It sounds like water, but she knows it isn't. There is no actual water in the Maw, no relief. The creatures that exist here don't require it, and if they did, they would undoubtedly be denied. Sylvanas doesn't need it either, the benefit of undeath, she supposes; but someone in her charge still does. Specifically, the living, breathing, infuriatingly stubborn High King of the Alliance. Anima drips from souls as they flicker out forever, and she leans against the side of a jagged cliff face with a booted foot supporting her intentionally bored and unimpressed posture. The familiar sound of feathers ruffling draws her from her thoughts and she pushes against the stone to right herself as red eyes cast skyward for the forsworn Kyrian descending. "You're late," her voice echoes unnaturally.

"I almost wasn't here at all. We're losing our foothold in Bastion," Akysia replied as her wings folded against her back. She hands over a bag to Sylvanas. "And you had some specific requests, Dark Lady."

"As our time draws near, I find myself with little patience to tend to the needs of the living. The abundance requested is to spare me your tardiness in my already tight schedule." Her words are casually cutting, but the fact that her eyes don't blaze to life shows her lack of commitment to her insult.

The darksworn kyrian rolls her eyes before taking off with a beat of wings far harder than necessary. It causes the dust to swirl up and pushes Sylvanas back a step. Vibe check. Red eyes narrow and the Banshee Queen considers whether or not a few well placed arrows would be worth having to clean them off when she pulled them from her target. No one would notice or care—much like most other things that went on in the afterlife. There were a few major players that she'd gleaned, but otherwise—a constant cycle of death, death again, rebirth into death, transformations among the dead, all barely supervised in a fractured hierarchy.

It was that chaos that she hoped to leverage when she decided on getting Anduin out of the Maw with the reforged Shalamayne—the only weapon that could destroy everything, but also the only one that could save it; save him.

The Maw is never silent, never still. He's spent enough time (minutes, hours, days; it's difficult now to say for certain) within this bleak chamber to have learned the litany of horrors the prison can produce. Cries of the tormented pierce the echoing, mournful wails from lost souls that fill the winding corridors beyond his cell like a ceaseless squall of misery he doesn't think he'll ever grow accustomed to hearing, no matter how long he spends beneath the Jailer's boot.

He has no way of knowing, having been limited by the ring of wards his captors have spelled to manacle him from the Light, but he suspects the tower to be as endless as the suffering it inflicts upon its wretched inhabitants. A fact that is not lost on him and one that does little in the way of instilling hope for his escape, as much as he might cling to it.

In the past, given his frustrating propensity for being abducted by adversaries of the crown and Azeroth alike, he'd always found sanctuary in the Light. However, while it has inexplicably managed to thrive even in such a dark and woebegone place as the Maw, his ability to commune with and harness it had been abruptly cut off as soon as the rune magic had been cast around him.

Without the warm embrace of the Light to buffer him from the dismal conditions that surround him, he finds it nigh impossible to enter a meditative state long enough to focus his thoughts and formulate a means of escape beyond continuing the difficult, perhaps even futile task of convincing Sylvanas Windrunner to turn away from her misbegotten path to freedom for an alternative that doesn't see the whole of Azeroth enslaved to the will of the Jailer.

No small order, he knows, but the only way out of this he can currently see, barring another rescue attempt, though so many had already failed. In truth, he hopes the others stay where they are, lest they too find themselves in confinement again, and then what use will any of them be?

He isn't his father, the natural strength of a warrior and skill with a blade not amongst his virtues, but he has a keen mind and that's seen him through his fair share of seemingly hopeless situations before well enough to keep himself alive and his people safe. If he's clever, and careful, then Light willing, his intellect will see him out of this conflict as well.

When the telltale sound of her approach reaches his ears, he feels his muscles tense in anticipation for the same tired and twisted rhetoric, exhausted and whipcord tight though his body already is from kneeling and standing in his chained position under several pounds of plate for as long as he has.

Sylvanas questions herself still, even as her boots fall heavily on the steps down to the recessed platform where Anduin is chained and warded. The lambent sword strapped to her back creates a moon-glow halo effect around her which makes her skin look darker and her eyes contrast even more brightly. If he had prayed to the Light for a savior, the Light had sent hell itself.

