Réynaud

Still needs coloring.



Human Death Knight of the Ebon Blade. Arrogant, smug & Cynical bastard is what describes him best and what he wants others to see in him; a mask he hides his true feelings behind.

His true self is well hidden behind his mask of arrogance and his solution to keep people at a distance. Deep inside he is a very hurt and broken individual cause of the cruel things he had to do under the control of the Lich King, which climaxed in killing his best friend and his whole family. He was fully aware what he did but unable to stop himself. This is one of the rare things he remembers and a lot of his past still is lost. He only remembers small pieces of his past from time to time after his will was freed from the controll of the Lich king at Lights Hope Chapel.

“I am broken. Broken by my past, broken by what I was forced to do, broken by the things I can’t remember. My memories are like the wings of an undead dragon - full of holes, ripped into pieces.”
- Reynaud De Sauveterre, Death Knight of the Ebon Blade

The Great Cold, Day 21, 619 K.C.
Howling Fjord

"You are an ass, you know! A big one!” Kitai growled at Reynaud who was standing in front of her, looking at her with his piercing blue eyes. He had his arms crossed over his chest, standing aloof in his black armor, seemingly untouched by her words. A slight smirk played around his Lips. Kitai hated him for that and worse of all, he knew exactly what effect he was having on her and that made her more furious.

Reynaud enjoyed Kitai’s anger and the self-satisfied look on his face made it obvious. “I only told the truth and if you can’t handle it you should not have asked me.” His voice had once again assumed an arrogant undertone.

“I didn’t ask for your opinion ! “ Kitai had this deep urge to slap Reynaud right now. He had the talent to make her want to kill him, even though she knew she would never stand a chance against the Death Knight. Also she was not the kind of person who enjoyed killing others. She didn’t ask Reynauld for his opinion. She was simply talking to the tavern keeper about some recent events near the small town, telling him what she thhought about the matter. It was just her luck that Reynaud overheard the conversation as he always did like to to tear her opinion into shreds making her look stupid in front of others, like the inn keeper.
She hated him but had no choice since her Master had told her how essential her cooperation with the Ebon blade would be. She simply didn't expect that they would send her such an arrogant idiot who made everything that much harder.

“Then you should be thankful I was so generous and gave it so freely.” Reynaud looked at the redhead in front of him and smiled, knowing that would anger her even more. He enjoyed upsetting the otherwise quiet woman. He always did love to make people hate him. It was easy and kept them at distance. Reynaud didn’t want friends, he did not want sympathy and most of all, he did not want the past to repeat. Without friends there would be no chance for the horrible things he did in the past to happen again.

Kitai wanted to slap that arrogant smile off his face, almost as badly as she wanted to tell him that he should keep his smug comments to himself. Instead she took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “De Sauveterre I did not want your opinion. No one asked for it. Keep it to yourself and shut up.” She explained calmly, using his last name on purpose. She always did, when she was really angry, something Reynaud knew too well. His smile turned into a satisfied grin.
“Why are you using my last name again ?” he asked innocently, although he knew the reason.

Kitai stared at him, her lips pressed together. She wanted to scream but doing so would not be wise, not in front of the inn keeper. It would make her look like a hysterical fury, something Reynaud intended for sure. She attempted to cut Reynaud with a scathing reply but he got in first.

“I am sorry but Kitai sometimes loses her temper. We should discuss the matter when she has calmed down a bit,” Reynaud explained to the keeper who slowly nodded. Kitai felt as if a fist had struck her face, and was unable to utter a word.

“I will bring you something to eat, please take a seat.” The keeper pointed at a table in a far corner of the room. He felt uncomfortable in the presence of the Death Knight and wanted him somewhere far away but also could not simply throw him out of his inn as the intimidating Reynaud had given him no reason to do so.

