driftfleet | (no subject)

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"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.

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.

"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.

Bariyan shoots Koltira a look that can only be described as hunted. He keeps his gaze upon Koltira, but fidgets with his sleeves, with the new bump of the augment behind his ear.

"Our empress. She needed a sacrifice. Someone to turn into... this." Bariyan pauses in his fidgeting to gesture down at himself. "This, what I am, it could have been anyone. But I was her favorite choice."

That wording makes Bariyan smile. He looks away, tugs on his sash. "And the easiest. The man who killed me would have done so for free, I think. He wasn't fond of me."

It's been years since Catsovi killed him, and it's gotten a little easier to reflect upon the event and all the terrible things that had led up to him. But not that much easier.

It's a decent enough answer. Koltira considers pressing the issue further, asking more questions. A sacrifice, but for what? Why was he the best candidate? Why did his murderer hate him? But Koltira is not blind to Bariyan's discomfort.

"My death was not so complicated," he says. "My city was under attack. I defended it, and I lost."

"Your death is much more tragic," Bariyan says, again, absent-mindedly. Once the idiocy of his reply has caught up to him, he stumbles a bit in his next step, raises a hand to his mouth. "Uhm. Not to compare. I mean to say... my condolences."

"I don't know," Koltira says. "Being hunted down by my own country sounds a bit worse."

He shrugs. "Not that many of them appreciate me now. Or any of us."

"It wasn't quite... my country...." Bariyan shrugs it off. He doesn't want to get back on that track of conversation. He barrels on, hopefully before Koltira can pry into it. "Were there many of your sort?"

Koltira isn't a scholar, but he recognizes deflection when he sees it. Again, he considers pressing for clarification, for more information, but -- there will be time for that later. Plenty of time.

"Which sort," he says. "Elves? Death knights?" He pauses. "Elven death knights?"