My Brother’s Keeper, Part 3
A roleplay story in which Blautel, the melancholy draenei death knight, has an unexpected, emotional reunion with his lover in life, a draenei monk named Izraid. Izraid was written by and belongs to his player, smith-hadeon.
Izraid sounds so casual, so familiar, and for a moment, the weight of hundreds of years of being close to his Auchenai brother and lover overrides the caution Blautel felt he must exert around him.
The death knight hesitates, then approaches the vindicator's feet and crouches down, taking stock of the man's injuries. He takes hold of his ankles.
"What are you doing out here?" Blautel asks Izraid. He came through the Portal to search for Izra, himself.
The fallen vindicator took a fairly serious gut wound from a spear, the strike so forceful it pierced the Light-blessed armor and crumpled the metal inwards into the Sha'tari man's stomach. Or it had. Underneath the drying blood, the wound is almost entirely knit back together, the skin bright blue and fresh.
Izraid pulls a roll of windwool out of a satchel at his hip and uses it - not to bind the wound, but to cushion the sharp edges of the armor before he moves to the vindicator's shoulders to lift him up. It's an odd bit of fieldwork for a man who generally just puts his fist into things…
"Well, there was a fight starting up at the Dark Portal..." He pauses as he hefts the vindicator, carrying most of the weight himself anyway. His gaze meets Blau's eerily icy one over the unconscious man. "They needed people, and I...needed to do something. So I re-joined the Alliance army. Went through with the vanguard."
He wants to ask so much, to pepper Blau with questions, to drop to his knees and beg him to stay. But all he says is "You?" It's pathetic how proud of himself he feels as his voice doesn't quaver on the question.
Although becoming a death knight certainly hasn't made Blautel feel any healthier, quite the opposite, he has found that he doesn't tire under normal circumstances. Carrying the vindicator's legs doesn't take as much effort as he feels it should.
This was only a passing thought, as his mind reeled with the thought of discovering Izra again. Now that he's found him, what should he do? Should he not slip away? He has since become a fel creature... Taken so many lives. He had been aware of what he had been doing, but somehow, he had just not had the strength to overcome it. To Blautel, it felt like a personal failure, even if the minds of every fallen champion had been similarly dominated. "I was looking for you," Blautel replies, his strange, lichfire eyes settling on Izra. An expression like relief passes over his features. "Thank the Naaru you are whole."
Izraid looks away only long enough to check the first few yards of the path for where to place his hooves, then he looks at Blautel over the man they carry between them. "Now I am," he says with all seriousness.
Idiot. Great way to guilt him. Stop. Izra clears his throat and continues, his voice a soft-spoken and gentle bass, "Who directed you this way? The Argent Crusade still keeping a tendril on me after all?"
Izra's statement doesn't appear to cause Blautel guilt. Rather, his face softens with longing.
The death knight nods. "Yes... And I had a hunch that you might come to a place like this." A place where help was sorely needed.
His brow furrowed faintly. "But I did not expect to find you. It was..." It had been something Blautel had taken upon himself to help keep himself sane. "...The chance of finding you seemed very remote."
"I tried looking for you." A field of charnel, piles of corpses higher than he was tall, the stench of Light-seared rot, up to his elbows in bodies as he tore through the dead, frantic and heedless of his vows to protect the sanctity of the deceased... He shoves the memory aside and is silent a few moments, meditation through motion bringing him back to a calm center.
"I should have...stayed in Northrend. Kept looking. But I knew. I saw you-" He breaks off. I saw you die... But he can't speak it. "The Sha'tar have a triage area set up at the end of this block." He tips his head towards a heavily-barricaded house in the residential district.
Blautel shakes his head. "For both of our sakes, it is good that you did not find me. I was not myself." He cringes. His steps don't flag however, and with Izra's assistance, they are able to arrive at the triage house.
"I..." Izraid sighs. "In time, we all change. I'm not trying to erase what you must've endured. Just that... I would have... I would give anything..." Stumbling over his words, the monk eventually just squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head.
Anchorites in full robes that have been tied up to stay out of the way rush over and direct them towards an empty cot among four that have been lined up against the wall of what used to be a draenei sitting room. One of the priestesses pats Izra's shoulder as he passes. "Drixos came back about twenty minutes ago, but he's already left for the Sanctum to take that little girl to safety. With Metu here down for healing, take a day off, Izra."