Mouth set in a grim line, Anduin presses to his feet as she nears, chains scraping against the stone floor and rattling together as he moves to face her. Her new incandescence casts her in a strange light, a beautiful demon sent to ruin worlds—starting with him. "How many times must we turn in this circle before you accept that my answer will always be-" he begins, voice weary, before he's suddenly hit square in the chest with a bundle of clothing—Are those leathers? The question dies with a soft grunt of surprise in lieu of the new question that now presents itself. His brows knit together in confusion as he stares at the strange offering, chains rattling once again when he strains against them to examine the parcel.

Crimson eyes stare back wordlessly. The weighty bundle would have taken the breath out of him if he hadn't been wearing armor, as she'd thrown it at him harder than necessary. The banshee seems incapable of not being angry. The clothing she provided was dark in color, all cloth and leather, no mail or plate. The cloak is hooded deeply enough that it will obscure his face in shadow almost completely.

Perhaps these are to be his sacrificial garments? The former warchief does have a flare for the dramatic. It seems unlikely it would be his new 'uniform' as it were. There aren't enough sharp points, or any points, for that matter. "Strip your armor and put those on," she commands, not at the end of a blade, but still in a tone that brooks no argument; although she feels certain they'll have one anyway.

His eyes lift from the clothing, to the taunting glint of his father's sword slung across her back that surrounded her with an ethereally creepy glow. His usual cornflower blue eyes darken to a moody cobalt as soon as she drops her hand, suspicion written across his face. "... I thought we had agreed to no more games, Dark Lady."

She watches him react to her presence, listens to the inflection and tone of his voice—anxious, tired, angry, hopeless. Everything she could hope to inspire in him and it still isn't enough, even in the deepest tower beneath the gaping maw. The expressions on his face are out of place and even as he's speaking she's watching each twitch of his lip and draw of his brow. He was too young to take up the mantle, still full of youthful beauty and bravado. Lady Moon herself was like him once. Not all that long ago—before her own laughter had been silenced and her smile stolen away. The weariness is recognizable because it's relatable.

Sylvanas has watched him grow up and take the place of a king whose armor he would never be able to shoulder, but in place of that, he brought something else to the Alliance; hope for peace, a hope she's dashed time and time again. He's spoken directly to her and expects an answer, but in her mind's eye she is watching him call up soldiers from the brink of death. She is remembering the thrill that sparked inside of her at having a worthy opponent. But it all leads back to here: at another crossroad where she has to decide to be the villain. Was there a 'too far' for Sylvanas Windrunner? She hadn't thought so until she'd been handed the blade for the first time. Luminous eyes flit back to his own and she's instantly annoyed that she's been caught distracted at the very least, conflicted if he looks hard enough.

With a wave of her hand, the chains melt away into the nothingness from which they were conjured. "Games are the last thing we have time for," she bites out bitterly in a hiss. "Put. Them. On." Sylvanas turns her back to him under the guise of giving him privacy, but it's more so that he can't see her face when she adds as if an almost-forgotten afterthought, "We're leaving."

The chains disappear with a hiss from dispelled shadow magic, and he lurches forward a step, now that he is no longer tethered to the ground. He takes a moment to appreciate the small freedom, his wrists tender from being manacled, but the novelty is short lived.

At her presumptuous, grating command, the bundle of leather clothing is unceremoniously dropped to the floor with a slap of callous hide against stone. He steps over it, closer to the barrier of his ironless cage, where she has given him her back—and a clear view of the unsettlingly familiar alterations that have been made to Shalamayne.

"For weeks you have sought to weaken my resolve, to undermine my faith in the Light and in the people of Azeroth with your endless denigration of my convictions, and now-" An exasperated, incredulous snort of mirthless laughter as he bows his head, shaking it, as if in doing so he might dispel a measure of his ire with this frustratingly incongruous woman.

A sigh escapes him. He is weary and his anger with her and these unconscionable choices that she has made for both the living and the dead, while ever present, is dulled by the fatigue of his spirit. The Maw has done its duty and taxed him greatly, but he is a Wrynn, and like all those before him who have borne the weight of the name, stubbornness is inherent and surrender unknown to him.

