#even in undeath

[huramuna]

even in undeath - chapter 1.

lich king aemond x reader a 'world of warcraft' AU. prev | next

The Lich King is the master and lord of the Scourge. Consisting of thousands of walking corpses, disembodied spirits, beasts of the north, and damned mortal men, the Scourge is a terrifying and insidious enemy.

word count: 2.3k

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content: DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT, DUBCON, smut, heavy heavy angst, graphic depictions of violence, allusions to cannibalism, imprisonment, kidnapping, murder, suicidal thoughts and ideation, mutilation of corpses, obsessive aemond, dark aemond, a happy ending is not in our future. PLEASE MIND THE TAGS! This story will be pretty dark.

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It was dark and cold. There was a faint dripping of water somewhere off to the side, but you couldn’t quite see where. The echoes of whimpers ricocheted off of the craggy walls, stinging your eardrums. 

This was the descent into madness, wasn’t it?

You weren’t sure how long you’d been chained up for— how long had it been since your village burned to the ground? Since you watched the ghouls rip apart the cow farmer from down the road. Since you watched hellhounds crunching on little Mary Jay’s bones. Since you had watched your mother and stepfather plead and beg for their lives, for forgiveness, for mercy, for absolution of their supposed sins before the death knight’s sword lopped their heads off. 

How long has it been? 

Shifting slightly, the chain tied to your throat clinked against the wall. There was no light, no passage of time to be had in the dank, pitch black cave they stowed you and a few select others in. You only had on a ragged potato sack as a dress, the sensation of dirt and grime caked on your hair and under your nails making you feel less than human. 

But— you were still human. For now. The Scourge had ravaged the Eastern Kingdoms without mercy, swiping through the North and South like a fast traveling plague, curdling and damning everything it touched. Hordes of undead zombies, ghouls and hellhounds were the first to raze the cities, driving out the people like mice from the walls. Then the banshees came, along with the necromancers to raise the dead, adding them to a forever amounting army.

Not even Quel’thalas had been able to resist it, an ancient elven city hewn in magic.

What chance did you have? 

More than most, evidently. Your mind wrought itself over and over as to why— why were you alive? Why were you still human and not merely a risen thrall? 

The clinking of armor scared you as it ascended the hallway. You pressed close to the wall and closed your eyes. 

Please don’t stop here, please don’t stop here. 

Clink, clink, clink… closer… closer… 

Then it passed, descending further away. You let out a breath, your blood still pumping in your ears. 

Clink, clink, clink. They were coming back. Clink… silence. You felt bile rise in your throat as you shook, the chains rattling noisily. You knew they were standing there, you knew they were here for you. 

A harsh tug upon your chain, your head hitting the floor— some words were mumbled, the voice sounding far away and broken. Your eardrums rang with the ferocity of your fall, drowning out any semblance of what your jailer was saying to you. Then, you were tugged upward, the cool metal of the collar biting into your skin as you were dragged like a petulant child away from your cell… 

You didn’t want to open your eyes. You couldn’t face the horror you knew was around you— corpses, living ones and dead, the clatter of bones, the heavy breathing of gargantuan abominations, bodies and faces of countless people stitched together into a new body, hewn with thread and necrotic magic until it gave way to something else entirely. Something unnatural, something made of nightmares. The dermis of those who were used to make the monsters would still twitch, reach out on its own, and if it had a mouth, it would be twisted into a scream. You swore that you heard them whispering as you were dragged by. 

The monstrosities were one of many abhorrent creatures at the Scourge’s disposal. Hellhounds, ghouls, gargoyles, wraiths, crypt lords, geists, banshees, and other things of horrific nature were only some of the power wielded by the Scourge. It felt like it was all pulled out of a child’s fairytale, changed and twisted and defiled into what it was now. 

It all felt like a very bad dream. 

Your eyes opened on their own and you took in the image of death knights, former paladins who served a higher power, the Light— now are nothing but undead heretics, glowing eyes and gaunt stares that bored through you. 

Some of the monsters chittered as you were dragged past them, leering and looking hungry. 

‘Scrawny that one. Perhaps she will suffice for hellhounds to pick their teeth.’

‘Speak for yourself, her skin will do beautifully on a new abomination.’ 

‘She won’t be knighted. Merely a maid’s bastard, I’ve heard.’

You forced your eyes to close once more, the sudden light stinging them. You forced yourself into another time, a better memory than what you were experiencing. 

They were right, you were a maid’s bastard. Your mother had served in the royal keep for years, with you under her feet. You didn’t know who your true father was, nor did you care.

