Tragedy in Blue (for westfallcorndog)

[conjuredskies]

Felix has sent word via Jim that he's ready to assist Harrow - that he has everything required. He didn't specify what: Harrow knows well enough. He did specify where: a long-neglected picnic area marked by picturesque little boulders and paved with some kind of bricks. It's no doomstone circle, but it'll do. Felix has a sense of both appropriate dramatic flair and practical caution.

Granted, the 'altar' leaves something to be desired on both counts, but he had an atronach rip out the table's benches earlier and clear away the unnecessary furniture. Felix has been busy setting wards around the ritual space, some powered by blood and some by a pair of lesser soul gems: wards to keep out unwanted magical influence and bind what's in the circle from harming him. Or Harrow. Of course.

Preparations as complete as they're going to get, he's sitting on one of the boulders while he clears his mind and waits. His satchel - and the thing it contains - lies by the table, at a comfortable distance.

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[westfallcorndog]

A feeling of contentment washing over his mind is the blades' immediate response. They are completely satisfied with these terms now that they've been adjusted to better suit their interests. There should be no doubt in Felix's mind that they are agreed, bound in their unspoken word, and willing to proceed. But what comes next? The offering of the soul? The sealing of the deal? Of course they're curious, but after pushing their luck and coming up empty before they're much less overt about their desire.

Still, that hushed and nagging urge is there. If the terms are agreed upon, now they only need payment. And wouldn't it be interesting to break that soul gem? Wouldn't it be a curious thing? Something new to try? To take the blades in his own hand and shatter the soul? Just for the experience, of course. Just to know...

[conjuredskies]

That's not how it should work, not really. He wonders though, what it would feel like. Whether it isn't just like binding a soul by his own hand, or recharging any enchanted weapon. There's nothing much to it. Nothing to be afraid of.

It ought to be Harrow, is the nagging feeling. It seems like that would be fitting. But Harrow isn't responding to any of this, and it makes no material difference. Felix is the one doing the binding, the one who can feel what's going on. He may as well do it.

He weaves the binding around them and makes sure of it. Then he reaches for the blades, his mind trained on sealing the pact and being done here. It's as he indicated to Harrow: there's no consecutive handover, no chance for one side to back out. The taking of the soul is the sealing of the pact, and they are one thing when he holds them in his mind.

Take the soul. Accept the terms.

[westfallcorndog]

The instant Felix's fingers touch the blade the runes alight, and so does their power. An electrifying energy courses through his arm and straight to his heart, his mind, his soul. It's as much an unshakeable knowledge of the sheer magical strength he holds as it is actual power flowing through him.

The surge of fortification they bring him dies abruptly. The temptation of their magic is there – incredibly, unavoidably there – and then it's gone. But no sooner does the flow fade from his body than the blades raise themselves and his hand with it. There is no time to be wasted, they know this. Too long and Felix may grow wise to them and reject them. Now is the time to strike.

The left blade pulses with a small, dull power to encourage Felix to keep his grip on them while the right lifts high into the air before it comes smashing down on the soul gem. And when it shatters?... Light, Gods, Daedra, what a sensation. All the latent energy inside the vampire's soul comes rushing out at once and is absorbed by the greedy runes of the blade. A glut of magical potential siphons through the handle of the blade and into Felix's right hand, all at once saturating him with its dark and unnatural strength. It wasn't only the runeblades which consumed that soul, but their wielder as well.

It's in that same moment that Harrowheart breaks from his stupor. "NO!" he growls, reaching out to clench a tight fist around Felix's wrist. The runes that had dulled his ability to attack are still difficult to overcome, but it's when his blades are distracted that he finds his mind has been returned to him.

"Don't touch them!" he shouts with a primal fear and anger as he begins to shake Felix in the hopes he might let the blades go. "Don't you ever touch them! They're not for you! They're mine!"

Whether the runeblades believe that or not remains to be seen. With Harrowheart once more in the realm of the conscious they are suspiciously silent. For all intents and purposes they may as well be any ordinary weapons.

[conjuredskies]

The sheer rush of power when he touches them is heady, overwhelming. Felix's will sways with theirs, and he doesn't have the chance to think or react before he - they strike downward, shattering and consuming. Drinking up the energies of that glutted soul, so potent, so exhilarating- and then he's jerked sharply forward, shaken bodily back into the land of the li- er. Wakeful.

