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Acherus was for the most part a quiet place when initiates weren't being tested, but today it was quieter than quiet. Thassarian handed the reports on Eastern Kingdoms to Darion, then asked, "Where is everyone?"
Darion, reading, said absently, "By 'everyone' I assume you mean Deathweaver. I sent him with Bloodbane on a scouting mission."
"Just the two of them?"
Darion looked up from the report. "You have a problem with that?"
"They ... don't get along." An understatement. Orbaz, the self-styled Hand of Suffering who usually displayed his rabid anti-elf bias at every opportunity, was especially livid that Koltira had been allowed in the Lich King's service.
"We're not here to get along," Darion rumbled. "We're here to do Arthas' will." He resumed reading. "I told them to work out their differences. There's work to be done." It was clear that the discussion was over.
Not that Thassarian was worried: Koltira could take care of himself, a fact that the elf tended to point out with explosive emphasis. Just that morning, in fact, when Thassarian had offered to share his out-of-the-way alcove with him during rest periods – "Strictly platonic," he'd stressed. "Just to make you less of an easy target" – Koltira had hissed that he was not an easy target, and that anyone who thought so was welcome to test him and die the second death.
"Is there anything else?" Darion asked impatiently, interrupting Thassarian's reminisce.
"No," Thassarian said, and walked away.
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Still, at the risk of experiencing the bite of a certain Unholy elf's blade, Thassarian decided to go check up on how Koltira and Orbaz were getting along.
He wasn't going to lie to himself: his concern was mostly guilt. He'd ulterior motives when he suggested the alcove arrangement. He'd hoped that sharing space would lead after a while to the type of close bond that sometimes developed between two men who were in prolonged physical proximity. The type of bond that involved admiration, and mentoring, and mutual … admiration. Fact of the matter was, for as long as he'd known him Thassarian had really, really wanted to express his admiration for Koltira, but that was never going to happen. Thassarian was going to have to settle for a chaste bond of friendship with his brother-in-arms.
Though even that was generally difficult to maintain.
Thassarian flew over the skirmishing going on between Scarlets and initiates in the hillsides just below Acherus and scanned for Orbaz or Koltira, but didn't see either.
He was pondering whether it made more sense to scout Havenshire or go further afield to New Avalon when he heard shouting and the clanging of weapons. He spiraled down to the entrance of the cave-like tunnel that led to the Noxious Glade, and sure enough, as he landed he heard an echoing taunt. "Not talking so big now, are you?"
Then Koltira's voice – sounding distorted and half-strangled. "I'll give your skull to the gnomes for a chamberpot."
Thassarian ran.
"I'm going to enjoy blood-tapping you 'til your hair turns red." There was such menace and gloating and leer in the voice that as Orbaz came into view – one gauntleted hand around Koltira's throat, holding him off the ground while he pressed the point of his sword under the elf's chin – Thassarian felt himself effortlessly acquiring absolute zero, a level of frost magic that not even Amal'thazud had fully mastered.
"The only thing … worse than your ... pick-up lines … is your breath," Koltira choked out.
Thassarian's runeblade glowed with power, and he unleashed.
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"I had it under control," Koltira said hoarsely, pulling his sword free from where it was embedded in the rock wall.
"I know." Thassarian eyed Orbaz, who was immobilized in a block of magic-silencing ice. "I just felt like trying out a new attack."
"I see." Koltira walked past Orbaz and out of the cave without giving the blood master a second look.
"So they're really that bad?" Thassarian asked as they started to fight their way southeast through the Scarlet Enclave into Havenshire.
"What?" Koltira snapped.
"His lines." He silenced a medic, then obliterated her.
"Oh," Koltira shook his head. "Is that a Bone Shield in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
Thassarian guffawed. "Seriously?"
The tiniest of smirks twitched Koltira's lips. "Yes."
"Did he actually think you'd – ?"
"He said," Koltira replied, pulling in an infantryman and drowning him in disease, "that Unholy was a synonym for depraved." He swing his sword, but the human was already crumpling. "That all elves were known to be mindlessly promiscuous." He spread death and decay on the ground around them as a mounted captain and two soldiers ran at them, "and that he'd already talked to you about 'sharing your special protegee' with him."
