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Skinned Alive - Miri

[shatteredtrust]

When his eyes first laid on the wolf pelt draped over the desk in the study, a bloodied piece of leather tagged onto it, Khadgar's heart stopped. The books he had been carrying in had been dropped on the floor as the Guardian of Azeroth turned on heel and ran through the halls of the Greymane Manor towards their shared room. It wasn't what it looked like, his mind screamed at him, that wasn't Genn's white fur - or the gold rings tied around thick braids that would lay under his chin.

Hoping, praying that the Worgen would be in their room, possibly fumbling with some gun and his attempts in cleaning it as practice with his larger, clawed hands and more delicate work - or even reading next to the window with some sort of drink on the small table near by. He wouldn't know, he hadn't been in there the night before, given a brief moment of leniency from the king he had thought originally, that Genn saw his behavior in need of reward and allowed him the time to get lost in his studies and return to it on his own terms...

But he found the bed untouched and the blankets wree undisturbed from where they had rested when Khadgar had been manhandled back into the warmth by thick, furry arms. They were not even a breadth out of place from where Khadgar had twisted and got the upper hand when he climbed astride the other's middle. Still draped from how he had laughed at the other's complaints as he sat up and undone the buttons to the stolen shirt to discard gently across the pillow he would normally use.

Genn hadn't slept there last night.

His heart fills his ears and he faintly remembers yelling for Crowley -- for Genn. He shouted for the other to stop playing whatever game he thought of this time as revenge for his last prank, it wasn't funny and it wasn't welcome, too far - much too far. Panic over takes him as he doesn't wait for Darius to find him, instead taking to the air as a raven to get to the Nobel as fast as he could.

Perhaps it was too fast, Khadgar thought as he collided with the other's chest head first. It hurt, but the mage couldn't particularly care. He had squawked and lead him to that room, where the pelt and brown leather lie.

Khadgar doesn't remember the next few hours very clearly, though he was unsure if it was due to an head injury or if he just was not able to cope completely with the acts that needed to be done. It smelt like Genn, the blood was the King's and so was the leather -- dead maybe a few hours before it was chemically tanned. He remembers these little things clear as day, though he barely knew what else was going on. Crowley had not let him move from where he had been tucked to be kept safe in case he was unable to change back much like a Worgen.

The next few days get better, he finds, waking up in a different room one morning and only being filled with rage. Not for the first time in his life he wished he could allow himself to fall to the fel and ravage the land. However, it was not the path for him. He spends his time with the other inhabitants of the Manor - going do far as to summon Illidan back to have him send his own men and women out to see what they could garner information-wise.

There was a prevailing thought behind every action he had; after it was all over, he would return to the cave and die there. It was his small comfort, that after everything and those involved wished for a death that would not come, he would go back to the bone-chilling cave and finish what he had perhaps started after the death of the King of Stormwind. He'd die there.

That was why Khadgar hunched over the table near where the pelt had been moved and sketched out another lead he found - Blightcaller was still alive, it could be his doing - so he could process it fully.

He had been having issues with that, he knows, people often had to repeat to him anything that was directed at him. They were worried about the deeper bags under his eyes and the sole person to attempt to tell the Archmage to rest was sent through a wall. No one dared to tell him such a thing since.

Once youthful and wise, always dancing blue eyes were dull, as if the flame that had eternally burnt in them was finally snuffed out. His gaze often blurred at this point, not helping the fact that he was unable to focus on his surroundings.

He scribbled his quill across the paper, remembering vaguely that Genn had issues reading his normal print and how he had adapted since. There had been no point in hiding it from the other - he trusted him to never tell anyone what he had wrote. Well, at least the man would go to the grave never telling anyone a single thing.

Khadgar realizes he's written something much different than intended and finally stops. Slow, deep breaths are taken and his gaze is drawn to the pelt and not for the first time he begins to move towards it. He strokes his fingers through the mane of fur that would be at the top of his head, down the slope of a nose and has to close his eyes to stop his double vision. Sweeping his hand back up, he knocks a thick braid purposely and laughs, a whispered swear flicking off the tip of his tongue before he pinches his brow.

He would persevere through this, Khadgar knew this, at least long enough to see Blightcaller skinned much the way he had done to the Worgen.