trans_9 | Finally some roomie tim-whoops.

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Finally some roomie tim-whoops.

It had been an arduous few days. Between the situation with people losing memories and then the people coming back from the Ohm attack, Kaya had been pretty busy. She hadn't even left the med bay, preferring to sleep here instead of back at the Outsider's hotel. She knew she had already missed quite a bit due to this: sessions with Chase, the upkeep of the hotel, and general having fun time, but priorities were priorities. Now that she had some time to herself though, she was hoping to spent some time helping her roommate decorate and at least have some general fun: Alex, after all, had brought all of those interesting black light things, why not put them to good use?

She walked up the stairs of the hotel, making a beeline straight for the hotel suite. It was one of the good things about not having to be alone: it didn't matter that Alex was a boy, at least he was SOMEONE she could talk to on a daily basis. Besides, she had those sliding doors now, so they could respect each others privacy.

But then she reached the room and opened the door, and saw all of his things were gone, specifically the laptop he prized so much, and she knew he had been podded. She closed her eyes a moment, slowly counting to ten, tears springing to her eyes.
Of course.
She took a breath, then wiped her eyes and closed the door, going back down the steps, and quietly closing the door behind her. She wanted to scream, or cry, or throw a fit at least, but none of these things would bring Alex back. So she just wandered the city park for the moment, looking tired.

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This was his element and his joy. Laughing, he dodged hits, parried others, and let even more slam into his shield as it shone with a holy light that served as a ward against damage. Even those blows that penetrated his defenses seemed blunted by the strength of his armor and a sacred energy that infused his being.

She could tell he was holding back his counterattacks --the mace flickered out every few seconds to smack the water that flowed around her, but not her. On every third stroke of the mace he made a gesture and spoke a word, and a flash of holy energy surrounded him, knitting together those wounds and bruises she'd inflicted. Every so often he turned one of those spells on her; he wasn't oblivious to the damage she was doing to herself at his request.

At the end of the demonstration, he wasn't even breathing hard.

It was, of course, one of the things Kaya tended to dislike about magic: it made all the effort she made seem useless, like she shouldn't have bothered. But she could increase her fighting speed too, despite the pain. Kaya, after all, was stubborn, and did not like looking like she was weak. And she certainly did not like being laughed at.

She struck with a vengeance now, making every move, however fruitless, count: she was not one to suffer indignities without a fight.

Oh no! Oh no no no, Mar wouldn't ever laugh at her, he'd be horrified if she knew he was thinking that way! There's no malice mockery in his laughter and his grin; it's the pure, boyish excitement of a man who loves what he does, and what he's doing.

If she had any feedback from the blows he struck to her water, she could take some comfort in their strength, or rather, their comparative lack thereof. In this defensive role his delivered hits of only a fraction of his former strength. He was refraining from striking her out of courtesy; even if he did, it would be no major feat for her to escape with nothing but bruises to show for it.

As her onslaught increased, so did his defense. A brilliant globe formed around him, energy shimmering across it to absorb her blows; it only lasted a few short seconds, though. When it dropped, he took a step back, lifting his hand in a no-more sort of expression. NOW he was breathing hard, a bright light in his eyes.

Which Kaya would have realized had she not jumped to conclusions, but the recent loss of her friend had left her in a state where reading people was harder for her. It would also have helped if she didn't have so much on her mind, from an afflicted boyfriend to the recent attack by Azula.

But she was understanding a little more now, watching him fight. She understood, for instance, that she could not beat him, not in HER way anyway. Her continued onslaught, while severely taking all the energy out of her, DID in fact make her feel a bit better about Alex now.

When she stopped she fell to her knees, her hands to the ground, shaking her head. "Hitting you is like hitting a rock over and over again," she admitted. "Wow."

"Well being hit by YOU is like being a rock in the middle of the ocean getting smacked by waves constantly," he said, grinning as he slid his shield onto his back. "You're good!"

No exaggeration, he honestly felt that way. He wasn't honestly so sure he'd agree with her assessment, particularly if she had some healing of her own she hadn't been using.

No, she actually found it difficult to heal herself in the middle of battle. She definitely had meant it about the rock though: he seemed extremely hard to hit, and t reminded her a lot of the strength of an earthbender a bit.

She was healing herself now though. "Being a palidin must take years of study: all that magic and power. I haven't seen anything like that in awhile."

"We tend to learn on the road," he said, rolling his shoulders to prevent stiffening up after that exertion. "It took a lot of time and effort, but it was all earned. What about you? Speaking of things that haven't been seen anything... like. I lost track of my sentence there, but you get it."

"I know what you mean!" She said, laughing. "I've had scrolls and teachers to learn from, but nothing compares to having to learn all of your moves on the spot when you have an enemy bearing down on you. But yes, what I do takes those three methods: dedication and study, a good teacher, and the know-how to apply those methods in a pinch. Not doing that resulted in some pretty dire circumstances."

"The Horde had some skilled teachers in most of our cities, and before... this," he waved at the ship in general, "I got to study with some Sunwalkers for a bit too. But there were a lot of paladins out in the field, and some very scholarly ones too, who did a lot of research and study into our abilities."