You became attached to the second son of the King— Aemond Targaryen. He was a sprightly boy with near white hair and luminous violet eyes. The two of you were attached at the hip. 

Childhood friendship blossomed into more as you grew into teenagers and young adults— you shared your first kiss together, you held hands and shared sweet nothings. As he trained by day to become a paladin of the Light, he held you close by night, vowing to never let you go. You were both terribly in love and so terribly, terribly naive. He was your first in everything– your first friend, your first kiss, your first lover. You promised yourself that he would stay your first and only.

‘You can never marry a maid’s bastard, Aemond! You’re a prince of the realm-‘

‘I don’t care! I want her, father. I’ve always wanted her!’

Your mother quit her job at the castle— moreso, threatened into quitting by some of the King’s advisors. She was given a considerable amount of coin and told to take you far, far away and to not contact the prince again. 

Heartbroken, you left him your sapphire ring, the only thing of value you ever had, which had been passed down through your mother’s family for generations. 

It was left on his desk with a note of few words but much feeling. 

‘I love you. I’m sorry.’ 

That was over ten years ago. You hadn’t seen him since, but you missed him horribly. Especially now. You wondered if he was still alive, fighting against the Scourge like his knightly vows dictated. 

Maybe he was married and moved across the sea to Kalimdor where it was safer. 

Or maybe he was dead. Dead like almost everyone else you knew. 

You heard a rumor, fleeting and without much more information, that his father had died– no, that his father had been murdered. The fall of the king, Viserys, is what started the Scourge war. Did Aemond know, wherever he was? 

You imagined him holding his arms around you, kissing your neck and fanning his breath over your skin. He liked to encompass you completely with his body when you laid together— you never could emulate the feeling with heavy blankets and pillows, as much as you tried. Putting yourself back into that memory, you wrapped your arms around yourself, willing warmth into your body. 

But you didn’t feel any warmth. All you felt was cold, cold down to your bones. They felt brittle, like ice, splintering into shards as you were thrown on the floor again in a different room. Pain bloomed in your arm as it cracked at an awkward angle. Broken. 

Your ears rang again as your mouth opened into a scream, tears of pure anguish squeezing from your eyes. But you didn’t hear a thing besides the rush of blood dampening your senses— and the sickening crunch of your broken bones. 

‘What have you done to it, Lady Deathwhisper? It looks broken.’ 

‘It’s human bones are so brittle, it was merely a slip of the hand. I cannot help that their living constitution is so weak.’ 

‘His grace will not be pleased if it is broken beyond repair.’ 

‘Worry not, Lady Alys. Most things can be mended— and if not, it can always be raised.’ 

‘Physical defects aren’t the only issue. What of its mind?’

You feel an acute sensation over your skull, reaching into the depths of your cranium. Its cold, but not stinging— like a soft caress upon your brain as your mind is rifled through like a tome. You can feel your memories being perused, all of the most intimate moments of your life flashing in your head like playwright’s prose. The physicality of your mind being invaded wasn’t painful, but the act of your memories being ripped from you was damning. Tears fell down your face on their own, your mouth opened into a silent scream.

‘She is the one— I saw it. You are lucky that you did not break her mind completely, Lady Deathwhisper.’ 

‘As are you. You do not have a deft hand when it comes to memory perusal, Lady Alys. I am surprised that it still has a brain in its skull.’ 

‘Shut up and bring her to him. He will be pleased she is still alive. Barely.’ 

You felt yourself being moved again, still reeling from the invasion of your mind. You tried to put yourself back into the safe haven of memories, but they were… locked. Locked behind an iron door with no keyhole. They were lost to you. 

What were you trying to remember? 

Flashes of white hair and violet eyes flitted behind your eyelids, soft caresses and kisses, heavy breathing and love filled promises, the sensation of skin to skin… 

Your eyes opened, vision bleary. A helmed woman followed behind you, wings outstretched. You could see the glint of green eyes under her helm. Val’kyr. The woman behind you was a Val’kyr, a spirit guide who defected to the side of the Scourge. They could move between the realm of living and dead as simply as taking a breath. 

“The little human is awake,” she mused. “Your mind isn’t broken after all? I do see a glint of intelligence behind those eyes. Keep them on me, you shan’t wish to look upon Lady Deathwhisper.” 

You didn’t want to speak, words caught in your throat like food stuck in your craw. A val’kyr was basically an angel of death and talking to one must mean you are dead. 

You wish you were. 

