InsaneJournal

Kill.

KILL.

Kill, kill, KILL.

KILL!

Necronim heaved upright with a feral scream of denial against the urge to kill raging through him. Hands pressed against his chest, shoving him back down into the bed, and he struggled weakly against them.

“Nec!” snapped a voice, familiar yet not all at once. “Necronim! You are safe! Be calm, my friend!”

“H-Hresden?” croaked the rogue, grasping at the hands. Numbly he was aware that something felt…wrong…but could not discern what. “What…what happened?”

The High Elf sighed then replied, “You collapsed – both you and Kalya. Nearly two weeks ago.”

“Two…how? Why?”

Hresden frowned sadly then said, “My friend, you can see it with your own eyes.” He gently took Necronim’s left hand from where it gripped his wrist, lifting it up to where he could see it. Yellow eyes widened at the sight of his hand, as hale and as whole as it had been years before.

Staring, he clenched his fist, watching the play of bone and muscle underneath the solid skin. No rot. No pallid coloration. Real – real – flesh and blood and bone in all the places it should be!

But…but…at the cost…

“Kalya,” he gasped. “Where is she?”

The mage closed his eyes briefly before he shifted slightly, moving his chair over. Necronim turned his head to the side, looking across the room…and the heart he could now feel beating in his chest heaved in panic and fear. Across the room lay Kalya on a low bed, Kwaaku’s sleeping form slumped at the end of it, and her arm…

“Her arm,” he breathed, wishing desperately that he had tears to shed. “Oh Light, Hres, her arm!”

“I know, I know,” murmured the elf, shifting again to hide the sight of Kalya’s arm, the flesh as rotted as his had been with bones showing at her elbow and hands. “We did our best these past two weeks to slow its progress with an idea of Caren’s. This…this is where we managed to stop it.”

“Where?” demanded Necronim, struggling to sit up again. “Where, Hresden?!”

Hresden pushed him back down with more strength than even he had thought the mage possessed, muscles bunching under the skin of his bare arms. Then he leaned forward and began to trace his finger along the rogue’s chest across the thin fabric of the shirt someone had changed him into. Necronim watched as the finger started at his neck then ran down, curving in a wide arch that almost covered the whole of his chest before running back downward to drift around his navel before ending at his hip.

“There,” said the mage bitterly. “On the both of you, that is where this accursed thing spread.” His hand clenched then and he snarled, “With every hour that I have watched it spread, I have thought of all the ways I could kill this damned caster. And I have hated myself for every foul thought.”

“Hres…”

“I will kill for my friend’s, Necronim. For you. For her, though I don’t know her, because you love her. I will kill him for this abomination.”

Necronim grasped for Hresden’s hands and gripped them tightly, staring desperately up at the elf. He was his elder by two good decades but had always seemed so much younger because of his usual smile and gentle nature. But once they had traveled together and had became friends over that time, he had seen another side to the mage. Years at his sister’s side in the forest had taught him skill and how to kill – the horror of losing his home to the Scourge had forever scarred him, showing him that no place was safe unless defended. He had become determined to protect those close to him after that time and that determination empowered by arcane power as well as all he knew made him a formidable force. Even though he despised every thought of revenge, every caress of how to kill someone, he fought on anyway.

“Do not kill for me,” hissed the Forsaken. “I am not worth you taking a life. Or losing your own!”

“You are my friend,” snapped the mage, his green eyes glowing for a second. “And I protect those with my all. You know this.”

“We aren’t worth another shred of your innocence!”

Hresden stared at him then queried, “Innocence? Necronim, my friend, my innocence died when I saw my people slaughtered in the streets of my home. I watched the Scourge pour over them, watched the streets of Quel’thalas run red with Quel’dorei blood, and I did nothing. Never again will I be that useless youth.”

Necronim frowned then settled back into the bed with a heavy sigh, arms falling to his sides.

“We don’t even have a way to find him.”

“Don’t we?”

The question made him stare at the mage then realization dawned. Forcing himself up onto his right elbow, he hissed, “You want to give him Resden or Scyllaine? No! No, I will not allow it!”

“Such may be the only way to find him!” insisted the mage.

“And what if he can listen through me even if I don’t know it?”

“Then our plot is foiled and we must come up with something new. But I doubt he can see through an unwilling and still free Forsaken.”

Necronim frowned then lifted his flesh and blood arm, flexing the muscles as he stared at it before murmuring, “Half Forsaken now.” Then he looked desperately at Hresden and asked, “Why would he do this? Why would he think he could gain me by doing this?”

Hresden scowled in response, replying, “I don’t deign to think like such a madman.”

“Please, Hres.”

“Perhaps he thinks to drive you mad.”

“Well it’s working. But not in the way he hoped,” growled Necronim. “Mad? He wants me mad? He has damn well made me mad, Hresden!”

“I know, my friend, I know.” The mage then frowned saying, “There is something that might make you even fouler.”

“What?”

“Kalya. And you. This…switching.”

Necronim scowled, snapping, “What of it?”

Hresden sighed then asked, “Take a moment, my friend. What do you feel?”

“What?” And then he realized. He clasped his left hand against his chest, feeling the pulse of a beating heart underneath. Realized that he was breathing, truly breathing. His skin was still rotted in places but underneath it…underneath it, it was starting to come back to life.

Which meant…

“She’s dying,” he murmured. “My heart beats now…and hers doesn’t.”

“We have done our best,” said Hresden mournfully. “Made her as comfortable as we could but…but there is only so much that can be done, Nec.” He bowed his head as he continued, “There is the fear amongst the healers that she may not wake after this. Such a shock to the body…they think it may have broken her.”

Necronim scowled at that. He snarled, “She’s stronger than that!”

“I take your word on that. But still…this is not over, Nec.”

“You said Caren had an idea of how to stop it!”

Hresden winced almost violently then said, “I explained that wrong perhaps. She and we others managed to speed the spell up to this point in the hours just after you both collapsed. These past two weeks have been spent waiting to see if you would awake and the spell has moved more since then.”

“Its still going,” growled Necronim. “And you know how to speed it but not stop it.”

“I cannot find out how to stop it without the caster!” The mage sighed wearily then said, “All we could do would be to finish what the spell does.”

“No! No, no, and thrice no!”

Hresden nodded, saying, “That is what I knew you would say. But…Nec, it might be easier that way for her. This last thing has so stressed her body that letting it continue as slowly as it does might kill her. And then we have no idea what that happening might do to you!”

Necronim scowled, arms crossed, then slumped and looked across the room again. He could see Kalya’s sleeping face around Hresden’s arm and her features were twisted into a pained expression even in sleep. Staring, he tried to imagine what she would look like with his rotted features…could he do that to her? Could he really let them hasten the spell?

She was in pain…

“Do it,” he hissed, closing his eyes tight. “Damnit, do it!”

Hresden squeezed his shoulder then rose, leaving the room. Necronim saw Kwaaku was awake then and looking at him sadly but not accusingly. He did not blame him for his decision.

“I felt her die,” murmured the Tauren. “In my arms, Saran. What horrible fate did we curse her to that day she helped us?”

“We did nothing,” hissed Necronim. Sitting up, he continued, “Kwaa, it was him that did this, not us. And she is not going to die! I’m not going to let her.”

Even as he said it, it sounded horribly selfish.

Rolling over to face the wall, the rogue curled up and closed his eyes tight, feeling as horribly now as he had when he’d been arrested. He had failed his mother and sister…

And now he was failing Kalya.