~*~ Author's Notes
I found a use for Lol-y Nova :D
I don't remember all of the abilities Sylvannas uses but I do have a clip of her 'blinking' just like a mage. This was before they changed her character model to it's current one and she was still Sylvannas the Dress-Wearing Undead Night Elf.
~*~Chapter 14 ~*~
There was a hand under her collar pulling towards the surface. Though it didn't matter if she was under or below- her lungs were full of fluids of every kind. An arm looped around her middle and pulled her upwards, resting her over a shoulder. She shrieked, blood and mucus leaking from her throat and nose. There was a great heave and she was lifted upwards on the shoulder and out of the mire.
Gently she was laid on the ground. Where broken and skin touched the stones pain shot with crippling speed in every direction. It had actually gone away for a minute, back there in the river of luminous green. The swiftness of its return made her move to slide back down the hill and melt away.
'Please,' she begged her savior, 'just let me die! Don't let me become one of them..' Gargled non-mewls were the only sound coming from her feline throat. Fluids moved in both directions as she tried to breath and retch at the same time.
There were voices yelling. The Priest was livid. His hands stroked the length of her body trying to burn the abandoned Plague experiments from her skin. Where they passed agony followed. She screamed, twisted against the agony and bit his hand. Hard.
It was a mistake. Where his Holy-infused blood met the Plague in her mouth it burned, cauterizing her gums and blackening her teeth. Jerking away, she made to stand and run but only two of her legs worked and one entire side of her body was broken into pieces. All it accomplished was seizure-like flailing.
More yelling. More screaming: hers or his she didn't know. There was a shield now around the both of them and shrieking as the Priest stood and cast punishing torrents of Holy energy in every direction. The Forsaken were trapped, screaming in pain as their Undead flesh was seared and burned. The walls of fire prevented them from fleeing lest they be reduced to ashes that much sooner.
Jetadiah's robes flared, caught up in a righteous wind. The power he wielded lifted him from the ground, flowing gold energy illuminating him like an avenging angel. Burning eyes touched red in anger. He was echoing words of power, punishing everyone within striking distance. Kayas understood the last part of it though; "You watched? You laughed? You find this entertaining?." Another surge of power: more shrieking. "How could any of you find this entertaining?" Sorrow touched his voice, shooting his lament into every being his words reached.
It took Kayas several moments to see all of this. First she saw the Forsaken cringing, running then being smashed into the ground repeatedly by the rivers of golden sorrow that poured out of the Priest. One or two even risked the flames but bounded off like a solid wall, lit up like trees non-the-less. Corrosa wasn't moving: her body jumped and it burned her as it did the rest, yet she endured it from her position on the ground, head bowed.
For her part the Dark Lady had teleported to the high ground, ducking around a corner with each wave of burning energy that passed. "You will stop this at once, Jetadiah! What is the meaning?"
The Priest wheeled around to face her, mace in one hand brilliantly lighting up the entire courtyard, "Back to experimenting on innocent children I see." The Banshee Queen's face grew dark with anger. The Priest silenced her reply with a quietly whispered; "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree now, does it?"
Shooting something black and streaking at the Priest the Dark Lady popped his shield and grounded his powers. He floated to the ground, unable to continue the assault on the by-standers. He was dizzy for a second, but quickly recovered.
The Dark Lady teleported in front of him as he took the Druid into his arms, stroked her collar and turned her back into her upright form.
She gasped, trying to struggle away from him, Plague burning threw her system, killing tissue and twisting it out of order. There was so much agony she shook from it. Open wounds scraped the ground, blood flowing down her shoulders from the wounds on her neck, spit out of her burning mouth. Her right arm was broken, right leg shattered in too many places. All she could make was a high-pitched 'hiiiii' sound as she gasped for breath and softly shrieked in wave after wave of torture.
Curling up on the ground, shiver and cry, she whispered her final prayers and hoped someone was listening. Her body worked to fight the toxins, attempting to throw them up. Bile and blood and plague leaked from her mouth and into the cracks of the flagstones.
Jetadiah's searing hot hands were on her again, burning with Holy energy once more. Despite her struggles he swept them up and down as many parts of her body as he could touch. Fighting him only made the problems worse when she could hear him whispering, "Please, stop fighting me…" Desperation.
