Post by Lazaar on May 18, 2010 1:14:02 GMT -5
[Backdated AIM RP. Just after the capo smackdown. Hopefully the back and forth between Campy and Laz isn't too confusing. Also, shit in here was italicized, but got lost in the transition to forums. >:/ ]
He never really bothered to leave the bed. Grinne got up and moved around by sheer force of will and trying to prove that he's NOT a mass of seizure-induced aching, but Campion's willing to just concentrate on the whole 'getting better' thing.
Sleeping comes and goes. He wakes, he'll sometimes talk to whoever's there, hug Grinne if he's present, but eventually doze off again. His bones are knitting, thanks to Auro, but there's still a ways to go with the whole healing process. The paladin is dozing right now, in fact. Getting some of that fitful sleep.
Lazaar is perched on a stool, puffing at a cigar as he watches the soup finish its simmer. He's worried about those potatoes, and periodically gives them a jab to make sure they're soft. He catches a chunk of ash before it can tumble into the pot, but doing so means he drops his spoon with a clatter. He shoots a glance at the bed, hoping he didn't wake the paladin. Well, that's not quite true. He could use some conversation right about now.
Either way, he picks up the spoon and wipes it clean on the undersized apron he found crammed in one of Aleyna's drawers.
That's the thing about dozing; it's light. The paladin cracks open his non-swollen eye with a faint grunt. Details filter in slow, the first being there's the smell of food. He can't decide right now if that sounds fantastic or stomach-turning, the whole eating idea. Expecting to see Ley or even Grinne manning the stove, he feels like he must still be in that weird half-dreaming state when he sees it's, "...Lazaar?" His voice is a groggy croak.
"Yeah?" The death knight grunts and plucks the cigar from his mouth. Better to skip that for now. "Feel any more like a human and less like a tenderized slab of meat? Got to admit you still don't look any prettier. Hah!"
He grunts again in response, bringing a hand up to his face to rub it. But he winces and that rub turns into experimental prodding at the many various cuts and bruises all over it. Worst off is his black eye and the patches of purple on either jaw joint; the telltale marks of someone who'd had it dislocated.
"Feel like hell. Look like hell." He prods at his swollen eye at that one, and immediately regrets it, taking a hissing breath. Ooh, that smarts.
Lazaar winces in something like sympathy. Maybe this is a dream! "Got to find something to put on that shit. Maybe bury your face in the snow outside for a while."
He turns down the heat on the soup and covers it with a lid. "You gonna be hungry soon?"
"I've done weirder," he mutters at the mention of snow-related solutions for bruises. "Ley keep any ice around here? Can we FIND some?" He finally stops poking at his wounds, because that's not helping anything, and sits up with another groan. Ribs are a solid mass of ow too.
"Hungry? Did you MAKE something?" He sounds more amazed and confused than grossed out.
"Yeah, I made something. Why do you say it like that? You think I didn't know how to feed myself when I was alive or something?" Lazaar snorts over his shoulder.
He crosses his arms. "If I was a better death knight, I'd make you some scourge ice, but I need runes and shit to do it proper."
Campion makes a face, curling his upper split lip. "No thank you to the ice. The last thing I need is lich-fueled ice all over my face. Probably make me ill."
He shifts in the bed a bit, curling his legs into a folded position. "I don't know what it says about the world we live in when it's one where YOU can cook and -I- can't." He smirks in a tired way.
"Yeah, you're the one who's married and shit. Grinne doesn't make you keep house? Where'd he wander off to, anyway?" Lazaar says this a little louder, just in case the rogue is just in some other corner of the apartment.
"I keep house," he huffs. "Grinne's only NOW learning to clean up after himself. But he cooks, so I guess it evens out, right." He shrugs, and then only feels a little awkward after the fact that he's discussing his domestic life with LAZAAR of all people. He coughs and looks around.
"He's probably in the bathroom again. He's been...taking a lot of showers." Campion says this with a sort of confused, but sad, blankness.
He rolls his shoulders in a shrug and rummages around for bowls and spoons. "He's going to eat some goddamn soup when he's done. I spent half the day on this crap. You're going to try some, too."
"Am I?" He shifts again, leaning his elbows on his knees with a slow, hissing breath. Ribs are tender.
"What'd you put in it?" Please don't say worms.
"Old recipe I thought was pretty good when I was a kid. It's got all that good shit like meat and potatoes and vegetables." He might have gone overboard with the meat this time around, sinfully mixing chicken, beef, and pork.
"And poison. Because I'm still out to get you, Campy," he says with his best scary, undead face.
Campion at least ATTEMPTS a scowl back, but he can't hold it for long. Maybe because his face hurts so bad? Or maybe because...
"...Thank you, Lazaar." He says it quietly.
"Yeah, yeah. It's just soup. Don't get all sappy about it," he replies as he ladles a portion of soup into a bowl and rests a spoon on the edge. Steam rises off the top. It smells like it's got a healthy portion of garlic.
"Hope you don't miss the onions. Hate that shit, even if I'm not eating it. The smell."
"You can smell the onions? Over YOURSELF?" He takes the bowl with a snorted laugh, and then goes about stirring it, waiting for it to cool and examining the contents. "What have you got against onions?"
He keeps stirring and keeps watching himself stir even as he says a bit more quietly, "And I'm not talking about JUST the soup, you ass."
"Onions make me think of someone I didn't like so much. You know how smells can make you remember really strong? Long story."
He watches the paladin expectantly. He might be a little nervous about time and effort wasted if the soup doesn't taste good to the living palate. "What? For helping Yeva and the shrill bitch fuck you guys up?"
"No. I mean-...You helped. I mean, helped US." He waves between him and Lazaar, indicating this 'us-ness'. "What we did in there was ugly, and we HAD to do it, but-...Well, you carried him out. Held me back. Got us here." He looks down at the bowl. "Made us soup.
"It's-...I don't even care if you're doing it out of guilt or duty. Thank you. Thank you all the same." And he finally takes a sip of soup, giving it that first experimental taste. Then a second. "...S'not bad," he says as he stirs some more. Still hot, though.
Lazaar unties his undersized apron and pulls it over his head. "Good old Auntie wants us to be family, right? I guess we're a family of idiots. Feathers of the same bird and a company of misery. All those stupid Common phrases all wrapped into one."
He balls the apron up and tosses it on a growing pile of laundry, some of which is visibly stained with blood. "Besides. I don't have much else these days."
"Not a lot of us do," he mumbles before taking another spoonful of soup. One that actually has ingredients and isn't just broth. Chewing is a wincing, concentrated effort, done slow and agonizing. Dislocated jaws are no fun like that, even if they're back in place.
Once he's done chewing and swallows, he takes a breath before saying, "We were always a family. But I don't think we're being the kind she wants us to be."
"It's stupid when you really think about it. Guess if we didn't fuck up at life as much as we did, we'd never have run into each other. We'd probably have normal families and nice shit like that. We wouldn't be torturing each other in dark, goddamn basements."
He plops down at the foot of the bed, making it groan a little under his weight. His tail rolls back and forth, but in a popping, jerking fashion. "Just as stupid to think about. We are what we are."
Campion concentrates on eating soup for a few moments, watching Laz's jerky tail in the silence. Then he finally says quietly, "I wouldn't have met some of the closest friends I've ever had. I wouldn't have had a family I love for the first time in my life. I wouldn't be married." He eyes Lazaar warily at that one, but eventually goes on.
"I'd probably be dead in Icecrown now. Dead for a cause that was rotted before I even got there. At least the Kamil is HONEST about being thieves and wretches. We make no bones about what we are and what we do."
"Yeah, and if I hadn't run into Nat and Leu, I'd probably give in and be Ebon Blade cannon fodder. Hah! Probably killing you up there in Ice Crown, now that I think about it. Maybe we would have met anyway."
There's a sound like someone kicking a leather ball and something comes rolling out from under the bed. Lazaar's tragically ugly pet, still sound asleep. He catches it under a hoof and rolls it back and forth. "The Kamil saved me from that. And got to admit, keeps this whole life extension thing interesting. All of you are the weirdest, toughest motherfuckers I've ever met."
"Agreed. Agreed on all counts. We are a HELL of a crew. Collectively AND as individuals." He grimaces, but at least not in pain this time. Now it's just at Laz's awful eyeball pet. Determined to not let it put him off his soup, he goes back to sipping broth.
"Is it stupid to think that-...Maybe the Kamil could be a GOOD thing? If it was done right? Or those of us in it were working together on something aside from prostitution and drug running? That's probably stupid to talk about, given what Yeva seems to want to teach us the other night..." He frowns down at his bowl.
"The only good thing the Kamil could do is disappear, you ask me. I mean, not all of us go jump off a cliff or anything, but . . . fuck. I don't know. I'm just sick of it."
Lazaar rolls the Willy back under the bed, prompting a startled squeak from whatever else was hiding under there. "Guess what I'm trying to get at is there's us, and then there's the Kamil. The Kamil's like a rotting corpse and it's funny saying that out loud because it's run by one, too. But we're all stuck on the inside with all the shit and rot. I don't know how we could do any good."
"You mean the Old Kamil? Ones like Yeva and that other one from last night? The one who marked us?" He taps his chest, where the skull tattoo lies. "The old laughing one? All those? I mean, when you say US and the KAMIL.
"And...Well." He shifts his seating a bit, sitting up some more, careful to not jostle bruises or bowls of soup. "Ever since I FIRST got sucked into this all, I've been a firm believer that you can still do good in here. The best you can, anyhow. You can be Kamil and not be a monster."
"Old Kamil, yeah. They're just like the Scourge. Living longer than it should . . . It should have ended at Shattrath."
His chest sinks in a long sigh. "You know, I got sucked into this the first time trying to do good, but I just ended up doing more bad in the long run. I think it just fucks with your head in the end. Being a . . . shit. What's the Common word? Hypoth-- . . . hypocrat?"
"Hypocrite." Campion supplies it readily. It's a word he's way too familiar with by now. "I don't think it's hypocritical to want to try and make and find what good you can, though. Noble intentions, even if what's going on around is has all gone to shit and darkness."
He pushes a lump of potato around the broth before spooning it up and carefully popping it in his mouth. "Even if things get worse from here on out, we-...We're not bad people. We're just people in a bad situation."
"And then Yeva finds out, and we end up having another round in the basement? Maybe someone's going to die next time. Maybe that new bitch will have that gorilla rip someone's arms off."
He leans forward to prop his elbows on his knees and rub the back of his neck with both hands. "She's going to keep pitting us against each other because it worked so good this time. I mean, what was harder to deal with? The pain, or hurting someone else? Maybe even seeing someone else hurt because you fucked up. I don't want that."
Campion feels his throat go a little tight, a little dry, and that mouthful of potato is a struggle to swallow past it. Once he DOES manage, he sets the bowl aside on the nightstand, automatically cradling his injured arm close to his chest once he's settled again.
"They're-...They're-...They're all p-pretty bad, Laz." He stammers and goes a little pale to recall. "I would take all of that, though, if it meant keeping the rest of you safe..." He mumbles that last part, looking down at his lap and feeling a little foolish.
"Yeah, well, I'd have taken all that shit for you guys, too, if Yeva asked. Not like it matters if I get whipped and carved up and branded. Body's already gone and pain . . . hardly feel it these days. But she's smart. She knows most of us would volunteer to spare the rest, and that's not what she wants."
He uses his grip to give his neck a loud pop. "And now Luri's watching. Bet she's got an eye for soft spots, too. Guess that means we got to stop being all lovey-dovey with each other."
"Seems like she already knows them. Or some of them. Who knows, maybe Yeva just told her, but..." He looks around, then down at himself. Then back up at Laz. "With who she had do THIS to me...And she called Ley your f-...Unkind things. That implied she knew what was between you two."
The death knight's lip curls at the reminder. "We've all been pretty damn obvious. Wasn't hard for her to make it hurt extra bad. Time we cover our tracks better."
He eyes the empty bowl. "You want more? Made a bigger pot than I should have. Plenty to go around."
"What can we hide from here, though? Any marriage that happens in the family has to be given Yeva's blessing. Gossip spreads. Light knows me and Grinne tried to keep quiet for AGES. But it always managed to come out SOMEHOW. And she has eyes. Not just Luri. I know there are others." Paranoia? Or good sense?
At the offer for more food, he considers, then hands over the bowl with a nod and muttered 'thanks'.
"Can't hide anything she already knows, obviously. What's done is done. But we can at least watch ourselves from here on out." He takes the bowl and returns to the pot to fill it with a fresh serving.
"And watch for the eyes, so we know when and where it's safe to rest. Let down our guard or whatever, because I don't want to keep sneaking around all the time."
