The Nightmare

The early-morning silence of the MacGlynns' Surwich home was shattered as Oliver threw the door open, wide-eyed, with a manic grin spread across his face. Almost dazedly he stumbled into the home, his blade clutched in his arms like a child. The runes glowed with the same excited energy as his eyes, lichfire flickering up from the blade and around his gauntlets. He was drenched in a combination of blood both demonic and his own, a black trail left in the doorway and entry hall as he staggered his way toward his chair.

He cared little for the noise he made, his mind still locked in the euphoria of suffering, and as he sank into his chair, his arms wrapped around his blade and he allowed the lichfire to surround him. The new tears in his flesh bubbled shut, and a foul noise and even fouler smell rose from it.

It had been a good night.

Senkha could never really sleep when Oliver was feeding his blade. Or, to be more accurate, she could sleep, but her dreams couldn't block out the euphoria of the kill, and the feelings of elation translating to a dance in her mind. Though Oliver killed demons in the nearby woods, Senkha dreamed of other things--death and destruction at her hands, not necessarily of those who deserved it or of those whose blood she would be happy to see staining her hands. When this happened, sleep frustrated Senkha beyond belief, and she'd often wake up in a cold sweat after forgetting to breathe, fighting and embracing the euphoria in the same moment.

So she welcomed her husband's noisiness and didn't even bother to dress properly when she came downstairs, looking like she'd slept very little, but at least not covered in bug bites like she had been. The navy blue string remained around her finger from several days before, unmentioned but still hanging tight. She barely grunted at Oliver as she stumbled to the kitchen and started shuffling around for tea.

So in all, it was just another morning.

Oliver barely acknowledged her as she descended the stairs, still reveling in that rush of combat. The blue flames licking about his body intensified as the sword grew empowered- it had devoured many souls that night, and its magic burned them into his own life.

His chair gave a groan as he rose suddenly, the trailing flames dying behind him into nothing but the usual flicker in his eyes as he stomped into the kitchen. He put a hand to his wife's shoulder, nudging her off to the side and out of his way as he reached for the nearest rag he could find. As soon as it was in his grip, he turned and tromped back to the chair. He landed heavily down into it, and immediately began to wipe down the layers of demon blood already coagulating on the metal. His blade took first priority, always. His own state of cleanliness and repair was unimportant.

After sitting down, he grunted a distracted, "Mornin'."

Senkha watched the process with a sort of bored fascination, the kind that comes when your eyes are too bleary to completely focus (and so there were three Olivers and three runeblades). She was barely sipping at her tea, either, bitterly and unwantedly feeling the same concern for the runeblade that her husband felt. It was free of cracks, of dents or dings, and that was one less worry for either of them that morning. Still, it occupied her mind enough that the tea remained woefully neglected until it was lukewarm and far stronger than she would've liked, one way or the other.

"Good night?" she asked by way of response, even though it really wasn't a question that needed asking. And in any case, the thread caught her eye again and she started fiddling with it while waiting for Oliver to respond.

Oliver grunted again- almost a laugh- and it was his only response. The manic smile had left his face with the burst of lichfire, replaced by a softer, almost loving one as he dug the dry, congealed blood out of the blade's grooves.

"Was. " He turned the blade over so he could work on the opposite side. "Yer thinkin'," he said, giving a brief glance up at her hands. "'Bout whut."

"Getting a tattoo," Senkha responded, turning her hand over to look at her palm and run the fingers of her opposite hand over the callouses there. "So that I can take this string off." As per usual, she didn't continue in this train of thought or really expand it beyond that besides adding. "Well... two tattoos, actually."

Oliver's cleaning took a brief pause at her statement, though he resumed the moment her words processed in his mind. "Ah know 'bout yer finger thing. Y'think about it a lot. Y'do whut y'want, there, though if y'ask me it'll raise too many questions from others. Y'really wanna explain that ev'ry-" he allowed himself to fall off into silence, carefully running the rag along the blade's edge.

"Whut's th' second one," he asked.

"All I'd have to explain to them is that it's a reminder to me to think before I act. Not much more to it than that; I needn't go into detail." Senkha gave Oliver a soft smile, waking up some from the lukewarm tea. "And even if I did, most people would be bored after about the third sentence and wander away to do something more interesting. Like watch paint dry."

