Chapter Text
No one remembers being born, and perhaps that is exactly how it should be. However, there are a few of those who are followed by luck, or a curse, even beyond their graves. Those who are forsaken by past, family and Light, stripped of the right for a blessing at their rebirth. Boves was one of those victims, a never-dreamt second chance given to her.
Naturally, she remembers her second birth well. Wet soil beneath her bones served to resemble her mother's flesh. Coffin might have been as well as a womb where she was protected until they violently burst it open to snatch her out. To wake her up, as an infant inhales air and cries for the first time. And yet, Boves couldn't cry, nor breathe. She felt cold and wet, but that faded away soon enough, or at least her senses to feel it did. She found it hard to recognise mother's warm embrace.
A second birth has a price paid with omnipresent loneliness, she concluded. At least, she could still see, a sight deranged and blurry, but adaptable. And so she gazed down, at her hands and feet, counting down knuckles and stretching ochre, skeletal fingers until joints cracked loudly, hinges moved after inaction for who knows how long. There was no skin protecting those fragile bones. In fact, ribbons of greenish, rotten flesh fluttered around her wrists every time she moved her hands. Little what remained of her clothes was tattered, chewed by parasites along with bits of her flesh. Half-eaten torso and abdomen were covered in thin linen shirt and leather pants, both of an indefinite colour time has all but deformed to the point of unrecognizability. A sudden surge of reflexes, what is left of undamaged nerves awoke and made her lunge forward. And so a liquid of a colour so foul poured down in stream on a cold-green grass. A phantom sting of acid coated her throat. There were bits of something unrecognisable, all covered in now cold slime and maroon chunks of dried blood. Somehow by a slim chance, her sense of smell was still there, sharper, but certainly less fragile. Carefully, as if she might inhale an insect, she felt a reek of salty yet awkwardly sweet smell of rotten flesh and maritime carcass, accompanied with barest hints of geosin lingering on her body.
"Oh, good, you haven't choked on it." A quiet, absent voice came from her right. "That's a good start."
To her right stood a skeletal figure, clad in human clothes that resembled something a grave-digger would wear. And perhaps, everything would pass as normal, if it weren't for his face that was half-rotten with jaw hanging weakly on a left hinge, a harsh movement away from falling off. A state no better than her own, so it seems. He was furiously scribbling something into an old, yellowish notebook, a movement of a hand followed by constant cracking caused by bone friction. A lantern hung lowly at his scrawny elbow, waving as he wrote and casting strange, sickly-coloured light.
"On your feet now, girl. We've got work to do." The undead man snapped with a raspy voice, closing his notebook and looking at Boves who was still sitting in her half-rotten coffin, trying to realise and comprehend her surroundings as a dull headache settled in. Up until now, her mind felt incredibly numb and nothing seemed to budge it from this passive observation it systematically settled in. Sight of her hands should have spurred some kind of reaction, she held a distinct memory of what panic felt like. She should have felt terror. And yet, there was nothing.
Briefly, she closed her eyes, hearing deafening silence...an absence of noise; a subtle pump of waves in her ears. Silence echoed in cavity of her skull, ringing painfully as all that remained there was a phantom of life.
"Don't bother. It won't start beating."
She turned her head around, feeling those exposed discs of spine turning and friction happening between them. Grinding dust that has settled between them, much like spicing up a meal. It was - no, it should have been horrifying. If she still had enough skin, she would have started sweating by now, but skin glands have long since stopped releasing secrete. She still had a brain, that much was obvious, for she was more than aware this was a reality. Flashes of pain intensified behind her eyes, but nothing could bait out even a faintest memory of the before.
"Where...where am I?" Boves asked, foolishly, and gasped upon hearing her cracked voice. It was nothing like...what? It was there, a thought lingering in the air out of her reach. She should be able to remember, but her mind simply refuses to cooperate and so she is met by a vividly illustrated, massive brick wall. The only thing certain was that voice she spoke with was far from melodious. It was hoarse, like she swallowed a rusted saw. Her vocal chords almost non-existent, most of them stuffed and broken likely by force. It was difficult to speak, for this time she felt something akin to pain in her throat.
"At graveyard, obviously. You're sitting inside your coffin." Skeletal man impatiently interrupted Boves' disoriented flow of thoughts.
"No... I don't mean-"
"Sepulcher. Silverpine Forest, north of Gilneas. Eastern Kingdoms. Azeroth." He interrupted her again, frowning already. Considering the amount of dug-open graves and a few dozen other clueless undead wandering around, Boves could easily be a hundredth Raised person he spoke to today. Or rather, whose name he will soon be putting on a list.
Of all the places he mentioned, Gilneas seemed to ring out the loudest echo. But why? Well, Boves simply couldn't remember. She just distinctively knew mentioning of that city awoke nothing but confusion. Perhaps, her brain was dry just enough to make this hard on her, to prevent her from understanding complex and somewhat overwhelming lost mementos.
