May 17
La Belle Prince sans Merci
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La Belle Prince sans Merci
Based off: ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ - Frank Dicksee
Pyros Artist: Mike Sass Hearthstone: Journey to Un'Goro (2017)
A small gift for my friend @millawanda-art. I hope you enjoy reading love 💛🧡💗
The moment it unraveled, she could not name.
There had been a rhythm to it before. Orders shouted, blades raised, spells woven with purpose. A raid always began that way, with the illusion of control, as if chaos could be held at arm’s length so long as everyone moved in time with one another.
That illusion did not survive Tempest Keep.
Now the vast crystalline chamber felt like it was tearing itself apart from the inside. Arcane energy bled through the air in violent pulses, the very architecture of the place humming, shivering, reacting to the forces unleashed within it. Floating platforms shimmered in the void beyond the broken walls, suspended in a sky that was not a sky at all, but a churning, endless expanse of violet stormlight.
And everywhere… weapons.
They moved with a terrible grace, as if guided by unseen hands. Blades spun through the air, edges singing as they carved arcs of silver death. Staves hovered and lashed out with bursts of volatile magic. A hammer struck the ground with a thunderclap that sent a shockwave through a cluster of Horde fighters, scattering them like leaves caught in a gale.
“Watch the weapons!” someone shouted, voice cracking, already too late.
Dunya did not look.
Looking meant hesitating. Hesitating meant dying.
She ran.
Her boots struck the glass-smooth floor in sharp, echoing beats that were nearly swallowed by the cacophony around her. Heat licked at her skin, not just from the chaos, but from her own magic, already coiling in her veins, restless, eager, answering the rising tempo of her pulse.
Ahead, across the fractured battlefield, stood the source.
Kael'thas Sunstrider.
He did not look like a man fighting for his life.
He looked like a conductor.
Arcane light swirled around him in ribbons of gold and violet, bending at his command, responding to the slightest flick of his fingers. His posture was composed, regal even now, his long hair catching the glow of the surrounding magic like molten sunlight. Above him, his phoenix wheeled through the air, a blazing creature of fire and rebirth, its wings shedding embers that rained down in deadly bursts across the battlefield below.
Each time it dove, the world seemed to catch fire.
Dunya’s breath hitched as she pushed forward, weaving between chaos that threatened to swallow her whole.
A blade came at her from the left.
She twisted, just barely, feeling the whisper of steel kiss the fabric at her side as it passed. Her hand snapped outward in the same motion, fingers splaying as she called the fire.
It answered instantly.
A burst of flame erupted from her palm, striking the weapon mid-flight. It staggered in the air, its trajectory broken, spinning away in a spiral of glowing heat before embedding itself in the far wall with a sharp, ringing crack.
She did not slow.
“Move!” someone barked behind her.
A blast of arcane energy detonated where she had been half a heartbeat earlier. The force of it shoved at her back, nearly pitching her forward, but she caught herself, boots skidding across the surface as she regained balance.
Her ears rang. The air tasted like ozone and ash.
Still she ran.
It was foolish.
She knew it with a clarity that felt almost calm beneath the chaos.
This was not how raids were meant to be fought. This was not her place. There were others, stronger, more experienced, better suited to facing him directly.
But none of that mattered if this continued.
If the weapons kept tearing through their ranks. If the phoenix kept burning them where they stood. If Kael’thas himself continued to shape the battlefield into something unwinnable.
The source.
End it at the source.
Even if—
Her jaw tightened.
Even if it was him.
“My prince…” she breathed under her breath, the words nearly lost as another explosion rocked the chamber.
There was no reverence left in the title now. Only something raw. Something strained.
She surged forward, closing the distance.
A staff swung toward her from above, crackling with unstable magic. She dropped low, sliding across the floor as it passed over her, its energy scorching the air so close it stung her scalp. She came up from the motion already casting, both hands lifting, fingers curling inward as she gathered heat until it thrummed painfully beneath her skin.
Then she released it.
A stream of fire roared forward, not wild, but focused, controlled. It cut through the space between them, a burning line drawn straight toward him.
Kael’thas turned.
Of course he did.
His eyes found her as if he had always known she would be there.
