(no subject)

[sadsack]

Who: Bariyan e Kodhi
Broadcast: Whole network | Voice
Action: The Marsiva
When: March 17th or whenever's convenient honestly

Broadcast:

[ Bariyan's voice is low, scratchy, and calm. He's got one simple not-at-all cryptic question: ]

Who here should I watch out for?

Action:

Bariyan's awakening is objectively boring: he'd opened his eyes, gotten out of his bunk, and stared in silence as he'd tried to absorb recent events. And recent knowledge. Then, after some sense of reality had settled back in, he'd merely skulked about the deck until he found... something.

It was black. Mostly. It looked a bit like a cart. At the same time, it looked like nothing Bariyan had ever encountered before.

By the powers of Bariyan's torpid mind and his augment combined, he eventually came to the conclusion that he could walk on it.

It's a treadmill.

He's been walking on it for almost an hour now, arms crossed, shoulders hunched, expression stormy. Looking for all the world like he's trying to storm off somewhere, and getting absolutely nowhere.

Comments

action

[respired]

Koltira's been wandering the halls of the Marsiva for hours now, wary and confused. On the one hand, he's not screaming beneath the Undercity. On the other hand, where is he?

Interstellar travel is not a foreign concept; he's been to the Outlands, he's heard tell of draenei and their vast spaceships. Floating among the stars isn't the difficult concept here. But everything else -- the broadcasts, the foreign knowledge swimming in his memory, the amenities of the ship -- was inexplicable.

As is this man he's come across. A man with no pulse, no heartbeat, and the dark hiss of necromancy clinging to his body. A man with stitches on his neck.

"What are you doing?" he says, raising an eyebrow.

Exercise doesn't benefit the dead.

[sadsack]

Slowly, without moving his head, Bariyan turns his gaze upon Koltira. He doesn't stop walking. He doesn't even do Koltira the courtesy of uncrossing his arms. He does, however, straighten up.

Koltira's appearance is strange, as is the fact that he's also clearly a walking, lifeless monstrosity. And carrying a great big pulsing sword. Under normal circumstances, Bariyan would be halfway out a window by now -- but here, he's had enough time to contemplate that "space" and "immortal self-repairing zombie" would probably be a very unhappy combination.

So he just narrows his eyes at Koltira instead.

"Escaping," Bariyan answers, flatly. "What are you doing?"

[respired]

"Escaping," Koltira repeats. He glances down at the treadmill, which is going nowhere at a moderate speed. Glances up at Bariyan. "To where, exactly?"

[sadsack]

Bariyan's gaze grows unfocused, wistful.

"To a place where people answer my questions, for once," he sighs. Then his expression sharpens. He looks back at Koltira. "But I suppose what you are doing is self-evident, anyway."

He steps off, but leaves the treadmill running, and stays standing upon its side panel. The additional height almost puts him at eye-level with Koltira.

"What do you want?" Bariyan asks. His voice is level. There is no accusation or hostility in his voice -- no more than usual, anyway -- it's a genuine question. Koltira must want something. Better cut to the chase.

[respired]

"You are the only other person I've seen so far," Koltira says, his curiosity souring to irritation. "Unfortunately."

He doesn't know how to answer the question. He doesn't want anything, not even a way home, not even an explanation. Being brought here took him from a fate worse than his present undeath. He honestly isn't complaining.

So he just shrugs. Nothing.

[sadsack]

"I'm hardly a person," Bariyan mutters. His shoulders slump as he starts to sink back into his usual slouched posture, as if Koltira's words have somehow wounded him. But his eyes remain sharp, critical. He looks Koltira in the eye. "I'd hazard that you aren't, either."

[respired]

"Not living," Koltira says, holding Bariyan's gaze. "Not human."

He leans against one of the bars of the treadmill, his armor-plated fingers scratching up the metal. "But sentient all the same."

[sadsack]

Bariyan gives Koltira's armored hand a look. He was going to use that bar. He needs something to casually lean on, too.

Deprived of his support, Bariyan settles back into his timeworn slouch-slightly-and-cross-arms pose.

"All right, I guess that passes as human enough in these parts," Bariyan says. He looks Koltira up and down again. "For a given degree of human. What would you call yourself?"

[respired]

"Blood elf," he responds. He doubts the term will mean anything to Bariyan, but it's the only one he's got. "And what degree of human are you?"

[sadsack]

"You don't look very bloody to me," Bariyan replies, automatically, hardly registering the words until they're all the way out of his mouth.