"It gets tiresome. It wears you down. The hiding." He speaks in vague terms, but also from experience. He scratches idly at a sideburn, but winces when he bumps the bruise on his jaw.
"I know the barkeep at the Lamb? Jarel? He's one. Sometimes he seems to not care what we do enough to report back, but he's in the pocket all the same. Hell, ANYONE that we know as a contact of our own probably is. ANYONE could be sneaking back to Yeva or...Luri? Luri, was it? With what they see us doing. Or NOT doing."
Lazaar sloshes three ladle-fulls of soup into the bowl -- enough to make it dribble over. He mutters a "Shit!" and moves the bowl back over the pot to collect the drippings.
"So then what? We start paying them more to be on our side? Get our own spies? This could get fucking retarded real fast."
"No, I think we just-..." He looks down at his hands, and eyes his left forearm. There's a faint, reddish bruised line around it, and he winces to realize what it is; where his bones had been snapped from the beating the other night before Auro knitted and healed them back together. He gathers up blankets into his lap to tuck that arm under, not wanting to look at it any more than he has to.
"I think we just have to do our jobs," he sighs in apparent defeat.
"So you're giving up on your 'let's do good even though we're bad' idea already?" He mops up the mess on the sides of the bowl with the discarded apron and licks the soup off of his hand as he walks back over to hand the second serving to the paladin.
"You know, Yeva's probably going to outlive you. Luri, too. You just going to keep your head down for the rest of your life? Play it safe? What's it gonna be?"
Campion takes the bowl, muttering a thanks as he does, taking up the spoon again to stir the contents slowly. "I'm not saying THAT. I mean, I'm not giving up on it. But-...Grinne says that, in this business, they let you go sometimes. After so many years. When you're older. Put in your time for...20, 30 years, and they let you retire. In theory. I guess." He trails off, staring down at the soup as he listlessly stirs. He sounds about as hopeful and thrilled at this prospect as the LAST one.
"What, like the Scarlet Crusade? Kill some 'deaders' until you're old and grey? I bet they don't let you off too easy, either."
Lazaar snorts and twists his mouth into a half-smile. "You have a knack for getting into really shitty places, Campy. What's the phrase? Out of the boiling pot of shit and into the burning hell hole?"
Campion sets aside the bowl of soup so he can rub at his face with both hands and groan. It hurts to do with all the bruises and scratches, but he doesn't seem to care.
"Yeah. Yeah. I know. Light, do I know. Hell, that's why, when I came back, I just-...I was wrecked. I figured, fuck it; I'm already damned beyond all reason. I've been working for the dreadlord who all but single-handedly ushered in my homeland's destruction!" He waves his arms and gestures animatedly with the spoon as he talks. "How much lower can I go? So what if I beat drug addicts and whores who don't pay and poison the masses with product and steal and cheat and lie? How much lower can I go!? Can't break what's already broken, right?" He sighs and lets his arms drop.
"I don't know why I cling so much to the hope that I'm somehow still redeemable. The best I can work for is just being hope and Light for the rest. That's enough, isn't it? And besides, what about YOU? You said you were stuck with the Kamil even BEFORE you died. And you ended up right back here."
He grunts when the question is turned back on him. "I forgot, okay? Completely forgot. At least at the front of my head, you know? And when I came back out into the world, it just seemed like the right thing to do to fall in with Nat. Even more right being dead and all."
The death knight runs a hand along his jaw, scratching between his tentacles. "I've got unfinished business anyway. That's how I look at it. Stuff to clear up."
"At least you weren't roped in by," he mimes smoking, "...or..." and then mimes jabbing a needle into his inner elbow, smirking halfheartedly. "Got a step up over the sorry bastards who DID." And that list is short anyhow. Laz probably remembers the one at the top of it, given that he's talking to him now.
"If there's anyone to see this to rights, or keep it as moral as we can handle, might as well be the ones who are stuck here and don't particularly care for the lifestyle." He shrugs, looking to Laz. Right?
"Who says I wasn't roped in? I didn't join up the first time because I thought it was a good deal. They always find what you want, hand it to you, and then make you pay up for the rest of your miserable fucking life."
He rolls his eyes. "It just worked out that they got two rounds out of me . . .
"I'd let you guys off clean if I could. Pack all this up and move it back to Outlands to rot with the rest of that shit-pile of a planet. I've got time to waste. You poor, pinkskin assholes don't with your stupid, little blink-of-an-eye bug lives."
"It's not THAT short," he huffs in indignation. "It's long enough. I'd sooner have just a few decades than countless centuries. I don't think I'd even know what to do with myself. And then you have cases like Auroran and-...Well. They're not BUG lives, at least." He picks up the bowl of soup again, muttering.
"Still. You've already wasted . . . what? Half of yours being a brainwashed nutcase?
"And it's not just you. Ley doesn't deserve this crap. She should go explore shit and stop making more bad trouble that might go back to Auby. Grinne . . . I don't know. He's good at it, and probably a fucked-up sort of tough all the way through, so I don't know what else he'd do.
"The rest . . ." he shrugs. "Some of them I don't even know . . . there's probably something better. Some of them are just kids, for fuck's sake."
"I wasn't BRAINWASHED!" He TRIES to raise his voice, but it makes his jaw ache in a spectacularly awful way, so he winces and has to deal with phrasing things STRONGLY. "I'm just-...It was the right thing. It was where I wanted to be and what I wanted to fight for. And it wasn't HALF my LIFE, unless you're saying being a PALADIN is my fault here." Done with his defensive sputtering, he pauses to finally eat some soup.
However, at the subject of Grinne, he doesn't look up, but he says, "He's good at a LOT of things. He's sharp as hell; he already knows how to speak THREE languages, two of them being HORDE ones. He memorized the whole glyphic alphabet and can put them on your armour and clothing to make you...I don't know. Do things BETTER. He's good with plants. He picks up on all the alchemy I teach him. He's SMART, and he CAN be doing something else..." Back to eating, now that he's done mumbling in defense of his spouse.
"See? All of you should just go. Fake your death. Find an island out in the middle of nowhere and do something better," he says, punctuating the suggestion with a sigh. "The end."
"And you REALLY think that'd work." He looks at Lazaar with a raised eyebrow, speaking after chewing and swallowing a mouthful of stew. "Really." He smirks in slight amusement.
He shakes his head slowly. "Campy, Campy, Campy! Your idea about bending over and taking it up the ass until you 'retire' was fucking depressing."
Lazaar shoots him a sideways look. "I know you're into that kind of thing, but not that into it."
"Oh shut UP." He flicks his spoon at Lazaar, sending a few droplets of broth at the draenei. "I think, honestly? The wistful, impossible, in-a-perfect-world scenarios are MORE depressing, honestly." He pauses again to put the spoon in his mouth, frowning, thinking. Looking like he's debating saying something.
"...When he told me about the retirement thing, it had been because we were talking about just that. Just...vanishing. Said things like getting a cabin in the Grizzly Hills, where no one would ever think to look for us or find us. And...I don't know. It sounds NICE, but I hate to think about it because it's just-..." He shrugs. Laz is going to yell at him for getting sappy.
"It's never going to happen, is it?" He's quieter now.
"You think Ley and I haven't talked about that same crap? Talked about the stupidest plans. Running off to fish for a living or herd rams or just make like we're normal somehow. Maybe even take her kid back we'd be so fucking normal and safe and happy."
He pauses and stares down at his arms, crossed back over his chest. His upper lip curls. "But you're right. The truth is a fucking pisser, and even if we tried we'd be looking over our shoulder forever."
"Yeah. That. That exactly..." He stirs some more at the soup, just because it's something to do and watch.
"You two are good for one another, you know." He'll just let that hang there, eating more in the meantime now.
"No, she's just good for me. Still don't know what she's getting out of this, but maybe that's just thinking like a draenei still, and you get too cozy with someone and you start thinking 'Fuck I better get married and have some kids' but no way that's happening even if I was alive and still had all the stuff working. Who knows what the fuck would squeeze out."
He stares at Campy while he makes progress on the soup. "But maybe you think that same stuff, being all gay-married? Since two guys can't make babies or have a family like normal. Must feel kind of . . ." he shrugs, not sure how to finish that.
Campion...for once. In his life.
Doesn't get defensive.
There's a MOMENT, of course. He flinches, takes a deep breath, looks like he's READY to say something sharp...but the anger subsides, deflates from him. He sighs slowly, actually listening to what Lazaar is saying, and answers in another defeated mumble.
"...I wouldn't be a good father anyways. And Grinne hates kids." It's not an actual ANSWER to what Laz said, but the unsaid agreement is present. He doesn't look at Laz. He just stares at his soup again.
"Not like I'd be a good dad, either, but lots of dickheads have kids anyway. By mistake or because they think it's a good idea and then realize kids are a huge pain in the ass and just leave them behind."
He drills a thick pinky into his ear. "Don't even know what I was getting at with this. Brain's going everywhere all of a sudden."
"Or they just end up with bad sons." He says it glumly, but it's said like it's a solid, irrefutable FACT of life right up there with all those other reasons for poor parenthood.
"Sometimes it's good to let your head wander. Get all this rubbish out so you can at least look at and make sense. And I'm a confessor? If that helps...? And the reason I got ordained as one at ALL was so the Kamil could go to SOMEONE with the things we can't talk about outside the family."
"Oh, you want me to spill my guts now?" Lazaar can't help but grimly pat his abdomen, and the gruesome scar hidden beneath his shirt. Is he being literal or figurative? He could probably manage both on request. "I think we already talked about our shitty dads."
"I was just saying." He twirls the spoon vaguely in the air in some kind of substitute for a shrug, then goes back to eating. "I'm not OPPOSED to gut-spilling. And that's NOT because I'm some kind of a queer." Another first? Making fun of his relationship at his own expense? Talking nicely and honestly with Lazaar? It's like the world has shifted off its axis.
"...I don't remember a lot about that conversation, given we were both piss-ass drunk, though. I DO remember you saying that being beaten was preferable to being ignored, though." He makes a bit of a wondering, sour expression at that.
Lazaar sighs through his nose. He said that, didn't he? "Yeah? Better than being shuffled out of sight, and staying that way so you could hear the shit the rest of the family talked about you. When you're a kid, you think it's all true, you know. That's the way you figure out who you are. At least a beating's just a beating. Nothing personal."
Campion screws up his mouth all the worse, like the soup he's eating DOES suddenly taste sour, and he asks, his voice a bit edged, "DID you ever get beat?"
The draenei makes a half-amused tsh noise. "That's not how good draenei do it. Maybe my dad would've if he was around. I don't know. My aunt and uncle, no. Just said I was rotten because my dad was rotten. Like both of us ruined everything, even though it was his fault for fucking my mom. Guess I was just the stand-in. Ugly little kid that didn't look all bright and clean like the rest."
Campion looks down at his soup again, bowl half-empty and his eyes (well, eye, given that one is swollen shut) isn't entirely focused on it.
"Don't say it wouldn't be personal. How could it NOT be? It's not the same like what we're doing NOW for the job. This is someone that's supposed to be raising you, and they beat the livid hell out of you instead. Tell you things. Say WHY they're doing it. It's always your fault, OF COURSE it's fucking personal."
He laughs and looks up again. The fact he's saying all this WHILE being bruised and broken to hell and back is a grossly ironic detail. "And this was all while the OTHER parent didn't even so much as look at me, let alone raise me either, or care what happened. So I guess I know what you mean. It's not-...None of it's just what you should do to ANY child. Makes me sick to think you were in the same boat. I mean, I just tell myself I was used to it. Maybe I DID deserve it. I survived, it doesn't matter. But I can't think of what you could have done wrong, bastard or not NOW aside; you were just a CHILD."
"Yeah, and now we're in the fucking MOB. How do you like THAT? Maybe if people treated us better, we wouldn't be like cancer to the world . . . hah."
Lazaar glances at his soup pot and something seems to dawn on him. "Guess it wasn't all shitty, though. My cousin taught me to make that soup . . . some other food when I was probably . . . huh . . . eight in human years. She helped take care of my mom. She was a nice girl. Don't know what happened to her. Probably dead. All the good people die."
"Yeah. I only had Tatiana and Father Charles. And Tatiana's a Forsaken now. And Father Charles-..." He stops, biting his lower lip briefly, somehow relishing the sharp little twinge of pain from gnawing on one of the splits. "...He's not around anymore either."
The mention of the soup being attached to a good memory like that, though. Somehow, that spurs him into hurrying up and finishing what's left in his bowl. He asks eventually, "What was her name?"
