My Elven warlord can't be this cute!
When Tiffania Westwood was in peril when the assassins of Reconquista found her. She desperately prayed for a noble and just familiar. What she got was the Witch King of Naggarond.
Warnings: see chapter 1
Disclaimer: Don't own shit except the belief that Malekith is entitled to tendies and Mommy's milkies
Chapter 1- Of cooking and dreams
Succulent smell of home cooked food assaulted Malekith's senses as soon as the Dark Elf warlord stepped through the doorway. In the small room that both served as a living-room and kitchen, Tiffania was making her own magic over the stove and already a drink had been served on the table with plates and eating utensils and immediately the Elf was returned back to memories when it was last when someone had cooked a meal for him. It was almost his entire life, but none of those times the food was made simply because they wanted to feed him, but in face of necessity either by respect for his place in their society or under pain of death. The finest chefs of Naggarond had cooked him the most luxurious food in the world as he demanded and under the fear of death they often succeeded.
Sitting in the table in his new robes, without his metal skin that had once kept a secure distance between himself and his subjects, the Witch King felt naked. He looked around the room and was surprised how cosy the small cottage looked. Walls were lined with some paintings he guessed were of Tiffania's own making, while next to a makeshift sofa rested a small bookshelf filled with books. Spines on the books were books of magic in this strange world and cooking. Fitting for such a naïve and simple soul as the one before him.
Looking at the strange Asur, another wave of nostalgia hit Malekith as he recalled his late wife cooking at the stove with magic, before she had vanished. Another pang in his chest reminded him of the loss and Malekith recalled the words he remembered Asuryan had told him before he had sent him here.
"Prove that you can indeed save the Elven race" was what the god had asked of him and honestly Malekith had his doubts on the task as his faults were laid bare. He was vicious and cruel, lacking in empathy and disgusted by any displays of weakness, yet as he sat in this primitive, mundane, his mind supplied, cottage seeing a peasant cook him dinner, he realized that he harboured no ill will towards this female Asur. He had no wish to drive her in chains to the blood cauldrons or enslave her in the mines. The thought was paradoxical to him and completely alien.
"Am I plagued by some sort of Illness?" the Witch King quietly asked himself. This situation reminded him of all those centuries he had travelled the world and the wonders he had seen. After the Realm of Chaos almost every horror had become a wonder. Still he shuddered as he recalled the millennia he had endured there before his escape.
"Dig in!" the girl said, and a dish was shoved under Malekith's nose. It was a plentiful amounts of potatoes with mushroom sauce with white bread and some slices of meat, to Malekith, who had gorged himself on gourmet food and feasted gloriously this meal would have been something fit for a low class artisan in Naggarond, but now it looked in an entirely different light. The mushrooms seemed delicious in the creamy sauce and the home baked bread was still crunchy yet soft. When the Witch King took the first bite, he almost salivated. What was wrong with him?! The inner Druchii screamed.
"How is it?" Tiffania asked and the ancient elf could only nod with a smile of his face as he continued to chew his food. Who knew that this ritual had burned so much of his energy?! Once again Malekith congratulated himself on the foresight of ordering the feast after the ceremony. Immediately the thought ran back to home and all he had lost to just have a chance in this trial in a foreign world.
He wondered what his people would do, but then again trusted Kouran would ensure order reigned in his new empire. The great fleet would be entrusted to Fellheart, who had been instrumental to the success of the Invasion, while Morathi in conjunction with Hellebron would keep a tennous hold over his minions while Kouran delegated and relegated tasks in the day to day rule. He was sure that if he returned within a hundred years, that he would still find the Dreadlords standing in the shrine, surrounded by his Black Guard.
The thought of those treacherous worms impotent in face of his personal army brought a wicked grin on his face.
"It is delicious" he answered as he though how would some particularly rebellious dreadlords skin bound into a journal.
"I'm glad you liked it" Tiffania smiled warmly and took her seat before starting with her own plate. Malekith took a glass off the drink she had prepared, and it was strange, like water, but with flavour. Yet it was not water. What recipe was this?
"What do you call this drink Tiffania?" he asked swirling the glass with reddish liquid.
"Oh, thatsh-" she swallowed her food "That's a kompot of forest strawberries with water"
He had never drunk this before. While it was obviously an inferior drink to wines, ales, spirits or other beverages available to the Druchii, its taste was new. In the ages he had experienced what most beings in the world would dream of, or flee from the nightmares, yet this drink was not one of them. What this more this world would offer him?
"It is a new taste" he said and drank some more. The rest of the dinner was spent in questions mostly about the food and what kind of world this was. There Malekith encountered a glaring problem to his research, Tiffania was rather sheltered and knew nothing of the world outside her own and from what he listened from her and had experienced in his encounter with the human swine, their relations were not unlike those in his own world. Elves were hated and often killed on sight and same was probably for humans.
