[[You'll have to excuse the bad organization skills. I have no clue how to put in page breaks and it's fucking with me. Anyway, here's your chapter. Please R&R, I love that shit. xoxo]]
Eve could only hope that the pounding of her charger's hooves would eventually drive the thoughts and emotions bubbling up away, but as she sped back towards Orgrimmar, she knew that wasn't going to happen. Dirt and dried blood flecked her armor, and she looked the picture of pure fury. She didn't care. She was going to get some answers. There was no way that her superiors didn't know who they were sending her to.
On the zeppelin, the goblins and other passengers stayed far away from her. Eve hated surprises. The whole mission had been a bust, and she was going to have to own up to it. She had gracefully murdered all of those people, and for what? The one person she was sent to kill... she left him in chains. That was sloppy, not something she was known for.
As the wind whipped through the zeppelin, she removed her helmet and ran a hand through her hair. What the fuck was happening to her? She walked to the edge of the boat zep and watched the sea below her.
She was a death knight, there were no two ways about it. She needed to inflict pain and suffering upon others to keep herself sane. She'd seen what happens to others who had tried to "turn good." The Ebon Blade had to put them down after they became mindless killing machines. Eve did not want to become that.
She met another Blade member after the battle at Light's Hope chapel after she broke away from Arthas. He had told her that it was useless to try and remember her past, that she was better off without it. Now she stood there, wracking her mind, trying to tear apart her identity just to see if there was anything still left of her old life. She didn't even know her old life, except for bits and pieces that flashed behind her eyelids when she closed them.
The water eventually gave away to the sandy, dry land of the central Eastern Kingdom. As the zep noisily docked, Eve heard the whicker of terrified horses as they shied away from her undead presence. Ignoring this common reaction, she summoned her own death charger and stormed into Orgrimmar.
Before seeing her superiors, she decided she would bathe. She was covered in cuts and bruises, but she would look as presentable as possible. The living liked that sort of thing. She rented a room at a nearby inn, and trudged up the stairs. Eve took a good long time in cleaning her armor, taking care to get into all of the cracks and crevices. This action calmed her, and when she was done, she realized that she would have to shell out a lot of money just to repair the dents and cracks she had suffered on this journey.
She bathed, taking care to clean out the more serious wounds. She had a lurking suspicion that she hadn't been slain and then raised as Arthas' undead warrior. She speculated that she had been corrupted by a necromancer. Unlike some other Death Knights, she didn't hopelessly rot. She'd seen arms come off during combat. Being undead had its... perks.
After dropping her armor off to be repaired, she mounted her charger and made her way through Org. She was going to get some answers, chain of command be damned. Storming through the military building, bloody quest paper in hand had a certain effect on people. She was here for Deluril, the commander who had issued this quest just for her.
She stormed into the room where he was poring over some map or the other. He barely had time to look up before Eve slammed the paper down in front of him. Her rage returned full force, and she had to bite her tongue to stop from going berserk.
"Tell me what you knew of this before you sent me." She managed to say, just above a whisper. Commander Deluril looked her up and down, inventorying her wounds.
"Evelith. I did not expect to see you so soon." He said, calmly. This just infuriated her. She wanted answers, for fuck's sake. He picked the letter up and carefully examined it.
"Did you complete the mission?" He asked, tossing the paper into the fire. The image of Nialas' face crumpled up and burned. Eve scowled.
"No. There were some unforseen complications. They were expecting me, for one. Two, they managed to subdue and capture me, I was tortured for a week. I did not talk, I escaped instead." Admitting this was hard, but it was the truth. Eve, whether through her innate sadism or ambition, was always striving for more. More power, more authority, more missions.
She maneuvered herself so that she was facing him. He averted his gaze, and Eve could sense that he was hiding something.
"Tell me what you knew about this before you sent me in there. Tell me everything." It wasn't a question, it was a demand. Deluril sighed and returned to his maps. He shuffled them together, rolled them up, and put them away in a nearby bookshelf.