"See? All dead. Or come back undead. That sounds like a real kick in the pants with that Tatiana girl. You in love with her back then?" Lazaar extends his hand to take the bowl again, hooking a thumb back at the pot and pointing his forefinger back at Campy. More?
"And her name was Luciin," he says it carefully loo-seen, as if it's odd for the draenei to be saying the name aloud after all this time. "Called her Luci for short. She was a real draenei, not like those fuckers who say 'be kind to those less fortunate' and then say 'except you.'"
"Love? I-...I don't know. I think we were. It was something. We were close. Still are. We were happy and comfortable together. It just kind of became this assumption that, someday, yes. We were going to be adults, and we'd get married, and go live in Tarren Mill or something. Get away from my old man, and get away from her aunt. I'd keep studying alchemy to find a cure for her sicknesses and take care of her. It was just the plan, and it was a happy one. And then..." He waves vaguely, like motioning something away. And then all that plague stuff.
He holds out the bowl, shrugging. Sure, he hasn't eaten for over two days now, he needs it. "It's always those one or two people that still reach out to you, even when you're convinced you're nothing. They make you remember you're a person. This Luciin sounds like she was one of those. But why not the rest of the family? Did she ever try to defend you when they would come down on your or shove you aside?"
"Think you would have been happier that way? Living at that mill place with the girl instead of with Grinne? With the Kamil breathing down your neck?" he asks from his place back at the soup pot. He swirls the ladle in the contents to stir up all the bits that have sunk to the bottom.
"Sometimes she tried to stand up to my uncle, but it wasn't any good. He was a hardass and she was too sweet. Knew she wasn't going to change things with him, maybe, so she just tried to make up for it by being nice. Then she got married off to some paladin whose farts were made of Holy Light. Something my uncle set up, I think."
"...I don't know. It's another one of those cases where i don't want to think about it. It'll never happen. It never did." He stays quiet for a moment, but NOT saying what's on his mind is not a trait Campy is good with. "...I love Grinne. I can't imagine NOT having him in my life now. I will never regret it. And the Kamil has made me some of the closest friends I've ever had. It's the first time I've ever HAD a family, as ragtag and awful and STRANGE as we all are. To hell if that's sappy as shit, it's true. So I don't know.
"She always insists it would have been a bad deal in the end. Says that we'd never have children, which I guess was important to her? And she-...She wouldn't have lasted long. She was sick, like I said." He looks down at his hands, turning them over slowly. "I don't know if she says that just to make the fact it never happened easier. For both of us."
"Did Luciin go after that? When she was married? If she did, what happened THEN? Who took care of you?"
"Sappy as hell, yeah. Worst case of mixed blessings I've heard yet. Both parts, I guess. More stuff that's the same, 'cept your scourge killing people was my orcs killing people. Either way, didn't come out with a whole lot left, huh?" He tops off another bowl and ferries it back to Campion, pleased that the paladin is actually eating this stuff.
"Luci left. I wanted to go with her, but my uncle stuck me in . . . paladin school, you could call it. With another cousin about the same age. Probably no surprise that it didn't take -- all that love and Light shit. I liked smacking people around just fine, but I did more of that than I should've. But I was still the odd one out there . . . scrappy, weird kid . . . so I had to show people I was tough shit, you know? Take cheap shots."
Again, the bowl is taken with a nod and a quiet thank you, but he sets about to digging right in this time. Both times before, too much talking let it get cold. He talks between bites and swallows.
"Yeah, when you look at it, my choices seemed to be: be happy and morally sound, but lonely. Or be in a den of sin, but loved. Mixed blessings indeed, my friend."
He's in the middle of another bite of stew when Lazaar mentions his schooling, however, and that makes him choke a little. Campion eventually hurries to swallow what's in his mouth, and then says, "YOU? You-...Paladin training? REALLY? Well, SHIT." He's smiling, though incredulously. This is just strange and unexpected!
"Hah! Well, you're lucky, 'cause we've all got low standards in this den of sin. Don't have to put on your uppity paladin act around here to get by. Hell, beat all that out of you quick enough. Now you're practically normal." Lazaar takes a heavy seat on the bed again, making the mattress bounce with his weight.
"That's about why I didn't stick around to be a full-on paladin. Not that it was all choice. Just didn't work out and I was okay with that. I beat people up, they beat me up. Kids are fucking brutal.
"I left before they could kick me out. About grown by then, or grown enough to think I was grown. Fuck my uncle, fuck being a vindicator or trying to prove shit. Went down to the Lower City to try my hand at a trade, fucked that up, so I was just living on the street."
Campion grimaces a little at the ongoing description of where younger Lazaar ended up, eating as the draenei talks. It IS good soup, this isn't just some kind of desperation or hunger spurring him.
"Other way around for me. I went to become a paladin because, well. I WANTED to be, most of all. I went and hid in the church when I was...seven? Six? Somewhere around there and heard a sermon, and I was hooked. I was hiding because the old man switched my hide for breaking a fucking vial on accident, and then I ended up in this place where this nice old man was talking about how there was this force in the world that loved us all and took care of people who loved it back? It was like-..." He gestures next to his head, like an explosion, making a shocked expression. Mind BLOWN, man.
"And then I went to train for it in Lordaeron because it got me away from the house. I didn't have to listen to them fight, and I didn't have to see her dead eyes, and I didn't have to worry if he was going to smash my face in that day. Being a paladin saved my life in a lot of ways. I...kind of wish it'd done the same for you, honestly." What kind of paladin WOULD Laz have made? Now THAT'S a mental exercise.
"Yeah . . . a part of me wished I could get into all that. The real, honest-to-Light vindicators looked happy, strong and everybody patted them on the back. Who wouldn't want that, right? Humans do the same thing with their paladins . . .
"With draenei, though, the Light got to us all. What with the Naaru being around. But it never felt like a thing for me, right? Naaru sing for good people and I just had my ear to the door to listen in sometimes."
He shrugs, scuffing the tip of a hoof against the floor. "But I made my own way. Had some help to get me going to the right place. Decided to become a Peacekeeper. You know, a city guard. You didn't have to do anything but boss other people around and crack skulls when people got rowdy. Didn't take smarts or two shits about the Light to do good at that."
"Still a noble calling," Campion concedes. "Being part of the guard." This is a bit of a leap, but Campion stares down at his lap, chewing on his lower lip before he looks up again and asks.
"Were you there? This whole thing the draenei talk about. With what happened at Shattrath. When the orcs came and ruined it all. I mean, I don't really know where that falls in your peoples' history, and your memory isn't the most reliable, but..." He shrugs. Mostly curious now, on his end.
Lazaar smears a palm down his face, scatches at the patch of beard under his lip. "Don't remember that part. But . . . back when Yeva killed that one girl. Jesmari? You remember her?
"Well . . . went to bury her with Ley and I remembered some shit while we were digging." He scrubs his palms together. "Remembered seeing what was left after the orcs came through. Couldn't go back right off, but when it was safe we started burying all the bodies. This was after animals got in there and carried away bits and pieces and whole bodies into Terokkar. Everything went all rotten. Could barely recognize people except by their clothes or their horns if their skulls weren't smashed."
"Never seen anything like it . . ." he pauses and grimaces. "No, that's a lie. There was shit like that with the Lich King. Bodies in piles. All rot and death and stink."
He nods in confirmation of remembering the Jesmari, even if vaguely. What he remembers more than anything, of course, is what her final fate was. Which lends itself well to Laz's awful narrative.
He listens with a slight grimace. "Hell of a thing to recall. How many? I mean, they say it was a massacre. And I guess I could read up on this, rather than pester survivors. But-...And-..."
He trails off when Laz adds the thing about the Lich King. "...You remember THAT? I mean, actually remember? What you had to do when you were under his control?" He sounds quietly aghast!
The draenei shakes his head. "I don't even know how many. They wanted to keep a lot in the city to make the orcs think they'd killed us off. And it had to seem like a city . . . kids and old people, even."
He slaps a hand against his chest. Where his tattoo peeks out from under his collar. "And you can bet most of the Kamil jumped ship. Like rats. Always looking out for themselves. Maybe I did, too. Like I said . . ." he shrugs again in his uncertainty.
"What I remember from the Lich King . . . well, that's all like a nightmare, right? Not sure if you want to believe it happened, so your brain fogs it up some. Still, the worst parts come through clear as day."
He frowns down at his hands again, trying to let BOTH of these disgusting truths sink in fully. "You-...They left people BEHIND? Didn't even evacuate everyone? Why? HOW? Why couldn't you ALL run? What would that accomplish? Why did the orcs HAVE to have someone to exterminate? Light, that's-...I can't even imagine." He has a new and stark insight to draenei history and culture right here.
"And...Tatiana. She-...I don't-...I didn't think at first that any of it was able to be remembered. Since it wasn't YOU or HER doing these things. It was just your body and his thoughts. And maybe that would have been easier for everyone who fell to the Lich King. But she says things sometimes. Mentions these little bits of something that sounds like, yes. Like it's from a nightmare, but then she'll jerk away from it, refuse to pursue it. She refuses to talk or think about it. I guess it's easier that way. Don't think about what you were or what you are, what could have been."
"The Prophet said it, not me. The orcs wouldn't stop until they thought we were all dead. You know how those green fuckers are! They get that bloodlust and don't stop until they've destroyed everything." Lazaar smashes a fist against his thigh.
He uncurls his hand and clasps his knee. "I wish it was that way with the Scourge! I don't want that shit in my head! But there was still a little bit of everyone left inside or we wouldn't try to get free, right? Guess there were some who were too far gone and didn't fight it. That's what could've been with any of us undead."
Campion sighs slowly and shakily. "...There's no right answer to these kinds of things. And I hate that. The Crusade made me feel secure in that way. There was RIGHT," he gestures to one side, "and there was WRONG." Gestures to the other side. "Everything was CLEAR-CUT. The undead were all to be done away with. The Light is the only path. These things are virtues, these things are sins."
He laughs bitterly. "And then I had to get addicted to drugs, fall in with the mob, make friends with undead and fall in love with a man. Makes things messy! And regarding fighting it, some people went to it willingly. The Scourge, that is." He scowls darkly. "That's how it started. The Cult of the Damned brought it into Brill, and that's why it was the first to fall. They were LIVING PEOPLE who thought that swearing to the Lich King, by their own free will, was the right thing to do. And they killed everyone else off for it. For HIM."
"Gotta say, I didn't know all this history crap, even though I was one of them. They didn't give us a primer or anything. I just woke up and had to figure out how to move again or they were going to toss me off that floating club house."
Lazaar smirks at the paladin. "Good to know it was humans who fucked it up for the rest of us."
"If you REALLY want to lay blame at a race's feet, maybe it can go back to ORCS. The Lich King's spirit was an orcish warlock, after all. And he was the one who got into the head of Kel'thuzad, who swayed the masses, who ushered in the dreadlords, who manipulated Prince Arthas, who lost his soul and became a death knight, who became a vessel for Ner'zhul, who became the Lich King." Campion puts out his hands; there you go, all laid out.
"And while it's not the same, I certainly have sympathy for what you bluesk-...Draenei went through back in that city. After all, I was THERE for when Brill died. The widespread panic as the plague took Andorhal, and Stratholme was systematically slaughtered by our own ruler. When he finally came back from Northrend and the plague took Lordaeron. Light..." He rubs his forehead. Heavy history time here, it seems.
Hesitantly, he adds, "...And I was stationed in Tyr's Hand when Archerus came."
The brief overview doesn't exactly stick for the death knight. He'd need hours of history lessons to have a functional understanding. The part about orcs being behind it is the important thing, though, and his existing hatred is galvanized by this particular tidbit.
He stops stewing when he hears mention of Archerus and Tyr's Hand. He wracks his memory. "That was . . . south? Of the other two? New Havenplace? Avalon?"
"Southwest. The gateway fortress that was between the Plaguelands and New Avalon, the first line of fortification and defense to defend the innocents and civilians we watched over. I spent my time between there and Hearthglen. This was when I was still an aspirant. I wasn't stationed IN New Avalon itself when it came. But Light. The screams, and the smoke. And there was no way to save anyone. We could only stay at our station and watch. Hold the line if they came for us, protect the higher-ups that were making their own escape when the boats were burned. And all the while, we could only watch."
He rubs his face and goes quiet again.
"...No sympathy for the devil, though."
"So we were neighbors then, and we didn't even know. Stupid how that stuff works." He exhales sharply through his nose.
"And how does it feel to survive that crap? Shitty, huh? I know I think about that one some. How better people than me died. How I made it out alive . . . got killed . . . and then ended up killing people myself. No better than a greenskin."
Campion looks at Lazaar with a hollow, sad, but broad smile as he talks. How does it feel to survive that. How does it feel to survive that.
