#I didn’t know a sea witch and his beloved seagulls would mean so much to me

[emjoyy]

Like not only is the show gay as fuck - it’s queer, kinky, silly, sweet, and soft. But it’s violent and dark and deep too. It’s a show about trauma and healing and community. It’s about being capable of change and growth, of finding our truest self. But most of all it’s a show about love in all it’s beautiful and chaotic forms. AND A MAN TURNS INTO A SEAGULL

[sanguinesorceress]

Marked for Death (Part 2)

[Part 1]

“Porter?! Another cask of Peaked Dalaran White, when you have a moment please!”

Porter.  It had supplanted his real name in people’s thoughts, but Oneth Sagestriker didn’t seem to mind the nickname at all.  Polite to a fault, the Kaldorei with boyish good looks and eyes as silver as a beam of moonlight always wore a smile despite the burden he carried on his broad shoulders.  “Coming right up!” he chirped, springing to his feet with the vigor of a Brewfest wolpertinger being chased by drunken buffoons to fulfil his coworker’s request.  Sure he had been offered a position as a bartender in the Ledgermain Lounge, but he declined for ‘personal reasons.’  Which his employer attributed to the rumour that his wife was sick and the change in his work schedule would conflict with visiting hours.  It was not entirely false, as there were other reasons for him to actively seek refuge in anonymity.  The busboy is but a thread in the Bartender’s tapestry.  It was the perfect cover for moonlighting as a hired assassin.

Waiting between two specially designated crates in the back stockroom was his next assignment, and Gods knew he needed the gold.  His current position didn’t exactly pay the best wages and the expenses for his wife’s treatment were piling up.  It wasn’t honest work, but it was a means to an end— or so he had hoped.  The recent diagnosis was handed down with the condemnation of a life-sentence unto an innocent soul.  Why did it have to be her?  If anything, he should have been the one to fall ill as a form of penance for his unconventional profession.

Closing time was just around the corner, and with the cask tapped and fitted in its proper place, Oneth excused himself from his shift.  Finding a moment of solitude, he peeked at the hidden piece of parchment that would direct him toward his next ‘target.’  Wiping his sweaty palms on his pants, the porter closed his eyes and took a deep breath to still the hammering in his chest before withdrawing, not one, but two papers stacked neatly together.  He recognized the first, it was from his usual employer, but the other was foreign in both penmanship and vellum.  Postponing the first in favour of the second, Oneth unfolded the note to read its contents:  

Despite what the doctors have convinced you to believe, your wife’s terminal condition is indeed reversible.  Meet me on the easternmost island in Stormheim and be sure to come alone.  Your every move henceforth is being monitored closely.  Breathe a word of this to anyone and she dies today.  I trust you will be discreet.

The other contained a name and a location written in code, so if the paper was discovered it would read as meaningless jargon to untrained eyes.  Oneth glanced up at the clock, his eyes darting from one number to the next as he calculated the time it would take to fulfill his given assignment as well as the impromptu directive.  If he left this instant, he would have enough time to complete both.

Off the coast of Morheim a long and narrow enclave hugs a large portion of the shoreline.  Comprised of mostly rocky terrain, the island is largely uninhabitable save for lichens, crustaceans, roosting birds, and a small colony of bilgefin murlocs who are to credit for its namesake of ‘Bilgefin Shore.’

Oneth arrived by nightfall on the back of his trusted nightsaber, Whisper, who was every bit as quiet as her name implied despite the hulking cat’s size.  When traveling through a murloc colony, it was best to bring a predatory feline with a healthy appetite for amphibious beasts, since these little monsters tended to move in swarms.  Blades drawn and ready to strike, he anticipated an unprovoked attack from the territorial fish-men wielding rudimentary spears as weapons.  It did not sound like much of a challenge until one found themselves to be overcome in an instant by a swarm of carnivorous halflings.  Razor sharp teeth, webbed digits, and bulging eyes offered a great advantage under water, but on land the only safety found was from gathering in overwhelming numbers.  Whisper’s experience took over, and with meals on flippers waddling all around her, she knew she would have her pick of the platter.  Already she was licking her chops and crouching low, her tail ticking like a metronome, waiting for the signal to pounce.