"That's a new one," Thassarian said, destroying a huddle of peasants with a blast of arctic wind.
"Which part?" Koltira finished off the captain, then began to search his body.
"That you're my protegee," Thassarian grinned.
Koltira, holding an official-looking missive that he'd pulled from inside the captain's tunic, turned to glare. "You will find it difficult to laugh without a head, Thassarian."
"You really must make his Blood Boil," Thassarian deadpanned. "I'm sure he'll be disappointed that I interrupted before anyone had their Horn of Winter blown."
Koltira huffed in disgust. "Nothing like that would have occurred. Your interference in there only made me look weak."
"Fine. I won't do it again." Thassarian was irritated: why was Koltira always so defensive? "But from where I was standing it looked to me like Bloodbane had one Dancing Rune Weapon at your throat – "
"Don't say it," Koltira warned.
"– and another waiting for you in his leggings."
"Are you quite finished?" Koltira was climbing the hills behind Death's Breach: the transporter wasn't yet functional and they'd have to signal for a gryphon.
"I suppose so." Thassarian sat on a rotting stump while Koltira peered up at the underside of the Hold, watching for an Eye of Acherus to be launched.
"It was … impressive," Koltira said very casually, as though his statement was inconsequential, a string of random words spun to pass the time.
"What was?"
"That ice." He glanced at Thassarian. "How long will it hold him?"
"I don't know. I've never thrown it so powerfully before." Thassarian shrugged. "Hours?"
Koltira, looking back up at the sky, made a small hm sound. "What was it?"
Thassarian didn't answer until Koltira glanced over at him, and then said with precise emphasis, "Absolute Zero. A variant of Hungering Cold."
"Absolute Zero?" Koltira repeated, looking puzzled. "A specialty of yours?"
"Yes." Thassarian decided that he really needed to find a way to squelch his interest in such a thick headed, ill-tempered –
And then Koltira asked sharply, as if some new idea had just occurred to him, "Does it?"
"Does it what?" Thassarian growled.
"Does the cold," Koltira turned to face him and folded his arms, challenging, "actually hunger for something?"
"Well yes," Thassarian said, tired of games. "Isn't it obvious?"
"I see." Koltira's pale thin face took on an expression that Thassarian hadn't seen for a very very long time: it was almost ... sly. "Oddly," Koltira said, looking down and scuffing at something with the toe of his boot, "of late I find myself thinking more and more about ... an icy touch." He appeared to be fighting a smile. "Perhaps I'm coming down with a frost fever."
Thassarian's unbeating heart give a sudden and not entirely unpleasant lurch. "I myself," he replied carefully, "generally ponder the implications of ... runic corruption. Such as whether there is anything that might trigger an unholy frenzy."
Koltira was still very interested in the imaginary something on the ground. "Is that so? I wonder," he mused, "if these idle thoughts of ours are merely a result of the chill of the grave? I admit to curiosity. How do you suppose we might we test this?"
"Well," Thassarian cleared his throat. "First an undeniable unholy command would be required."
"Of course." Koltira nodded. "And then?"
"There would be a clear acknowledgement of Death's advance."
"That can be arranged," Koltira said abruptly as a pair of skeletal gryphons swept down to them. "when we continue this discussion in the Hold."
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Sometime later – after a great deal of surprisingly mutual admiration had occurred in a certain secluded alcove – Thassarian and Koltira saw Orbaz return to Acherus.
The rime took weeks to fade from his hair.
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~ The End ~
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Happy Yule, dear recipient! Hope you enjoyed this silly silly treat.
Note: for anyone who doesn't play a death knight, the spells, attacks, and talents directly mentioned were Blood Tap, Obliterate, Bone Shield, Death and Decay, Blood Boil, Horn of Winter, Dancing Rune Weapon, Pillar of Frost, Hungering Cold, Icy Touch, Frost Fever, Runic Corruption, Unholy Frenzy, Chill of the Grave, Death's Advance, Unholy Command, and Rime (Death Grip, Howling Blast, Pestilence, and Desecration were referenced indirectly).
P.S. A thank you to Raidne Fern for reminding me of Horn of Winter, Runic Corruption, and several other abilities I missed; as of 22 Jan 2012 they have been duly added.
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(07) 14 Feb 2012