There was something in that gaze that made her falter for the briefest fraction of a second. Recognition, perhaps. Or something colder. Something distant.
He did not move to evade.
Instead, he lifted a hand.
The fire struck—
—and split.
It bent around him like water around stone, breaking apart into harmless tongues that dissipated into sparks before they could touch him.
Dunya’s breath caught, frustration flaring sharp and hot in her chest.
“Stand still!” she snapped, more to herself than to him, already moving again.
She closed the last stretch in a desperate rush, drawing more power, more heat, forcing it into shape as she prepared another strike. Her heart pounded so hard it blurred the edges of her vision, every sense narrowed to him, to the distance between them, to the chance that might vanish if she hesitated even once.
This was it.
This was close enough.
She raised her hand, fire gathering, brighter, hotter, something sharper this time, something meant to pierce, to burn through—
For a single, fragile moment, it felt possible.
Then he moved.
It was not a dramatic motion. Not a flash of power or a burst of speed.
Just a step.
And suddenly he was there.
Her spell hadn’t even left her hand when his fingers closed around her throat.
The world snapped.
Her breath vanished in an instant, cut off as if it had never existed. The fire she had been shaping sputtered, collapsing into nothing as her concentration shattered under the shock.
She barely had time to register what had happened before the ground fell away.
He lifted her effortlessly.
Her boots left the floor, kicking uselessly for purchase that was no longer there. Her hands flew to his wrist on instinct, fingers clawing at the unyielding grip that held her in place.
Heat still clung to her skin, but it felt distant now, drowned beneath the sudden, suffocating pressure at her throat.
Kael’thas regarded her at eye level, his expression unreadable, composed in a way that felt almost cruel in its calm.
Up close, the power around him was overwhelming.
It pressed against her senses, a constant, humming force that made the air itself feel heavy, alive with magic that answered only to him.
“You run toward your death with remarkable determination.” he said, his voice smooth, measured, as if they were standing in some quiet hall rather than at the heart of a battlefield tearing itself apart.
Dunya’s lips parted.
Nothing came out.
Her chest heaved against the absence of air, her lungs straining, desperate, but the passage was closed. The instinct to breathe turned sharp, painful, a rising panic that clawed its way up from somewhere deep and primal.
No.
No, not like this.
Her fingers tightened against his wrist, not in surrender, but in refusal. She forced herself to focus, to gather what little control she still had, to push past the suffocating weight pressing in on her.
“My… prince…” she rasped.
The words tore their way out of her throat in broken fragments, thin and strained, barely sound at all. It hurt to speak. It hurt to try. But she forced it anyway, forcing her gaze to stay locked on his, even as her vision trembled at the edges.
“P… please…”
Her voice faltered, breathless, but she pushed again, stubborn, defiant even now.
“Stop… this… this madness…”
There was something raw in it. Not submission. Not entirely. Something closer to desperation sharpened by disbelief.
“You’re—” she struggled for the air to finish it, her chest tightening painfully, “—you’re destroying everything…”
For the briefest flicker of time, something in his gaze shifted.
Not softness.
Not doubt.
Something far colder.
Then it was gone.
Replaced by something sharper. Something disdainful.
“Madness?” he echoed, tilting his head slightly as his fingers tightened around her throat.
The pressure increased.
“You stand here, choking on your own inadequacy,” he continued, his tone still calm, still composed, “and you dare to call this madness?”
His thumb shifted slightly against her throat, not loosening, only adjusting, as if ensuring she felt every fraction of his grip.
“This is evolution.” he said quietly. “This is what your kind has always failed to understand. Power is not meant to be restrained. It is meant to be claimed. Shaped. Perfected.”
His gaze flicked over her face, lingering on the subtle differences that marked her.
The shorter ears.
The features that did not fully belong.
“And yet,” he went on, voice dipping into something sharper, something edged with contempt, “it hardly surprises me that you would misunderstand.”
Her stomach twisted.
Even through the suffocating haze, she saw it coming.
“You are a creature of halves.” he said, the faintest curl of disdain touching his mouth. “A diluted thing, caught between bloodlines that were never meant to mix. Neither one nor the other. No true inheritance. No purity of purpose.”
His grip tightened again.
