Between daughter and duty
"I don't really know... but you can't exactly get rid of him either," Faranor replied as he helped the Forsaken man to get up from the moth eaten sheets. Whilst he spoke with the arrogance and self importance of most Blood Elf men, Faranor was more aware of other people's problems than that of his own. He could see the figure Sokaron now held had brought on a memory so deep and important he doubted it would go away any time soon. He watched as Sokaron went to put the figure back on the side and he rested his hand on the warrior's shoulder, "Take it with you. It's highly possible this used to be your home in life,"
Sokaron looked back at the elf, searching the bright green orbs that seemed to hold nothing but reassurance and strangely, comfort. He nodded and pocketed the jade figure into one of the bags attached to his belt before joining Faranor out of the building. They found Jonathan sitting outside giving Kara a belly rub.
"Is that even healthy?" Faranor muttered at the other undead and Jonathan grinned lopsidedly before picking himself off the ground as the others joined him. "Kara did find this though, quite pretty too, if I must say," He extended his hand towards Sokaron who took the picture. It was a small painting, a little chewed no thanks to the diseased wolf but he could still make out the faces smiling back at him from the picture. Sokaron frowned, distinctly troubled by what his undead mind was relaying back to him.
"Sokaron?" Faranor asked, seeing that something was going through the warrior's mind.
"This man... is me," he said with a slight hint of displaced emotion as he pointed a bony finger to the man smiling in the frame. Jonathan leaned over to look and then peered back and forth just to check.
"Resemblance is uncanny... you mean you came from here?" Jonathan said, peering around at the farmsteads with a curious gaze that held no recognition for himself.
"Before, he regained a memory... it is clear to me Sokaron, this used to be your family. You did speak of a little girl of whom you felt you should have known without shadow of a doubt," Faranor said looking at the smiling girl in the picture. She looked like her mother in the frame and knew the man had a good taste in women in his life before undeath. But unlike her mother, she seemed to have, or would have, the high cheek bone structure that Sokaron bore, which were more prominent in their undead state with dried skin right next to the bone.
"Why now? They have no need of me... I am forsaken. Why does this bother me now?" he sighed and threw the frame to the floor. This rising emotion was something he had not known since life, and he found he didn't want to know it. Yet, it bothered him on a serious personal level that was hard to ignore. He walked back to where they had left their mounts, the paladin's charger whinnying slightly at the fresh scent of walking death. The two warhorses remained indifferent but Sokaron's responded to the man's head stroke with a soft appreciative whinny that was almost reassuring to the warrior.
Faranor looked after the warrior as he moved away and frowned in thought. There was something dire unravelling in the undead's mind, that much Faranor knew and perhaps it was a cry for help, though Sokaron would probably never openly admit it. He blinked as he peered at Jonathan who had taken to tugging hard on the paladin's arm to get the elf's attention after picking up the painting that had been left to the floor.
"You're not thinking what I dread you're thinking are you? Sylvanas won't like it," Jonathan whined, his facial muscles tensing slightly in the way only the blood elf could recognise from the years he had known the hunter. Faranor's and Jonathan's friendship was that of a love-hate kind and neither of them quite knew how it came to be. But it was clear it had come to the point where one could rag on the arm of the other without too much hassle.
"What happens to the undead when something conflicts them at their heart, Jonathan?" he asked before looking down at the other. Faranor, being what he was, stood a good two heads and a half over the hunched hunter next to him.
"Don't play that one on me, Fara! No fair!"
"It is a question,"
Jonathan snorted before tossing his pet a scrap of meat, which the wolf guzzled greedily and too possessively for Faranor's liking. "All sorts of things, and none of them useful to the Dark Lady,"
"Dark Lady everything," Faranor moaned, shaking his head but he had said it so many times now in the tones he used that Jonathan made no offended comment. The blood elf glanced upwards as he heard birds calling from their roosts in the trees and he sighed before he continued, "A mind unravelling with such things can cause major problems. It is important he does not lose focus. I imagine his loyalties may become confused through no fault of his own,"
"Faranor... every Forsaken is loyal to our plight and cause,"
"Putress being the exception," Faranor interrupted coldly before taking the frame from Jonathan's gnarled fingers. "What he did at the Wrathgate is inexcusable!"
"Don't we know it? Things have gotten harder since then. The rest of the Horde and the Alliance continue to remind us of it, they blame the Forsaken... not the one man and his rotten band. Lady Sylvanas wasn't best pleased by it," Jonathan replied, tossing another slab of meat to the decaying wolf. "And now that Garrosh is Warchief..."
"Acting Warchief,"
"Eh." Jonathan shrugged dismissively, "He's as good as right now. Anyway, he is very distrusting of us, and hounds Sylvanas with that pet of his,"
"You cannot deny Sylvanas has her own agenda, Jon. No one denies she has had a rough life and a rough undeath in light of Arthas' wrongdoings but I sense there is much trouble to be had with Garrosh and Sylvanas. And Menethil's dark necromancers..."
"Who probably answered more to Kel'thuzad more than the Lich King,"
"Hmhm, they were behind Sokaron's rebirth as undead..." the Blood Elf shrugged slightly before following the route Sokaron had taken. Jonathan scowled but followed the other as they reached where Sokaron was waiting. "Sokaron, might be an idea to keep a hold of this," Faranor said lifting the frame. The warrior scowled deeply before mounting his warhorse and shook his head.
"I am dead. What family I had... they have no use for me anymore, probably only to have my head," he turned his warhorse away and headed back to the Ruins of Lordaeron. Faranor wrinkled his nose but put the frame in his saddlebags before mounting his unruly destrier.
"You know that he is right there, Faranor. If I know you, you'd have him meet his family but what if they're not undead. What if they still live and breathe amongst the Alliance. They wouldn't allow him to simply walk into Stormwind's gate untarnished. You know that."
"We'll see... it all depends on how his head unravels," Faranor sighed before nudging the horse's belly with his heels. The Thelassian steed whinnied but started forth as Jonathan's warhorse pulled alongside to follow the ochre clad horse before them. Faranor was not sure why he felt so concerned with the warrior's past, perhaps more than he should be interested or perhaps more concerned about the flashbacks than Sokaron himself appeared to be. Either way, the paladin known to the Argent Crusade would stick with the warrior for a while longer.
They arrived back in the Undercity an hour or so later after leaving their mounts back in the stables in Brill. Jonathan had opted to wait for them in Brill whilst Faranor remained with Sokaron, who didn't seem too impressed with the blood elf as it was. But then, Faranor noted, Sokaron was not one to show much in the way of emotion. If anything, he seemed almost lacking but Faranor knew better if what had happened back at the farmsteads was of any indication.
"Are you certain you want to come with me?" Sokaron asked sounding rather bored scratching his jawline with a bony finger.
"I would not be here otherwise," the Sin'dorei replied earnestly and so, they turned for the royal quarters, paused only by her elite guard of deathstalkers. Once they were sure of his intentions, they continued on till they were met by Sylvanas herself.
"I hear the Agamand Hills are at rest at last, Sokaron. I would let you go on your travels again if it weren't for the Horde. You are to report to Grommash Hold in Orgrimmar. Those orcs will not tell me of what they plan for you but it seems your skills as a warrior has reached the ears of Warchief Thrall," she said sounding very much disgusted. Whilst Thrall had let them join the Horde, there was no love lost between Forsaken and Orc. Orc didn't favour the living dead whatsoever but as things stood, the Horde needed all the allies it could get.