The chains scraped against the floor, which was no longer stone like before, but rather, hardened ice. You were ascending upward, it seemed. The architecture of the building was nothing like you’d ever seen— dark metal was plated upon the walls, inscribed with glowing runes. The runes looked… familiar to you, somehow. But the memory that contained them was locked away, or mayhaps stolen by the Val’kyr, Alys. 

The temperature was cold, you were being lofted upon ice, of course, but you didn’t wholly feel it. You were partially numb, heat radiating from your broken arm. You knew you should be feeling pain— but you were just… numb. 

Your escorts stopped in front of two large doors, inscribed with the same glowing runes. Against Alys’ advice, you glanced at ‘Lady Deathwhisper’. She was skeletal, floating upon the ground with no legs to speak of. Her robes were purple fabric, molded around an incorporeal body. She spoke in a language you didn’t understand, the scratchy voice of hers coming out of a bone skull, but the mouth wasn’t moving, maw open as the words came out. 

You should have listened to Alys. 

The door opened with a rumble, opened by ancient magic, likely imbued by the runes, as they flickered and flitted above your head as it opened. The room beyond was open and bereft of almost anything, except for a throne. A throne forged of ice and swords. 

Someone was sitting upon it in a lazed position, one plated gloved finger tapping on the arm of the throne.

“We’ve brought her, your grace,” Lady Deathwhisper growled, shoving you forward. You skidded across the floor, which felt slick like grazing atop an ice-capped lake. “Alys confirmed it is her.”

The clinking of armor caught your attention, the sound of metal grazing against ice. It was irritating and made you grind your teeth. As whoever was on the throne got closer, the force was oppressive. Whimpers and tiny cries were ripped from you as they walked towards you, the aura exuding from them causing you to fall flat to the ground, feeling as if someone was sitting atop of your chest and not letting up.

The steel plated boot was in front of you now and your hair was grabbed rather harshly, pulling you up. 

Don’t look, don’t look. You cannot look.

“Look. At. Me.” the voice growled. It was quiet but commanding at the same time, rattling in your bones and making a home amongst the marrow. It felt familiar… so… 

You lifted your bloodshot eyes, not out of your own volition, but from the authority of the voice.

“Hello, little dove.” he mused.

It was him. It was… it… Aemond. You knew him so well, even with ten years gone. His chiseled jawline and chin and the dimple of the tip of his nose… 

But his eye was missing, a jagged scar bisecting it. In its place was a sapphire. The sapphire from your ring, grown into something to make home in the socket.

You felt everything and nothing all at once, your stomach flipped and flopped like a fish hoisted from the sea, sputtering for air. You couldn’t breathe, you couldn’t–

Your best friend, your lover, the one you vowed to never forget, to never forsake.

Aemond Targaryen. 

Aemond Targaryen was the Lich King. A defiler, a mass murderer, an unholy being in his own right.

“Now you won’t be able to leave again, will you?” Aemond murmured, his violet eye roving you. It was glowing slightly– his skin was a pale gray pallor, cheeks sunken slightly. He was undead.

Your eyes rolled back in your head, vision going black.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 241

Wing au? Wing Au. With perhaps a bit of a twist. Also a hint of eldritchness perhaps. For fun! 

Ghosts have wings. Sure, they aren’t normally seen, not in the visible spectrum, but they do. Scanners pick them up, and sometimes a ghost might even reveal them, which was hypothesized to be some sort of animalistic intimidation attempt. (Something more than one Amity Parker rolled their eyes at)

Everyone had seen them at least once- the motorcycle-driving ghost’s mass of shadowy feathers, the green-haired girls matching shaggy ones, the rocker’s ones that looked like pages of music before bursting into flame. Even the box ghost’s had been spotted- feathers looking more like sheets of cardboard than anything else. 

It wasn’t until the whole kidnapped to the ghost zone that anyone saw Phantom’s, but that was another tale unto itself really. Honestly the arrival of the GIW would have maybe been seen as positive before, but the fact that many of them had looked in the mirror or gone to the doctors only to find feathers beginning to sprout on their back soured it. 

Especially as the GIW continues to prattle on and on about how all ecto-contaminated scum are less than human, less than bacteria. And well, what does that make them? Them, who have been to the realms of the dead and gods and back, touched by the swirling green energy in ways incomprehensible? Changed by that energy? 

So the people silently brush hidden feathers together, quietly rebuff the white-wearing lunatics from the city as best they can, and hope to anything listening that they can stop anyone else from disappearing. That maybe they can find the few no one noticed had been taken before it’s too late, even if they have to tear down the entire government to do it. 