The big monk nods gratefully. "Aye, I will. My friend and I will go clean up the courtyard."
"That is not a day off!"
"It is not fighting, so yes it is." He smiles apologetically at Blautel as they set the vindicator down. "Healers here are wild elekks of worry," he says conspiratorially.
"I heard that!"
Blautel's lichfire-tainted eyes widen when Izraid begins to speak, and at the way he stumbles over his words. Maybe he has been mistaken in his judgement, and perhaps he should spend more time with Izraid. Surely, he could manage his own self-control enough to prevent harm from coming to his beloved?
The death knight helps the fallen vindicator into one of the makeshift cots, then turns to Izra. "Yes," he murmurs, nodding. "Let us talk for a while." He isn't certain if he dares hope for anything like a brighter future... but he desperately wants to spend time with Izra.
Leading the way through the makeshift infirmary in what had once been a home in Shattrath, Izra takes Blautel with him to a courtyard in the center of what was a fairly wealthy house. There's debris strewn everywhere, evidence of the Legion attacks - fallen stone, broken tree limbs, shattered crystals…
"Sorry about the mess," Izraid mutters with a wry smile. "The small Alliance force I was with took over this house - after healing up the previous occupants. Drixos, the vindicator who had been with me, was one. He took a child off to safety."
Eventually, he finds a bench under a large branch and grabs it to haul it off. "Sit with me?" He looks uncertain for a moment, like he's afraid Blau won't want to now.
Blautel notices Izraid's uncertain look. He is humbled by the monk's clear desire for his company and presence, and nods. "I would... but where are you taking the bench?" Where are they headed?
Izra sweeps leaf debris off the bench and sits down. "Just the branch. I generally prefer things a little less splintery against my butt, you know," he jokes gently. It's so easy to find the little jests, the way he was before...before Northrend with Blau here again. Not even the undead echo in his voice or the clear haggardness of his face makes him any less Blau in Izra's eyes. He pats the bench next to him.
Blautel seems to have overcome his desire to go running. He slowly, creakily sinks down onto the bench, looking up at Izra. He's quiet for a moment. "...I don't want to talk about my condition," he murmurs, "And cause you worry. Tell me. How have you been? What has transpired since... since I last saw you?"
"Like I wasn't worried enough?" Izra shakes his head but drops it with no further prying. "I... Ah..." He lifts a hand - wrapped in strips of linen to protect his knuckles - and rubs the back of his neck under his long braid. "I changed. Everything changed, Blau. Let my hair grow out..." Chuckling, he flicks the end of the braid at Blau's arm. "I threw myself into healing. Figured if I'd...if I'd been able to do more than wrap a bandage, maybe I could've- well, what's done is done, right?"
Blautel's lichfire blue eyes flicker as he considers Izraid's words, and his brows draw together in distress. He asks meaningfully, "Everything? Did you... Pick up this thing, because..." Because Izra wasn't able to save him? He swallows. "How did it go for you? This training."
Izraid drops the end of his long braid and folds his hands on his thigh. "Well, you could ask the fellow we carried back here. He took a felguard's spear to the gut - pierced right through his armor." Already, his folded hands won't stay that way - they can't when Blau is right here - and he reaches out as if to take Blau's hand in his own, stopping an inch away for permission. "I healed him."
"You always were a caring person," the undead draenei considers, with a small nod. Izraid seems to have taken to a caretaker's role well. Perhaps this was something that would have happened in either event. The fate of the Commandry might have accelerated the transition.
Then Izraid moves to touch Blautel's hand. The death knight stiffens, his eyes becoming unnaturally still. He seems to be fighting to keep himself in place so that he can be touched. "My skin isn't what it used to be." Blautel keeps his own hands, which are wrapped in tattered rags with the fingers free, upon his leather and metal Scourge kilt where he is seated. He doesn't flinch away from Izraid's hand, however.
"It's not caring, Blau. It's atonement." After only the hesitation to be sure it was okay, he lets his fingers - his own hands bound in linen to protect his knuckles - thread between the death knight's. "I don't feel a difference. It's yours." His thumb strokes against the outside of Blau's; of course there's a difference, how can there not be? But it's irrelevant. It's all irrelevant with Blau right- "Here. You're here, my heart. Am I dreaming? Did I die to those demon dogs and this is my reward in the Light? To see you again?"