"And they taught you what they know," Kaya finished, or at least assumed that to be the case. "It sounds like you guys had some pretty war torn bloody stories too, just like we did. Well, less bloody than mine, I'll bet, but still, the battle scars from a war is pretty hard not to recognize. Ronnae and Nokosi have told me a little about it."

He wasn't so sure about the 'less bloody' part, but why argue it? War was terrible no matter what happened. "We've done all right, though. The Lich King fell," he said, lifting one mailed fist in grim triumph.

Oh, she was talking about her war, not his. Granted, she hadn't been in the front lines and seeing all of the injuries of the earth Kingdom.

"I've heard about him. What was so fearsome about him, besides him caommanding probably endless hoardes of soldiers?"

"Well, that part was pretty bad," Mar said grimly. "But Scourge plague has no cure. That means you could be infected and you would become the undead, barring the intervention of the Light itself, which could only grant you a clean death. Beyond that, the Lich King was strong beyond anything I have ever faced."

He shivered just a little with the memory.

"Like Karis," Kaya said, making a face. Well, maybe not? She knew at least that Karis was some kind of an undead, but she didn't know if there were certain categories of a kind.

"What made him so powerful?"

"Ner'zhul's knowledge. Arthas's soul. Frostmourne. A number of things... He was only defeated when Frostmourne shattered and the countless souls of the dead he held in thrall escaped to hold him helpless against our final onslaught."

He grinned. "That was after he killed every last one of us in one blow, though.

"Ok, please keep in mind that I might not know that much about your world," Kaya said, looking sheepish. "I don't know who Ner'Zhul is, or why Arthas's soul matters, or what a Frostmourne is. And if he killed you all, how are you here, talking to me?"

"Oh, sorry!" Mar said. These were common-enough terms that he tends to forget... and they required a lot of history. "Ner'zhul was an orc shaman who was very powerful and did a lot of stupid, bad, or evil things because of it. Arthas was a paladin prince of Lordaeron who was corrupted by his own actions and the Lich King's manipulations, and when paladins fall to darkness they don't do it halfway. Their two souls ended up fused together --" He made a mashing gesture, pushing the his palms together hard with a sharp clash of metal on metal. "Frostmourne was a weapon that could drain both the life and the souls of its victims."

He sat back, hands splayed out behind him, as he looked up and over the trees in the park. "Terenas Menethil."

Not a full answer, but even in retrospect that moment was emotional. Even happy-go-lucky paladin dorks needed to come at it slowly.

"So you're saying that he went and channeled the powers and energy of a whole lot of bad guys, and was thus able to kill a lot of people and then reanimate their bodies," Kaya sad. "Is that about the gist of it? If so, this guy really sounds like bad news. AS for the weapon, that just makes me nervous. I think Ronnae has something like that in her possession."

And of course she stared at him blankly. "Teneras Menethil. And that would be what?"

"Arthas's father. King of Lordaeron. One of his fist casualties, when he returned from his demon-hunt in Northrend with Frostmourne."

He sat back up, more businesslike. "When Ashbringer, the sacred blade of paladin Tirion Fordring, smashed Frostmourne, it freed the souls imprisoned within the blade. King Menethil was one of the first to emerge. He resurrected us all."

Then Mar grinned. "And Frostmourne wasn't so bad. Between my skill and our healers' magic, that thing hit me I don't know HOW many times and didn't even leave a scar!"

Kaya just stared. She had never heard of anyone being able to be ressurcted after being killed, or having their souls brought out of their bodies. That kind of thing sounded like something you read about in some crazy fairy tale.

Then again, Ronnae's tales seemed to be full of stuff like that, so it was likely that he was telling the truth. "So in your world, you can actually be brought back to life. That kind of thing sounds unnatural to me. I was always taught when you die, your body becomes one with the world, and as you decompose you become part of the ground. And as for souls...well, I still wonder about that while thing."

"Death doesn't stick quite as well for those of us with destinies to follow," Mar said, casually enough. "It's hard to get our spirits to move on, so they can be rejoined with our bodies and brought back to life. It's not always a good thing, though," he added with a frown. "People who know that sometimes kill you so you can do stuff for them while dead. That's always a pain."

Kaya grinned. "I think I know what you mean, although we don't quite have anything like that in my world to revive someone. There was only one thing that could do anything close to that, and that was the spirit oasis, where the ocean and moon spirit dwell."

She frowned. "That's kind of scary."

"Maybe the first couple of times," Mar said. "But then you get the guy who tells you that you need to convince the spirit of a dead dragon to return to the land of the living and sends you through a portal that will take you to him. Now, you're probably thinking to yourself, how does a portal lead me to a dead dragon's spirit? Simple. It opens about a thousand feet up."

He lifted his hand, then brought it down to smack hard onto the ground.

"THEN I could see the dragon's spirit. Turns out -- our spirit world has 'spirit healers', which are guardians of the souls there, they can help you return to life if it's not your time to move on -- turns out the dragon was actually hooking up with the spirit healer. When I convinced him to go back, she resurrected me. So no harm, no foul, all you can really do is laugh."

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Finally some roomie tim-whoops.

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