"I know!" The protest is automatic, voice wavering with the shaking he's getting. The conjurer's quick to snap back to himself - at least, he seems to. "I know they're not! I'm not trying to take them, you idiot!"

Perfect diplomacy! But he does let go the blades now he's unhindered, dropping them onto the table with a clatter. See? He can put them down any time he wants.

[westfallcorndog]

Harrowheart quickly gathers up his blades and pins them down with one hand while the other one points stiffly at Felix's face.

"I didn't say you were tryin' to take 'em," he whispers, his voice low and conspiratorial. "I said they're not yours. You don't touch a death knight's runeblades. Things can go bad. Real bad."

He glances sideways at the blades as if implicating them in all of this. And honestly he might be. He knows them better than anyone, after all. Knows their limitless desire for something new to own. He drops his accusatory hand from Felix's face and raises both blades to inspect them. It's not as if the spell changed the way they look, and soon he finds it hasn't changed the way they feel, either. Not physically, not magically, not mentally. With some lingering reservation he returns the blades to their ties at his hips.

It takes some self control to look at Felix again. He wants to be angry with him still, but he knows he can't be. Felix has done him a great service and put his own safety on the line for it. It wouldn't do to take out more of his anxiety on the man. And besides, they're in an anti-violence rune within an anti-violence field. A total change of subject seems better than lingering on his sudden misgivings over all of this.

"I owe you now," he says, his voice wooden and forced. "That's the deal. Right? You did this for me, and now I owe you. So? Are you ready to cash in? Or do you need a while to think up who you want me to kill?"

[conjuredskies]

"Trust me, I'd have preferred not to-" and he doesn't stop to consider whether that is actually true, "but you wouldn't respond and I needed to finish the deal. It's hard to keep any bite in his voice when Harrow's trying to warn him of the danger.

Still, he pulls himself up and folds his arms while Harrow inspects his blades. "It's done, anyway. You have to leave them somewhere safe, and they have the right to take a soul for every month you're apart, but they'll let you leave them without trouble."

More-or-less.

"I don't have a list of people I want..." His gaze drops to those blades. "...Dead." Worse than dead, is the rub. In the aftermath of all that, still feeling the afterglow of that rush... he's not sure yet who he'd wish on the other end. He shakes his head. "That bargain we'll have to settle later."

Harrow mightn't be too pleased about leaving that hanging over him, but right now Felix is too much a mess of high-strung emotions to care particularly. And why does Harrow assume he wants anyone dead anyway? And then again... there are people who deserve an awful fate. It's just a matter of deciding when it's useful for them to die, and finding them...

[westfallcorndog]

Felix's unwillingness to name names and end lives gets a brief grunt from Harrowheart. It's not the first time he's accepted vague I.O.U.'s, and it certainly won't be the last, though it might have been nice to get the business over with as soon as possible and have it off of his mind.

"So what happens now?" he asks. "I walk away, you walk away... Next time we see each other it's because we got business? ...Or because Jim thought you and I oughta learn to be good pals." He huffs a little laugh.

[conjuredskies]

Felix's mouth quirks at that: it's the sort of thing Jim might do, and it sounds like Harrow has much the same reaction to the idea as he does.

"I suppose so, assuming we don't simply cross paths in the Nexus." He reaches out to end the wards, then pauses, casts an eye back at the death knight. "Harrowheart... why didn't you respond during the ritual? I called for you, after we began, but it was as if you weren't there at all." He's reluctant to admit his spell didn't work the way it's supposed to but... it didn't, and he really needs to know why.

[westfallcorndog]

Harrowheart's eyebrows slowly lower, not just in thought but in suspicion too. He's quiet for a few seconds, though the lights of his eyes drift in various directions as they consider the situation.

"I didn't notice... Anything. I felt almost like I closed my eyes when it all started... Fell asleep, and when you grabbed my blades I woke up again, and all that time in between passed without me knowin'..." His lips purse and he looks to the ground, his eyelids narrowing now and then as more things occur to him.

He mutters to himself, "It was like my mind was gone..."