Her hands spasmed against his wrist, her strength faltering as her body began to betray her, her limbs growing heavier, slower.
“You cling to titles you barely deserve to speak.” he murmured. “My prince.”
The words twisted in his mouth.
“As if that loyalty means anything from something so… incomplete.”
Her grip tightened again, trembling now, but no longer only from lack of air.
She forced her arm to move.
It felt like lifting something impossibly heavy, her muscles sluggish, unresponsive, but she pushed through it. Her hand rose between them, shaking, fingers curling as she reached for the only thing she still had.
Fire.
It flickered to life in her palm.
Small. Unsteady. But there.
For a moment, it burned.
Kael’thas’ gaze dropped to it.
Then, without effort, he caught her wrist.
“Still trying?” he said softly.
His grip shifted.
And then he lifted her higher.
The motion was effortless, abrupt enough that her body jolted with it, her feet rising further from the ground, her spine stretching, her throat pulled tighter within his grasp. The world tilted, her already fading vision swimming as the pressure worsened, unbearable now.
Her hand faltered.
The fire in her palm flickered wildly—
—and died.
“This,” he said, his voice quieter now, closer, almost intimate in its cruelty, “is where your defiance ends.”
The words settled over her like a verdict.
Final. Certain.
Her hands trembled now, her strength bleeding away, her thoughts beginning to blur at the edges. The world around them dimmed, the chaos of the battlefield fading into something distant and muffled, as if she were already slipping away from it.
No.
Not yet.
Not—
A sound cut through it.
Sharp.
Piercing.
A scream that tore through the air above them.
Her gaze shifted, barely, her vision struggling to focus as she forced her eyes upward.
In the storm-lit sky of Tempest Keep, the phoenix wheeled.
Al'ar.
It filled the sky above them like a second sun, wings unfurled in a blaze of living fire that should have been beautiful. That should have been controlled. Every motion it made before had carried purpose, precision, an extension of Kael’thas’ will made manifest in flame.
But not now.
Now it screamed.
The sound tore through the chamber, sharp and violent, nothing like the measured cry of a summoned creature obeying its master. This was raw. Unrestrained. A sound that carried something almost feral beneath it, something that made the air itself feel wrong.
Dunya’s vision wavered, but she forced her eyes upward.
And she saw it.
It had not been called.
Kael’thas had not moved. His hand had not lifted. His focus had not shifted.
And yet the phoenix folded its wings.
And began to fall.
Not a graceful descent. Not a controlled dive.
A plunge.
Straight toward her.
Her eyes widened, the realization slamming into her with more force than the grip crushing her throat.
No.
Her body reacted instantly, instinct clawing past the suffocating weight pressing down on her. Her legs jerked, twisting uselessly in empty air. Her hands fought harder against his wrist, fingers slipping, trembling, desperate for leverage that did not exist.
No no no—
Her thoughts fractured, breaking apart into sharp, panicked fragments.
Move.
Move.
Move.
She tried to wrench herself sideways, to twist out of his hold, to do anything, anything at all, but his grip did not yield. It did not even acknowledge her struggle. It was like fighting against iron. Against inevitability.
The phoenix screamed again.
Closer now.
Too close.
No no no—
Her mind scrambled, frantic, clawing through everything she knew, everything she had ever learned, every scrap of magic, every instinct drilled into her.
Do something.
Do something, you idiot—
Anything—
Her vision flickered, edges darkening, the world narrowing as panic surged, sharp and blinding.
Fire wouldn’t work.
Arcane wouldn’t—
Her thoughts stumbled, collided, slipped over themselves in desperation.
Anything—
Anything—
Spellsteal.
The word surfaced without warning.
Spellsteal.
It caught.
Spellsteal.
Her thoughts latched onto it like a drowning hand grasping at something solid.
Spellsteal—
Spellsteal—
Spellsteal—
The mantra built, frantic and relentless, repeating over and over in the hollow space where panic had swallowed everything else.
Spellsteal.
Take it.
Take the magic.
Take it or die—
Her hand twitched, barely moving in his grip, fingers curling as if the motion alone could summon it.
Spellsteal—
And then—
Impact.
The phoenix hit her.
There was no time to react. No moment to brace. No final thought.
It simply collided with her suspended form in a violent eruption of fire and arcane force.
