[closed] help me zombie elf ur my only hope

[stonefaith]

Date & Time: 07/20, early morning
Location: Unit 404
Characters: Bariyan e Kodhi (stonefaith), Koltira Deathweaver (deadelfwalking)
Summary: Bariyan's still falling apart into gross bits. TIME TO CONSULT THE OTHER RESIDENT ZOMBIE.
Warnings: bariyan. gross rotting bits. etc.

---

Now Bariyan was starting to get worried.

A day and then some later, his wounds (if you could call them that) weren't getting any better. Truth be told, he'd rather expected that they'd have cleared up by now, but if anything they were getting worse. He'd already tried to stop the spread by chopping off his right arm at the shoulder, and that seemed all right. But now the skin of his left arm was cracking, rotting, sloughing, and the stab wound in his shoulder was likewise edging into something that looked like late necrosis.

So Bariyan had finally dragged himself out of hiding. He didn't want to talk to anyone in this state, but it was obvious that he had to. And, well, if he had to talk to someone, it might as well be the other revenant in this place.

That led him to Koltira's door. He knocked, rapid and hard. The knock of a slightly desperate man.

Comments

[deadelfwalking]

Koltira was not surprised by the knock, per se, but rather by the fact that anyone was knocking at all. He had no roommates as of yet, and he couldn't think why anyone should seek him out. He set aside his runeblade, still slick with blood from hunting in the forest, and went for the door.

"I apologize," he said, as he turned the knob and pulled back, "but I'm afraid you must be mistaken--"

Koltira's eyes widened and the rest of his sentence fell away, stunned silent by the man in front of him. "Bariyan."

A number of questions came immediately to mind, some of them colored with rage--who did this and where are they now--but first he had to get Bariyan out of the hallway. "Come in."

[stonefaith]

Bariyan winced at the silence that fell as soon as Koltira spotted him. It made him uncomfortable, to be a cause for concern... that wasn't the natural order of things. In his worldview, Bariyan was supposed to worry about others. The reverse was simply out of the question.

But he took the invitation. Quickly, too. He wanted to get out of sight as soon as possible. He ducked past Koltira into the apartment -- then stopped, looked around, listened. It was quiet. Bariyan guessed -- hoped -- that no one else was in.

He turned back to face Koltira. "Sorry about this," he said, where 'this' was a very general descriptor indeed. "But I think I... need your help."

[deadelfwalking]

"That is obvious," Koltira said. He picked up the chair--something basic, wooden and painted white--he'd been sitting in and placed it in front of Bariyan. Though he did not know the other man well, he felt at ease in Bariyan's presence; or, at least, more so than with the general public.

The specifics of their respective curses were not the same, but the details did not matter to Koltira. Fundamentally, there were things about each other that could go unsaid, questions that didn't need to be answered. For instance, he was not fazed by Bariyan's missing arm; such things were a common hazard for bodies like theirs, and usually not much of a problem. The issue, he could plainly see, was in the disease eating away at the rest of him, a disease that was clearly not meant to be among the collection of ill magic that kept Bariyan animated.

"Tell me what happened."

[stonefaith]

"Uhh." Bariyan took the offered seat and immediately slumped forward, as if exhausted. His eyes squeezed shut. He was exhausted, at least mentally. It'd been a frantic couple days. It was hard to think.

"I got into a fight," he said, after a while. Once enough of it had come back to him. "And I was with a mage. I was injured during the fight, so the mage tried to use his magic to heal me, then...."

Bariyan turned his one hand over. His eyes opened, and he scowled. "This happened, because of his magic. It started with the fingers, so I cut this arm off--" followed by a brief shrug of his right shoulder "--to see if that would stop the spread."

He grinned mirthlessly. "Didn't help much. Couldn't go lopping the rest of my limbs off, after all."

[deadelfwalking]

"No, that certainly wouldn't do," Koltira muttered. He could feel the conflicting schools of magic in Bariyan's body; one native, one foreign. The threads were visible beneath the skin, a latticework that shot through Bariyan's black veins, shimmering faintly. His people were naturally sensitive to all forms of magic, and undeath had only sharpened his abilities.

Koltira frowned as he studied the man before him. He had a suspicion about what was going on, but a mage's powers shouldn't logically be the culprit. Then again, he was far from Azeroth. "Exactly what kind of spell did this mage use on you?"

[stonefaith]

Bariyan shook his head as much as he dared. "I'm afraid I don't know. I don't remember much of it... I wasn't paying attention."

He thought that even if he had been, even if he did remember more, it wouldn't help. The spells weren't familiar to him, after all. He would not have been able to describe them well.

"All I can say is that it was supposed to heal," Bariyan said, looking back up. Even that little movement was a struggle for him, now. "But you'd have to ask the mage himself if you wanted to know more than that."

[deadelfwalking]

"I have some expertise in these matters," Koltira said. The tips of his long ears twitched. "Comes with the elf territory, you know."

He sat down on the floor beside Bariyan, folding one leg under the other, a process made much simpler by his current lack of armor. He pulled the sleeve of his silk shirt up to his forearm, revealing part of an arcane tattoo. The turquoise marks reacted to the general wrongness emanating from Bariyan, casting a dim, bluish light over the sparsely furnished room.