"I survived Brill when barely even a handful got out uninfected. I left my best friend behind. I was told I couldn't go back, but i could have fought. I could have gone to find her. She was bed-bound and no one else would have thought to go to her. But I let myself be led away.
"I survived when the prince came back and killed our king. I stayed behind in the evacuations to ensure all the rest got out, fought waves of undead citizens while trying to find others who were still alive, to make sure they all got out. But I saw so many get torn apart before I could do anything. And then there were none left and I had to escape with the rest of the refugees to Stormwind.
"I survived the attack on New Avalon and watched as people were slaughtered systematically. I could hear innocent farmers and civilians, people who didn't even know how to use a weapon, being cut down. And I could do NOTHING. I was under orders to stay and hold the line.
"I survived the Scarlet Harbour, a place that is a death sentence to all who are stationed there. The place is hell on earth, governed by a demon they're all serving without knowing it. Everyone up there is your enemy. EVERYONE. The Argents, the Horde, the Alliance, the Ebon FUCKING Blade. And then we were tearing EACH OTHER apart. Warlocks in our rank WANTING us dead because that means more dead ranks to make, to serve the dreadlord Mal'ganis. The elements themselves were against us; harsh cold, deadly ice, shark-infested waters. NO ONE comes back from there, but I got out. And I live every day with the thought that I KNOW what is going on up there, and what can I do to save all the others left?"
Oh, dear. NOW we've reached that point. Campion squeezes his eyes shut and tucks his chin against his chest, taking a slow, deep, wet breath. "Why do -I- keep SURVIVING these things!? I'm not a good person! Why ME and not someone BETTER? I'm not-...I can't do ANYTHING right! I'm not a good person!"
Lazaar watches Campion. Actually looks long and hard for a long moment. Eventually he fidgets uncomfortably before barking out a sharp laugh. He even punches the paladin in the shoulder. Perhaps a little too hard, given Campion's injured state.
"Well, you're in damn good company, Campy. Let's hear it for fuck-ups who didn't have the good sense to die and be heroes when we had the chance!"
He keeps laughing softly. Funny, right?
He winces, yes, from being thumped in the shoulder. O-Ow. Right on a Grinne-induced bruise. But he looks up, at least, the one eye not swollen shut gone glassy from unshed tears. Looks at Laz in hollow confusion.
But he eventually smirks, the expression small and watery. Then he smiles and huffs a sad, uncertain laugh. And then he finally laughs PROPERLY. Maybe it's just because Laz is, and isn't laughing AT him. It all seem so sick and surreal, and then it's just so INSANE, it's FUNNY. It's FUNNY that he's sitting here in Aleyna's bed, bearing his heart and soul to a draenei death knight he originally hated with a burning passion, and said death knight is doing the same in return on top of feeding him soup to help nurse him back to health.
He laughs, and it's not some sad, broken laughter either. The kind of laughter you do right up until you start crying. It's SOME kind of needed release, and it only tapers off when he winces again from his ribs getting a nasty twinge. He mutters an 'ow fuck', but keeps chuckling all the same.
The death knight is subconsciously relieved that the laughter took, and he begins to do so more earnestly. He descends into chuckles and then a hoarse cough as his rotten throat is worn ragged by the effort.
One last snort and a slow shake of his head before he says, "Life is one big fucking joke, and I think we're the punchline, Campy. A death knight and a Scarlet, but we're both idiots."
The laughter ratchets down, and he rubs his face again, wiping away some of the tears that spilled regardless from his incredulous mirth. "I-...I still like to think there's a reason. That the Light has a plan. But DAMN, if this isn't the worst, most twisted way to get there. You look back on it all, and it's just INSANITY. It's ABSURD. For BOTH of us, just like you said! Light, look at us now!" He waves between either of them.
"If you'd have told me we'd be here, talking like this, say. A year ago? I'd have punched whoever said it in the mouth and told them they were on drugs."
"Not gonna lie. I was hoping you'd die of an overdose or the Scarlets would hang you from a tree . . . or . . . whatever."
The good humor dissipates just as quickly as it came. He clasps his hands tightly together, elbows on his knees. His eyes are focused on the knot of knuckles and digits. "Especially after that . . . thing. With Ley. Still feel some of that. Worrying about her actually seeing what I am and leaving me for something better, because fuck . . . if she isn't one of the only good things I've got! Thought you were trying to talk your Scarlet sense into her and make her leave me.
"That's why I was so fucking pissed. Part, anyway."
Campion instantly sobers up as well. Oh-...Oh Light. Are they actually-...Yes. They are actually talking about this. He doesn't answer right away, as if afraid opening his mouth and addressing it would just get him punched. But he swallows and eventually answers.
"...I-...I-...She and I both-....We-..." Oh Light. He stops for a moment again, swallows hard again, starts over. "...It was only that one time. And it was-...I was leaving for New Hearthglen, and we didn't know if I would come back. And one thing led to another, and-..." This is hard to talk about! REALLY hard. He rubs his face again, as if that'll scrub off the growing red across his cheekbones.
"It was never anything like that. I wasn't trying to TAKE her. And I caught hell for it afterwards anyhow, when Grinne found...out." He grimaces. It's not something he wants to dwell on, so he presses onward quickly. "Even then. Even THEN, when I couldn't stand you, it wasn't done as anything to hurt YOU. She swore up and down that it wouldn't even matter to you, but all the same...It was not my intention. We just-..."
He looks down at his lap and gestures weakly.
"...We've always had this weird sort of something. And that's all it was."
He braces to be hit or told to go to hell. He really just wants to help and get past this, but he NEVER says the right thing.
An unexpected disgust wells up at the way the paladin stammers the excuse.
"Just saying that's how I took it, Campy," he rumbles, more with annoyance than anger. "I still wasn't sure if she was fucking me just because of what we agreed, or if she actually gave a shit, or if she fucks every guy she happens to feel a little something for."
Lazaar keeps his glare trained on his hands. "Either way, didn't have a right to feel jealous, because I was seeing other women and doing all the same shit I used to like to do. And not even to women I really cared about. Maybe she had the right to fuck a guy I hated and then keep it a secret."
He wrinkles his nose. "I would like to think it wasn't anything she was trying to do to YOU either. I'm not going to lie; Aleyna is one of my closest friends. And this was kind of-...Kind of a result of that. I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He holds up his hands, reaches on out a little, trying to be reassuring. "I don't mean to seem I'm rubbing this in your face at all. It's not my intention. I can shut up about it if you want. Or...Or if there's anything you'd WANT to hear from me on the subject, you only have to ask."
THAT could be regrettable, but he really wants to make this right. To end this particular thing once and for all and move on.
Lazaar looks exhausted by the topic, himself. Even if he was the one who brought it up in the first place. He unclasps a hand to gently, but firmly deflect any reassuring gestures. "I just wanted honesty, alright? I already talked to Ley about this, because I thought she still had something for you. She got all flustered too. Said it was just . . ." He rolls his hand at Campion. ". . . what you said just now."
"Y-Yeah. That. I don't know. I think it's because, well. Hah. Uh. It was-...Well, good to know she feels on the spot about it as much as I do!" He laughs nervously, wringing his hands slightly now.
"And if she has something for me or not, as you put it, well. That simply isn't in the equation for me anymore." He taps the ring on his left hand. "It just isn't." He shrugs, matter-of-factly. "And as I keep saying, you two are good for one another. I don't care to come between that."
"Yeah, well. I didn't know that, either. You're always trying to say you're only gay for Grinne or whatever. So I thought you'd be looking for a little normal sex on the side." Another lift of his shoulders in a shrug.
He makes no comment on the second part, still uncertain as to the truth of that statement. What with being certain of his fuck-uphood.
"I wasn't looking for ANYTHING 'on the side'. But it's not like you weren't the only one to not know about this part at the time." He sighs and taps that ring again, indicating that 'this' is referring to him and Grinne. "We weren't-...Er. Neither of us were terribly keen on it being anything like common knowledge at the time. Too many risks. STILL too many as it is. Light, if you only had to hear what Grinne was put up to when he had to go and make nice with that OTHER family apparently now in Shattrath and the Outlands." He grimaces.
He still grimacing. "Apparently hung about with some greasy, fat blueskin." He has no problem using the slur in front of Laz now, because it's aimed at a draenei that he distinctly dislikes. "Took him to one of the brothels after so long, and eventually was screaming at Grinne about how he was going to fuck one of their whores to prove he wasn't queer."
Lazaar can't help but laugh. Not only because it's crude, but because it's also absurd to him; he can't imagine it being so difficult to indulge the fat blueskin's demand. One thing he'll never understand about homosexuality.
After a moment, he asks through a grin: "So did he?"
Campion doesn't look even REMOTELY amused. He frowns and eventually mutters, "...Yes. While the blueskin WATCHED. He laughs it off NOW, but that's-...It's sick! It's craven! How does that even PROVE anything, even?! He told them he was married, and they still didn't give two shits. It's not funny!"
Lazaar raises his eyebrows incredulously at Campion's irritation. "Yeah, well. Nothing about crime families is funny, you know? You prefer they kill him for being a gay? Maybe he even pretended it was YOU, Campy. You never know."
He looks smug, and judging from his tone, he doesn't mean for this to be a comforting idea, just an amusing one.
"I just think it's stupid. What sort of business would have you do something that disgusting, even if he DID fancy women? Why are we kissing up to fat, stupid blueskins who think it's some solidification of TRUST to watch you stick it to a whore they own? It's just-...I don't know. Maybe I would laugh because it's fucking ABSURD. Maybe that's why HE laughs at it. But I just-...Ehhhh."
He fumes a little, looking away and sulking. His jaw juts out slightly in a pout, but he winces and doesn't keep it up. Shifting it is a bad, painful move.
"What sort of business makes you brand and beat and drown your own 'family'? Does that make you trust people? Fucking a whore seems pretty tame compared to THAT shit. At least the whore's used to it, and Grinne probably wasn't hurting too bad after. Maybe he even got off on it."
He shrugs and juts out his jaw contemplatively. "Grinne's probably done worse crap in his life. Most of us have."
"You wouldn't like hearing about Ley being forced to have sex with a whore she didn't even LIKE while some fat man watched," he mumbles, but it's kind of a pointless debate at this point. He's grousing over something that's a personal hurt and one that's not even anyone's fault, aside from this other 'family'. And Lazaar's point about it being preferable to what they were just put through REALLY is a nail in the coffin. No denying that.
He sighs and reaches up towards his face, pads of his fingers rubbing absently at that little bare strip in the middle of his left eyebrow. A mirror to Lazaar's own, the only poor treatment they managed to share. "...The soup was really good," he eventually mutters, looking down at the empty bowl again. "Really. Thank you."
Lazaar ignores the muttering about Ley and reaches out an open hand for the empty bowl. "Yeah, well, gave me something to do. . .
"And made up for what I helped do," he adds, the semi-apology squeezed out the corner of his frowning mouth.
Campion, much like when Lazaar was earlier looking, really LOOKING, at the crusader, lifts his head and studies the dead man's features. Actually hearing no gloating in his tone, no gleeful affirmation that at least CAMPY had it coming, no taking delight in ANY of their hardship and suffering...
"You didn't have anything to make up for," he answers quietly. "You were there for us all the same. You're still here for us NOW, aren't you?" He sounds uncertain; asking for confirmation on that.
"Yeah, guess so," the death knight says, keeping his hand extended. He doesn't return the look, staring pointedly at the bowl in the paladin's hands. "Don't have a lot of people. Kind of want to keep the ones I do, right?"
He chances a glance up at Campion's face. "Even if they are annoying assholes still."
This disclaimer after possibly sentimental statements shouldn't come as a surprise anymore. He wavers a little more though, and grunts a, "Sometimes."
Campion, content with the answer, gives a small, weary half-smile and finally gives the bowl back. And then pats Lazaar's hand in the brief close proximity before withdrawing his hand. Nothing TERRIBLY sappy; just a friendly gesture, two short pats against his knuckles.
"I feel the same way. I've had very little in the way of a REAL family, and like hell I'm going to let this one go easily. Even the ones that get a little shirty." He huffs a laugh along with that. "Because they're still family all the same, and I think we both know full well how you DON'T treat them."
Lazaar watches the gesture with mild surprise. He takes the bowl, though, and uses the excuse to stand. He walks into the kitchen area and stares down at the empty dish, thinking about the one good blood relative he remembered. Maybe she was to credit for planting the seed that only began to grow in these unexpected conditions.
"Don't know where I'd be if I didn't end up here. Probably worse off. Dead for good up in Northrend. Not even Ley to stitch me up when I start falling apart."