A rain of spears swiftly followed the aggressive battle cry of “Mrglmrglmrglll!!!” and one did not need to be fluent in Nerglish to know they had been spotted.

Whisper sprang into action, snatching a cerulean murloc with iridescent green stripes and snapping its neck in her powerful jaws.  In a single bound, the nightsaber had pinned five of them to the sand, where they met a violent end delivered mercilessly by sharpened teeth and deadly claws.  Oneth dismounted, and immediately jolted from the barrage of frigid water bolts hurled by one of the magic weilders.  Before he could retaliate, however, Whisper was on top of the violet murloc in an instant.  “Save some for me, will you?!” he teased as he sliced through rubbery flesh, inflicting them with a lethal dose of poison he had anointed his blades with earlier.

“Aaaaaughibbrgubugbugrguburgle!” came the cry of their chieftan, and it was followed in unison with a resounding “mlargh!” from the rest of the tribe.  It was unusual behavior for a territorial species, but it appeared as though the angry mob was now... retreating?

The murlocs’ diet consisted primarily of the crimson rockshell crabs co-habiting the area, whatever marine life they managed to spear, and the occasional traveler who wandered too close.  As a direct result of their lifestyle, the air surrounding a murloc dwelling was laden with the nauseating stench of rotting fish caracases.  Freshly added to this revolting bouquet was the odour of spilled blood from their fallen brethren, and in an attempt to diffuse some of the smell, Oneth pulled his mask over his nose.  Shiny bobbles strung into sun-catchers dangled everywhere around the shanty-town, which was the product of repurposed cargo that had washed ashore from passing Vrykul ships.

A chilling breeze blew in from the eastern shore, and with it came a low-rolling fog that chased away the worst of the fetid stench with an aseptic gust of salt sea air.  The sudden onset of this nearly impenetrable mist grounded the seagulls overhead, and had murlocs scrambling up the stilts of their grass roof huts in search of shelter.  Whether their behaviour was driven by instinct or experience, there was an unsettling change in their mannerisms that could only be described as sheer terror.  With a hand resting on the pommel of Whisper’s saddle, the assassin placed his absolute trust in her ability to lead him through the mist using her sharpened senses.

On the horizon, an ambiguous silhouette made manifest within the fog.  At first he believed it to be a ship in the distance, but as it neared the shadow gradually took on the form of a tall, feminine figure.  “Oneth Sagestriker,” she murmured while approaching the assassin, and her words echoed amidst the waves until they too collided with the inevitable shore, “I do hope the murlocs were not too troublesome.”  Her voice was a siren’s song, alluring, yet perilous to those who ventured too close to the water’s edge.

“I have come alone as you have requested.  Now tell me what I must do to spare my wife.”  Taller the silhouette grew, until the woman stood looming over him with the majesty of a Vrykul warrior, a race native to Stormheim whom are believed to be descended from giants.  “Who are you, and why have you called upon me?”  Was he, by some fortuitous chance, in the presence of a Val’kyr, a winged spirit capable of resurrecting the dead?

“I have been given many names,” crooned the mysterious woman, “but you may simply refer to me as the Tide Seer.”  Slowly, the mists parted to reveal a robust woman with seaweed in place of hair and scales shimmering across her verdant skin.  Barnacles clung to her dress, which appeared to be fashioned from the tattered sails of sunken ships.

“I know what you are,” Oneth growled, and the hair on Whisper’s back bristled in response to the contempt seething from her master’s lips as he spat the word, “Kvaldir.”  Not only did it explain the mist’s abrupt arrival, but the reaction it garnered from terrified murlocs as they scurried away from the danger it heralded.

“Tisk, tisk,” she chided while focusing a stare toward him as deep and mysterious as the ocean itself.  “We wouldn’t want your wife to fall into sudden cardiac arrest over a bit of prejudice, now would we?  Mind your manners, assassin, and sharpen your hearing instead of your blades.”  Although thought to be folklore, the Kvaldir were actually a ruthless and barbaric race of corrupt Vrykul who had taken to the seas as opposed to the land.  Primarily elusive humanoids, the only other location they could be found was on the blistering cold isles off the coast of Northrend.