"You've done nothing wrong," Blautel replies. Atonement? "Nothing to atone for..." Their Commandry had been doomed; it was miraculous that Izraid had survived. When Izra threads his fingers together with his own cold, clammy ones, the death knight starts to shake. "I was certain you had perished," the undead draenei croaks, his voice cracking. "It feels unreal..."
Being animated the way he was gave Blautel a painful awareness of his undead state, and that awareness had not subsided. He was therefore still grounded in reality. "No, this is not a dream." His quaking eases, and he clasps his fingers around Izraid's, then starts to move to embrace the other man. He makes this gesture slowly, as if it's done with caution.
"If I'd paid more attention, been a better healer, a stronger fighter... If I hadn't distracted Mot with bullshit. If I-" A thousand what-ifs, and all of them meaningless. What happened is done. Compared to Blau's hand, the monk's fingers are warm, pulsing steadily with life, scarred and calloused but not stiff. As Blau leans in to hug him, Izra moves quicker, one hand remaining tangled and the other coming up to wrap around the death knight's back and pull him in for a one-armed bear hug. The man is warmth and fur and fire, his breath uneven like he's fighting back tears as even his tail comes up to twine around Blau's - as close as he can get seated beside him on the stone bench.
The embrace feels like deja vu -- A distant memory being relived, only it's even brighter and warmer now, with Blautel's own body now being so cold and so reactive towards the living. His own tail automatically reciprocates the entwining, curling somewhat stiffly around Izra's, while he hugs the beloved monk into his chest. Something feels different -- The blood hunger, the life force hunger. It's making Blautel want to do strange things, things he knew he never considered while living. Licking Izra's blood from his neck... Blautel shudders at the thought with revulsion, even as his undead body desires it.
Still, it's not enough to cause him to pull away from this blessing of warmth and sweetness, and for the moment Blautel is still and relaxed, relishing it.
"I missed you so much," Izra whispers. "My heart...my heart was gone. I had nothing left after Northrend, Blau." He tucks his chin against Blau's pauldron, rubbing his bearded jaw against the death knight's cheek. "I threw myself into learning to heal. I traveled, made pilgrimage to any teacher who would teach me anything. I tried to fill that hole with...anything - but nothing could replace you." Tightening his arms around Blau, his voice wavers as he outright begs, "Stay?"
Although Blautel no longer shivers from the cold, Izraid’s declarations from the heart cause his skin to shudder finely. After a beat, the death knight nods. “I will stay.”
He remains locked together with Izraid for minutes on end, before it occurs to him that the still-living monk may be growing cold like this, sitting on a stone bench outside in the snow. “Perhaps we should…” Blautel pauses, uncertain. “...Is there someplace we may go inside?”
A blush rises to color Izraid’s cheeks above the pleasantly hearty beard he’s grown. “This place is the ruins of a fairly well-off trader’s house. I’m sure we can find a quiet room or at least a nook somewhere.” Izra tugs on the death knight’s hand as he stands, that warm, lively smile coming back as he looks at - yes, even undead - the visage of his beloved come back to him. “Blau… Please, I know things are different, I know there’s been changes - in both of us - but… Can I pretend a few minutes? Maybe an hour or two? Can I kiss you? Can I take that hideous armor off and run my hands over your clothes, or your skin if you’ll let me, and just know that...Light preserve me...you are here. You are you.” With his free hand, he reaches for Blautel’s jaw, aiming to cup that adored face in wonder.
Of course he knows that Blau is a death knight now and that means many complications, but it is enough just to have his heart whole once more, to have his dusha back.
( * from душа or “soul/heart” in Russian - it felt fitting because ‘sha’ is ‘Light’ in Draenei)
Blautel returns a look of astonishment, as his face is held in his beloved's hands. The death knight is nothing short of stunned, to hear Izraid say these blessed words, falling from his tongue as freely as gifts.
Pretend? Is that what things between them will be like, now? Is that what they must do? Blautel isn't certain of the wisdom of pretending. But Izraid's smile, which seems to him as warm and life-giving as the Sun itself, is shattering his normal restraints.
"I don't know," Blautel replies ambiguously, still appearing mildly shell-shocked, but he starts to follow Izraid's lead towards a room among the ruins. He nods to Izraid. "But we can try, Izra. Light help us, we can try."