At the second question, Senkha paused and stood, lifting the hem of her nightdress until her lower back was exposed--and along with it, the Cult of the Forgotten's symbol. "I want to do something to hide this."

"Could burn it off," Oliver muttered. He held the blade out so that it rested on its point, and he turned it around, giving it an inspection for remaining grime. It seemed to be free, and with that satisfaction, he leaned back to prop it against the wall at his side.

He turned to look at Senkha, free of his obligations to the blade, and gave a smile. Blight had trailed and crusted down from his eyes, mouth and nose to his chin, and strewn bits of demon still clung to him in several places. The chair and the carpet beneath him were... probably no longer suitable for human contact.

"Well anyway, Ah still think tattoin' words on yerself's a weird ahdea, but y'go fer it. Any ahdea whut yuh'd wanna have t'hide that?"

"Why's it a weird idea?" Senkha asked, half looking at Oliver over her shoulder, nightdress still pulled up to her lower back. "You've a tattoo yourself, commemorating your ordination. I just want to commemorate attempting to turn over a new leaf!"

"...again." Senkha dropped her nightdress and sighed heavily, sitting down again and almost dropping her face into her tea. "Oliver, why am I retarded?"

Oliver contemplated this, and eventually came up with an answer. "Ah think it's weird ta put words on yerself," he stated amtter-of-factly. But he gave a shrug after, continuing to say, "But Ah can't really say nuthin'. If y'think it'll help y'be less 'retarded', as y'put it, who'd Ah be ta ridicule it?"

"An'' fer th' record, y'ain't retarded. It's called bein' alahv, an' all livin' is is makin' one mistake after another. Name one person that ain't a retard."

Senkha shrugged, wiggling her index finger at Oliver to show off the blue thread again. "I think I'm just dumb enough that I might need that reminder," she pointed out with a sad smile. "I mean, half the time, the dumb shit I do is because I forget to think, you know? And then you or Dad or Marius find out about it and I get the 'I am very disappointed in you' face at the least or make one of you cry or break or..." She shrugged again and drained the last of her tea.

"Well, I mean, when you put it that way. I just seem to fuck up more frequently and to more fanfare than most." Senkha gave Oliver a wry grin, setting her teacup back down. "I mean, it almost feels one missed step of mine means Azeroth gets plunged into eternal darkness sometimes, you know?"

Leaning back in his grimy chair, Oliver gave a soft chuckle. "Well, a'rite, y'got me on that one. Ah dunno why th' world seems t' care so much about whut you do- heck, whut th' both 'a us does- when all th' rest is able t'make mistakes, learn from 'em, an' keep on livin'."

Oliver shrugged a shoulder, further making himself comfortable by crossing one leg over the other and letting his arms fold across his chest. To his side, his satiated blade still pulsed with an excited light, the entire corner illuminated despite the candles being unlit. He reached out and turned it a little, the light better on his wife.

"Ah dunno whut makes y'so special in that way. 'Cause yer mistakes, they ain't nuthin' world-shatterin'. Folk jus' seem ta treat 'em that way."

Senkha nodded and, for no reason in particular, stood and turned her chair around so that she could rest her forearms on the back of it and still look at Oliver. The runelight flashed particularly brightly against her cheek, against the curved, silvery mark that looked as if it had been carved from her flesh by sharp teeth. "It honestly almost feels like I'm on display sometimes," she admitted, sounding more amused than anything else. "Step right up, ladies and gentlemen! See the great and idiotic Senkha MacGlynn fuck up spectacularly! Only thirty silver!"

After a beat, she added, "That's kind of why, too... why I whip myself. Or did. It's easy enough to shrug off mistakes and stupidity when they're just mistakes and stupidity that are yours, but when the world is looking at you, it feels like merely saying 'I'm sorry' isn't anywhere near good enough."

Oliver let out a soft chuckle. "'Cept that's th' thing folk say's th' most retarded of all."

He allowed silence to take him for a moment, eventually continuing, "It's possible we ain't allowed ta fuck up by nobody because us fuckin' up really is a danger. We ain't exactly a normal couple 'a people. Me in perticular. Lahk walkin' a rope; ain't no room fer a wrong step."

