Author's Note: This is not set in the TES Universe (shocker). This is set in World of Warcraft with the two main characters being my own creation. Any others therein are creations by Blizzard. Enjoy!
Netherlight Temple, he thought. I can feel the Light pouring from every nook and cranny. It feels… uncomfortable now and I hate that.
Broleon peered down the long, wide hallway the dark and marbled floor refracting the light that candles and magic gave off. It was such a stark contrast from Archeus Hold, full of dark corners and undead shambling about to do their duties. What I have become is so much more and so much less.
Death Knights were among those regarded as neutral on Azeroth being as their numbers consisted of races from both the Alliance and the Horde. All greeted one another as equals, brothers and sisters in death.
Death…
The worgen began to make his way down the Temple, seeing the Naar’u in the center long before it could see him but he knew better. The Deathlord knew it could sense him, a great darkness in the presence of such light. And it brought sadness to his eyes behind the great helmet of his.
You desecrate everything Broleon, he thought to himself. But you came here because of her. Because you NEED to talk to her. For once in nine years…
Lyiana, a Night Elf priestess of Elune, was one of the High Priests of Netherlight Temple, a woman all in Azeroth would listen to if even briefly. But she wasn’t the only High Priest. There were two others, a Shadow Priest and a Holy Priest. She found a balance in the Discipline school of priesthood.
“Hold there, Death Knight!” came a shout from a feminine elf. He froze in fear for a moment but eased as it wasn’t who he believed. “How are you even here, heathen?!”
“I need to speak to one of your High Priests,” the worgen explained in that hollow voice all death knights have. “But yes nothing is closer to the truth… I am a heathen…”
Her shocked expression was not surprising to the Deathlord. Frost Deathlord, more specifically. But the woman quickly shook it off. “You are not welcome on this hallowed ground!”
“We’re in the Twisting Nether. Nothing hallowed about it.”
“Be quiet, death knight!” Her commotion was drawing the attention of the other priests and priestesses all gasping and sharply inhaling at the sight of the heathen. “Your mere presence in here is enough to be determined as invasion. You being a death knight simply worsens your position.”
“I came wishing to speak to someone.” Broleon looked to the ground at his paws his hand now trembling. “I know she is here. Please, I have to-”
“You will not be speaking to anyone!” the Blood Elf spat her hands now glowing in a swirl of purple and blue. “You are leaving.”
“No I am not.” With a point of his finger the worgen cast his own spell that caused the priestess’s spell to sputter and die. “I will not harm anyone that tries to force me out but I will talk to Lyiana!” His eyes started to water as her image began to play across his mind. The happier times when they were together everyday. Her teasing him, brushing his fur with a brush because she could. Tears dripped to the floor. “Please… I need to speak to her. It’s been so very long…”
“Seize him!” she ordered as temple guards marched in.
More people had shown up, including two of the High Priests. Lyiana was not among them, much to his thanks and sorrow.
Down the hall, in the central chamber of the Narr’u, Saa’ra, Prophet Velen looked down the hall. His long beard, as white as snow, shook with every word and action. “She is too hasty, as usual.”
“Can you truly blame her, Brother?” Alonsus Faol asked. The Archbishop, once a human now an undead, had a curious tone in his voice. “It is strange though. How did the Frost Deathlord make it into Netherlight Temple?”
“That is an answer that can come only from him,” the ancient draenei answered. “His intent is noble but when he came here… did he not believe we would feel such a dark presence?”
“To be fair we do have a fair few of Shadow Priests.”
“True but Broleon is a Knight of the Ebon Blade, a death knight. Their darkness has a more… earthly feel to is as opposed to Shadow Priest’s darkness.”
“Where is High Priestess Lyiana?” Alonsus inquired.
“She is in her quarters, studying.” Velen turned to the death knight pushing his way, non lethally, past the guards. “I will retrieve her. She needs to see this with her own eyes.”
“And I will do what I can to appease everyone here, as usual,” the Archbishop chuckled.
As Velen left a voice came through.
“His proximity troubles me,” went Saa’ra through Faos’s head. “It reminds me of my own corruption.”
“You don’t have to worry about this one. I have heard the stories of Deathlord Broleon’s depression. It saddens me greatly.”
“What have you heard?”
“That’s he is terrified of meeting Lyiana face to face. Afraid that she will reject him for being what he is now as they were a couple when he was alive,” he explained. “Nine years of it out of fear. Can you imagine?”
“I can,” the narr’u somberly replied. “I can feel his sorrow. It has all but consumed him. As has his hatred.”
“Hatred for himself.”
“Yes. That poor worgen…”
With a push of dark energy the priests that had jumped Broleon were brushed away like paper to the wind. Nothing would stop him, not even himself. Years of agony, torment and selfishness… he would beat himself up later for it.
“No more running death knight!” a priest screamed. A human man held his hand up high. “You will defile this place no more! Be cast out like the beast you are!”
“That is quite enough of that,” Saa’ra interrupted bringing forth a barrier out of thin air protecting Broleon.
“Saa’ra!!!” many cried incredulously.
“He means us no harm! Can you not see that his Frozen Blades stay at his sides?” They all turned to the oddity, the freak, not caring that he raised no hand against them. “He wishes to speak with the woman he so desperately loves.”
“How could anyone love one of them?” a high elf sneered. “They are a mockery of life, a twisted being that once served the Lich King. A being of undeath of the worst degree!”
“A heathen!”
“A monster!”
“Unworthy!”