The world vanished.
White.
Red.
Gold.
It all blurred together in a blinding flood of color that consumed everything. Sight, sound, sense. It tore through her like she wasn’t there, like her body was nothing more than something to burn through on its way to becoming something else.
For a single, impossible instant, there was nothing.
Then—
Pain.
It exploded through her.
Not heat.
Not just heat.
Something deeper. Sharper. The raw, violent collision of fire and arcane energy tearing into her all at once, ripping through muscle, through bone, through the fragile structure of her being as if it were trying to unmake her from the inside out.
Her mouth opened.
She knew it did.
She felt it.
The shape of a scream tore itself from her throat, her entire body arching in his grasp as the force consumed her—
But she couldn’t hear it.
The battle around her vanished into silence, swallowed whole by the overwhelming surge of magic flooding her senses.
All she could feel was burning.
Everywhere.
Inside her chest, her veins, her skull. It was too much. Too much magic, too much power, too much—
It poured into her without restraint, without mercy.
So much—
More than she could hold.
More than she could survive.
Her thoughts shattered under it, breaking apart into fragments that barely held meaning.
Too much—
Too—
“Dunya!”
The voice came from somewhere far away.
Distant. Muffled. Like it was trying to reach her through layers of water.
“Dunya!”
She couldn’t hear it.
Couldn’t focus on it.
Pain.
The pain the pain the pain—
“Dunya!”
Her eyes snapped open.
The world lurched.
The burning was gone.
Not faded. Not lessened.
Gone.
Replaced by something colder. Sharper in a different way. Real.
Stone beneath her.
Air in her lungs.
Breath.
Her chest heaved violently as she dragged in a gasp, the sudden return of oxygen almost as shocking as its absence had been. Her body jerked, muscles still trembling with the ghost of something that no longer existed but refused to let go of her.
The light was different.
Not the violent, stormlit glow of Tempest Keep, but something steadier. Arcane. Familiar.
Dalaran.
Her vision struggled to focus, shapes blurring and reforming until finally they settled—
On him.
Aethas Sunreaver.
His face was hidden, as always, behind that familiar mask, its smooth surface catching the ambient light in soft, unreadable reflections. It gave nothing away. No expression. No immediate reaction.
But his voice—
His voice was steady.
Low. Controlled.
Familiar in a way that cut through the lingering haze in her mind far more effectively than anything else.
“You drifted again.” he said.
Dunya swallowed, the motion small, careful, her throat still sensitive from a pressure that no longer existed but refused to be forgotten. She pushed herself up onto her elbows, her movements slower now, deliberate, as if she didn’t entirely trust her body yet.
“I—”
Her voice caught.
She cleared it, the sound quiet in the open chamber.
“I didn’t realize…”
The words trailed off as something else caught her attention.
Her hands.
She looked down.
Fire burned in her palms.
Brighter. Not just in intensity, but in color. Where her flames had once carried the deep, controlled orange of a trained mage, this… this was different. It shimmered with that strange, golden hue threaded through it, almost yellow at its core, as if something purer and more volatile had taken root within it.
It didn’t flicker the same way.
It moved.
Alive in a way that made her breath catch again, though for a very different reason this time.
Had she meant to cast that?
She searched for the memory, for the moment her hands had moved, for the familiar sequence of thought and motion that always preceded a spell.
There was nothing.
Just… the aftermath.
Her fingers flexed slightly, and the fire responded immediately, curling tighter, brighter, as if eager for direction she had not consciously given.
“I’m sorry.” she said quietly, her gaze still fixed on the flames. “I… I was elsewhere.”
That felt like an understatement.
Aethas did not respond immediately.
He watched her.
Even with his face hidden, she could feel it. The weight of his attention, precise and deliberate, as if he were measuring more than just her words.
“Elsewhere.” he repeated after a moment, his tone neutral, though there was something faintly probing beneath it. “You have a tendency to go there more often lately.”
Her lips pressed together, just slightly.
“I’m fine.” she said, a little too quickly, her fingers curling again, the golden fire responding to the motion with a subtle flare. “It’s just… the strain, I think. I’m still—adjusting.”
That was the safe answer.
The one he expected.