He laughs hoarsely. "But the best part . . . you guys don't expect shit from me. Don't have to be some fucking hero. Just have to get by."
He never really bothered to leave the bed. Grinne got up and moved around by sheer force of will and trying to prove that he's NOT a mass of seizure-induced aching, but Campion's willing to just concentrate on the whole 'getting better' thing.
Sleeping comes and goes. He wakes, he'll sometimes talk to whoever's there, hug Grinne if he's present, but eventually doze off again. His bones are knitting, thanks to Auro, but there's still a ways to go with the whole healing process. The paladin is dozing right now, in fact. Getting some of that fitful sleep.
Lazaar is perched on a stool, puffing at a cigar as he watches the soup finish its simmer. He's worried about those potatoes, and periodically gives them a jab to make sure they're soft. He catches a chunk of ash before it can tumble into the pot, but doing so means he drops his spoon with a clatter. He shoots a glance at the bed, hoping he didn't wake the paladin. Well, that's not quite true. He could use some conversation right about now.
Either way, he picks up the spoon and wipes it clean on the undersized apron he found crammed in one of Aleyna's drawers.
That's the thing about dozing; it's light. The paladin cracks open his non-swollen eye with a faint grunt. Details filter in slow, the first being there's the smell of food. He can't decide right now if that sounds fantastic or stomach-turning, the whole eating idea. Expecting to see Ley or even Grinne manning the stove, he feels like he must still be in that weird half-dreaming state when he sees it's, "...Lazaar?" His voice is a groggy croak.
"Yeah?" The death knight grunts and plucks the cigar from his mouth. Better to skip that for now. "Feel any more like a human and less like a tenderized slab of meat? Got to admit you still don't look any prettier. Hah!"
He grunts again in response, bringing a hand up to his face to rub it. But he winces and that rub turns into experimental prodding at the many various cuts and bruises all over it. Worst off is his black eye and the patches of purple on either jaw joint; the telltale marks of someone who'd had it dislocated.
"Feel like hell. Look like hell." He prods at his swollen eye at that one, and immediately regrets it, taking a hissing breath. Ooh, that smarts.
Lazaar winces in something like sympathy. Maybe this is a dream! "Got to find something to put on that shit. Maybe bury your face in the snow outside for a while."
He turns down the heat on the soup and covers it with a lid. "You gonna be hungry soon?"
"I've done weirder," he mutters at the mention of snow-related solutions for bruises. "Ley keep any ice around here? Can we FIND some?" He finally stops poking at his wounds, because that's not helping anything, and sits up with another groan. Ribs are a solid mass of ow too.
"Hungry? Did you MAKE something?" He sounds more amazed and confused than grossed out.
"Yeah, I made something. Why do you say it like that? You think I didn't know how to feed myself when I was alive or something?" Lazaar snorts over his shoulder.
He crosses his arms. "If I was a better death knight, I'd make you some scourge ice, but I need runes and shit to do it proper."
Campion makes a face, curling his upper split lip. "No thank you to the ice. The last thing I need is lich-fueled ice all over my face. Probably make me ill."
He shifts in the bed a bit, curling his legs into a folded position. "I don't know what it says about the world we live in when it's one where YOU can cook and -I- can't." He smirks in a tired way.
"Yeah, you're the one who's married and shit. Grinne doesn't make you keep house? Where'd he wander off to, anyway?" Lazaar says this a little louder, just in case the rogue is just in some other corner of the apartment.
"I keep house," he huffs. "Grinne's only NOW learning to clean up after himself. But he cooks, so I guess it evens out, right." He shrugs, and then only feels a little awkward after the fact that he's discussing his domestic life with LAZAAR of all people. He coughs and looks around.
"He's probably in the bathroom again. He's been...taking a lot of showers." Campion says this with a sort of confused, but sad, blankness.
He rolls his shoulders in a shrug and rummages around for bowls and spoons. "He's going to eat some goddamn soup when he's done. I spent half the day on this crap. You're going to try some, too."
"Am I?" He shifts again, leaning his elbows on his knees with a slow, hissing breath. Ribs are tender.
"What'd you put in it?" Please don't say worms.
"Old recipe I thought was pretty good when I was a kid. It's got all that good shit like meat and potatoes and vegetables." He might have gone overboard with the meat this time around, sinfully mixing chicken, beef, and pork.
"And poison. Because I'm still out to get you, Campy," he says with his best scary, undead face.
Campion at least ATTEMPTS a scowl back, but he can't hold it for long. Maybe because his face hurts so bad? Or maybe because...
"...Thank you, Lazaar." He says it quietly.
"Yeah, yeah. It's just soup. Don't get all sappy about it," he replies as he ladles a portion of soup into a bowl and rests a spoon on the edge. Steam rises off the top. It smells like it's got a healthy portion of garlic.
"Hope you don't miss the onions. Hate that shit, even if I'm not eating it. The smell."
"You can smell the onions? Over YOURSELF?" He takes the bowl with a snorted laugh, and then goes about stirring it, waiting for it to cool and examining the contents. "What have you got against onions?"
He keeps stirring and keeps watching himself stir even as he says a bit more quietly, "And I'm not talking about JUST the soup, you ass."
"Onions make me think of someone I didn't like so much. You know how smells can make you remember really strong? Long story."
He watches the paladin expectantly. He might be a little nervous about time and effort wasted if the soup doesn't taste good to the living palate. "What? For helping Yeva and the shrill bitch fuck you guys up?"
"No. I mean-...You helped. I mean, helped US." He waves between him and Lazaar, indicating this 'us-ness'. "What we did in there was ugly, and we HAD to do it, but-...Well, you carried him out. Held me back. Got us here." He looks down at the bowl. "Made us soup.
"It's-...I don't even care if you're doing it out of guilt or duty. Thank you. Thank you all the same." And he finally takes a sip of soup, giving it that first experimental taste. Then a second. "...S'not bad," he says as he stirs some more. Still hot, though.
Lazaar unties his undersized apron and pulls it over his head. "Good old Auntie wants us to be family, right? I guess we're a family of idiots. Feathers of the same bird and a company of misery. All those stupid Common phrases all wrapped into one."
He balls the apron up and tosses it on a growing pile of laundry, some of which is visibly stained with blood. "Besides. I don't have much else these days."
"Not a lot of us do," he mumbles before taking another spoonful of soup. One that actually has ingredients and isn't just broth. Chewing is a wincing, concentrated effort, done slow and agonizing. Dislocated jaws are no fun like that, even if they're back in place.
Once he's done chewing and swallows, he takes a breath before saying, "We were always a family. But I don't think we're being the kind she wants us to be."
"It's stupid when you really think about it. Guess if we didn't fuck up at life as much as we did, we'd never have run into each other. We'd probably have normal families and nice shit like that. We wouldn't be torturing each other in dark, goddamn basements."
He plops down at the foot of the bed, making it groan a little under his weight. His tail rolls back and forth, but in a popping, jerking fashion. "Just as stupid to think about. We are what we are."
Campion concentrates on eating soup for a few moments, watching Laz's jerky tail in the silence. Then he finally says quietly, "I wouldn't have met some of the closest friends I've ever had. I wouldn't have had a family I love for the first time in my life. I wouldn't be married." He eyes Lazaar warily at that one, but eventually goes on.
"I'd probably be dead in Icecrown now. Dead for a cause that was rotted before I even got there. At least the Kamil is HONEST about being thieves and wretches. We make no bones about what we are and what we do."
"Yeah, and if I hadn't run into Nat and Leu, I'd probably give in and be Ebon Blade cannon fodder. Hah! Probably killing you up there in Ice Crown, now that I think about it. Maybe we would have met anyway."
There's a sound like someone kicking a leather ball and something comes rolling out from under the bed. Lazaar's tragically ugly pet, still sound asleep. He catches it under a hoof and rolls it back and forth. "The Kamil saved me from that. And got to admit, keeps this whole life extension thing interesting. All of you are the weirdest, toughest motherfuckers I've ever met."
"Agreed. Agreed on all counts. We are a HELL of a crew. Collectively AND as individuals." He grimaces, but at least not in pain this time. Now it's just at Laz's awful eyeball pet. Determined to not let it put him off his soup, he goes back to sipping broth.
"Is it stupid to think that-...Maybe the Kamil could be a GOOD thing? If it was done right? Or those of us in it were working together on something aside from prostitution and drug running? That's probably stupid to talk about, given what Yeva seems to want to teach us the other night..." He frowns down at his bowl.
"The only good thing the Kamil could do is disappear, you ask me. I mean, not all of us go jump off a cliff or anything, but . . . fuck. I don't know. I'm just sick of it."
Lazaar rolls the Willy back under the bed, prompting a startled squeak from whatever else was hiding under there. "Guess what I'm trying to get at is there's us, and then there's the Kamil. The Kamil's like a rotting corpse and it's funny saying that out loud because it's run by one, too. But we're all stuck on the inside with all the shit and rot. I don't know how we could do any good."
"You mean the Old Kamil? Ones like Yeva and that other one from last night? The one who marked us?" He taps his chest, where the skull tattoo lies. "The old laughing one? All those? I mean, when you say US and the KAMIL.
"And...Well." He shifts his seating a bit, sitting up some more, careful to not jostle bruises or bowls of soup. "Ever since I FIRST got sucked into this all, I've been a firm believer that you can still do good in here. The best you can, anyhow. You can be Kamil and not be a monster."
"Old Kamil, yeah. They're just like the Scourge. Living longer than it should . . . It should have ended at Shattrath."
His chest sinks in a long sigh. "You know, I got sucked into this the first time trying to do good, but I just ended up doing more bad in the long run. I think it just fucks with your head in the end. Being a . . . shit. What's the Common word? Hypoth-- . . . hypocrat?"
"Hypocrite." Campion supplies it readily. It's a word he's way too familiar with by now. "I don't think it's hypocritical to want to try and make and find what good you can, though. Noble intentions, even if what's going on around is has all gone to shit and darkness."
He pushes a lump of potato around the broth before spooning it up and carefully popping it in his mouth. "Even if things get worse from here on out, we-...We're not bad people. We're just people in a bad situation."
"And then Yeva finds out, and we end up having another round in the basement? Maybe someone's going to die next time. Maybe that new bitch will have that gorilla rip someone's arms off."
He leans forward to prop his elbows on his knees and rub the back of his neck with both hands. "She's going to keep pitting us against each other because it worked so good this time. I mean, what was harder to deal with? The pain, or hurting someone else? Maybe even seeing someone else hurt because you fucked up. I don't want that."
Campion feels his throat go a little tight, a little dry, and that mouthful of potato is a struggle to swallow past it. Once he DOES manage, he sets the bowl aside on the nightstand, automatically cradling his injured arm close to his chest once he's settled again.
"They're-...They're-...They're all p-pretty bad, Laz." He stammers and goes a little pale to recall. "I would take all of that, though, if it meant keeping the rest of you safe..." He mumbles that last part, looking down at his lap and feeling a little foolish.
"Yeah, well, I'd have taken all that shit for you guys, too, if Yeva asked. Not like it matters if I get whipped and carved up and branded. Body's already gone and pain . . . hardly feel it these days. But she's smart. She knows most of us would volunteer to spare the rest, and that's not what she wants."
He uses his grip to give his neck a loud pop. "And now Luri's watching. Bet she's got an eye for soft spots, too. Guess that means we got to stop being all lovey-dovey with each other."
"Seems like she already knows them. Or some of them. Who knows, maybe Yeva just told her, but..." He looks around, then down at himself. Then back up at Laz. "With who she had do THIS to me...And she called Ley your f-...Unkind things. That implied she knew what was between you two."
The death knight's lip curls at the reminder. "We've all been pretty damn obvious. Wasn't hard for her to make it hurt extra bad. Time we cover our tracks better."
He eyes the empty bowl. "You want more? Made a bigger pot than I should have. Plenty to go around."
"What can we hide from here, though? Any marriage that happens in the family has to be given Yeva's blessing. Gossip spreads. Light knows me and Grinne tried to keep quiet for AGES. But it always managed to come out SOMEHOW. And she has eyes. Not just Luri. I know there are others." Paranoia? Or good sense?
At the offer for more food, he considers, then hands over the bowl with a nod and muttered 'thanks'.
"Can't hide anything she already knows, obviously. What's done is done. But we can at least watch ourselves from here on out." He takes the bowl and returns to the pot to fill it with a fresh serving.
"And watch for the eyes, so we know when and where it's safe to rest. Let down our guard or whatever, because I don't want to keep sneaking around all the time."
"It gets tiresome. It wears you down. The hiding." He speaks in vague terms, but also from experience. He scratches idly at a sideburn, but winces when he bumps the bruise on his jaw.