He was crying, blood running down the front of his robes, mentally exhausted and covered in the mote's filthy 'water'. He had been the one to dive in and draw her out. Whatever the Dark Lady had done to him had just about stripped all his powers. And yet he worked, struggling to hold her still as she fought to get away from him.
'Get off me! Your evil, just like them.' Tears of grief mixed with tears of pain. She had started to trust him. Had started to like him. Had started to see something kindred in him. But how could she? There was nothing in him of her kind; he was Horde and they were all evil. All of them. Especially the ones, and she didn't pull this card often because of her races newly mortal status, which would stand by and watch someone hurt a child.
He pulled her too him, forcing her head into the hollow of his neck, whispered something sweet. Blackness descended rather quickly. Before she knew he was forcing her into the dream world she was already there.
"What is the meaning of this, Priest?" The Dark Lady asked again, patience growing thin. "I have no time for games."
Jetadiah shot an angry look at her, "How many times must I tell you to keep your hands off what is mine?"
The elfin woman blinked, cocked her head, "And how was I to know she's yours?"
"Corrosa sees just find without eyes; I assume you can too." He fingered the collar on the Druid's neck, rolling her head away so it was clear. "You had to have touched it when you did this." He pointed to the deep, freely bleeding gouge marks on the back of her neck where the Dark Lady's sharpened nails had shredded the flesh.
The Banshee Queen shrugged, "They're making more every day. Just get another one*." She turned to go back into her city.
Jetadiah stood with the little Druid in his arms. Many kinds of fluids dripped from them both, "Some people aren't replaceable. Some are."
The Dark Lady stopped, "And what does that mean, Priest?"
"Corrosa," he said to the Warlock still kneeling on the ground, "Where leaving."
The Warlock stood like a puppet, silently headed to the door. Her face was impassive, devoid. She had just weathered one hell of a storm and was two seconds from having a mental breakdown.
"Priest!" The Banshee Queen spoke in the Highbourn language, "Explain yourself." Few in the courtyard or beyond the wall of fire knew it.
Turning slightly to look into her red eyes he said, "You know where my loyalties lay, Sylvannas. Keep seeking to destroy what is mine and I will run out of reasons to be your friend."
The Forsaken Queen commanded Corrosa to stop. The Warlock stopped. The Dark Lady told her to go into the city and find the necromancers who would look after her wounds. Corrosa obeyed, changing direction to walk threw her own walls of fire as if it wasn't there. Hollow. Emotionless. Puppet.
"She's leaving with me." The Priest growled.
"You may have one or the other, but not both."
The Priests eyes widened in fury, "How dare you-!"
"Is this not my city? May I not decide who comes and goes? Is there any confusion that members of the Alliance are not welcome?" The Priest was dismayed, too much so to answer promptly. "You knew better than to bring that thing in here."
"Corrosa-"
"She'll always belong to me, Jetadiah. Always. Which means you will always be my friend – no matter what we did to some half-breed runts lifetimes ago."
Truth flickered threw the Priests eyes, his ears twitched. Yes, she had him in eternal check-mate. "Careful, my dear, your starting to sound like him."
The Banshee Queen grew cold, remembering what she despised about the living, "Careful, Jet, you cross a line."
"Were leaving, Corrosa." The Warlock moved obediently towards the door once more. A battle of wills was undertaken between the Dark Lady and the High Priest as the Warlock passed threw her fire and out of the door.
"Very well, Priest. I yield to you in the name of friendship and good faith. But you will bring her back to me in the morning or I will find your pet here and she will suffer."
The Priest turned and left the same time the Forsaken Queen turned back to her city. He didn't like confrontation; no healer did. He stood in the back and looked good in his robes while Corrosa was the wall between him and… the world. She had the silver tongue, or fiery as need be. He had never been good at being her wall. Never.
The Banshee Queen lifted a hand towards the moons, studying the glowing vial she had taken from the Druid's neck. It had been so long since she was in possession of Moonwell water. Corrosa had managed to get a sample after all. Time and again that one was proved herself invaluable. She would just have to explain to her Queen why she had written saying she was unable to get any; it would be a good explanation, of course.
"Jet, I'm so sorry!" Corrosa was wailing over and over again, "I tried to stop her, I did!" Halfway back to the camp the Forsaken woman had snapped out of the mental control the Dark Lady was able to cast over any free-willed undead.