Senkha smiled wryly and vaguely picked at a piece of wood on the back of the chair. "Don't I know it. I think that's why I'm retarded: I just can't understand, if people get so upset when I fuck up, why I'm not allowed to punish myself for it or make myself suffer for it." The smile faded into a frown. "No, I mean. I understand that. I just... if they're allowed to punish me for idiocy, why can't I punish myself?"

At Oliver's words, she nodded with a heavy sigh, conceding. "It's true. If we fuck up, probably the entire world dies." Sometimes, I wish we could, just to see if that would really happen...

With an amused snort, Oliver again reached out for his blade. The runelight moved with it, casting strange shadows across the house, and stranger ones yet as he began to spin it on its point at his side. "Fuck th' world, Ah'm jus' talkin' about us. Whut's a normal couple gotta deal with? Kids? Who's turn it is ta do th' laundry? Ha' late th' husband's been out drinkin'? Water unner th' bridge, all it. We fuck up, an' it's yer lahf an' soul at stake."

He ceased the blade's twisting and lowered it so it half-crossed his lap. "Folk got their eyes on me at all tahms, jus' waitin' fer me ta slip up an' ruin you."

Senkha tilted the chair forward so that it leaned precariously on two legs, balancing only because she kept her feet planted firmly on the ground. "See, I half hear it the opposite way. I feel like the world worries about me bringing you down, as I'm an obviously depraved and wanton young thief and you're a noble and upstanding former paladin with a strand of bad luck." She shrugged and rocked the chair a few times. "Sometimes, I wonder if the world wants us to be together so badly that they want us to leave each other alone."

"...which isn't going to happen, by the way," she added quickly after a moment's pause. The constant reassurance wasn't something she needed to do, but it was a bit like spitting when you accidentally said the name of someone you didn't want to see--clearing the bad luck from the air.
Oliver lofted a brow and a smile found its way onto his face again. "They really tell y'that? Light above, it's as if they dun' even look at me."

He ran a hand over the flat of the blade across his lap, lichfire curling up from the runes around his hand at his touch. "Ah ain't a paladin. Ah don't know why Ah still carry this book, even," he said, glancing down at the moldy, blight-eaten old libram chained at his side. "Ah follow th' Light best Ah can, an' Ah ain't stopped tryin'a keep to th'tenets, but they took more'n jus' m'lahf away from me."

His hand lifted away from the sword, and the light dulled again. His eyes were fixed on the runes. "Ah ain't a paladin," he repeats. "Ah'm a Knight 'a th' Ebon Blade, an' Ah'm ev'rythin' whut comes with bein' that."

"You're whatever you choose to be," Senkha answered dully, and even coming from her as an attempt at encouragement, it sounded more like words printed on paper than spoken. "At least you try. I... I can't even say, really, that I do that anymore." She leaned back and let the chair rest on all four legs again, now arching her back and looking at the ceiling. Were she wearing less clothing, it would almost be vulgar. "I feel like I lost something of myself in Ahn'Qiraj. Like... like part of me's been licked hollow. I felt that way after Mystadon as well, but then I had you to distract me. Now it's just..."

She frowned, still staring at the ceiling. "Not that you aren't a distraction, but having to face that emptiness again and try to deal with it... Light, it's a worse hell than what initially happened."

Oliver smirked at her feeble attempt at encouragement, and shook his head. "Got done kiddin' m'self. Ah stick ta whut's right jus' by virtue 'a it bein' right, but Ah also can't pertend nuthin'. Ah don't try t'be anythin' no more." A brief pause, and he admitted with another chuckle, "... Not since you."

The air above Senkha shimmered, the moisture gathering and bursting into a tiny rain of snow onto her upturned face. Oliver's hand lowered, the calm smile having not yet left his disgusting features. "Tell me whut Ah kin do that'll help y'deal with it. Anythin'. If'n at all there is anythin'."

Senkha's frown deepened slightly. "...I hope I didn't take any hope away from you," she said, albeit sadly. "I don't want you to ever stop believing that you're a good man. You are a good man, Oliver, no matter what sustains you and no matter what you enjoy. You have a good heart, and those other things are things you can't help." She sounded as convinced of it as always, mostly because she really did believe it.

At the snow, Senkha smiled and opened her mouth to catch snowflakes on her tongue. This gave her a good excuse to be quiet and think about Oliver's question until she had a decent answer. And she really did intend to answer when she spoke, but instead, she asked, "What would happen if those runes really were carved on my back?"