[shadeswift99]

Limited life.

Ooh, how spooky. Imagine! Only 24 hours to live! Imagine, that time just ticking away, being forced to watch it go, until your inevitable gristly end! Pieces of it being ripped away from you along the way, unexpectedly! The horror! The inevitability! The drama!

Cleo never understood the hype. After all, it was better than anything she got, all those years ago before she turned zombie. At least this time she could see it coming. Frankly, the idea was almost relaxing.

To her, anyway. She idly picked at a splinter on the handle of her axe as she watched Bdubs and Skizz circle each other in the matted grass ring. Of course there had been posturing - it was Bdubs and Skizz, after all - but when it came down to it neither of them seemed especially inclined to take the first shot. Skizz jittered forward, teeth bared in a snarl, but he skirted to the side last minute. Bdubs laughed and taunted, but he showed no signs of doing any better in the initiation department. Cleo smirked. Men. Boys, really.

They'd regret this, in the end. As the clock wore down and 00:00:00 became less of a vague idea and more a thing they could see bearing down on them, they'd curse their past selves for throwing away precious seconds for the sake of a grudge. Or maybe, they'd just be consumed by more bloodlust, scrambling to regain a fragment of the time they'd lost. It's fear, either way. And they'd come to it way too late to end up where Cleo already was, undead and long past seeing a ticking clock as any kind of worry. They'll all have wasted too much time on processing by then to see what's on the other side of that fear.

Freedom.

Imagine. You know when you're going to die. By exclusion, that means you know when you're not going to die. You know it's not tomorrow, or today, and those are guarantees you don't get anywhere else. So - what do you do? You burn a mansion. Hell, two if you feel like it. You bait Jimmy, you poke fun at Joel, you make alliances with everyone you can so they'll betray you sooner so you can get that out of the way so you can have more stuff to burn - it's fun, if you shake the nerves early. Ignorance is not bliss. Make friends with the idea that death is inevitable and give yourself the luxury of a farewell party you'll enjoy.

All the things she wished she'd done, when she was still alive. All the things she still probably wouldn't have done if she'd known.

Instead, she'd have just done this. Squander life on recklessness early on. Squander it on fear later.

Skizz circled Jimmy. Jimmy circled Skizz. The others looked on and cheered, while their clocks ticked silently on. Finally the two leapt at each other, shields thumping and armour sparking as diamond and metal and shouts rang loud. Cleo rolled her eyes.

She turned to dispatch a skeleton that crept up while the others were distracted. By the time she'd reduced the bones to dust, the fight was over. Skizz gloated. Bdubs grumbled. Cleo made all the right sympathetic sounds and faces.

She'd missed the end. It didn't matter. She'd already seen it.

[y-rhywbeth2]

On the plus side of maybe handing your leash to Jergal, he can apparently be fond of people; he apparently likes members of the Order of the Long Death - a monastic order dedicated to the study and understanding of death and undeath. They also like torturing people to death and recording the results, so we can assume Jergal is a-ok with Durge continuing to... well, Durge. He'd just like them to do it for scientific reasons rather than murderhobo reasons. Apply yourself, expand your horizons, you know. (Durge probably already did this anyway) Also don't look too far because he still likes an air of mystique.

And also he's known to send his followers/pawns back to Toril as undead when they die and maybe I'll actually get to mummify my Durge, as I for some reason am obsessed with doing.

I will also tolerate vampirism if nothing else is available.

[sn0wbat]

sparkle on, tiberius ✨

[vorestarr]

i love how when you meet Astarion at the beginning of the game, his alignment is neutral evil, and then after all his potential growth and character arc you get to the branch in act 3 at the end of his quest where depending on your choice you either don't let him perform the ritual and he stays neutral evil, or you let him ascend and he stays neutral evil.

[chamerionwrites]

Anyway I think maybe I've wandered off into the weeds here thanks to my own immense frustration/morbid fascination with a certain sort of narrative. And I think maybe it's all too easy to wander into the weeds when what you're talking about is this very solipsistic style of superficially-critical storytelling, which is uneasy about imperialism only insofar as it threatens to harm imperialists or imperialistic societies. Which - if not already intended that way to begin with! - is certainly incredibly easy to co-opt into the service and defense of empire (Doing An Imperialism Made Our Soldiers Sad -> therefore you must uncritically valorize them, because condemnation of imperialism adds to their suffering you monster). It's hard to talk about without feeling like you're falling into a similar trap of being endlessly curious about the inner lives of imperialists - even if that curiosity takes the form of "wanting to put their fucked up psychology under a microscope" - at the expense of focusing on their victims.