Reynaud nodded and walked to the table the keeper indicated and sat down on the wooden corner seat. All his movements reflected the arrogance of the Death Knight, even sitting down. Kitai watched him and if she had the ability to stare him to death, he would have burned into a pile of ashes immediately. The young woman followed him and sat down of one of the chairs opposite of him.
“Do you enjoy it ?” she asked without hesitation.
“What are you talking about ?” Reynaud looked at her as if he had done nothing wrong even though he knew exactly what she was hinting at.
“Don’t pretend you do not know. You are very well aware what I am talking about, De Sauveterre.” Kitai was angry, really angry. Reynaud could see it but she was hurt as well. She tried to hide it, but Reynaud knew that look on her face. It was not the first time he saw it.
He had blamed her in front of the keeper, willfully and she knew it. This circumstance seemed to hurt her more than what he had said.
“You take things I say a way too seriously.” He said dryly. “With your bitchy behavior you look like an immature child, no one will respect you.”

Kitai looked at Reynaud in disbelief. She was so struck by his words that she did not know what to say.

More to come soon…

Remorse

Howling Fjord, (no spec. Date atm. Will add later)

Reynaud had stopped his big horse on the top of a snowy hill and watched the small village which nestled in a cozy valley beneath him. A creek passed on the western side of the Inn, which was near the center of the little settlement, that counted not more than twenty houses, all covered in snow which was not unusual for this time of the year.

Reynaud hated places like that. People who lived in such places were full of prejudices against him, against his kind but nonetheless he had to come because that is, where Kitai must have gone. He had not seen her for days now after she ran off, after he had behaved like the biggest asshole on all Azeroth. He finally had achieved what he wanted and driven her away even without violating the orders Mograine has given him. He should have been happy. No one, who tries to tell him what to do. No one, who tries to befriend him. But why did he feel so bad about it?

He growled, angry with himself for starting to worry about her shortly after she disappeared. She was all alone only accompanied by her wolf which he had gifted her in a fit of sentimentality some month ago. Kitai was no child and she knew how to master the land she grew up in. He did not doubt her abilities, not at all but he had this bad feeling that something was totally wrong. This feeling had driven him here, at a place he usually would have avoided.

Reynaud focused back on the village, which lay still before him, unnaturally quiet. Normally, at least a few people would have had to do their daily work, despite the cold, but Reynaud saw no one, something he should have recognized earlier. He softly kicked his horse into motion which started to trot down the hill, churning up the snow covering the ground. The snow swallowed most of the big beast's sounds and only its soft snorting and the gentle creaking of leathers could be heard. The Death Knight did not care. His black form could be seen from afar, long before someone could hear him. But there was no reaction. No one closed the shutters, no one who was watching him mistrustfully, no insults, no mothers dragging their children back into the house. The village was like dead.

Near the outskirts Reynaud restrained his horse and slowly dismounted. He could now see why nothing in the village stirred anymore. Someone had killed the inhabitants, but killing was not the right word for what the Death Knight saw. Someone had slaughtered most of them. Some others had been tormented and nailed alive to their own front doors, where they had slowly died. He patted the neck of his horse and walked to one of the doors were an older man had found his death. He must have suffered long before he finally was allowed to die. Reynaud carefully closed the dead eyes, that stared at him with his armored hand.
His stomach clenched and Reynaud was glad that his condition made it impossible to vomit. The sight did not even leave the death knight cold, which many would be surprised about. Many believed he and his people were cold, heartless monsters, but Reynaud knew better.

A lot of the Ebon Blade are broken individuals who try to find a place after all the suffering they had to endure, all the things they had to do. A hard task cause his kind was not well liked and only tolerated, not accepted. Reynaud could even understand the prejudices, at least to some extent but that a lot not even wanted to give his people a chance was something he could not accept.

Reynaud took a deep breath, more out of habit not because he had too and slowly surrounded the house, looking for a window to take a look inside. He simply could have opened the door but something had stopped him. Probably the dead body nailed to it or his instincts telling him, that something was not right, Reynaud could not tell.