His eyes widen in embarrassment at his own stupid response. Then he just powers through the moment.

"I don't consider myself human," Bariyan says, speaking quickly. "But that's neither here nor there."

He steps off the treadmill, puts a hand to his chest, and executes a small, awkward bow. Keeping his eyes on Koltira the whole while.

"Bariyan," he says, by way of introduction.

[respired]

Koltira's about to snap back a response, but he's caught off-guard by the sudden formality.

"Koltira," he says, straightening up. His tone is a little less aggrieved as he continues. "And the name refers to history."

[sadsack]

"All right. Should we talk about how we died, now, or is that a conversation for later?" Bariyan asks, still stiffly formal. His dress blues only accentuate the cool politeness that's settled between them; unfortunately, he'd been pulled into this world straight from an event that required him to be presentable.

[respired]

"By all means," Koltira says. "Enlighten me."

[sadsack]

"I was rather hoping you'd go first," Bariyan grumbles. But he squares his shoulders and starts to walk away from the treadmill, slowly, as he continues.

"It wasn't interesting," Bariyan says. "A mercenary cut my head off."

[respired]

"A man ran me through," Koltira says. The corner of his mouth quirks up. "We're good friends now, though."

[sadsack]

"Good for you," Bariyan says, vaguely. "Though strange."

If Koltira doesn't come after him, Bariyan's just going to keep walking away. He's done with this general area of the ship, he's ready to be elsewhere.

[respired]

Koltira lets Bariyan get a little ahead of him before he follows. He's tall, and takes long strides; he's caught up soon, and has to moderate his pace thereafter.

"No," Koltira says. "It wasn't. In the end."

[sadsack]

"You can't say something like that and not continue," Bariyan says, barely turning a head as Koltira catches up to him.

He both hates and loves the emptiness of this deck; it's eerie, and discomfiting, but it's also the most peace and quiet that Bariyan's had in years. He can't recall having ever gone this long without someone popping up to ask something of him. So that's nice, in a way.

[respired]

"You first," Koltira says. He watches Bariyan carefully as they walk together. He can sense the magic holding Bariyan's body together, the necromancy -- but it's foreign to him, inexplicable.

[sadsack]

Bariyan's irritated by the response. His answer didn't merit explanation -- he was killed by a mercenary, mercenaries tend to kill people, the fact that this particular one had shared a close history with him and held a strong grudge was besides the point -- Koltira had the far more interesting story. Yet he's prying information out of Bariyan before he tells it.

There's not much of a way out of this situation, either. Bariyan sighs.

"What? Some mercenaries were sent to kill me. One of them succeeded. Then I was raised, as a..." Bariyan waves his hands in the air, shrugs. "...guardian, of a sort. I've made no friends in this time. I do my job, I do it well. Or I did, until now."

[respired]

Koltira knows as well as anyone that mercenaries don't just kill anybody for any reason. They had to be ordered, and they typically weren't cheap. Someone -- or someones -- had wanted Bariyan gone, very badly, and to Koltira that was the more interesting story.

No one had specifically come seeking Koltira's demise. He was simply collateral damage.

Instead of asking further questions, though, Koltira honors the quid pro quo.

"It was a war," Koltira says. "Many people died. Some of us were brought back."

[sadsack]

Bariyan grudgingly accepts this answer -- he supposes he deserves vague, clipped replies if that's all he's giving in turn.

"By what? For what purpose?" Bariyan thinks he can get away with more questions. He's already offered up the reasons for his raising, free of charge.

[respired]

"His name was Arthas," Koltira says. He sneers, but it's at the memory, not Bariyan. "The human prince of a kingdom in my world, corrupted by a powerful runeblade."

He indicates Byfrost, still glowing softly on his back. Byfrost was no Frostmourne -- it held only one soul, rather than legions -- but they were not so different, conceptually.

"His armies ravaged my homeland," Koltira continues, because Bariyan has been just so generous. "Most of my people are gone. And those that remain ..."

He shrugs. Certainly, he'd switch places with a living blood elf any day of the week, but their fate had not been kind, either.

[sadsack]

Bariyan doesn't have an immediate reply to any of that. So for a while afterwards, they just walk in silence, until Bariyan breaks it with an awkward cough.

"It's not pleasant, is it?" Bariyan asks, not as a genuine question, but as commiseration.

[respired]

"In many ways," Koltira says. He's walking briskly, though not too brisk -- can't let Bariyan get away -- and watching Bariyan now from the corner of his eye.

Time for a segue. "Who wanted you dead?"

Okay, so. Not really.