The Priest was rummaging threw all of their belongings back where they had parked the horses outside of Brill. Plaguehounds stood in the distance, ready to make off with any shiny objects that flew to close to them. The Scourge loves their shinnies.
"I know." Jetadiah was exacerbated. He dug and dug. Four candles. Five. Seven. Where the heck were the rest? "What self-respecting Priest doesn't keep a good supply of sacred candles?" Tears were still sliding down his scrunched up face, ears wilted almost in half.
Corrosa swallowed hard. "M-my bag?" It hurt her to see him like this; shaking so hard stuff rattled out of his hands or was crushed. "I'm so sorry. Sh-she just looked at me and everything went soft." There were little yellow tears seeping from Corrosa's one working tear duct, "I tried to fight her, I did, I'msosorry!"
The Priest didn't answer. He flung his own stuff aside and dumped her bag upside down. All kinds of weird things came tumbling out. Normally he didn't invade the Warlocks privacy too much but he needed those candles now.
There they were! A whole box of them. "Corrosa-"
"Y-you always forget so I keep extras, you see...?" Her voice was soft, eager to please.
Taking up each candle he quickly inscribed the right glyphs, touched each with his wand and echoed the sacred words. The flying sparks missed the candles completely.
"You are hopeless with that thing!" There was too much energy behind the exclamation, the Priest jumped and almost dropped the candles. "Why not just use that retractable shtick you made?" See, I can be helpful?
Tucking his wand back up his sleeve the drove to his bag and pulled out his first engineering experiment: a retractable wand**. Even as a child he had been hopelessly inept at channeling energy threw such a small structure as a twig or a chicken foot or some such other tool. He had always been better at just putting on a crystal bracelet and channeling the energy down his arm instead.
Snapping the wand out to full length, the end glowed a dim green to show the batteries would soon need replacing. The wand was easy to use: a drop of blood in one end and it would pull whatever the first kind of energy to touch that drop down threw the wand and direct it out the other end. No need to direct.
"Set these up." He tossed the box of candles to her when they were all inscribed and charged.
"You're trying t-to do that ritual again? Arn't you?" The wince in her voice stopped him a moment.
"Yes."
"It – um- didn't go over so well last time…?"
He flung the metal wand at the ground, where it stuck with a twang, and fumed, "She's dying and it's my fault. I drug her into that place; she obviously didn't want to go on her own. I don't know, some Druidic premonition that Sylvannas was going to smash every bone in her body and grind her organs into mush with one fel swoop?" He looked at the unbreathing body of the Night Elf he had kidnapped from Auberdine, swearing he would let no harm come to while she were under his 'ownership', and shed new tears at the blood and gore.
He was screaming now, "Oh and I know: lets play Arthas and drop her into a river of Plague and see what stumbles out! Brilliant idea, Your Majesty, I cant imagine why the Alliance didn't fling open the gates of Stormwind and welcome someone who does that to children into their city!" Running fingers threw his lose hair, he kept gulping on deep breaths and trying to think. "I don't know what else to do…" Few had seen the Priest in a state of panic. None of them were currently alive***.
"You're bleeding heart is showing." Jetadiah glared. The Warlock offered softly, "I think I know what went – um- wrong… last time." Swallow. "But it's… wont work for someone who is already Forsaken."
Eyes wide, the Priest fixed his stare on her. So many thoughts went threw his mind, even more emotions threw his gut. "If there is anything, tell me."
Together they set up the circle. Candles were placed, runes drawn, powers invoked. Together they performed the ritual that had only been used once before and without success.
The only reason Sylvannas had pledged to support their bid for membership into the Horde is because she things her former race can figure out how to end the undead plague. She would be livid if she knew Jetadiah was only working on it to cure Corrosa and had no plans to hand such a powerful tool over to a woman who was already dead, but too vengeful to find a grave and stay in it.
* This theory also applies to ex's.
** Requires Gnomish Engineering 400 and Wand equipped in ranged weapon slot. Also works as bug zapper and can tune you into the ERP whisper chat in Goldshire (TV remote function).
*** Corrosa is not 'alive', per say, though thanks to Jet's failed attempt to undo her 'condition' she now sports a beating heart (though it has yet to serve a purpose), a soul, tastebuds and finds herself only orphaning children who are old enough to memorize her face so that some day they might come back to seek revenge.