"Now… you come to me, carrying my father's defiled sword and bring me a rogue's vestments and expect me to believe that you've suddenly had a change of heart? You may have me at a disadvantage, Sylvanas, but I have no intention of being gulled into complying with the Jailer's twisted schemes. I trusted you once before, you might recall." His father at the Gates of the Tomb of Sargeras, the good men and women of the Alliance who perished that day, and then her barbaric actions at Arathi where Calia Menethil and countless others lost their lives, further cementing his mistrust of the former Warchief.

He expects answers, but he is no fool, for all that she insists to the contrary. He knows that his chances of escaping this hell on his own are slim at best, and this may very well be his only opportunity to bypass the wards. With a soft creak of heavy plate, he kneels to work at the straps on his golden sabatons, his eyes never leaving the Banshee Queen's back, and the cold, unnatural blue glow that emits from the newly minted Kingsmourne.

In these moments it's easier to lean into undeath, the lack of feeling and detachment, rather than getting swallowed up by very real feelings that threaten to bubble up. The only thing that ever comes from the overflow is pure and blinding rage. She's arrived at this place like all the others—full of fury and exceedingly tired of being used. Anger is an easy emotion for her to reckon with, she's got plenty of her own. The long-suffering of his tone is one she's used on others, but so few dare to use against her if they wish to see the next day. She hears him kneel down to start the process of changing clothes. "As I see it, young Wrynn, you have very little choice in the matter," she tells him. And what other option does he have? "You could wait, I suppose, for the ice witch to show up, and while I do admit that her penchant for breaking free of her various entrapments served as amusement, ultimately, she's still gone and you're still here."

Sylvanas listens to the clasps and buckles as they unfasten and the sound of heavy armor being placed reverently on the floor. Foolish boy, his father's armor never fit him in the first place. "Or perhaps the two would-be warchiefs. If only they possessed half of the power of their bravado, they could come," she mused, "and be captured again. Baine did not hold up well, I was not surprised."

"Don't-" he begins as a warning, and she backs off, but only slightly. Sylvanas shifts her weight to the other side and continues gesticulating as she speaks, tickling off his list of allies one by one in a melodic cadence that would have sounded coming cheerful from anyone else.

"Maybe the wild card night elf—but she was never here for you, she's always been here for me, so that's out. Or did you think perhaps one of the mortals that has found their way here would come for you? Everyone is so brave until they're in the Maw. They never stay long enough to do anything except provide me a distraction."

Finally, she turns to face him head on, "Which is exactly what I need to get you out of here."

Red eyes appraise him and her hand finds the swell of her hip beneath her own jagged armor. "But to answer your question—my heart stopped long ago, so no, there has been no change, but my mind is another matter. And so is yours," she says cryptically as she starts to circle him, still outside the illuminated runestones on the floor, certainly not watching him as he finishes switching into the leather and cloth pieces she's provided. They fit exceptionally well for a "guess" on her part. "These runes are spelled to detect mortality. I can come and go across them," she holds a hand out over them to demonstrate her point. He already knows he'd be rebuffed if he tried such.

She steps into the circle with him, not giving him any personal space as she circles him. It's not the first time she's been nearly nose-to-nose with the High King. He could consider trying to take the sword, using it against her, but the chances were so slim. He isn't well fed or hydrated, he's had so little sleep. His muscles are stiff.

Even in undeath, her beauty remains, a shadow of itself, but undeniably present, if anyone could look beyond the hellish eyes and sharp fangs that showed when she spoke. Sylvanas makes her way behind him and draws the sword with a metallic hiss. "You aren't going to like the next part anymore than I am." It's meant to make him think she's going to run him through; she smirks as she watches him brace for impact, expecting the sharp pierce of the mourneblade. But it never comes. Sylvanas appears in front of him again, having found no easily accessible weakness in his mental constitution.