"Name?" Skeletal man interrupted her swarming thoughts for a third time, visibly on a brink of patience now. He opened his book again and readied a quill. Her words would be like a bang of a pistol signalling start of the race, his steed his crooked fingers.
Sitting in her grave, Boves was surprised he asked for her name. Glancing briefly behind, she realised there was indeed a rather small tombstone, but completely blank of any carved letters. Merely there to point out this was a place where someone was buried. Who that someone was, obviously, no one could possibly know.
"Boves. Boves Rooke." She said it without hindrance. A few minutes ago she was certain she was just simply called Boves, but last name came easily to her lips, if she still had those.
"Boves Rooke." Undead man repeated, causing Boves to dreadfully predict that those raspy, insatiable voices will be the only ones saying that name from now on.
"You are one of us now. And yet, the Dark Lady is so benevolent she offers you a choice. You can take this, your second chance, and go free to live out there by yourself. It will be hard, but you wouldn't be the first one to decide so. Or you can die again, return to your rest." Undead started reciting words with a rather fast-speaking tone, as if they were learnt long, long ago and repeated over and over so systematically it made him look no different than an automated contraption a gnome or goblin could have assembled to look like an undead, hopefully he would not combust suddenly. He held her gaze with his blank, bored expression, almost blind yellowish haze in eyes glowing disturbingly, stripped of any empathy. Is that what my eyes will convey from now on? "Or you can join the Forsaken, pledge loyalty to the Dark Lady."
"I... I didn't ask for this." Boves stammered, feeling disdain at the man’s tone, as if he was merely offering her an ordinary low-paid job. "For any of...this."
Skeletal man was already rolling his eyes and was about to say something when a booming, but ghastly voice interrupted him, visibly making leftovers of his skin crawl.
"Didn't you?" Voice spoke, making skeletal man frown as he backed away and simply turned to go to another poor soul that was lying awake and disturbed in their coffin. "Stench of fear still lingers on you. You fear death. And you were forced to face it. Now is your chance to never do so again. At least until you stop caring."
Boves shakily stood on her legs, trying to get used to those exposed kneecaps. She climbed out of her coffin and hoped to push away thoughts that compared a moss-covered wooden box to a placenta. She turned to face a cold, greyish being whose wings radiated and illuminated dark forest around them. Though a mesmerizing sight, Boves felt like huddling down on a grass to avoid winged being's scrutinising gaze even though it was difficult to pin-point where exactly it was looking at.
"Who...What are you?" Boves asked, wide-eyed like a lamb facing a wolf for the first time, curiosity outweighing sense of self-preservation.
"I am called Agatha, one of the Dark Lady's Valkyrs," being spoke with unnaturally soothing voice, "I Raised you."
Valkyrs, guardians of gates between living and dead. Boves couldn't suppress dull sensation forming inside her. Anger would be a closest description, were it not so oddly faint.
"I have seen, and sensed, your potential, Boves Rooke. You want to live. Or rather, you wanted." Agatha spoke with echoing voice. "I serve the Banshee Queen faithfully and closely. Under her lead, you will be capable of so much.”
"I bet you serve well." Boves hissed, spite coming to her more in a form of a well-learned behaviour, than from any depth of her heart. Of course, she knew of Sylvanas Windrunner, leader of the Forsaken. It mattered little since she could not remember her former allegiance nor opinions she had of the Dark Lady. Exactly, this was the point. Recruiting still shaken, afraid souls, coating their ears with honeyed words about Sylvanas' libertinism. Shaken by her own scheming flow of thoughts, she opted to ignore these unfounded ill impressions. They seemed like someone else’s thoughts, something she could no longer understand or judge.
"Be an asset to her, and you will get what you have always wanted." The Valkyr persisted, her voice unwavering. It made Boves wonder why she was so determined to recruit her. Obviously, death left her clueless of her life, but thankfully, she was still sharp enough to clearly see through this manipulation. It was repulsive somewhat, this persuasion of a blank mind. She wasn’t even given a time to adjust, to realise what has happened. All they cared about was whose side she is on. Boves couldn’t shake off imagining invisible shackles this decision brought.
"And what is that I want?" Boves provoked, raising an eyebrow as if daring Agatha to make assumptions about her. Hell knew she had no idea what she wanted. Might as well let the Valkyr implant the idea in her head.
"You will find out soon enough. Sooner or later, echoes will return." Agatha gave a riddle for an answer. Boves should have thought better than trying to bait an ancient ethereal creature. Such beings never set a clear path in front of you after all.
"What echoes?" Boves demanded.
"Of past."
"My memories will return?"
"Yes. And no. Not in the way you think they will."
"Stop saying riddles! Be plain!"
"It is time to choose." Agatha stated firmly, but her voice was emotionless. It sliced through Boves' mind like a sharpened blade, infuriating her even more.
What choice is that? A false illusion of freedom. Where would she even go like this?
"Be wise, Boves." The Valkyr spoke and left her to her thoughts.