The one that didn’t involve the truth of what she had felt, what she had taken into herself, what still lingered beneath her skin like something waiting to wake again.
Aethas’ head tilted just slightly, the motion small, thoughtful.
“You are not ‘adjusting.’” he said calmly. “You are containing.”
The word settled heavier than she liked.
Her gaze flickered back to her hands.
The fire responded again, shifting, its golden edges brightening faintly as if reacting to the attention.
Containing.
That implied there was something to contain.
Something separate from her.
Something dangerous.
Her throat tightened faintly.
“I have it under control.” she insisted, softer now, but no less firm.
He stepped closer.
The movement was subtle, measured, but it closed the distance between them in a way that made something in her chest tighten for an entirely different reason.
“You had it under control.” he corrected quietly, his voice lowering just enough to feel more personal, more focused. “Until you disappeared mid-casting.”
He reached for her wrist, fingers closing gently but firmly around it, guiding her hand upward slightly, bringing the fire into clearer view between them.
The contact sent a subtle, unwanted awareness through her.
The fire shifted again.
It brightened, the golden hues deepening, responding not just to her, but to the proximity, to the focus, to the tension coiling quietly between them.
Aethas observed it closely.
“Do you feel that?” he asked.
She did.
By the Sunwell, she did.
It wasn’t just heat. It was pressure. Movement. Something alive beneath the surface of the spell, something that didn’t behave the way her magic used to.
“Yes.” she admitted, her voice quieter now.
“And you still claim you were merely distracted.”
There was no accusation in it.
But there was something else.
Something that pressed just a little too close to the truth.
Her gaze lifted to him, meeting the blank, unreadable surface of his mask.
“I said I was elsewhere.” she murmured, her tone shifting slightly, something softer slipping into it despite herself. “That doesn’t mean I wasn’t still here.”
The words lingered between them.
Not entirely innocent.
Not entirely intentional.
His hand still held her wrist. The fire still burned between them, casting warm, golden light across both of them, flickering in the polished surface of his mask.
There was a pause.
A subtle one.
But it stretched.
Then, slowly, he released her.
The absence of his touch felt immediate.
Noticeable.
“You will need to do better than that.” he said, his voice returning to its usual composed cadence, though something of the earlier closeness still lingered beneath it. “If you intend to survive what you’ve taken into yourself.”
Her fingers curled inward, the fire dimming slightly as she lowered her hand.
“I intend to.” she replied.
A beat.
Then, quieter—
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”
It wasn’t just defiance.
It wasn’t even entirely a challenge.
There was something else threaded through it. Something closer to insistence. To… wanting him to acknowledge it.
To acknowledge her.
Aethas did not answer immediately.
He watched her.
She could feel it again, that careful, deliberate attention, like he was measuring something just beyond what she had said. The weight of it settled against her skin almost as tangibly as his touch had.
“You are.” he said at last.
A simple statement.
But not reassuring.
“Barely.” he added, quieter now.
Her jaw tightened faintly.
“That’s still here.” she said, her chin lifting just slightly, her gaze steady on him. “And improving.”
Aethas tilted his head, just slightly.
“Confidence.” he murmured. “So soon.”
“It’s not confidence.” she replied. “It’s observation.”
A small pause.
Then, almost under her breath—
“And you’re still here too.”
The words slipped out before she could stop them.
Aethas did not move away.
Did not immediately correct her.
Instead, he stepped closer.
Just one step.
But it closed the distance again in a way that made her pulse shift, just slightly, just enough that she noticed it.
“You are fortunate.” he said, his voice lower now, more focused, less distant than before. “That it was me who took interest in your… condition.”
Her brow furrowed faintly, though she didn’t step back.
“Fortunate.” she echoed.
“Yes.”
Another step.
Not enough to crowd her.
Enough to make it deliberate.
“If it had been Grand Magister Rommath,” he continued, his tone even, though something sharper threaded through it now, “you would not be having this conversation.”
Her lips parted slightly.
“He would have—what?”
“He would have broken you down to nothing.” he said plainly. “Stripped away every instinct you rely on. Every hesitation. Every… indulgence.”
His gaze flickered, briefly, to her hands.
Then back to her.
“And if there was anything left after that, he might have considered it worth rebuilding.”