Oneths’ moonlit eyes narrowed into waxing crescents as he countered with a pointed glare.  “Alright, sea witch, I’ll entertain you with an honest question. What makes you so confident you can cure my wife when she has already seen the best doctors gold can buy?”

“There is a way,” she hummed, “ although unconventional as it may seem, the outcome is guaranteed, I assure you.”  A slow smile crept across her pale blue lips as she watched his expression transform from malice to intrigue, “and for a man of your profession there should be no contest.  A life for a life.  Your dearly beloved will live a long and healthy lifespan free of illness, and all you have to do is add one more target to your roster.”  Could it really be that simple?

“How do you plan to accomplish that?”  By this point, his feline companion had nearly doubled in size.  Everything about this encounter rubbed her the wrong way, causing the fur on her body to stand fully erect and tingle with electricity.  

“It is a simple equation of give and take, really.  By trimming lifespan of one individual, it allows the opportunity to transfer the remainder to another.  As for the details, let us simply agree that I have my area of expertise just as you have yours.  Do we have a deal or not?”

Oneth gave pause as he weighed his options, studying every possible aspect and outcome of the business transaction.  “What sort of guarantee do I have that you will keep your word, Tide Seer?”  While he found her offer tempting, the assassin also had enough experience not to bargain blindly.

The creeping mist swirled to life, demonstrating its omnipresence by swallowing the entire coastal shore and the murloc village housed therein.  One by one, each of the aquatic monsters burbled and gasped like fish on dry land before flopping to the sand with a lifeless ‘thud’.  “The only guarantee I am willing to give… is the promise of carrying out my threats.”

A wave of dizziness swept over him and he leaned heavily on Whisper for support.  Unfortunately, the feline was also feeling a bit unsteady on her paws and she hissed, wide-eyed and panicked as her limbs betrayed her, forcing the nightsaber to fall on her belly.  A triumphant smirk pulled at the witch’s lips as she watched him choke on the fog; coughing like a man with a fish bone stuck in his throat, as he collapsed to his knees while clutching his neck.  Without so much as lifting a finger, she had asphyxiated nearly everything within her realm of influence. “Would you doubt my abilities at the cost of your own life?  Perhaps your beloved wife’s?  Or are you not motivated enough to save her?”  

“Alright!” he wheezed, “You have made your point!”  and with his yielding the mists slowly receded.  Oneth gulped down several breaths as though he had discovered the only break in a wall of ice trapping him beneath a frozen lake.  “Who do you want me to kill?”

“He who hails from the floating city, Magister Jadex.”

“A Kirin Tor magus?”  Every burning breath he took scraped like sandpaper against his ribs.  “What would a Kvaldir such as yourself hope to accomplish by killing someone like him?” he puzzled while massaging the center of his chest.

“The Violet peace keepers have overstepped their boundaries.  I intend to send a message for them to cease meddling in Vrykul affairs.  I do not care how you accomplish your task, only that you adhere to the following conditions.”  For each directive she named, the seer counted by peeling back one of her knobby fingers.  “First, he must suffer a slow and excruciating death, and the second is that you deliver a personal message.”

“What is the message you wish for me to convey?”

“One day I will return and he won't be around to see me rise again.”

“Very well,” he sighed reluctantly.  It wasn’t as though he had been given a choice in the matter.  “I shall do as you ask.”

“Take these pearls,” she directed, “place one in his home, and the other next to your wife.  When the elven magus dies, the disease will depart from her body and the remainder of his lifespan shall become hers.  You have precisely twelve hours to uphold your end of the bargain or I shall keep my promise and send her to an early grave.  The shifting sands begin their descent… starting now.”

Before he could protest or request more time to carry out such a daunting task, the Tide Seer dispersed with a splash of salt water and collapsed into a lifeless heap of seaweed on the shore.

Desperation was a cruel motivator, and Oneth understood he needed to make every second count as though it was his wife’s last.

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