Lady and Knight (2/4)

(( The second in a series of events told from the perspective of Harrowheart and Lieselotte Durant. Lieselotte's Companion Piece Pt. 2
Previous entries: Harrowheart's Perspective Pt. 1 and Lieselotte's Perspective Pt. 1 ))

Mrs. Durant talked a little while about the Alters after we went back to Dalaran. I tuned her ass out, no offense. Nodded a lot, shook my head sometimes. I think she realized I wasn’t being respectful and after a while I had to push away everything I was thinking about and just focus on her.

What’s the value of those lands the Alters have?
Not bad, I told her. Redridge has marble and sandstone and farmland and a real big, real nice lake. Stranglethorn’s a nasty place to live, all hot and humid, but that’s where coffee comes from, and all the goblins ship and trade through there. Grizzly Hills is full of redwoods, but it’s dangerous and wild.

Do they have any debts?
I don’t know, but I could try and find out. In the end it turns out they really don’t. They barely afford all the shit they got, but they ain’t in debt to anyone. Other folks are in debt to them. That’s their whole thing, making folks rely on them. I didn’t like that, but I didn’t say as much.

How’d I like Zandros?
I wanted to lie, I wanted to say he was a real nasty bastard and rude and swore, but I’m a horrible liar for one, and for two I told her on the first night that he was real nice to me. Plus, she saw him. She saw how nice and friendly he acted. Real mannered and all. My thoughts got kinda far away when I remembered him and tried to force away how mad I was at where the conversation went. All I could think about was his handsome face and how jealous I was. He was better looking than me and didn’t have a horsey face. His hair was long, and I bet he could grow a beard or mustache if Isidor asked him to. His hands were warm I bet. He wouldn’t have to run hot water over them so that she wouldn’t twitch if he touched her stomach. He could laugh with just one voice and eat a meal and really enjoy it. He could fall asleep with her in his arms and really fall asleep. The kind of sleep that if she moved he might wake up and kiss her. What could I do that he couldn’t do? Take a sword to the guts, maybe. I imagined he wouldn’t last too long with all his insides spilled out. I remembered how it was so cold in Northrend that people’s blood would steam when it hit the ice. I thought about that a little while.

Thinking about that made me feel better after a minute or two and I could talk again. I told Lieselotte the truth: He had good manners, and he’s real handsome, and he’s gotta be loyal to fight for Stormwind. I said he was impressive and brave. I told her all the things he is, and it ate me up inside cause he was so damn perfect in every way a guy can be.

I felt bad that I wanted to take it out on Mrs. Durant, but like I said, it ain’t like she knows. Isidor and I are real quiet about how we feel about each other. We try to be anyways. Adia’s real smart and she copped on that I like her, and Runa guessed too, but nobody knows that she likes me back. She’s better at hiding things than me. Sometimes I wish she wasn’t. I wish she’d just tell me everything that’s on her mind and in her heart, but if she did that sort of thing then she wouldn’t be Isidor. But anyway she’s real good at being quiet about our relationship, and I try to be quiet too. Even if we weren’t, I don’t think we’d tell her mother. Even if we did, she wouldn’t approve. Not just cause I’m undead, cause the Durants like to bang monsters and that’s just a fact. Mostly, I figure, because of the children.

Children.
That’s what it all comes down to. Durants need to have children. Two at least, I’d guess. One to be a patron, one to be a scholar. That’s how it was at the engagement party, anyways. Every scholar had a patron. Which means that Viatorus and Runa, someday they’ll have two kids. And Isidor...

She already told me she don’t want ‘em. She don’t wanna be a mother, she don’t wanna be pregnant. How can her mother force her to do that? Treat her like a broodmare like that? I got mad just thinking about it and had to bite my tongue when Mrs. Durant kept asking me questions. Isidor’s a person. It ain’t fair for them to do this to her and call it ‘destiny’ and ‘lineage’ and all those words as if they ain’t treating her like a dog to breed. It ain’t fair for them to turn her ‘no’ into a ‘yes.’ Where I come from we got a word for that, and it ain’t a good one either.

I’d never make her have kids.

But.

Maybe that’s easy for me to say now.

Eventually Mrs. Durant decided that I ought to go back to Stormwind, and I’m a stupid asshole idiot so I said I would. Despite it all I wanna help her and her family. Mostly I wanna help Isidor. If Mrs. Durant is on the hunt for a man for Isidor, and if that man can’t be me... Can’t he at least be a good man? Can’t I make sure he’s someone Isidor might say ‘yes’ to?

I can try.

Back at the Cathedral gardens I was approached by a lady who kept her hand up to her eyes when she talked to me like I’m some kinda fuckin’ leper or something. Guess rich folks ain’t used to seeing the living dead. Then she spoke with a Lordaeron accent! I thought ‘She has to have seen us before.’ But she kept doing it the whole time, so I rolled with it.

