Scarlet and gold were the colors of his world as the young Paladin walked through the Silvermoon City streets. One of the youngest members of the itself-young organization of Blood Elf Paladins, the Blood Knights, this man stood tall and proud of his accomplishments within the city already. While he was not a high ranking knight by any means, already with his arrest record and abilities weilding the Light, the Paladin showed promise of one day being a Knight Commander himself. Unfortunately for others, he knew this, and did not always act with the greatest amount of modesty in anyway shape or form. The Paladin was proud of his facial features and his armor, things that had never been scarred or scratched in the heat of battle, of which he'd been in many, having been a loyal supporter of the Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider in the world beyond the Dark Portal. The world beyond worlds. He had been allowed to return with some of those Sin'dorei to reclaim Silvermoon City and build it for the resurgence of the Sun King. Something that, obviously, would never come to be.
The Paladin's golden hair shined in the sunlight he walked in, his strong features represented only even more strongly by his glaring smile and penetrating gaze. His armor, form fitted to his slim but very strong physique, rattled as he stalked around the streets of the Blood Elf capitol. The Paladin was on the job, beating around the streets and looking for a young woman of special interest to him. While the Paladin considered himself a great detective and law enforcer, his past several investigations had been stopped dead whilst investigating a group by the name of Calamity. It had begun with an investigation involving an explosion and tussle between an Orc and a Diplomat in the Bazaar, which had turned up no evidence or sign of the suspects, neither the green skinned one or the red and gray wearing Diplomat. The Paladin was in somewhat of a rut. Now he was seeking out a woman, by the name of Lorelae Shadowbeam, a Rogue, to put into protective custody. The Rogue had gotten herself involved in some devious business involving members of high society, as Rogues were wont to do, but without any proof that the Rogue had acted in a nefarious manner, the Paladin's only job was to make sure that her life could not be threatened, and the best way for that to be accomplished was for her to surrender herself to the Blood Knights for a time, as such that the Blood Knights could neutralize the threats against her.
As the Paladin moved past the floating blue curtains, keeping their silk tresses out of his face and hair when he entered the Silvermoon City Inn, a decidedly more desirable destination than the seedy Wayfarer's Rest, his emerald eyes wandered. How unsettling it was to be a part of a race who's eye colors, but for the few exceptions there were to beings that could still call themselves Blood Elves, were all a sickly and powerful Fel green. The Paladin's examination did not last long, he saw his mark standing near the buffet table of fresh fruits and pastries, all the things a growing elf needs. She was slim and glad in sleeveless leather, whether it be her top or her shorts. She was built for maneuvering left and right, back and forth, at a moments notice. She had a pair of nasty looking daggers on her hips, but other than that, the only thing about her that screamed for attention or did not warrant someone to draw the conclusion that she was a Rogue was the engagement ring she was wearing proudly on her hand. The Paladin smiled, good-natured if not egotistical, and approached the Rogue from behind. Turn abouts fair play?
"Lorelae Shadowbeam?" The Paladin asked loud enough that if things got ugly, currently residing patrons could hear the conversation, making no secret of it. Take the Rogue out of her element. Yes, she was the victim, but she was still a Rogue and she was still flighty.
The Rogue froze and he swore he saw her hair stand on end. She turned to look at him and immediately she started to walk around him so that she was the one with her back to the door, and not him. The Paladin allowed this, because one of the last things you wanted was to try and talk to a Rogue who's back was against a corner.
"Who wants to know?" asked the Rogue.
"I'm with the Silvermoon City Blood Knights, I was sent to investigate your problems with one of the regent lords? I'm to take you back to the citadel for protective custody, as we have reason to believe your life is in danger." The Paladin stated simply and clearly, moving in step with her so that he was facing the door, his back to the large stove and cooking materials in the corner.
"I don't really need your help." The Rogue stated, her voice one of silken death. He swore that he could smell blood on her breath, even though her teeth were positively white. In fact, despite her being even more skin and bones than most Blood Elf clothies, she had very alluring facial features. And... other assets, but that was improper of the Paladin to be taking notice of.
"Please, mi'lady. It for your own good that you let the Blood Knights see to this matter..." The blonde Paladin implored, putting one hand on his belt. His sword hand.
"The lady said she wasn't interested..." A third voice. Deep and dark and gangrel, like gravel stroking across someones throat while they spoke. From the tables deep within the Inn, a Forsaken Warlock stood and stalked over, moving with a hunched back, as though purpose was the thing that weighed down his shoulders in his forward movement. He was wearing dark black and purple colors, although the Paladin could not see his face through his masked hood. "The man should leave the lady be."
"This is not a trial, not an arrest, and not your business, Forsaken." The Paladin warned, as the Warlock came around the Rogue and stood at her side. From the way the Rogue repulsed away from his touch, the Paladin guessed that she was in no way associated with the biligerant ghoul.
"I can take care of myself--" She almost confirmed when the Warlock cut her off, speaking directly to the Blood Knight.