"I know the barkeep at the Lamb? Jarel? He's one. Sometimes he seems to not care what we do enough to report back, but he's in the pocket all the same. Hell, ANYONE that we know as a contact of our own probably is. ANYONE could be sneaking back to Yeva or...Luri? Luri, was it? With what they see us doing. Or NOT doing."
Lazaar sloshes three ladle-fulls of soup into the bowl -- enough to make it dribble over. He mutters a "Shit!" and moves the bowl back over the pot to collect the drippings.
"So then what? We start paying them more to be on our side? Get our own spies? This could get fucking retarded real fast."
"No, I think we just-..." He looks down at his hands, and eyes his left forearm. There's a faint, reddish bruised line around it, and he winces to realize what it is; where his bones had been snapped from the beating the other night before Auro knitted and healed them back together. He gathers up blankets into his lap to tuck that arm under, not wanting to look at it any more than he has to.
"I think we just have to do our jobs," he sighs in apparent defeat.
"So you're giving up on your 'let's do good even though we're bad' idea already?" He mops up the mess on the sides of the bowl with the discarded apron and licks the soup off of his hand as he walks back over to hand the second serving to the paladin.
"You know, Yeva's probably going to outlive you. Luri, too. You just going to keep your head down for the rest of your life? Play it safe? What's it gonna be?"
Campion takes the bowl, muttering a thanks as he does, taking up the spoon again to stir the contents slowly. "I'm not saying THAT. I mean, I'm not giving up on it. But-...Grinne says that, in this business, they let you go sometimes. After so many years. When you're older. Put in your time for...20, 30 years, and they let you retire. In theory. I guess." He trails off, staring down at the soup as he listlessly stirs. He sounds about as hopeful and thrilled at this prospect as the LAST one.
"What, like the Scarlet Crusade? Kill some 'deaders' until you're old and grey? I bet they don't let you off too easy, either."
Lazaar snorts and twists his mouth into a half-smile. "You have a knack for getting into really shitty places, Campy. What's the phrase? Out of the boiling pot of shit and into the burning hell hole?"
Campion sets aside the bowl of soup so he can rub at his face with both hands and groan. It hurts to do with all the bruises and scratches, but he doesn't seem to care.
"Yeah. Yeah. I know. Light, do I know. Hell, that's why, when I came back, I just-...I was wrecked. I figured, fuck it; I'm already damned beyond all reason. I've been working for the dreadlord who all but single-handedly ushered in my homeland's destruction!" He waves his arms and gestures animatedly with the spoon as he talks. "How much lower can I go? So what if I beat drug addicts and whores who don't pay and poison the masses with product and steal and cheat and lie? How much lower can I go!? Can't break what's already broken, right?" He sighs and lets his arms drop.
"I don't know why I cling so much to the hope that I'm somehow still redeemable. The best I can work for is just being hope and Light for the rest. That's enough, isn't it? And besides, what about YOU? You said you were stuck with the Kamil even BEFORE you died. And you ended up right back here."
He grunts when the question is turned back on him. "I forgot, okay? Completely forgot. At least at the front of my head, you know? And when I came back out into the world, it just seemed like the right thing to do to fall in with Nat. Even more right being dead and all."
The death knight runs a hand along his jaw, scratching between his tentacles. "I've got unfinished business anyway. That's how I look at it. Stuff to clear up."
"At least you weren't roped in by," he mimes smoking, "...or..." and then mimes jabbing a needle into his inner elbow, smirking halfheartedly. "Got a step up over the sorry bastards who DID." And that list is short anyhow. Laz probably remembers the one at the top of it, given that he's talking to him now.
"If there's anyone to see this to rights, or keep it as moral as we can handle, might as well be the ones who are stuck here and don't particularly care for the lifestyle." He shrugs, looking to Laz. Right?
"Who says I wasn't roped in? I didn't join up the first time because I thought it was a good deal. They always find what you want, hand it to you, and then make you pay up for the rest of your miserable fucking life."
He rolls his eyes. "It just worked out that they got two rounds out of me . . .
"I'd let you guys off clean if I could. Pack all this up and move it back to Outlands to rot with the rest of that shit-pile of a planet. I've got time to waste. You poor, pinkskin assholes don't with your stupid, little blink-of-an-eye bug lives."
"It's not THAT short," he huffs in indignation. "It's long enough. I'd sooner have just a few decades than countless centuries. I don't think I'd even know what to do with myself. And then you have cases like Auroran and-...Well. They're not BUG lives, at least." He picks up the bowl of soup again, muttering.
"Still. You've already wasted . . . what? Half of yours being a brainwashed nutcase?
"And it's not just you. Ley doesn't deserve this crap. She should go explore shit and stop making more bad trouble that might go back to Auby. Grinne . . . I don't know. He's good at it, and probably a fucked-up sort of tough all the way through, so I don't know what else he'd do.
"The rest . . ." he shrugs. "Some of them I don't even know . . . there's probably something better. Some of them are just kids, for fuck's sake."
"I wasn't BRAINWASHED!" He TRIES to raise his voice, but it makes his jaw ache in a spectacularly awful way, so he winces and has to deal with phrasing things STRONGLY. "I'm just-...It was the right thing. It was where I wanted to be and what I wanted to fight for. And it wasn't HALF my LIFE, unless you're saying being a PALADIN is my fault here." Done with his defensive sputtering, he pauses to finally eat some soup.
However, at the subject of Grinne, he doesn't look up, but he says, "He's good at a LOT of things. He's sharp as hell; he already knows how to speak THREE languages, two of them being HORDE ones. He memorized the whole glyphic alphabet and can put them on your armour and clothing to make you...I don't know. Do things BETTER. He's good with plants. He picks up on all the alchemy I teach him. He's SMART, and he CAN be doing something else..." Back to eating, now that he's done mumbling in defense of his spouse.
"See? All of you should just go. Fake your death. Find an island out in the middle of nowhere and do something better," he says, punctuating the suggestion with a sigh. "The end."
"And you REALLY think that'd work." He looks at Lazaar with a raised eyebrow, speaking after chewing and swallowing a mouthful of stew. "Really." He smirks in slight amusement.
He shakes his head slowly. "Campy, Campy, Campy! Your idea about bending over and taking it up the ass until you 'retire' was fucking depressing."
Lazaar shoots him a sideways look. "I know you're into that kind of thing, but not that into it."
"Oh shut UP." He flicks his spoon at Lazaar, sending a few droplets of broth at the draenei. "I think, honestly? The wistful, impossible, in-a-perfect-world scenarios are MORE depressing, honestly." He pauses again to put the spoon in his mouth, frowning, thinking. Looking like he's debating saying something.
"...When he told me about the retirement thing, it had been because we were talking about just that. Just...vanishing. Said things like getting a cabin in the Grizzly Hills, where no one would ever think to look for us or find us. And...I don't know. It sounds NICE, but I hate to think about it because it's just-..." He shrugs. Laz is going to yell at him for getting sappy.
"It's never going to happen, is it?" He's quieter now.
"You think Ley and I haven't talked about that same crap? Talked about the stupidest plans. Running off to fish for a living or herd rams or just make like we're normal somehow. Maybe even take her kid back we'd be so fucking normal and safe and happy."
He pauses and stares down at his arms, crossed back over his chest. His upper lip curls. "But you're right. The truth is a fucking pisser, and even if we tried we'd be looking over our shoulder forever."
"Yeah. That. That exactly..." He stirs some more at the soup, just because it's something to do and watch.
"You two are good for one another, you know." He'll just let that hang there, eating more in the meantime now.
"No, she's just good for me. Still don't know what she's getting out of this, but maybe that's just thinking like a draenei still, and you get too cozy with someone and you start thinking 'Fuck I better get married and have some kids' but no way that's happening even if I was alive and still had all the stuff working. Who knows what the fuck would squeeze out."
He stares at Campy while he makes progress on the soup. "But maybe you think that same stuff, being all gay-married? Since two guys can't make babies or have a family like normal. Must feel kind of . . ." he shrugs, not sure how to finish that.
Campion...for once. In his life.
Doesn't get defensive.
There's a MOMENT, of course. He flinches, takes a deep breath, looks like he's READY to say something sharp...but the anger subsides, deflates from him. He sighs slowly, actually listening to what Lazaar is saying, and answers in another defeated mumble.
"...I wouldn't be a good father anyways. And Grinne hates kids." It's not an actual ANSWER to what Laz said, but the unsaid agreement is present. He doesn't look at Laz. He just stares at his soup again.
"Not like I'd be a good dad, either, but lots of dickheads have kids anyway. By mistake or because they think it's a good idea and then realize kids are a huge pain in the ass and just leave them behind."
He drills a thick pinky into his ear. "Don't even know what I was getting at with this. Brain's going everywhere all of a sudden."
"Or they just end up with bad sons." He says it glumly, but it's said like it's a solid, irrefutable FACT of life right up there with all those other reasons for poor parenthood.
"Sometimes it's good to let your head wander. Get all this rubbish out so you can at least look at and make sense. And I'm a confessor? If that helps...? And the reason I got ordained as one at ALL was so the Kamil could go to SOMEONE with the things we can't talk about outside the family."
"Oh, you want me to spill my guts now?" Lazaar can't help but grimly pat his abdomen, and the gruesome scar hidden beneath his shirt. Is he being literal or figurative? He could probably manage both on request. "I think we already talked about our shitty dads."
"I was just saying." He twirls the spoon vaguely in the air in some kind of substitute for a shrug, then goes back to eating. "I'm not OPPOSED to gut-spilling. And that's NOT because I'm some kind of a queer." Another first? Making fun of his relationship at his own expense? Talking nicely and honestly with Lazaar? It's like the world has shifted off its axis.
"...I don't remember a lot about that conversation, given we were both piss-ass drunk, though. I DO remember you saying that being beaten was preferable to being ignored, though." He makes a bit of a wondering, sour expression at that.
Lazaar sighs through his nose. He said that, didn't he? "Yeah? Better than being shuffled out of sight, and staying that way so you could hear the shit the rest of the family talked about you. When you're a kid, you think it's all true, you know. That's the way you figure out who you are. At least a beating's just a beating. Nothing personal."
Campion screws up his mouth all the worse, like the soup he's eating DOES suddenly taste sour, and he asks, his voice a bit edged, "DID you ever get beat?"
The draenei makes a half-amused tsh noise. "That's not how good draenei do it. Maybe my dad would've if he was around. I don't know. My aunt and uncle, no. Just said I was rotten because my dad was rotten. Like both of us ruined everything, even though it was his fault for fucking my mom. Guess I was just the stand-in. Ugly little kid that didn't look all bright and clean like the rest."
Campion looks down at his soup again, bowl half-empty and his eyes (well, eye, given that one is swollen shut) isn't entirely focused on it.
"Don't say it wouldn't be personal. How could it NOT be? It's not the same like what we're doing NOW for the job. This is someone that's supposed to be raising you, and they beat the livid hell out of you instead. Tell you things. Say WHY they're doing it. It's always your fault, OF COURSE it's fucking personal."
He laughs and looks up again. The fact he's saying all this WHILE being bruised and broken to hell and back is a grossly ironic detail. "And this was all while the OTHER parent didn't even so much as look at me, let alone raise me either, or care what happened. So I guess I know what you mean. It's not-...None of it's just what you should do to ANY child. Makes me sick to think you were in the same boat. I mean, I just tell myself I was used to it. Maybe I DID deserve it. I survived, it doesn't matter. But I can't think of what you could have done wrong, bastard or not NOW aside; you were just a CHILD."
"Yeah, and now we're in the fucking MOB. How do you like THAT? Maybe if people treated us better, we wouldn't be like cancer to the world . . . hah."
Lazaar glances at his soup pot and something seems to dawn on him. "Guess it wasn't all shitty, though. My cousin taught me to make that soup . . . some other food when I was probably . . . huh . . . eight in human years. She helped take care of my mom. She was a nice girl. Don't know what happened to her. Probably dead. All the good people die."
"Yeah. I only had Tatiana and Father Charles. And Tatiana's a Forsaken now. And Father Charles-..." He stops, biting his lower lip briefly, somehow relishing the sharp little twinge of pain from gnawing on one of the splits. "...He's not around anymore either."
The mention of the soup being attached to a good memory like that, though. Somehow, that spurs him into hurrying up and finishing what's left in his bowl. He asks eventually, "What was her name?"
"See? All dead. Or come back undead. That sounds like a real kick in the pants with that Tatiana girl. You in love with her back then?" Lazaar extends his hand to take the bowl again, hooking a thumb back at the pot and pointing his forefinger back at Campy. More?