"I believe I can sort out the situation more precisely," Koltira said, "if you don't mind a brief hand on your shoulder."

[stonefaith]

Bariyan met Koltira's gaze. He didn't encourage physical contact much, even in his normal state. The idea of someone touching him in this state was almost appalling -- except for the fact that the person in question was another revenant. That was a strange thought, in and of itself. Strange to have someone whom he could potentially sympathize and empathize with....

Bariyan took a breath and turned a shoulder.

"Go on, then." He kept his head tilted slightly to keep his eyes on the tattoo. Bariyan had never seen anything like it before, and he wondered what it was. It seemed likely that he'd find out soon.

[deadelfwalking]

Koltira was not generally an advocate for skin-to-skin contact with anyone, either; his body was so cold that it could burn a living person's hand after only a few moments. Bariyan could bear it, Koltira was certain, but he did not relish the prospect regardless.

As gently as possible, Koltira pressed his bare palm to a knot of necrosis on Bariyan's shoulder. The arcane tattoo responded to this direct interaction with the strange magic, its blue lines flaring and briefly illuminating the room with an otherworldly glow. Koltira stepped away quickly, his expression apologetic.

"You were touched with holy magic, I think," he said. "Your body is trying to reject it."

[stonefaith]

Bariyan couldn't feel the cold, but the contact still felt strange and he had to force himself to stay still, repressing the impulse to pull away. He was grateful that the whole ordeal only lasted a few moments.

When it was over, Bariyan turned in his seat to better see Koltira. Holy magic was an unfamiliar term to him, as many things were. But he was less curious about what it was and more curious about what to do about it.

"Can my body reject it?" Bariyan held his hand up again, grimacing. "Is that what I want to happen?"

[deadelfwalking]

"I don't know," Koltira said. "Is it? What happens when you are injured through normal means?"

He rolled his sleeve back down to his wrist. The brief contact had offered him some specific information on the matter at hand, but Koltira couldn't claim expertise on the precise nature of the necromancy that held Bariyan together. The rituals on Azeroth involved reagents and spells that he doubted existed anywhere else, and the same was likely true in Bariyan's case. Koltira had skills meant to mend undead flesh, but he was hesitant to suggest them; he didn't want to risk aggravating the situation due to ignorance.

At the moment, his only, completely unhelpful conclusion was this: no matter where you found it, undeath was an unbearable curse. A pain in every possible limb.

[stonefaith]

"Nothing," Bariyan answered, gaze still fixed on his hand. "It heals up in a few days, usually. Sometimes faster. But it doesn't... spread, not like this."

Koltira had answered a few questions, made a few guesses, and Bariyan was now somewhat less upset than he had been when he'd first stormed in. Even if Koltira couldn't offer him any reassurances, being able to talk to someone helped. So Bariyan finally let his hand fall back to his side and shifted in his seat, tilting his head back and making an expression halfway to a smile. The stitches in his neck slightly strained.

"It doesn't hurt, at least," Bariyan said. His shoulders lifted in the most half-hearted of shrugs.

[deadelfwalking]

Then again. Koltira narrowed his eyes. "No? Is that also usual for you? You feel no pain?"

[stonefaith]

"No," Bariyan said, eyes closing. But only briefly. He chewed over the implications of Koltira's question and then straightened up again to look at the other man, frowning. "Is it not the same for you?"

He'd taken it for granted that it would be the same for Koltira -- if they could not be killed, then what reason was there for pain? Though... on the other hand, Bariyan supposed that 'reason' perhaps did not apply to their existences.

[deadelfwalking]

Koltira returned to his seat on the floor. He leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, fingers interlocked beneath his chin. His muscles were tense; his posture taut and still.

"There's a saying among death knights," he murmured, after a long minute of silence. "When we take leave of each other, we often call out 'suffer well'. The phrase confuses the living, but using it is a difficult habit to break."

He shut his eyes, smiling bitterly. "Pain is all we know, from the moment we are raised into this false life. It ebbs and flows, never ceasing. I feel it now, as I sit here with you. A death knight can never live well--so we suffer, as best we can."

[stonefaith]

Bariyan became so focused upon Koltira's answer that he stopped blinking to stare, continuous and unwavering, his frown deepening as the answer sunk in. Koltira had spoken of pain before, of agony, of suffering, but in his half-drunk state Bariyan had taken it all to be metaphorical. It's only occurring to him now that it might be more than that.

He nodded, very slightly. "I'm sorry." Truly meant but badly expressed, always a weak answer when Bariyan said it. "It seems we've both been dealt a bad hand, then."

[deadelfwalking]

"Aye," Koltira said, leaning back against the wall. He exhaled, out of habit. "I am sorry, too, that I cannot do more to help you. It seems the only option is to wait. But."

He paused, the ghost of a grin crossing his face, "If you fall apart entirely, I'm quite handy with a needle and thread."

[stonefaith]

It took a moment, but that eventually got a full grin from Bariyan.

"Oh, good," he said. He pointed at the stitches around his throat. "I may have to take you up on that, if this continues any further."

What else could Bariyan do but shrug things off, now? Koltira was right. There was nothing left but to play the waiting game, and hope that his own body would sort itself out -- or, perhaps, hope that it wouldn't. After all, the chance was there.