"Shouldn't meddle in the affairs of people who don't want your help, Blondie. Blood Knight or not, should get leaving. She doesn't want you or your people's help." The Warlock was grim in his conviction, but the way he was talking, slurred and rushed, the Paladin might have thought he was drunk. Could Forsaken imbibe and become drunk, he wondered momentarily? He never thought as much. They were just inherrently eccentric.
"Sir, go back to your seat and let us handle the business." The Paladin warned a second time. This time his hand went to the hilt of his blade on his waist.
The events following would change the Paladin's life forever. Carefree days off, gone, perfection of looks, burned away, his future with the Blood Knights, all but eliminated. The events following would happen too fast for eyewitnesses to accurately account. Did the Paladin draw first, or perhaps the Rogue had thrown a grenade. No, no one would remember how it truely took place. No one except for the Paladin. For he saw it everyday.
The Warlock was quick in his movements, as a Death Coil left his pointed fingers and palm, a green and purple flame trailing it like a comet made of astral plague. It whirled through the air, right at the Paladin, who had been in enough fights, had dodged enough attacks, that avoiding it was a simple affair. He quick duck to the right and the situation was diffused. The Paladin ripped his curved weapon from it's sheathe with an angry roar. "Sir, that is an offens--" But those words dripped off of him as quickly as they were thought of. A loud hiss was filling the room, consuming the air, and the Warlock was stepping back. The Rogue was stepping back. The Paladin, foolishly, did not persue, for the hiss was coming from behind him. Turning about, with a clutter of plates pattering against each other, the blonde and perfect Paladin... was perfect for the last time.
An explosion of gas, cooking oils, fire, and fel. Green and orange and purple. A chain reaction amongst the Death Coil and whatever in the flammables it had hit. An enormous detonation of evil demon magic and contemporary fire and flames. Green and orange and red and purple. And all that the Paladin saw was fire. He turned completely as the fire blasted him across his front, shooting him back, slamming him against the wall and barrels under the stairs. Screams of terror and agony, as patrons evacuated the Inn. The Warlock, unaffected by his own magic, but protecting himself from the explosion, stalked out of the Inn casually, never to be seen again, never knowing what he had wrought. The Rogue vanished in a puft of smoke that represented their ilk rather well, and was gone. The fires raged, but did not consume the Inn more than that first rupture of violence. And while women and men fled the room, many passed by the Paladin, laying, curled up by himself in the wreckage, smoke smoldering off of his front side. No one helped him.
He crawled out himself, clawing at the floor and dragging his heavy plated body out of the Inn. Outside in the Royal Exchange, he managed to struggle up the stairs without the use of his legs proper, and plant himself in the cool grass under the tree and floating lamps. He curled up in a ball, and it seemed like an era before smoke finally stopped coming off of the Paladin's front, whisping up into the air. It was even longer before any passers-by stopped to inspect the fallen man in Blood Knight Crimson and Gold.
The first one to happen upon him, another Paladin, his friend Mialeta, rushed to his side as soon as she saw him. A true comrade and confidant, but no more than that. She slid across the grass on her knees and called to him, but he could not hear her. He did not want to see her. She pulled on his side, and gasped at his visage. She recoiled. Something he would always remember.
His armor on the front was no longer crimson and gold, now a charred maroon and olive, where it wasn't black, or occasionally fel green. His entire front plates held this visage, from his greaves and gauntlets, all the way to his chest armor. As the colors rounded his sides, his hips, they drastically returned to their normal set of scarlet and royal gold. However, it was not his armor that Mialeta had recoiled from. His face, once beautiful and unscarred, a perfect man's, was changed. Horrifically, his skin had been melted away, and then cauterized immediately by the heat of Fel Fire. The bridge of his nose was almost completely and purely bone, as was much of area between his eyebrows and parts of his forehead, where muscle tendons and skin rejoined his face. His bangs had been scorched away, his lips charred significantly. A spat with fire had burned a small amount of his cheek away, so that when his mouth opened or he spoke, one could see the tendon connecting his cheek bone and his jaw tensing and doing it's job. His eyelids, remarkably and thankful, were mostly unharmed, but the cheek bones that rested under them could be seen as well, scarred and black in places. The damage was almost entirely on the front of his face, and as it rounded to his jaw hinges, like his armor, his normal color returned. His eyes stared up at her with terror. For to see Mialeta holding him and recoiling, he had to look past a perpetual flame veil.
Mialeta would call for a healer, but in the time he had been laying alone with no help, the Forsaken Priestess who answered the call, ironically, could do nothing to fix his skin. It was gone, nothing to repair or grow back. The woman, the Priestess, would speak of Will every so often, and perhaps a healer with a greater amount of it may have been able to save his face, but for her the damage had been done too long ago. All she could do was remove his pain. And physically, she did, for the most part. The Paladin still ached in his face when he had to speak or make significant facial expressions. This would eventually go away, she told him. He did not tell her, though, about the veil of fire, of orange and red, that he saw everything through now. Wreathed in flame, his vision was haunted. He looked haunted the first time he stood up, taller than ever it seemed, angry, hate filled, destroyed.
Mialeta frowned and put her hand on his forearm.
"Ashalar... what happened?"
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