Oliver watched her silently and patiently as she caught the snow, his smile fading to a more neutral expression. The snow too faded, the last few flakes catching in her hair as she questioned him.

He again ran his hand over the blade, and the runes again reacted with tiny flares of blue. "Th' blade runes," he muttered. "These runes is unique t'me, to this blade. Each rune repersents somethin' whut makes it work, an' t'gether they spell its name." His hand followed the runes down the blade. "Angravar. Death, vigor, enslavement. If another blade took this name, it'd act as a extension 'a it. Ah don't rightly know whut it'd do to a person."

"I didn't know that was your blade's name," Senkha remarked by way of giving the subject a little bit of rest. Only a little bit, though, before she was back on topic again. "Do you think the blade would enslave me? Or would it merely corrupt me and then I would enslave you? Or would I just be...?" She frowned and let the questions trail off. "I know you don't know. I'm just... thinking out loud."

As if he needed clarification, she adds, "The reason I ask is because I think those runes would be a nice way to cover up the marks on my back. Kind of like getting your name tattooed on me, but different. More permanent." More real.

"Ah don't rightly know," he repeated in agreement, his gaze still fixated on the runes. "If these was on yer daggers, it'd take you's its own an' thrive from yer kills. It wouldn' be th' same as me- yer soul'd be yer own, still safe in yer heart an' not tore at an' threatened ta disappear if y'don't kill. But lahk all magic, 'specially dark magic, yuh'd never wanna put 'em down.

On you, though. These isn't meant fer people. It's possible you yerself could be a extension, not jus' yer blades. Or it could jus' kill you, since a livin' body ain't meant ta share energy lahk that."

He looked up at her and gave an honest shrug, and his smile returned, if only slightly. "Th' thing about runes is they gotta be empowered. If'n they was scratched inna you, they'd not mean nuthin' more'n jus' mah name. But then Light help if y'was t'git on a runemaster's bad sahd."

Senkha's hand fell reflexively to her hips at the mention of her daggers. Of course, they weren't there, what with it being so early in the morning and everything, but her hands went to where they usually sat regardless. "Would my daggers feed your blade?" she wondered softly, drumming her fingers against her hips in their usual reflexive motion. "I mean... I could kill without necromancy. Unless the actual feeding of the blade itself is the necromancy."

Another sigh. Senkha wrapped her arms back around the back of the chair and smiled over at Oliver. "Do we even know any runemasters whose bad side I can get on?"

Oliver hefted the blade up again so that it was now on the opposite side of his chair, between Senkha and himself, as if displaying it to her. "That's th' funny thing about us. We's always on somebody's bad sahd without ever meanin' ta be."

He studied her illuminated face for a moment, continuing on to say, "By empowerin' me through it, yes, it's nekermancy. Th' magic itself is unholy. Ah don't gotta look no deeper'n yer facial expression ta know whut's on yer mahnd, Senkha." He used his blade as leverage to push himself forward, and he leaned in closer. He didn't need to look any deeper, but he did anyway.

Just how much about me are you willing to learn?

"You'd think an undead man and his wife could exist peacefully," Senkha commented dryly, leaning forward against the back of her chair as Oliver leaned in towards her. Once again, the front legs lifted off the floor, so she was more squatting than sitting, but it didn't seem to bother her much.

And it didn't bother her much either that he was looking deeper; she always encouraged him to do just that, and Light knew she looked deep enough herself, usually deeper than he was comfortable with. You know the answer to that is always everything.

Oliver's back straightened as he leaned away from Senkha again. His gaze was fixed and level on her runelit face, the neutrality of his expression broken only by a single twitch of his brows.

"... Outta yer chair. Take yer shirt off. Come over here t'me."

Senkha blinked a few times but didn't argue. She stood slowly and removed her robe and nightshirt, standing bare chested and bare backed before Oliver, far more comfortable doing so with him than she had been several weeks before with Aradelle. After all, he knew her scars.

"...are you going to do it now?" she asked, sounding more surprised than anything.

Her back displayed plainly in front of him, Oliver stood. A blight-encrusted arm wrapped around her middle, pulling her close, and a cold hand rested against the small of her back, just over the heathen symbol etched into her skin.

"Ah'm clearin' room," he whispered.