"Very well, if that's what you wish. knew you before you were... undead. You were a rogue under my command, and I foolishly sent you out on a mission I knew you weren't prepared for. Yet, you seemed so eager to prove yourself, even though you were already quite accomplished." He refused to look at her, as though he felt some sort of guilt. Eve frowned. Guilt was for the weak.
"We sent you out on this mission, and when you didn't return, we assumed the worst. We sent some spies, and... well, we didn't know what was going on, but from our point of view you looked like a deserter. It was reported that you were, ah, fraternizing with the enemy in a way that we found quite unforgivable." If Eve had the capacity to be embarrassed, she would have blushed. It was clear in his tone what he was implying. Presently, however, she was unfazed by his comment.
"We heard reports of you appearing in several Horde territories, and then you seemed to disappear. When you turned up after the battle at Light's Hope... I was not surprised." The commander turned back to the table, and sat back down at his desk. In front of him were several letters that he was in the middle of writing. He seemed to be done with the conversation, but Eve needed more.
"Why did you send me after Nialas then? What was the point? Why couldn't you send anyone else?" She didn't know if she even wanted to know the answer to this question.
"Oh, I'm not entirely sure. Loose ends, you know? Curiosity. The job will be done." His tone told her he had lost interest in the conversation. Eve turned to go, but clearly Deluril was not entirely finished.
"Before you go, Evelith, this just came in for you. A mission, or something." He tossed a letter her way, and she caught it. Briefly, she expected him to ask for a tip. Eve left without a salute.
When she was back in her rented room, she tore the letter open. In so many words, it told her exactly what Deluril had. Her presence was "requested" in Northrend, where she would be placed in a position of command. In a fit of rage, she grabbed the nightstand and threw it at the wall. Northrend! She threw the letter into the fire and seriously considered going on a rampage.
After she had calmed down a bit, Eve carefully righted the nightstand and put it back in its place. She was losing it. She couldn't control the anger that was welling up inside of her. She hoped she wasn't turning into one of those Death Knights that had to be put down. No, she wouldn't allow it.
She went to retrieve her armor, and instead of waiting until her arrival date, she boarded the necessary zeps and sped on her way. As the icy wind whipped her face, Eve tried to think of the better parts of this trip. 'The pay. The pay will be good.'
…
Nialas refused, for the third time, the attentions of a healer. There were people who had more serious wounds than a badly bruised jaw. He, again, heard Eve's voice in his head. 'I made sure it hurt. I always make sure it hurts...'
Nine good people had died, and many more had been wounded. There were many accounts of what had happened that day, but there was one general consensus: she had been unstoppable. Not arrow nor magefire could slow her down, she was a cold-blooded killer without any mercy or compassion.
Later that night, after he offered deep condolences to the families of the lost and cleaned up what could be cleaned up, he paced back and forth in his office. Nialas' mind was running around in circles. He just didn't know what to do. He just survived another assassination attempt, but this it left him with more than just physical wounds.
Every waking moment of every day, he saw something that reminded him of his past with her. The house was steeped in memories he only associated with Eve. It was unhealthy and, frankly, it was driving him mad. Nialas had thought that eventually the pain would go away, and that one day he would move on and forget about her. When she showed up, the scab was ripped wide open and he was feeling everything like he did six years ago.
Nialas sat down in front of his desk, cradling his head in his hands. He had seen atrocity after atrocity, and one woman had brought him low? He needed an escape, somehow he had to get out, to get away! He needed somewhere new, somewhere where everything didn't remind him of Eve. He was obsessed.
Frantically, Nialas pulled out a piece of parchment and began to write. He relieved himself of command, placing one of his most trusted colleagues in his spot. He couldn't follow in his father's footsteps anymore, he had to go.
As Nialas shoved his things into a bag, he remembered an offer that a very influential someone had made to him on a visit to Dalaran once. 'Yes, that's what I'll do. I'll go to Northrend and join the forces there. I'm going to murder every undead scum I see.' He thought. There, he would forget about Eve. There, he could finally find some peace.