And that's when he quickly looks up and locks eyes with Felix. There's an all-too-serious scowl on his face now, and he rushes to say, "It must have been the runeblades." Because there's no way he's entertaining the thought that Felix's runework did this. No, sir. And even if he acknowledged that, there's no way he'd want Felix to know... Even if some part of him is begrudgingly aware of the fact that Felix is an intelligent, magely sort and must have come to that conclusion before he even asked.

"The runeblades," he says, as much to convince himself as anything. "They didn't want me gettin' in the way. That had to be it."

[conjuredskies]

"They can do that?" Felix lifts his eyebrows: he's thought of the alternative, yes- but he can't rule out the possibility that Harrow's right. Harrow knows those blades so much better. And Felix thinks of that first trembling voice who did answer, only to be sent away...

Still, this is a new and disconcerting prospect, and he has to ask. "They can just shut your consciousness away like that? Have they ever done that... before?" Watch him slow down as it sinks in that that's kind of a personal question no matter how academically interesting it is. Academically and practically.

[westfallcorndog]

Harrowheart rubs at his forehead a while before he scrubs his hand down the side of his face. With a deep sigh he says, "It's complicated." Complicated enough that he's not even sure where to start, or what to say, or even how much is worth divulging.

"A death knight isn't always in control of their own thoughts," he says, his words slowed by the effort of his thoughts. "We're haunted by thoughts and urges that aren't our own, and we gotta fight for our sanity all the time. It's the price of our free will. We can put it off for a while, dependin' on how strong our will is, but eventually we can't hold back from doin' what the thoughts tell us. I'm used to not always bein' in control of what I think or do, but... On Azeroth. Not here, not in the Nexus. It doesn't happen here. Or... Didn't..."

His mouth shifts side to side. He's not really sure what to make of any of this. For a few seconds he watches Felix as if he expects some kind of answer from him, but he soon realizes there's no way Felix would know better than himself.

He's loathe to admit it, but he can't help guessing, "Maybe the peace runes you put down... Maybe they..." Light. "Weakened my mind somehow. Changed the rules of the game."

[conjuredskies]

Despite how admittedly grim the picture is that Harrow paints, Felix looks briefly intrigued. That is, before he remembers he can't stand that sort of magic and certainly wants to know nothing more about it and so he should stop looking so interested. It's something he should think over later, though, having felt the blades communicate in just that way. He can't help but grimace at the idea of having to deal with that every moment of every day... And then there's the matter of his wards, which catches his attention because it's more immediately testable. Less personally unnerving.

"Hmm. Maybe." He gives Harrow a moment's scrutiny, detecting that reluctance, but breaks it to look around the circle, running a hand through his hair. "They are meant to set the terms of this space. I've never used them to interact with someone like you before. Maybe the attunement wasn't ideal... But I'm not in any hurry to try and practice, if I'm honest. Anyway, speaking of the wards..."

Felix holds his hand out, gesturing a little, and the wards drop in a tiny snap and flare of purple light, leaving only the echo of magic around them. "I... hope you find the bargain to your satisfaction. That it works out well."

[westfallcorndog]

Hearing Felix isn't interested in studying the effects of his wards brings Harrowheart a visible calm, if one can be described as 'visibly calm' in a suit of sharp metal armor. With the wards gone he fully relaxes. There's something about being free of someone else's magic – even if it is peaceful – that takes a subconscious edge off.

He finds himself nodding before he knows he's doing it. "I can't believe you got a whole month out of 'em, honestly. I figured it'd be a week at most... I don't think 'satisfied' is gonna be enough for this."

The corner of his mouth twitches with the hint of a smile and one of his hands pats Felix on the shoulder. "I know it wasn't easy to be here or do this or deal with me, or any of that, but... You did great, Felix. I really owe you – and I don't just mean the payment. This is really gonna change my life, man."

[conjuredskies]

"It's just a matter of knowing how to talk to them," Felix says, as assured as if he knows exactly that. He doesn't even quite jump when Harrow pats his shoulder, just smiles slightly. "I don't care for letting my friends down."

He scoops the fragments of the soul gem up in the cloth he wrapped it with, and retrieves his satchel. "I have some cleaning up to do here, but you can go and... enjoy your freedom, I suppose. Until next time, Harrowheart."