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Scouting missions were never Sparks’ favorite. Often solitary expeditions, often days at a time, always in awful conditions with a constant risk of discovery and death. This time was no different, trudging through the dead, misty forests that had once made up the kingdom of Lordaeron.
Now, they were home only to two types of creatures; the mindless living dead left behind by the Scourge, and the less mindless living dead who called themselves Forsaken, and had allied with the Horde. The latter were the reason for this mission, to find out where they were mobilizing, and where they might strike next.
Sparks hadn’t seen anyone though, no movement, no signs of unlife, no sounds except its footsteps on the ground and the wind in the trees. If it didn’t find anything soon, it would turn back, and report only this unsettling absence.
Then, just before it was ready to do exactly that, it spotted something. Movement between two trees, a flash of pale hair in the dim, overcast light. As it looked closer, it was able to make out a small figure, an elf with pale hair, kneeling over the corpse of a massive bat.
It watched for a moment longer, inching closer to see what exactly the figure was doing. Before it could, however, the elf’s ears twitched back, hearing its approach, and they scrambled to their feet. As they did, they turned to look in Sparks’ direction, and it felt all the air leave its lungs. This was no random elf, dead or otherwise.
Chiev.
Even from this distance, even after years of separation, it recognized him. It nearly stumbled over itself in its rush, no longer caring about the mission, no longer caring that it was exposing itself to danger. It needed to get to him, no matter what.
For Chiev’s part, Sparks could see the recognition in his eyes too, though he stayed frozen as if in shock until they were face to face.
“Chiev! You’re alive!” The last time they’d been together, nothing had seemed wrong. Chiev had to return to Silvermoon to deal with a family matter, but he had promised he’d return to Sparks soon.
Then, the Scourge had hit, and very few promises could be kept.
“...That’s a rather generous way of seeing it.” His voice was raspy, as if unused to speaking, and it was at that point that Sparks looked closer at him, seeing things that the euphoria of recognition had let it ignore. His skin was like thin paper, pulled taught over sharp bones, seemingly bloodless save for the faint bruise-like tone, his eyes sunken in their sockets.
And most terrifying of all, his chest did not move with the rhythm of breath. When he wasn’t speaking or moving, he was as still as a corpse.
It made sense, logically. Quel’Thalas had been devastated by the Scourge, it had heard the stories of the wreckage and violence. To imagine that Chiev had emerged unscathed was to engage in pure fantasy, and if Sparks was being entirely honest with itself, this was actually one of the better-case scenarios. It had seen mindless ghouls, and the spectral banshees driven mad by their own pain. Chiev, at least, seemed both physically and mentally there, if changed.
“I’m sorry– I didn’t mean–”
“No, it’s okay. I know what you meant,” and as he spoke, he smiled at Sparks, and it was the exact same smile it had fallen in love with years ago. It thought its heart would break in half just seeing him smile again.
“I never gave up hope that I’d find you again, even after everything, I kept looking for you everywhere I went. I always hoped we’d be reunited.”
Not like this though, never like this, remained unspoken in the air.
Chiev laughed, dry and hollow through desiccated lungs, head in his hands as if to start sobbing. Could a living corpse even still cry?
“I hoped I’d never see you again. That you survived, and thrived, and forgot about me.”
At this, Sparks pulled Chiev close into its arms. His body was cold against it, bones jutting out in new spots, but it was him.
“I could never forget you.”
He was still and silent for a moment in Sparks’ arms, and it worried that he would push it away, before slowly, Chiev leaned into the touch.
“You’re warm,” he said, barely a whisper, in awe as if he had never been warm before. Maybe it had been so long that he’d forgotten the feeling. It wanted to hold him forever, ensure that he never felt cold again.
But of course, forever was not something available to them. Eventually, hesitantly, Sparks asked, “What do we do?”
“We go our separate ways, pretend this never happened, and hope that we never see each other again. What other option is there?”
That was hardly an option at all. To let go of him now would be unthinkable.
“We can’t do that. What if… what if we ran away together? I’m sure we could find someplace we could go! That new continent, Pandaria, maybe– we could go along with the troop movements there, slip away from everyone, and find some place neutral where no one would think to look for us.” Sparks knew it was grasping at straws, but it had to try. There had to be some way to make this work.
Chiev, however, seemed resigned to the worst.
“There is no place for both of us together. There is no room for me alongside the living, and none for you amongst the dead.”
On a certain level, it knew he was right. The worgen curse afflicting it meant its body could not be raised in undeath to join Chiev, and among the survivors of the Scourge, many held the greatest animosity to those undead they had once loved. They called them mockeries, twisted recreations of the people they’d cared for.
Sparks wondered if any of them had actually met one face to face like this. Chiev didn’t seem like a mockery of himself.
Sure he was different than Sparks remembered, but it had been years, they’d both been through hell, Chiev especially. It would have been far stranger if either of them had been exactly the same as when they’d last parted.
“We have to try,” And as it said that, it was certain it had never said anything more true.
It just wished that the truth didn’t sound so much like a suicide pact.
They had to try.