coming though and gritted his teeth against it. By the Throne, if he could take the pain dished out by the one who broke him to the Master's Will he could damn sure take this!

… for about four more seconds.

"I don't know!" He sobbed down the front of his armor disheartened, "Ok, are you happy? I don't know." The truth was that he couldn't remember. There were so many names and so many faces, all of it a blur. If it ever became too much a trip to his mistress was undertaken and she would take every memory and rip them right out of him. There was no such thing as a guilt-free man, the Scourge were like to say, only the one who cannot remember the crimes he has committed.

"Why do you care so much if I'm happy?" The hand she held out was snatched back more than once as he tried to bite her. She settled for dabbing his armor and then gave up after one pat. There was just too much organic matter to make a difference. "You've asked me that several times already."

"Why are you torturing me? What do you care? One little priestess all alone in the middle of the Big Bad Woods; this isn't your mother's back yard, little girl. You should be tucked in bed somewhere safe, not out here by your lonesome."

"Who taught you how to speak Common?"

His frustrated growl made her step back with the handkerchief halfway to his face again. She took it back and threw it in the fire, too soiled to be much use anymore. The smoke of the little white square went up into the night and disappeared in the plagued clouds that covered the entire land.

"Say?"

"Kaydos."

"Teacher? Lover? Friend?"

"The one who chose me for His service and slew me." The memories of himself as he had been in life tried to drift up but the holes in the recollection made it choppy, like watching a damaged moving-picture crystal.

"Why would they teach you Common after you were created?"

He didn't answer at first but instinctively knew the pain would come if he did not give her something, "It's a long story. The one who raised me took everything, even my language. I suppose at one point I spoke Darnassian. I don't anymore."

She gasped in shock. He grinned. "Who has that kind of power?"

It was not within the ability of most necromancers, certainly none that were known, to take memories that ran so deep they were instinct. Even people with amnesia could still speak their native language. Some could even write their language. The ability to change instincts both frightened and fascinated the priestess in front of him.

"I think you will make an excellent necromancer if they do not make you a Death Knight," he tilted his head to gaze at her threw matted lashes. "The Mistress is dissatisfied with her current apprentice. And not just because her spell keep hitting herself on an hourly basis."

"Why would she do that?" Her ability to focus made her captive scowl. "What is the purpose of taking your language?"

"If you are going to erase who someone is, you need to start from the beginning." This conversation was turning way too civil for his tastes; "Babies recognize simple words within the first few weeks. Smell and sight and sound aside, because you can't really erase that, language is the first thing you learn as an infant."

"She was trying to destroy you?" The horror of the words squeaking out a gasp was a comfort to him; he felt safer when someone was aghast and afraid.

"On the contrary," he corrected with a loving smile and a warm memory, "she built me up. I am her masterpiece you see. She was a journeyman at the end of her training when I was chosen to serve our King. Creating a Death Knight out of whatever I had been before was her task, and hers alone, and if she should have failed it would have been the end of both of us.

But, oh my dear… she did not fail…."