"How old are you Tiffania?" He asked the Asur, surmising that she was surprisingly young from her lack of experience and optimism while living alone.
"This winter I'm turning seven and ten" she said and all gears in Malekith's head ground to a halt.
17.
17?
17?!
It was blink of an eye for one such as him who had lived for centuries and with a figure like that. Malekith shook his head at his previous designs to the peasant Asur who now was revealed as someone who was considered barely out of infancy to their kin. A child at that age should be with their parents who had to make sure their child was ready to succeed in any endeavor they would choose, be it artistry, craftsmanship or war.
To have such a young Elf living alone!
"What happened to your parents?" Malekith asked tentatively as the subject no doubt was unpleasant as she flinched away from him, yet he had to admit that the girl was brave, her eyes meeting his.
"When I was little we were living happily together and I thought that nothing could go wrong" her hands shaked "Then one day we were discovered" human barbarity knew no bounds, but Malekith realized that this could have been anyone suffering for the raids he and his reavers had launched for millennia across the world.
"My mother, she" tears welled in Tiffania's eyes "She hid me in a hidden passage with a map to this very house"
"It's all because my mother was an elf. I'm sorry" she muttered and quickly fled the room and ran upstairs, not even bothering to hide her tears. As for Malekith, he was left there sitting with another revelation.
Tiffania was a halfbreed. In his world these halfbreeds were shunned for a good reason. High chances of corruption, sterility and diseases plagued these results of unions that should have never been. If any of his people were caught creating such abominations or breeding with the inferior humans, they were punished by fates worse than death.
This led him to a difficult situation. It was his duty as the king of his kind to prevent these terrible unions and smite their misbegotten offspring off the face of the world, but this wasn't his world. This wasn't his people and he hadn't even sensed the taint of chaos ever since he arrived on this world.
As it was evident that Tiffania wouldn't come back down anytime soon, Malekith took all empty dishes and took them outside to wash them in the river. Unleashing a light pulse of magic in the air, he sensed enemies hidden or obvious and sat at the banks of the small river.
The cool touch of water sharpened his thoughts and the Witch King thought long and hard what should he do next. Should he kill Tiffania to be rid of an imagined peril? The thought galled him and ever since his 'rebirth'. His perils, his faults had been laid bare, yet a piece was missing from his memories. There was still a memory of shock, surprise and pain, but no distinct moment that would rend his soul so. This required much though so Malekith set out to prepare his home for tonight.
Runes of protection, rituals of Hekharti and Dhar woven into the magic that he cast. Shadows cast by the setting sun, slithered like snakes and sunk into the grass surrounding the house, while whispered words summoned packs of wolves that howled at the promised prey. In the distance his keen ears caught the sound of claws rending flesh and smiled. The humans would trouble him no more.
If a being wished them harm, then they would have to overpower the Witch King himself as this was a tedious task by itself, the alarms and curses would alarm him of the breach and then hell would reign, but now Malekith wanted a peace and quiet, so he gently sat down at the banks of the river and mediated.
He sat there for hours. Sun finally had set and stars appeared in the sky, calling out to the twin moons. The mid-summer heat that had nothing on the blaze of Ulthuan or the jungle cities of Lizardmen now turned to a light breeze that seemed already too hot for the Druchii, whose cities laid far north in where Chaos was ripe. Malekith sat there and ruminated, his thoughts turning to the vile acts he had committed in his long years of warfare, piracy and statesmanship.
When the witching hour came, son of Aenarion forced himself to look at the most inhospitable part of his mind, where the memories of Millennia that he spent dwelling in Chaos wastes. In mind's eye he relived all the horrors that he had fought through, had endured and somewhat even thrived. Malekith meditated on the what had long passed from memory to see the path to the future where he was back from this strange trial.
Mind of the Witch King was predictable to himself as it always turned back to the nexus of his being, the unseen hand that shaped his entire life, ever since his conception and even beyond that. Morathi in his mind's eye took the silhouette that was familiar and safe, that of a seductive mistress of the Dark arts and subterfuge, one who smiled at him coyly as she manipulated those around for a goal even himself didn't have privy to. He refused to acknowledge the crying woman who he had seen in the shrine as he departed into flames and maybe it was for the best, for what form she took, Morathi was and would always be his mother, but maybe, just maybe his destiny one day would free of her hands, but rather would choose to share it. A willful smile tugged at the Druchii's lips as he willed the fantasy away, he was far too worldly and old to disbelieve such nonsense. Next thing his mind turned to what was his task that Asuryan had left him- saving the elves of this world.