She said she was the lady of House Tenemil, a Lordaeronian family (no shit) that knew the Alters. The Alters told her there was ‘a corpse’ looking for connections for his Lady of Another World. I said that was me, sure, and she said she had a proposition for me. She had an unmarried son, too, and she wanted my Lady to meet him. I told her fine, sure, tomorrow. She gave me the time and the place.

The Tenemil Manor

The Tenemils came from Lordaeron, and you’d guess it by the place they live. It was a big old... I don’t know the word. Like a house where city-folk live, the kind all in a row right there in town, but bigger than I’d figure they usually are. It was city-style for sure, except maybe it was just a regular mansion. Lady Tenemil hurried up to greet us all by herself. She wore a veil over her head and looked like Steve’s Virgin Mary. I saw she had a cross of the Light necklace and I knew I was in for some shit.

She actually had to have a mage come and de-ward their house so I didn’t get fried right away, but before I could step through the door she handed me a veil. I gave it to Mrs. Durant, but Lady Tenemil insisted it was for me. She said her family won’t speak with corpses! That if I was going to be Mrs. Durant’s translator I’d have to hide my face so preserve their honor. Excuse me?

Mrs. Durant caught on to what was going on when I started to put it on (I felt stupid and I was embarrassed) and she told me that I would do no such thing. She told me to tell Lady Tenemil that I was her representative and a guest, and wouldn’t it be wrong to ask a guest to do that? I tried to tell Mrs. Durant I’d wear it, but she insisted. Lady Tenemil caved, but I felt real out of place all afternoon after that.

Inside their house it was lit for shit, but I could tell it was fancy. There was fancy raised moulding all over the walls and ceiling and gold foil paint on everything. Rugs on the walls showed famous battles and big old paintings of Lordaeron scenery were all over the ceilings. There was big old chandeliers, too. Actually, they were electric chandeliers. I forgot how special that is on Azeroth and forgot to be surprised when their shithead ratface son pointed them out later.

Anyway.

The Tenemils did the setting aside of weapons, too, but they wanted me to put my runeblades in a box so I couldn’t even see ‘em. I didn't like that and asked Mrs. Durant what I oughta do. She stood up for me again. The whole thing was a real embarrassing time. Lady Tenemil kept insisting that normally they’re very welcome to outsiders, it’s just me they don’t know how to deal with. I could tell, too. Lord Tenemil did nothing but stare me down all hateful-like, and their brat son looked at me like he ain’t ever seen a death knight before. I heard him ask his father if they could buy me to be their servant.

I wasn’t surprised when the Tenemils told me that they’re religious people, but they were real surprised when I told ‘em the Durants are into God-worship. They didn’t like it one bit and their son said ‘That’s for trolls.’ I told Mrs. Durant that later and told her the ‘buying me’ thing too, but not right in front of them just in case they’d get fake and clean up their act. But anyway, they said they’d try and spread Earth’s God-worship on Azeroth if that got them in the Durants’ good graces.

The Tenemils have a lot of money, turns out. They’re in the shipping business and they got port space all over. They tried to tell me they own land in Lordaeron and I had to keep from laughing. I turned to Mrs. Durant and said they’re crazy people who think they own part of a country that belongs to the undead. I couldn’t tell if she even understood what I meant, but I feel like she had to cause I know she ain’t stupid.

The Tenemils are the last of their family. I told Mrs. Durant that the undead probably ate the rest when Lordaeron got taken. Some of them are probably still out there as undead just like me (but will yellow eyes, which makes them Forsaken, so not like me at all.) Them being the last of their family meant they were real eager to make new acquaintances and to get their son out there to have more kids. He didn’t look too comfortable with that. I found out he was 22 years old, which is old enough to have kids, sure, but he sure looked and acted like a dumb teenager. Real weak jaw, dark skin, big nose, black hair with big bangs that made him look like a kid.

I asked him if he knows any magic, since I know the Durants care about that. When I got to talking with him I realized he pretty much says whatever’s on his mind. I mean, shoot, me too, but it’s different when I do it. He couldn’t hardly stay on topic or answer my questions for himself and kept looking to his mother and father for answers. Anyway, turns out he lives in Dalaran most of the year and studies Arcane magic. He’s real good at portals, which his mother kept interrupting to tell me, but I get the feeling that’s all he’s good at. In the end I told Mrs. Durant he could be considered a planeswalker, just like Viatorus, but that’s a real generous way of saying ‘he’s a magical taxi cab.’

I couldn’t wait to get outta there, but I tried not to show it. We had to be real respectful to their faces, but once we left their mansion we could talk shit about them. I felt real sneaky. Rich folks got one thing right: Talking bad behind people’s backs is fun.

I told Mrs. Durant that Isidor ain’t gonna like Gardin cause he’s a little dipshit. I don’t think she was surprised. I did say that their port lands were good, but land and money’s just about all they got going for them. Plus they’re real weird, if she didn’t notice.

But I think she noticed.