"And her name was Luciin," he says it carefully loo-seen, as if it's odd for the draenei to be saying the name aloud after all this time. "Called her Luci for short. She was a real draenei, not like those fuckers who say 'be kind to those less fortunate' and then say 'except you.'"
"Love? I-...I don't know. I think we were. It was something. We were close. Still are. We were happy and comfortable together. It just kind of became this assumption that, someday, yes. We were going to be adults, and we'd get married, and go live in Tarren Mill or something. Get away from my old man, and get away from her aunt. I'd keep studying alchemy to find a cure for her sicknesses and take care of her. It was just the plan, and it was a happy one. And then..." He waves vaguely, like motioning something away. And then all that plague stuff.
He holds out the bowl, shrugging. Sure, he hasn't eaten for over two days now, he needs it. "It's always those one or two people that still reach out to you, even when you're convinced you're nothing. They make you remember you're a person. This Luciin sounds like she was one of those. But why not the rest of the family? Did she ever try to defend you when they would come down on your or shove you aside?"
"Think you would have been happier that way? Living at that mill place with the girl instead of with Grinne? With the Kamil breathing down your neck?" he asks from his place back at the soup pot. He swirls the ladle in the contents to stir up all the bits that have sunk to the bottom.
"Sometimes she tried to stand up to my uncle, but it wasn't any good. He was a hardass and she was too sweet. Knew she wasn't going to change things with him, maybe, so she just tried to make up for it by being nice. Then she got married off to some paladin whose farts were made of Holy Light. Something my uncle set up, I think."
"...I don't know. It's another one of those cases where i don't want to think about it. It'll never happen. It never did." He stays quiet for a moment, but NOT saying what's on his mind is not a trait Campy is good with. "...I love Grinne. I can't imagine NOT having him in my life now. I will never regret it. And the Kamil has made me some of the closest friends I've ever had. It's the first time I've ever HAD a family, as ragtag and awful and STRANGE as we all are. To hell if that's sappy as shit, it's true. So I don't know.
"She always insists it would have been a bad deal in the end. Says that we'd never have children, which I guess was important to her? And she-...She wouldn't have lasted long. She was sick, like I said." He looks down at his hands, turning them over slowly. "I don't know if she says that just to make the fact it never happened easier. For both of us."
"Did Luciin go after that? When she was married? If she did, what happened THEN? Who took care of you?"
"Sappy as hell, yeah. Worst case of mixed blessings I've heard yet. Both parts, I guess. More stuff that's the same, 'cept your scourge killing people was my orcs killing people. Either way, didn't come out with a whole lot left, huh?" He tops off another bowl and ferries it back to Campion, pleased that the paladin is actually eating this stuff.
"Luci left. I wanted to go with her, but my uncle stuck me in . . . paladin school, you could call it. With another cousin about the same age. Probably no surprise that it didn't take -- all that love and Light shit. I liked smacking people around just fine, but I did more of that than I should've. But I was still the odd one out there . . . scrappy, weird kid . . . so I had to show people I was tough shit, you know? Take cheap shots."
Again, the bowl is taken with a nod and a quiet thank you, but he sets about to digging right in this time. Both times before, too much talking let it get cold. He talks between bites and swallows.
"Yeah, when you look at it, my choices seemed to be: be happy and morally sound, but lonely. Or be in a den of sin, but loved. Mixed blessings indeed, my friend."
He's in the middle of another bite of stew when Lazaar mentions his schooling, however, and that makes him choke a little. Campion eventually hurries to swallow what's in his mouth, and then says, "YOU? You-...Paladin training? REALLY? Well, SHIT." He's smiling, though incredulously. This is just strange and unexpected!
"Hah! Well, you're lucky, 'cause we've all got low standards in this den of sin. Don't have to put on your uppity paladin act around here to get by. Hell, beat all that out of you quick enough. Now you're practically normal." Lazaar takes a heavy seat on the bed again, making the mattress bounce with his weight.
"That's about why I didn't stick around to be a full-on paladin. Not that it was all choice. Just didn't work out and I was okay with that. I beat people up, they beat me up. Kids are fucking brutal.
"I left before they could kick me out. About grown by then, or grown enough to think I was grown. Fuck my uncle, fuck being a vindicator or trying to prove shit. Went down to the Lower City to try my hand at a trade, fucked that up, so I was just living on the street."
Campion grimaces a little at the ongoing description of where younger Lazaar ended up, eating as the draenei talks. It IS good soup, this isn't just some kind of desperation or hunger spurring him.
"Other way around for me. I went to become a paladin because, well. I WANTED to be, most of all. I went and hid in the church when I was...seven? Six? Somewhere around there and heard a sermon, and I was hooked. I was hiding because the old man switched my hide for breaking a fucking vial on accident, and then I ended up in this place where this nice old man was talking about how there was this force in the world that loved us all and took care of people who loved it back? It was like-..." He gestures next to his head, like an explosion, making a shocked expression. Mind BLOWN, man.
"And then I went to train for it in Lordaeron because it got me away from the house. I didn't have to listen to them fight, and I didn't have to see her dead eyes, and I didn't have to worry if he was going to smash my face in that day. Being a paladin saved my life in a lot of ways. I...kind of wish it'd done the same for you, honestly." What kind of paladin WOULD Laz have made? Now THAT'S a mental exercise.
"Yeah . . . a part of me wished I could get into all that. The real, honest-to-Light vindicators looked happy, strong and everybody patted them on the back. Who wouldn't want that, right? Humans do the same thing with their paladins . . .
"With draenei, though, the Light got to us all. What with the Naaru being around. But it never felt like a thing for me, right? Naaru sing for good people and I just had my ear to the door to listen in sometimes."
He shrugs, scuffing the tip of a hoof against the floor. "But I made my own way. Had some help to get me going to the right place. Decided to become a Peacekeeper. You know, a city guard. You didn't have to do anything but boss other people around and crack skulls when people got rowdy. Didn't take smarts or two shits about the Light to do good at that."
"Still a noble calling," Campion concedes. "Being part of the guard." This is a bit of a leap, but Campion stares down at his lap, chewing on his lower lip before he looks up again and asks.
"Were you there? This whole thing the draenei talk about. With what happened at Shattrath. When the orcs came and ruined it all. I mean, I don't really know where that falls in your peoples' history, and your memory isn't the most reliable, but..." He shrugs. Mostly curious now, on his end.
Lazaar smears a palm down his face, scatches at the patch of beard under his lip. "Don't remember that part. But . . . back when Yeva killed that one girl. Jesmari? You remember her?
"Well . . . went to bury her with Ley and I remembered some shit while we were digging." He scrubs his palms together. "Remembered seeing what was left after the orcs came through. Couldn't go back right off, but when it was safe we started burying all the bodies. This was after animals got in there and carried away bits and pieces and whole bodies into Terokkar. Everything went all rotten. Could barely recognize people except by their clothes or their horns if their skulls weren't smashed."
"Never seen anything like it . . ." he pauses and grimaces. "No, that's a lie. There was shit like that with the Lich King. Bodies in piles. All rot and death and stink."
He nods in confirmation of remembering the Jesmari, even if vaguely. What he remembers more than anything, of course, is what her final fate was. Which lends itself well to Laz's awful narrative.
He listens with a slight grimace. "Hell of a thing to recall. How many? I mean, they say it was a massacre. And I guess I could read up on this, rather than pester survivors. But-...And-..."
He trails off when Laz adds the thing about the Lich King. "...You remember THAT? I mean, actually remember? What you had to do when you were under his control?" He sounds quietly aghast!
The draenei shakes his head. "I don't even know how many. They wanted to keep a lot in the city to make the orcs think they'd killed us off. And it had to seem like a city . . . kids and old people, even."
He slaps a hand against his chest. Where his tattoo peeks out from under his collar. "And you can bet most of the Kamil jumped ship. Like rats. Always looking out for themselves. Maybe I did, too. Like I said . . ." he shrugs again in his uncertainty.
"What I remember from the Lich King . . . well, that's all like a nightmare, right? Not sure if you want to believe it happened, so your brain fogs it up some. Still, the worst parts come through clear as day."
He frowns down at his hands again, trying to let BOTH of these disgusting truths sink in fully. "You-...They left people BEHIND? Didn't even evacuate everyone? Why? HOW? Why couldn't you ALL run? What would that accomplish? Why did the orcs HAVE to have someone to exterminate? Light, that's-...I can't even imagine." He has a new and stark insight to draenei history and culture right here.
"And...Tatiana. She-...I don't-...I didn't think at first that any of it was able to be remembered. Since it wasn't YOU or HER doing these things. It was just your body and his thoughts. And maybe that would have been easier for everyone who fell to the Lich King. But she says things sometimes. Mentions these little bits of something that sounds like, yes. Like it's from a nightmare, but then she'll jerk away from it, refuse to pursue it. She refuses to talk or think about it. I guess it's easier that way. Don't think about what you were or what you are, what could have been."
"The Prophet said it, not me. The orcs wouldn't stop until they thought we were all dead. You know how those green fuckers are! They get that bloodlust and don't stop until they've destroyed everything." Lazaar smashes a fist against his thigh.
He uncurls his hand and clasps his knee. "I wish it was that way with the Scourge! I don't want that shit in my head! But there was still a little bit of everyone left inside or we wouldn't try to get free, right? Guess there were some who were too far gone and didn't fight it. That's what could've been with any of us undead."
Campion sighs slowly and shakily. "...There's no right answer to these kinds of things. And I hate that. The Crusade made me feel secure in that way. There was RIGHT," he gestures to one side, "and there was WRONG." Gestures to the other side. "Everything was CLEAR-CUT. The undead were all to be done away with. The Light is the only path. These things are virtues, these things are sins."
He laughs bitterly. "And then I had to get addicted to drugs, fall in with the mob, make friends with undead and fall in love with a man. Makes things messy! And regarding fighting it, some people went to it willingly. The Scourge, that is." He scowls darkly. "That's how it started. The Cult of the Damned brought it into Brill, and that's why it was the first to fall. They were LIVING PEOPLE who thought that swearing to the Lich King, by their own free will, was the right thing to do. And they killed everyone else off for it. For HIM."
"Gotta say, I didn't know all this history crap, even though I was one of them. They didn't give us a primer or anything. I just woke up and had to figure out how to move again or they were going to toss me off that floating club house."
Lazaar smirks at the paladin. "Good to know it was humans who fucked it up for the rest of us."
"If you REALLY want to lay blame at a race's feet, maybe it can go back to ORCS. The Lich King's spirit was an orcish warlock, after all. And he was the one who got into the head of Kel'thuzad, who swayed the masses, who ushered in the dreadlords, who manipulated Prince Arthas, who lost his soul and became a death knight, who became a vessel for Ner'zhul, who became the Lich King." Campion puts out his hands; there you go, all laid out.
"And while it's not the same, I certainly have sympathy for what you bluesk-...Draenei went through back in that city. After all, I was THERE for when Brill died. The widespread panic as the plague took Andorhal, and Stratholme was systematically slaughtered by our own ruler. When he finally came back from Northrend and the plague took Lordaeron. Light..." He rubs his forehead. Heavy history time here, it seems.
Hesitantly, he adds, "...And I was stationed in Tyr's Hand when Archerus came."
The brief overview doesn't exactly stick for the death knight. He'd need hours of history lessons to have a functional understanding. The part about orcs being behind it is the important thing, though, and his existing hatred is galvanized by this particular tidbit.
He stops stewing when he hears mention of Archerus and Tyr's Hand. He wracks his memory. "That was . . . south? Of the other two? New Havenplace? Avalon?"
"Southwest. The gateway fortress that was between the Plaguelands and New Avalon, the first line of fortification and defense to defend the innocents and civilians we watched over. I spent my time between there and Hearthglen. This was when I was still an aspirant. I wasn't stationed IN New Avalon itself when it came. But Light. The screams, and the smoke. And there was no way to save anyone. We could only stay at our station and watch. Hold the line if they came for us, protect the higher-ups that were making their own escape when the boats were burned. And all the while, we could only watch."
He rubs his face and goes quiet again.
"...No sympathy for the devil, though."
"So we were neighbors then, and we didn't even know. Stupid how that stuff works." He exhales sharply through his nose.
"And how does it feel to survive that crap? Shitty, huh? I know I think about that one some. How better people than me died. How I made it out alive . . . got killed . . . and then ended up killing people myself. No better than a greenskin."
Campion looks at Lazaar with a hollow, sad, but broad smile as he talks. How does it feel to survive that. How does it feel to survive that.