Beneath his hand, her skin began to crawl. It spread from his palm outward, at first more a dull tingle than anything. The numbness was replaced by discomfort, and quickly grew into an agonizing burn. His grip around her middle tightened to keep her standing as her branded flesh began to redden and bubble.

"Clearing...?" Senkha didn't finish the question before the tingling began and, before too long, found herself unable to think of anything but the burning of her flesh. For several minutes, she managed to stand quietly and carefully, but even with her tolerance for pain, it was too much. Her legs gave out and she staggered, first growling and then screaming and sobbing in pain. She managed to fight back the instinct to tear at him, to pull his arm away and fight him off, but her hands still grasped at his arm around her waist as if doing so would deaden the pain.

The process didn't take much longer than several minutes. Under his glove her flesh blistered, boiled, cracked, and melted back into itself, and Oliver himself was unable to contain an ever-widening grin.

He reveled in her struggle. His arm around her tightened as she dug at it, securing her against him in a reminder that even if she were to give in to instinct, he was simply the more powerful of the two. His head rested on her shoulder, his face held close to hers, and it was indistinguishable if this attempt at comfort was genuine or chastising.

The blood cast did not end gradually. He tore his hand away and the boiling came to a sudden stop, the pain of the burns and blisters all that was left. Where once her flesh had been marred by the Forgotten brand, there was now only a twisted, red, raw patch of skin.

His arm remained around her, assuring she wouldn't fall, and before even speaking to her he couldn't help but look down at his work. His grin softened into a prideful smile.

Even if his closeness to her was more chastising than comforting, even if he was delighting in the agony he caused her, the thought of really struggling or putting up any sort of a fight against Oliver never once crossed Senkha's mind. Part of him, she understood, genuinely wanted to help her with this void and emptiness that her time with the Cult had created.

And the other part just loved hearing her scream and seeing her skin twist and boil under his touch. And how much more twisted it was that another part of him was probably excited by the fact that she'd already decided to pay him back for this in kind later.

But now her hands shook and as the pain disappeared, her screams gradually turned into sobs, and even those became nothing but shudders and sighs after a while. Senkha rested her head back against Oliver's shoulder as if he'd just given her a long, soothing massage instead of searing away the skin on her lower back. She even kissed him on the cheek, almost sensually.

"You used to deny this p-part of yourself."

Oliver lowered himself back into the chair, his arm still curled around her raw and half-naked body and so bringing her with him onto his lap. As they sank down together, he looked up from the beautiful new scar and again rested his chin on her shoulder.

Senkha was right. The smile on his face reflected nothing but love for what he'd done. The past months brought with them a steady decay of willpower, a blatant disregard for his virtues, and a continually deeper lust for giving in to what the Scourge had made of him. His rotten lips pressed cold against her jawline after he considered this.

Maybe you did bring the noble paladin down.

The shifting of positions didn't help much with the pain, and Senkha winced as they sat down, eyes screwing closed in an attempt to keep her pained noises behind her teeth. It didn't work very well after Oliver's words, and she gave a soft groan, covering her face with both hands. "I never meant to do that," she whispered hoarsely, shaking her head. "I love every part of you, but I didn't want to bring you down into the darkness with me."

The thoughts jumbled in her mind, and she didn't bother trying to hide them. Was it me? Did I do this? What if this doesn't stay in our house? What have I done?

Senkha was right in another regard- there were many parts to Oliver. One of them clung desperate and afraid to the paladin: a man of rectitude, faith, and honor. With his body a blighted horror, and his mind a shattered mess, Oliver found comfort in hanging on to that part of himself. The paladin held the darkness with contempt and strove to illuminate it with his Light, and cursed her for her curiosity.

The Death Knight held her in his arms and gave in to the darkness, damnation far past some kind of negative consequence and more just an accepted inevitability. They were both sick, twisted individuals- she through a life of trial, and he through the Scourge's games. But it didn't matter how it happened. The end result was the same.

The thoughts crossing from Oliver's mind to Senkha's were tinged with equal parts shame and acceptance, love and hate.

You dig deeper and deeper, lighting little fires as you go. What did you expect would happen once you'd illuminated everything?