The words settled heavily between them.
Dunya exhaled slowly.
“I don’t need to be broken to learn.” she said, a faint edge creeping back into her tone.
“No.” he agreed.
A beat.
Then, quieter—
“But you do need to be honest.”
The words landed closer than she liked.
Her fingers curled slightly again, the faint golden fire responding in a subtle flicker, as if stirred by something she wasn’t fully controlling.
“I am honest.” she said.
He didn’t move.
Didn’t step back.
Didn’t press further, not immediately.
But there was something in the stillness. Something deliberate. Something waiting.
“No.” he said finally. “You are… selective.”
Her breath caught, just slightly.
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.” he said again. “It isn’t.”
Another pause.
“Tell me,” he added, his voice lowering just enough to feel almost private, “when you ‘drift’…”
A faint tilt of his head.
“Are you thinking about the magic?”
Her pulse shifted again.
“Of course.” she said quickly.
Too quickly.
He didn’t respond right away.
That silence again.
Measured.
Knowing.
“Only the magic.” he said.
Not a question.
Her gaze held his.
Then—
“It’s what you told me to focus on.” she replied, quieter now.
Aethas exhaled softly.
Not quite a sigh.
Not quite approval.
Something in between.
“Yes.” he said.
Another beat.
“But not at the cost of awareness.”
Her lips pressed together faintly.
The fire in her hand dimmed again, reacting to something she wasn’t fully naming.
“I’m aware.” she said.
“Of everything?” he asked.
Her breath caught.
Just slightly.
“I—”
The word stalled.
For a moment, she didn’t have an answer.
Not one that didn’t reveal more than she wanted.
Not one that didn’t acknowledge the shift she felt when he stepped closer. When his hand had been on her wrist. When his voice lowered like that.
Her fingers curled tighter, the last of the golden fire flickering and fading out completely.
“I will be.” she said instead.
It wasn’t quite a promise.
Not quite a deflection.
Aethas watched her for a long moment.
Then, slowly—
“We will see.” he said again.
But this time, the words felt different.
Less distant.
More… invested.
He stepped back.
Not far.
Just enough to restore the space between teacher and student.
“Again.” he said, his tone returning to something more formal, though not entirely unchanged. “From the beginning.”
Dunya inhaled slowly, steadying herself.
Her hands lifted again.
The fire returned.
Golden.
Watching.
Waiting.
And somewhere between control and something far more dangerous—
So was everything else.
Al'ar obtained~
Silly fast thing
♡♡♡♡♡♡♡
Kael'thas Sunstrider, by Roman Tereza.
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After we followed Barfolomew, Giga and Jeb to San Myshuno (where they tried to find out what happened to Vlad’s body after he died), we jump back to yesterday, a little while after they left and see what Kiyoshi, Ji Ho, Jack and Vluci are up to. PLAN says: pull Vlad’s soul out of hell (again)...
Kiyoshi: “Uhm Ji Ho... why did you make Vlad wear a pullover? He can’t feel the cold...” Jack shakes his head almost unnoticeably at Kiyoshi. For Ji Ho, Luci is no dead body or cold blooded vampire...
Kiyoshi: “Well then, here’s our equipment. Let’s get armed up!”
The Four Horsemen and their pets (Jack is his own pet ;). (Vluci refused to line up in the correct order because he won’t leave Ji Ho’s side.)
Soundtrack on youtube: The Four Horsemen - Metallica (1983)
The Group and Character names are explained under the cut (TW suicide)
From the Beginning ~ Underwater Love ~ Latest
The Four Horsemen (of the Apocalypse) (because we don’t go with less than that ;) the horseman with the white horse: Ji Ho the horseman with the red horse: Vlad the horseman with the black horse: Kiyoshi the horseman with the pale horse: Jack
Kiyoshi/Lothario because of his reputation of being flirty... Ji Ho/Squishy is from ‘To The Beautiful You’ Drama, where the second lead called the (fe)male lead ‘Squishy’ because (s)he was so soft. Sulli, the actress, committed suicide because she was bullied by haters. I love(d) her very much. Jack/Moonwalker refers to Skywalker/Star Wars Vluci/Hellhound because his soul was/is in hell