"I survived Brill when barely even a handful got out uninfected. I left my best friend behind. I was told I couldn't go back, but i could have fought. I could have gone to find her. She was bed-bound and no one else would have thought to go to her. But I let myself be led away.
"I survived when the prince came back and killed our king. I stayed behind in the evacuations to ensure all the rest got out, fought waves of undead citizens while trying to find others who were still alive, to make sure they all got out. But I saw so many get torn apart before I could do anything. And then there were none left and I had to escape with the rest of the refugees to Stormwind.
"I survived the attack on New Avalon and watched as people were slaughtered systematically. I could hear innocent farmers and civilians, people who didn't even know how to use a weapon, being cut down. And I could do NOTHING. I was under orders to stay and hold the line.
"I survived the Scarlet Harbour, a place that is a death sentence to all who are stationed there. The place is hell on earth, governed by a demon they're all serving without knowing it. Everyone up there is your enemy. EVERYONE. The Argents, the Horde, the Alliance, the Ebon FUCKING Blade. And then we were tearing EACH OTHER apart. Warlocks in our rank WANTING us dead because that means more dead ranks to make, to serve the dreadlord Mal'ganis. The elements themselves were against us; harsh cold, deadly ice, shark-infested waters. NO ONE comes back from there, but I got out. And I live every day with the thought that I KNOW what is going on up there, and what can I do to save all the others left?"
Oh, dear. NOW we've reached that point. Campion squeezes his eyes shut and tucks his chin against his chest, taking a slow, deep, wet breath. "Why do -I- keep SURVIVING these things!? I'm not a good person! Why ME and not someone BETTER? I'm not-...I can't do ANYTHING right! I'm not a good person!"
Lazaar watches Campion. Actually looks long and hard for a long moment. Eventually he fidgets uncomfortably before barking out a sharp laugh. He even punches the paladin in the shoulder. Perhaps a little too hard, given Campion's injured state.
"Well, you're in damn good company, Campy. Let's hear it for fuck-ups who didn't have the good sense to die and be heroes when we had the chance!"
He keeps laughing softly. Funny, right?
He winces, yes, from being thumped in the shoulder. O-Ow. Right on a Grinne-induced bruise. But he looks up, at least, the one eye not swollen shut gone glassy from unshed tears. Looks at Laz in hollow confusion.
But he eventually smirks, the expression small and watery. Then he smiles and huffs a sad, uncertain laugh. And then he finally laughs PROPERLY. Maybe it's just because Laz is, and isn't laughing AT him. It all seem so sick and surreal, and then it's just so INSANE, it's FUNNY. It's FUNNY that he's sitting here in Aleyna's bed, bearing his heart and soul to a draenei death knight he originally hated with a burning passion, and said death knight is doing the same in return on top of feeding him soup to help nurse him back to health.
He laughs, and it's not some sad, broken laughter either. The kind of laughter you do right up until you start crying. It's SOME kind of needed release, and it only tapers off when he winces again from his ribs getting a nasty twinge. He mutters an 'ow fuck', but keeps chuckling all the same.
The death knight is subconsciously relieved that the laughter took, and he begins to do so more earnestly. He descends into chuckles and then a hoarse cough as his rotten throat is worn ragged by the effort.
One last snort and a slow shake of his head before he says, "Life is one big fucking joke, and I think we're the punchline, Campy. A death knight and a Scarlet, but we're both idiots."
The laughter ratchets down, and he rubs his face again, wiping away some of the tears that spilled regardless from his incredulous mirth. "I-...I still like to think there's a reason. That the Light has a plan. But DAMN, if this isn't the worst, most twisted way to get there. You look back on it all, and it's just INSANITY. It's ABSURD. For BOTH of us, just like you said! Light, look at us now!" He waves between either of them.
"If you'd have told me we'd be here, talking like this, say. A year ago? I'd have punched whoever said it in the mouth and told them they were on drugs."
"Not gonna lie. I was hoping you'd die of an overdose or the Scarlets would hang you from a tree . . . or . . . whatever."
The good humor dissipates just as quickly as it came. He clasps his hands tightly together, elbows on his knees. His eyes are focused on the knot of knuckles and digits. "Especially after that . . . thing. With Ley. Still feel some of that. Worrying about her actually seeing what I am and leaving me for something better, because fuck . . . if she isn't one of the only good things I've got! Thought you were trying to talk your Scarlet sense into her and make her leave me.
"That's why I was so fucking pissed. Part, anyway."
Campion instantly sobers up as well. Oh-...Oh Light. Are they actually-...Yes. They are actually talking about this. He doesn't answer right away, as if afraid opening his mouth and addressing it would just get him punched. But he swallows and eventually answers.
"...I-...I-...She and I both-....We-..." Oh Light. He stops for a moment again, swallows hard again, starts over. "...It was only that one time. And it was-...I was leaving for New Hearthglen, and we didn't know if I would come back. And one thing led to another, and-..." This is hard to talk about! REALLY hard. He rubs his face again, as if that'll scrub off the growing red across his cheekbones.
"It was never anything like that. I wasn't trying to TAKE her. And I caught hell for it afterwards anyhow, when Grinne found...out." He grimaces. It's not something he wants to dwell on, so he presses onward quickly. "Even then. Even THEN, when I couldn't stand you, it wasn't done as anything to hurt YOU. She swore up and down that it wouldn't even matter to you, but all the same...It was not my intention. We just-..."
He looks down at his lap and gestures weakly.
"...We've always had this weird sort of something. And that's all it was."
He braces to be hit or told to go to hell. He really just wants to help and get past this, but he NEVER says the right thing.
An unexpected disgust wells up at the way the paladin stammers the excuse.
"Just saying that's how I took it, Campy," he rumbles, more with annoyance than anger. "I still wasn't sure if she was fucking me just because of what we agreed, or if she actually gave a shit, or if she fucks every guy she happens to feel a little something for."
Lazaar keeps his glare trained on his hands. "Either way, didn't have a right to feel jealous, because I was seeing other women and doing all the same shit I used to like to do. And not even to women I really cared about. Maybe she had the right to fuck a guy I hated and then keep it a secret."
He wrinkles his nose. "I would like to think it wasn't anything she was trying to do to YOU either. I'm not going to lie; Aleyna is one of my closest friends. And this was kind of-...Kind of a result of that. I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He holds up his hands, reaches on out a little, trying to be reassuring. "I don't mean to seem I'm rubbing this in your face at all. It's not my intention. I can shut up about it if you want. Or...Or if there's anything you'd WANT to hear from me on the subject, you only have to ask."
THAT could be regrettable, but he really wants to make this right. To end this particular thing once and for all and move on.
Lazaar looks exhausted by the topic, himself. Even if he was the one who brought it up in the first place. He unclasps a hand to gently, but firmly deflect any reassuring gestures. "I just wanted honesty, alright? I already talked to Ley about this, because I thought she still had something for you. She got all flustered too. Said it was just . . ." He rolls his hand at Campion. ". . . what you said just now."
"Y-Yeah. That. I don't know. I think it's because, well. Hah. Uh. It was-...Well, good to know she feels on the spot about it as much as I do!" He laughs nervously, wringing his hands slightly now.
"And if she has something for me or not, as you put it, well. That simply isn't in the equation for me anymore." He taps the ring on his left hand. "It just isn't." He shrugs, matter-of-factly. "And as I keep saying, you two are good for one another. I don't care to come between that."
"Yeah, well. I didn't know that, either. You're always trying to say you're only gay for Grinne or whatever. So I thought you'd be looking for a little normal sex on the side." Another lift of his shoulders in a shrug.
He makes no comment on the second part, still uncertain as to the truth of that statement. What with being certain of his fuck-uphood.
"I wasn't looking for ANYTHING 'on the side'. But it's not like you weren't the only one to not know about this part at the time." He sighs and taps that ring again, indicating that 'this' is referring to him and Grinne. "We weren't-...Er. Neither of us were terribly keen on it being anything like common knowledge at the time. Too many risks. STILL too many as it is. Light, if you only had to hear what Grinne was put up to when he had to go and make nice with that OTHER family apparently now in Shattrath and the Outlands." He grimaces.
He still grimacing. "Apparently hung about with some greasy, fat blueskin." He has no problem using the slur in front of Laz now, because it's aimed at a draenei that he distinctly dislikes. "Took him to one of the brothels after so long, and eventually was screaming at Grinne about how he was going to fuck one of their whores to prove he wasn't queer."
Lazaar can't help but laugh. Not only because it's crude, but because it's also absurd to him; he can't imagine it being so difficult to indulge the fat blueskin's demand. One thing he'll never understand about homosexuality.
After a moment, he asks through a grin: "So did he?"
Campion doesn't look even REMOTELY amused. He frowns and eventually mutters, "...Yes. While the blueskin WATCHED. He laughs it off NOW, but that's-...It's sick! It's craven! How does that even PROVE anything, even?! He told them he was married, and they still didn't give two shits. It's not funny!"
Lazaar raises his eyebrows incredulously at Campion's irritation. "Yeah, well. Nothing about crime families is funny, you know? You prefer they kill him for being a gay? Maybe he even pretended it was YOU, Campy. You never know."
He looks smug, and judging from his tone, he doesn't mean for this to be a comforting idea, just an amusing one.
"I just think it's stupid. What sort of business would have you do something that disgusting, even if he DID fancy women? Why are we kissing up to fat, stupid blueskins who think it's some solidification of TRUST to watch you stick it to a whore they own? It's just-...I don't know. Maybe I would laugh because it's fucking ABSURD. Maybe that's why HE laughs at it. But I just-...Ehhhh."
He fumes a little, looking away and sulking. His jaw juts out slightly in a pout, but he winces and doesn't keep it up. Shifting it is a bad, painful move.
"What sort of business makes you brand and beat and drown your own 'family'? Does that make you trust people? Fucking a whore seems pretty tame compared to THAT shit. At least the whore's used to it, and Grinne probably wasn't hurting too bad after. Maybe he even got off on it."
He shrugs and juts out his jaw contemplatively. "Grinne's probably done worse crap in his life. Most of us have."
"You wouldn't like hearing about Ley being forced to have sex with a whore she didn't even LIKE while some fat man watched," he mumbles, but it's kind of a pointless debate at this point. He's grousing over something that's a personal hurt and one that's not even anyone's fault, aside from this other 'family'. And Lazaar's point about it being preferable to what they were just put through REALLY is a nail in the coffin. No denying that.
He sighs and reaches up towards his face, pads of his fingers rubbing absently at that little bare strip in the middle of his left eyebrow. A mirror to Lazaar's own, the only poor treatment they managed to share. "...The soup was really good," he eventually mutters, looking down at the empty bowl again. "Really. Thank you."
Lazaar ignores the muttering about Ley and reaches out an open hand for the empty bowl. "Yeah, well, gave me something to do. . .
"And made up for what I helped do," he adds, the semi-apology squeezed out the corner of his frowning mouth.
Campion, much like when Lazaar was earlier looking, really LOOKING, at the crusader, lifts his head and studies the dead man's features. Actually hearing no gloating in his tone, no gleeful affirmation that at least CAMPY had it coming, no taking delight in ANY of their hardship and suffering...
"You didn't have anything to make up for," he answers quietly. "You were there for us all the same. You're still here for us NOW, aren't you?" He sounds uncertain; asking for confirmation on that.
"Yeah, guess so," the death knight says, keeping his hand extended. He doesn't return the look, staring pointedly at the bowl in the paladin's hands. "Don't have a lot of people. Kind of want to keep the ones I do, right?"
He chances a glance up at Campion's face. "Even if they are annoying assholes still."
This disclaimer after possibly sentimental statements shouldn't come as a surprise anymore. He wavers a little more though, and grunts a, "Sometimes."
Campion, content with the answer, gives a small, weary half-smile and finally gives the bowl back. And then pats Lazaar's hand in the brief close proximity before withdrawing his hand. Nothing TERRIBLY sappy; just a friendly gesture, two short pats against his knuckles.
"I feel the same way. I've had very little in the way of a REAL family, and like hell I'm going to let this one go easily. Even the ones that get a little shirty." He huffs a laugh along with that. "Because they're still family all the same, and I think we both know full well how you DON'T treat them."
Lazaar watches the gesture with mild surprise. He takes the bowl, though, and uses the excuse to stand. He walks into the kitchen area and stares down at the empty dish, thinking about the one good blood relative he remembered. Maybe she was to credit for planting the seed that only began to grow in these unexpected conditions.
"Don't know where I'd be if I didn't end up here. Probably worse off. Dead for good up in Northrend. Not even Ley to stitch me up when I start falling apart."
He laughs hoarsely. "But the best part . . . you guys don't expect shit from me. Don't have to be some fucking hero. Just have to get by."