“Yes…” Everyone stared at the speaker. Broleon continued. “I am all of these things and more. A coward, a disgrace. A creature incapable of being loved.” These insults are the same I give myself every day. For they are nothing but the truth. “But do I not deserve my own light? My own beacon in my dark soul? Someone to keep me sane?” None answered him. “Don’t I?!” His crying started again. Wallow in self pity, murderer. It is all you are good for.
“Everyone does, child.” A song of compassion started to play in the worgen’s mind. Saa’ra went on. “That one spark can brighten even the darkest corners.”
“Saa’ra is right,” Prophet Velen insisted. “And of course, Lyiana agrees as well.”
“Lyiana?!” Broleon gasped and his eyes widened. Oh no, nononono! He wasn’t ready yet to face the Night Elf. Stop, please. You have come this far, Broleon. You can face her. You can!
“High Priestess,” the others greeted, kneeling before her.
“Broleon,” Alonsus said. “What is the matter?”
“I… I-I-I can’t… breathe!”
“Give the poor man some room!” chided the naar’u.
“But Saa’ra-”
“Now!”
The crowd dispersed leaving the death knight on his hands and knees to keep from passing out. Shallow, high breathes entered and escaped his lips like they were too cold for his lungs to handle. A pair of golden boots were placed just before his sight. He knew who it was already.
His helmet did nothing to silence the pangs of emotion, of sorrow, that he spoke to Lyiana before the priests in Netherlight Temple. “Please,” he rasped, “for the love of the Light don’t hate me for what I am and have become…! I do that to myself enough.”
Many of the priests still dismissed the petty, pathetic act before them demanding the unholy monstrosity be thrown out. A few were now conflicted, their connection to the Light making them wish to get rid of the death knight but a softer side wishing to now help him. “Lyiana,” Broleon weeped, “I miss you; miss us. Being a living, warm blooded person… all of it. You were the only thing that kept me sane under the Lich King’s control, making my attacks waver even for an instant. Your scent, your warmth, your purple hair that smells of passion fruit… I miss all of you from the bottom of my now frozen heart.” The Deathlord peered upward at the High Priestess, her white eyes seeming staring into his soul measuring his words. “I love you!” he whispered at first before shouting it again, balling all the more afterward. “I LOVE YOU!!!”
All was silent except for the sobbing worgen, his pained cries reaching to the far corners of Netherlight. His claws raked against the marble floor as Broleon tried to lift himself up only to fail.
“Why didn’t you let me decide for myself?” Lyiana asked.
“Because I was too much a coward to hear your answer!” he balled. “To hear you say no!”
“Do you really think me so shallow?” Her voice was soft, softer than before.
“No.”
She leaned down her hands cupping the blue glowing helmet covering his face. His eyes, once a wonderous forest green were now a glowing pale blue, the color of ice. Lyiana lifted his chin with her fingers now able to get a better look at him and he her.
Her armor was custom made from the finest and grandest silks on Azeroth and Argus. Gold embroidery and stitching up and down the gown. The base white of the armor only made the gold pop even more. Spread out wings were on her back, radiant and pulsing with a holy light through each metallic feather.
Nothing short of angelic. As compared to him, a pale blue, the shade of the hardest ice with menacing spikes on the gauntlets. Ram horns jutted out of each pauldron sharing the same hue as the helmet and belt. Nothing short of demonic.
“Don’t you think I should decide for myself now?” she asked.
She will never take you back, never allow such a thing! You are a monster, an undesirable thing that should be cast away. That should have succeeded in killing himself so many times before! “Yes,” he answered meekly unable to look his love in the eyes.
Uncaring of everyone around them the priestess brought her lips closer to his and kissed the worgen. His eyes opened up in shock, apprehensive on what to do. Her response was to give him a smile, the same kind that warmed his heart like a hearth does a chilled body. Lyiana kissed him again brushing her purple fingers against his furred cheek.
Tentatively Broleon reciprocated her actions trying to keep his raw emotions together from spoiling the moment, their moment. He held it in for as long as he could, kissing her until he could no more and cried once again.
“I still love you, Broleon. My worgen.”
He couldn’t believe his ears, but he didn’t care. Broleon collapsed into her arms openly crying against her shoulder. One of her hands wrapped behind his neck bringing him closer to her body while the other petted his exposed mane.
“I believe privacy is something the two wish for,” Velen spoke up. “Go on, all of you. Leave them; disperse. They have more than earned their time together.”
The tapping of his staff warned everyone to head out, knowing the wrath the ancient draenei was capable of. The murmurs of the priests faded out until Lyiana and Broleon could only hear one another.
“I’m so sorry!” he wailed finally able to speak to her. “I’m so sorry!”
Lyiana had heard about his depression and sorrow many times over the past years. How he beat himself up verbally and mentally for his failures, hated who he had become, how he tried to commit suicide so many times… She prayed to the Light and Elune begging either one to stave off such acts and to have her find and converse with him. To the Night Elf, the only thing that changed about Broleon was his status of living. He was still the same worgen she fell for.
“I know you are, my love,” she spoke as a tear came to her eye. His crying appeared to be contagious. “We can stay here as long as you want or need. I won’t go anywhere.”
“Thank you.” Broleon hugged her all the more, his hold on her wavering from the near uncontrollable sobbing.
The Deathlord cried on the High Priestess’s shoulder for what seemed like hours, letting the years of turmoil wash out of his system. She didn’t mind, only smiling at it kissing the top of his head.
An angel and a devil. My devil.
Replies