The thought boggled his mind, if elves were uncommon or unheard in the country the half-breed, Tiffania, lived. How was he supposed to find them? This and many other questions clouded the Witch King's thoughts and so he sat in front of the cottage, stripped of his armour, clad only in a poor nobleman's clothes and in a company of a prepubescent half-breed. Strange things had happened, but Malekith had long gone used to them since.
While the Witch King meditated, the half-breed dreamt.
Having cried herself to sleep to keep the memories at bay, Tiffania completely forgot about her guest. In her dreams which were usually ones of nightmares and gentle fantasies. This time it was none.
She dreamt dreams of a sundered island with a swirling vortex of multitude colours. There she saw people like her, tall with fair hair, bedighted in jewellery and swirling tones of cloth. In her dreams these people were now in chains as dark armoured elves patrolled the streets and led them in chains, while in the tallest Palace, stood a diamond spire. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen! In it laid libraries to spend aeons in, yet her dreams didn't stop there, they flew to the very top, where a balcony surveyed the paradise in tangible form.
It was a dark-haired woman, who might have been the most beautiful elf she had ever seen, not unlike her guest. Clad in a black and gold dress that fully revealed her beauty, she growled with frustration as rituals and spells were cast one after another. From what Tiffania could understand that she was looking for someone dear to her as sometimes she looked like she was about to cry as another ritual failed. The young half-elf in her dreams eye floated next her and the cauldron the sorceress had been preparing. In the light of the room, the violet liquid boiling and fuming, reminded the girl of a soup, yet she could feel the magic in it. Just who was this woman?
The blonde girl reached further to look in the cauldron, her own reflection shone back from the potion, and the sorceress had noticed it.
Immediately she chanted and weaved her magic, leaving Tiffania unable to move. As if heavy chains bound her limbs. The woman seemed to see her now and a surprised look appeared on her face, as she approached her closer violent magic rose behind her, manifesting in shadows and creatures of nightmares.
Tiffania screamed and the world turned white.
Without breath, the half-elf girl rose from her bed, heart jumping back and forth in her chest as cold sweat jumped from her brow. Slowly the girl got out of her small room and came down only to see no sign of the other elf. Immediately panic set in as she thought that he had left before she could have asked him to teach her. When she ran out in the dawn, she saw the elf sitting in front of the river, while a gentle breeze blew his hair in the wind.
Quietly she approached him, intent on wanting to apologize for her rude behaviour during dinner, but the second she touched his shoulder Tiffania was once again flung into a dream. She saw horrors committed that made her cry out and want to hide in her home and never come out. She saw children butchered, women forced to do heinous things against their wills. Any cruelty imaginable on this world was lived through her eyes and the worst of all it was that she looked at them from a suit of armour wrought of ensorcerelled metal.
A cool and soothing breeze washed over and a tattoo of an Eagle with spread wings now adorned her right hand.
Beside her Malekith stirred. The male rose to his feet and stretched out in the dawn, completely foregoing Tiffania's presence. He stretched and stretched, exercising the stiffness of his meditation, he turned around to face the girl and once he saw the glowing mark on her hand immediately grabbed it.
"How did you get this?!" his voice was nary above a whisper and the shock in his eyes in turn made Tiffania afraid as she feared that it might have been a curse.
"Y-You were just sitting there and I wanted to wake you up and then I saw the most horrible of visions of Black floating castles and-" in panic the girl started to recount her dreams, yet Malekith silenced her with a finger.
"Shh, it's alright" he said, still holding her hand "What happened after you got that mark" he said, looking at her with his green eyes. Tiffania seemed to calm down a little and pointed at his own right arm that now rested at his side.
"Well, it started glowing and then it appeared on yours too" she revealed this little titbit of information. Immediately he let go of her and raised his own hand in the morning light, where clear as day burned the Eagle Mark with golden light, unlike her own.
He focused for a moment, before his eyes widened and he collapsed on the ground like a puppet with strings cut. Tiffania immediately knelt next to him, and tried to wake him up. Her prodding was of no use as the Elf on the ground didn't wake. She splashed water on him, tried to shake him awake, she even tried her ring on him, but it didn't work.
Tiffania tried to remember what else could she do to wake up the other elf, but only thing she could recall was the memory of her mother telling her about the power of true love's kiss.
There had to be some magic in it!
The half elf hoped that this indeed had been a love of first sight rather than her womanly wiles, Mathilda had told her about!
She leaned down closing her eyes and kissed the feared Witch King of Naggarond on his lips.
Across time and space, in a crystal spire the sorceress grinned as a black tattoo in shape of an Eagle too manifested on her hand. Malekith had been found!
A.N: So Mommy can't even let her son be tested by the chief god of their pantheon, without meddling. In my experience most moms would do that and try to meddle, but Morathi is known to take an extra step in these measures. Soon the plot will pick up pace, same as it was with Vlad.
Have a nice day and gimme reviews!
-Spook