Without the bulwark of his armor, she seems far larger compared to him and she presses two fingers against his shoulder where it joins the trunk of his body, testing how solid he is. She makes a sound that isn't discernible as approval or not. "As much as it pains me to admit, I will need your cooperation, and your trust," her nose wrinkles, a surprising expression upon the Banshee Queen's face. "To get you over the runes, you will have to let me possess you as a banshee to take you across so that the wards aren't broken. It will mask your mortality." She looks like she has bit down on something sour before she speaks again, "I can't possess you without your cooperation. Your mind is not weak, even here, even now."

He's seen it happen before, the way she could take people over, move through them, usually to their detriment, it was a risk, and he had no guarantee that this wasn't part of her plan to turn him into an ally of the Jailer, a mindless zombie to do his bidding. "Why can I not take the sword and leave the rune ring?" he questions, deeply suspicious.

"If you touch this blade, he will own you," she says quietly. "Like the notched head of an arrow, he will burrow and latch into your soul. Pulling it out would cause irreparable damage." Sylvanas would know, and her voice is tinged with-something close to sadness, if she would let herself feel such things.

"Then how has he not done the same to you?" Anduin asks in earnest.

"My soul is not as...attached to my body as yours is, and it is fractured. There is nothing to grapple with," her eyes drop from his and her shoulders do as well. It's as close as she gets to a sigh in her undeath. Sylvanas holds a hand out to him, palm up. "It's going to hurt," she tells him truthfully, almost apologetically. Almost. Sylvanas knows what it does to people. They feel the depth of her anger, hatred, sorrow, and despair- decades worth of it in an instance. Humans, with their deep running emotions, could be overwhelmed to the point of death-making them a quick source of power. Other longer-lived races weren't quite as fragile to the Banshee's possession, lending them to a more steady source when needed.

Anduin observes her with extreme prejudice and distrust, but in the end, he places his hand in her own with a deep, shuddering sigh to try and relax his body and mind. He doesn't look away when her eyes brighten into burning embers and the edges of her form begin to blur. It's a mix of morbid curiosity and not trusting her; although even if he could have seen her betrayal coming at this point, there would be nothing he could do to stop it.

What he gets instead is searing pain as the misty tendrils around her jut into him, hooking into his soul, but it attached him to hers as well. The moment she moves through him, controlling his steps and simultaneously pushing and pulling him out of the runed cell is excruciating. He becomes acutely aware of how easily she could end him right there, but more than that he is now intimately familiar with her in a way few have lived to tell about. How has she survived so long with the banshee tearing at her, shredding her already broken soul? He shakes himself out of it when he realizes that she's caught herself against a stone pillar, doubled over like she's been gutted.

When he approaches, she holds a hand out to stop him and he comes to heel just outside of arms reach. He can see on her face that she's in pain, and that it's not something she's accustomed to anymore. The dusky skinned elf groans and disappears behind the pillar to save face, but he can hear her getting sick. Infuriatingly, he attempts to make a joke to detract from the serious repercussions of having been possessed by the banshee queen—although they seemed worse for her than himself. "I know you find me distasteful, Dark Lady but-"

"Shut up, you insufferable light wielder!" She manages to grind out before spilling more of the black ichor on the roughly hewn floor. The strength of the Light within him had burned up her connection to him all the way back to the roots and then into her. The banshee inside of her screams to destroy him, demands it, but Sylvanas won't relent this time. She's finally able to straighten up and wipe her mouth on the back of her bracers. Sylvanas leans back against solid stone, eyes closed as she takes measure of if any permanent damage has been done. When she's confident that the only sustained damage is to her pride, she opens her eyes to find him staring at her. She knows that look, and hates it immediately. He's wise enough to stay silent for now.

Sylvanas straightens herself again and sets into motion as though no interruption had taken place. "Follow me," she says, intentionally shouldering past him. Her heavy pauldrons hit harder without the plate to protect him and he's knocked a step back.

"By all means, lead the way," he grumbles under his breath before pulling the hood over his head and falling into step behind her.

They travel along the twisting corridors of the tower, and she gets all of maybe ten minutes of silence before he starts in on her. "What are we looking for?"

"Broker travel points, the right one will drop us out into the Maw outside of the tower, there's another we can take after that."

"Where will the wrong one lead?"

"Nowhere that we want to be," she replies in a cutting whisper.