But at the same time I do think that a complete critique of imperialism mentions (as Césaire does) the way it tends to rot the people and societies that practice it from within. And I do find it fascinating that amidst all the contorted cognitive dissonance of Conrad et al, they still express something along those lines. And this is only one of the many reasons that Discourse On Colonialism lives in my head rent-free

[tyrannuspitch]

here's a headcanon i've only just consciously realised i have:

whether it actually exists or not, mcu valhalla is meant to look like you expect: golden halls and courtyards where the warriors can endlessly feast and find glory in battle.

but mcu hel(heim) is meant to look like a battlefield after the battle is won. empty ash and mud and wasteland. mist, or smoke, or smog, or acid rain. visible decay that never cycles back to feeding new life. maybe traces of unidentifiable ruins or bones. hel is where those who died "without honour" go, the pointless deaths, the innocents, and so the supposed honour and glory are never visible there.

hel is where the enemies of asgard will (allegedly) one day rise up from - all the people they fed into the meat-grinder of their empire, all the women and children, the commoners and collateral damage, the so-called barbarians and slaves - and they can see that empire for the utterly bleak and pointless evil it is, and they're villainised for it. "the monstrous hordes of the undead". the ghosts on a nation's guilty conscience.

some of the monsters asgardians tell their children about are living, but the worst of them, the true existential threat, are the innocent people they haven't murdered yet. and the constant fear/shame of not dying well is only the fear of becoming one of them.

[endawn]

"Indiscriminate death. Set upon by the gnawing and the rabid. Cyrodiil's candle flickers and is snuffed. Servants and superiors -- no one is spared the sharp tooth, ridged blade, or diseased hook, barb, or beak. And Mol.ag Bal will watch from his palace in Coldha.rbour where everything stares back at him with his own face, and he will gloat, and mock, and gorge on the souls of mortals."

—Flaccus Terentius

"Mehr.unes Dagon revels in direct destruction—his cultists will set your city on fire and burn it to the ground. Mol.ag Bal exists to dominate and deceive—his cultists will persuade you that a plague is loose, and the only way to stop it is to burn your city down yourself."

—Flaminius Auctor

Mo.lag Bal is a master of all forms of domination over mortals, including the arts of illusion. As a matter of course the Lord of Brutality prefers lies to the truth—except when the truth is more cruel.[40]

The Dark Father,[QD 13][QD 14] the Father of Vampires,[D 8][D 9] Lord of the Undead,[BK 31] and the Father of Undeath[BK 6] are nicknames derived from Mola.g Bal's association with vampires and the undead. Regardless of whether or not they revere him, vampires who recognize Mol.ag Bal as the progenitor of the first vampire may refer to him as the Dark Father. Scholars and laymen who are familiar with Mol.ag Bal's association with vampires or his propensity for raising the dead may refer to him as either of the latter.[QD 13]

honestly mol.ag is like the dead 3 wrapped into one great big bag of dicks

[thedragonagelesbian]

the thing about me is i think about characters being able to show someone the kindness and support that they never themselves received and i start. crying.

[georgiacooked]

poor Arthur 😥

POOR BOY

[huramuna]

i am screaming that you did a WoW au fanfic for aemond-- it never even occurred to me but lich king aemond is the best thing possible. thank you so much!!!

Hehehe!!! You’re so welcome!!! It literally wouldn’t leave my mind for months so I had to write it.

Arthas was where my white haired men obsession started so now i’ve come full circle 🤭🤭

[undermostcorgi]

ANOTHER ONE

[byanyan]

actually ngl, i have been playing with the idea of byan, at some point in their fledgling verse, probably years down the line, eventually coming to work at some shitty little 24 hour tattoo shop

[aeide-thea]

i had a one-reply-per-person, civil-on-both-sides disagreement with a stranger in someone else's comments recently, after which i subsequently became aware that my interlocutor had blocked me, and honestly—i'm pleased about it? because we did fundamentally disagree, we weren't going to convince each other, and while i personally could've lived with seeing them around (they weren't insulting, just wrong!), it's also honestly reassuring to know that at least one person who has me blocked did so on the basis of an interaction where i'm totally comfortable with what i was saying and how i comported myself! really takes the sting out of blocking tbh. ☺️

[blujayonthewing]

I don't know that I'm ever gonna actually pull the trigger on it but I do love contemplating giving Aubree a little divine magic without her realizing it