"But surely you knew all of this about yourself before I started digging!" Senkha protested. Somehow, there was still some comfort for her in speaking out loud. "It's why you haze over your thoughts whenever you start to think more darkly than you'd like to, and it's why you were hesitant about this in the first place. I can't believe that just because I know everything about you, you've decided it's not worth it to even try anymore."

The trouble was, of course, that Senkha--like most people--had no real two sides to her personality. Even Itzhal, the Guardian, was just her emotion concentrated, not a real severence from who she was. She may have had tempers, she may have had moods, but at the end of the day, Oliver had been right to say that things like Virh and Itzhal weren't really different people...just part of the mind not often indulged.

And with that knowledge, the question Senkha sought to ask in probing so deeply was if Oliver--if she--could do horrific things and still be a good person. Could the paladin and the death knight coexist?

When she spoke again, it was in a defeated voice. "I only wanted you to see that doing horrible things against your will or because you need to do them to live doesn't make you a bad person." I only wanted to fix you.

"Fix me?" Oliver repeated aloud, followed by a low and gravelly laugh.

A child knows the world is full of toys, but he doesn't cry for them unless they're held in front of him.

Reminders. Memories. Encouragement. OBSESSION.

His grip around her tightened, pressing her raw and blistered back against his blight-drenched tabard. His thoughts flicked to Virh, and the excitement and obsession Senkha felt when that deep, disgusting part of him made itself known. Virh wasn't real, but what the Scourge did was, and Virh was the part of him that loved it all.

Embracing Virh was embracing the Scourge. And she slowly took away his shame.

The blight on Oliver's tabard only burned the new scar more severely, hissing and popping against her skin and causing Senkha to whimper with a pain that cut far deeper than the scars ever could. It weighed more than anything else she'd done, and it beat over and over in her head, that relentless drumming: You destroy everything you love.

She couldn't speak, she couldn't think, she could barely even breathe. No screech of metal on metal was necessary to bring her thoughts into as deeply broken of a place as they were. You destroy everthing you love. Monster. MONSTER. You set out to prove them all wrong and you failed. FAILURE. You don't deserve him. You don't deserve any of it. You don't deserve any better than them.

She became dead weight in Oliver's arms, only upright because he forced her to be. She wasn't aware, really, that she was shaking. Or sobbing. Or screaming.

Oliver took her by the chin and lifted her head, forcing her face nearer to his. He kissed her cheek as she sobbed; the way he held her was almost like he was cradling her.

Senkha, you're crying.

For a brief moment, Senkha was leaning forward in her chair again, smiling at Oliver. You know the answer to that is always everything.

Everything.

They then stood together in the Stormwind Harbor, overlooking the water as the sun sank below it. Something about them seemed fresher, innocent, even as Oliver turned to her and his lichfire eyes flared to a sickening black, and blight trailed from his sockets.

Senkha was staunch in her decision. "I know what I'm getting into."

Everything.

She was back in his cold arms, trembling bare and raw against his plague-ridden tabard, with his black disgusting lips pressed lovingly against her cheek.

Everything.

Senkha hadn't known what she was getting into, that much was apparent, though it wasn't as much this darkness of Oliver's that shocked her as much as her own unwitting creation of the monster that held her. She'd known, at least in a sense, of the darkness that a freed agent of the Lich King would always carry...anyone from Lordaeron would know as much.

But she had no idea how dark her own heart could be.

Everything. Oliver wasn't wrong. She had asked for everything and that was what she'd received. She'd torn down what was good about him and pulled forward all that was evil about him, and now she shouldn't have wondered at her creation.

Perhaps because of this realization, it only took her a few moments longer to stop sobbing and to calm down. "Do you love me," she asked hoarsely, her voice breaking and crumbling into something more like gravel. "And is this what you want?"

"Ah love you so much," he responded with his lips still against her cheek. "Ah don't know whut yer so afraid 'a."

His grip around her lessened as she calmed and regained capability of holding herself up, though he didn't entirely let go. His arm fell to rest more around her waist. "You kept me here. Y'brought me love inta a dark, lonely, terrifyin' existence. You make me happier'n anythin' in th' world."

His chin rested down against her shoulder again. "Ah want whutever you'd allow 'a me," he says contently.

"I'm not your master," Senkha murmured, and from the way her body shifted under his touch, it almost seemed like the opposite was true. "It's not about what I'll allow you and what I won't allow you. It's about what you want. What do you want, Oliver? Whatever it is that you want, it's yours."