"Are you able to operate the Waystone?"

"The one the Jailer is very specifically watching because a mortal has come and gone from it...repeatedly?"

"...yes, I suppose that is the one I was referring to," he says, sounding a little sheepish.

"Tch," it sounds equal parts exasperated and disgusted, but nothing compared to the feral growl that rumbles low in her throat when he runs into her. Sylvanas stops short and the king doesn't notice until it's too late to avoid a collision. The moment she feels his weight pushing into her she turns with the angry sound of warning and he catches himself against her waist as she catches him by his shoulders. "Foolish Wrynn, are you trying to run face first into your doom?" she demands with more ire than is necessary, though he had nearly headbutted the sword.

"If I haven't already," he counters, and this time he doesn't let go of her. Even with the layers of tightly laced leather his hands brand her with his heat. His hands are large enough to nearly encase her and each of his thumbs comes to rest just above and below where he imagines her navel is. He can feel the tension in her and he knows he's caught her off guard by daring to maintain the contact. Anduin squeezes gently, another gesture meant to further make her feel left of center. "You're asking me to trust you blindly. Is it too much to ask for you to give me anything? Anything, Sylvanas? A plan, a reason, a motivation, another lecture—something!"

Sylvanas stands silent, an eerie lack of motion owing to her not having to breathe. The warmth of his palms cupping her waist is distracting, the squeeze more so. People don't touch her and keep their limbs. Few have been so bold, and none as daring. It's enough to cause a startle reflex, but she's held fast by his grip. Red eyes lift to meet the frustrated and pleading eyes of the young king. She regards his face, searching for something, or perhaps just buying time before she finally answers in full honesty. "I can't give you something I don't have," the echo of her voice fades at the last.

He's hit with the realization that she has no plan. Rash decisions are more in his wheelhouse than the calculated elf's. His tongue darts out to wet his lips. It's no longer just him in danger now; she's chosen to step into the path as well. For him. And he knows this because he felt the conflict and fear of failure tearing at her when she took over his mind and body to get him across the runes without detection. He saw a lot, actually, and while he aches to know more, the pressing issue at hand is what they're going to do once they're out of the Maw. "Alright, Sylvanas," he dares a reassuring tone. It's an olive branch without offering it, unspoken support that he will have her back. It's comfort, and she hates it.

Anduin's face softens looking down at her and she immediately drops her gaze and turns her head. She can't bear it. Her resolve is already razor thin. Sylvanas lets anger bubble up instead of a far more dangerous emotion in its place. "We can't waste time," she tells him, allowing her expression to be obscured by the fabric surrounding her own face. Sylvanas takes a step back so that he releases her and she wonders whether or not it would have been that easy all along and she just hadn't tried (she hadn't) to get away from him. His fingers linger across her waist until she puts enough space between them that he can no longer maintain a hold on her without it being obvious. That is an issue she isn't willing to touch yet-or ever if she has her preference.

The pair escapes from the antechamber and out onto an open-air balcony, if you could call it that and Sylvanas pulls out a cypher, which she holds out to him. "This will take us to a place called Korthia, from there we will sneak into one of the shipping containers being exported out of the Maw. Once out of the Maw, we're out of his reach...for now." Sylvanas's voice trails off and he knows that she's searching for her next step.

He reaches out and places his hands on the cypher as well so that she can start the spell to activate it. It's no accident that his fingers brush over her cold knuckles, which would have been white if she'd been alive with how tight she held the cypher. He can't afford for her to change her mind before they get out of the Maw, and he tells himself this pretty little lie so that he doesn't have to think about everything he saw when she shared his body not even an hour before, or the way it seemed to burrow into his heart and mind, demanding the healer do something to ease her suffering.

Her eyes cut quickly up at him again and narrow just slightly. Bold little lion, he was. Sylvanas begins the incantation and a golden light begins to emit from the beacon. The last thing she sees is a small, self-satisfied smile on the boy-king's face, as if he's made a decision about something she isn't privy to.

The last thing he sees is Sylvanas narrowing her eyes. He doesn't know how they're going to get out of this yet, but Anduin has plans on saving more than just the Shadowlands.