For the first time in a very long time, Senkha meant this honestly. It wasn't just her saying "anything but THING X" or a list of stipulations. If he told her he wanted her dead on the floor, it would happen. Her entire posture and demeanor reeked of defeat.

Oliver's eyes grew wide at the suggestion.

Whatever it is that you want.

The chair crashed onto its side, and Senkha was thrown to the floor. Oliver rose above her, eying her in an almost predatory manner. One last flicker of regret marked a severance of their bond, and he took his blade by the hilt. The runes flared and he struck.

The only regret Senkha felt, watching the blade arc above her, was that their bond was gone. That she would die without being one with Oliver.

But she deserved this. Everything seemed to slow down, and for the only time since she'd met Oliver MacGlynn, Senkha did nothing to prevent her own death.

Death.

It was unlike the sick, psychotic little fantasies they lived out in their minds. There was no love, no sensuality, no tenderness about it. His blade pierced her lower back, sinking easily into her boiled skin until its double-point touched the floor below her. He took a moment to delight in her reaction before ripping out the blade, and as the wound began to well up with blood, blighted pustules rose from her skin around it. They burst, reformed, and spread up her back and body, leaving nothing but putrefied, gaping wounds behind.

Oliver watched gleefully as she rotted and writhed at his feet, making little slashes of his blade at her darkening skin. As the plague reached her throat and her screams turned to hoarse, tiny shrieks, her life began to slip away. It wasn't out of pity, but out of boredom that he gave the final strike to her temple, dashing blood and grey matter across the floor.

Vigor.

Shaking, grinning, Oliver held the blade above her broken body. It was an easy kill, but he looked every part victorious.

A silvery ribbon of light rose from Senkha's body like smoke. It twisted around the blade, danced with the lichfire, and disappeared into the runes. It belonged to his blade now, and the soul of Senkha MacGlynn broke and dispersed into the pulsing energy of the unholy weapon.

Enslavement.

The Death Knight gave a triumphant scream as he stood over the body. His sword arm thrashed out with excess energy, and the blade crashed into the nearby desk. The wood splintered and its contents strewed across the blood-soaked floor. He gave in to the mindless destruction, brandishing his sword about, slashing and breaking and shattering all that he could.

Lichfire blazed from his eyes and mouth, curling and licking about his face and leaving strange reflections on the blight spilling from his pores. He left the house destroyed. Blood and black sprayed across the walls, the furniture laid in pieces, and their belongings laid scattered and broken across the floor. Senkha's journal had fallen to her side, and in a fitting final entry, its pages grew saturated and dark with her blood.

It was the morning light through the window that brought him to a righter state of mind, if "right" was even the proper term for it.

She was dead. She was dead. She was dead.

He dropped to her side and took her blighted corpse into his arms. He shook it, as a child would to wake somebody up, but he knew it was foolish. He knew what he'd done. He knew what he could do.

He rolled her body over and his hand grasped into the mess desperately until he found a letter opener. He held it above her pustuled, putrefied back for a long time with a stony expression on his features. His grip tightened and his hand began to tremble. He'd taken her. She was gone. The dull knife fell from his hand and he backed away, looking out the window.

What will you do, Oliver?

For the first time even since his death, Oliver was truly alone. He'd chosen the monster, and now his wife was gone. This was not something that could be his own secret; he knew he'd face the wrath of everybody that loved her- everybody that had loved him. Not that he'd even be able to lie about such a thing.

He came to a full emotional halt, taking another step away from the body, staring at it like some foreign thing he wasn't familiar with. He was afraid. Afraid for himself, afraid for what his future held. To confess would mean execution, and beyond that an eternity of suffering. Taking his own life would simply hasten this fate.

He did not want to die. He could not die.

Oliver took up his blade and fled the house, her body left behind. Many cared for her. Someone would find it soon. They would know what happened. He found himself at the ocean shore, staring out over the water. Too many people knew his face. There was nowhere he could run. He couldn't die, but he'd lost all chances at living.

He found himself ankle-deep in the water, the tiny waves breaking around his boots.

He needed to be alone. Alone to hide, and alone so this would never happen again.

He couldn't help but think about how he always hated water as he secured Angravar to his back and trudged out into the sea, his head disappearing beneath the waves.

Good riddance, I say.