At the back of the house he found, what he was looking for and carefully peered into a small dark room, the kitchen as he could tell by the look of it. Nothing seemed unusual in there and he suggested that they must have gotten the poor old fellow in the living room which had to be located behind the passage to the kitchen. Reynaud smashed in the thick uneven glass with his armored fist and squeezed through the small window, which turned out to be not so easy. It took a moment to finally make it through, but in the end he stood in the dimly lit room.

Reynaud waited until his eyes had adjusted to the dusk, before slowly making his way to the narrow passage that led to the large living room. In contrast to the small kitchen chaos dominated the room. You could clearly see, that someone had raged in here.
The simple furniture had been overturned or destroyed, blood stained one of the walls like somone had been slaugthered. Looking closer he could see the curved shape of an old woman, obviously dead. One of her hands was missing and a big blood stain bloomed like a red flower on her chest.

The Death Knight approached the corpse and as he already did with the old man outside carefully closed her eyes with an armored hand. “I will make them pay.” He promised, his voice hushed and made his way to the narrow staircase, which nestled against the east wall of the small house. Reynaud was glad his armor was not as bulky as the ones most of his brethren wore and therefore had no trouble getting upstairs. The Staircase was tight and even the pauldrons of his armor scraped slightly along the wall. The wood creaked under his heavy footsteps and almost swallowed the short, soft whimpering. Reynaud stopped at once. Silence.

Reynaud did not move and stood there like a statue. Only his eyes moved, searching the small corridor that lay before him which ended in a door. The door hung awkwardly in its hinges, as if someone had kicked it in and closed afterwards. It was strange. No one who ravages a village and slaughters its inhabitants would care and close a door.
The death knight went on cautiously to avoid any noise possible, yet the leather of his armor creaked softly and parts of his chain mail collided with a slight metallic scratching. He unsheathed one of his swords, which he carried on his back, and used his free hand to push the door open, slowly. The door squeaked in protest, but swung open easily, until it got stuck on a fallen chest of drawers.
A double bed stood at one of the walls. Opposite had been the wardrobe, now it lay overturned on the floor and some of the clothes were distributed in the room. Here one had not expected to find anything and caused destruction just for the sake of it. And that's what saved the little whimpering life. Reynaud could hear it again and now he could also tell where it came from. He walked over to the bed and kneeled down so he could peek under it.

Huddled under the bed was a small figure, visibly trembling, staring at Reynaud with large fear-filled eyes. Reynaud was staggered by what he saw, a little boy maybe four or five winters old. The Death knight didn’t expect that and at first did not know what to do. He hated children. These little monsters annoyed him and always asked stupid questions, nonetheless he felt sorry for the child whose family must have been slaughtered like the other inhabitants of the village. The boy must have been very lucky that nobody found him here, because only a simple look under the bed would have been enough to find him.
The little boy whimpered again softly and pressed himself against the wall in fear. The boy already annoyed Reynaud and he was only hindering him, but he could not just leave him alone. He took a deep breath and removed his helmet so as not to scare the child any further. Hopefully a normal human face would help to get him out under the bed.

“It’s all right.” The Death Knight spoke to the child in a calm voice. “You can come out. They are gone. I am none of them and I can bring you home.”
“There is no more home.” The boy was sobbing so softly that you could barely hear it. “They broke everything, even mommy and daddy.” He shivered again, as if he remembered what was done to his parents. Tears started to run down his face.

“You can’t stay here alone.” Reynaud watched the boy cowering under the bed. He carefully held out an armored hand. “I can bring you somewhere safe, somewhere warm.”
“I.. I am not allowed to go with strangers.” The little boy wiped his tear-wet eyes with his sleeve. It felt strange that after all what must have happened to the boy, he still insisted on something so banal he had learned.
Reynaud suppressed a sigh. He had no time for such silly games but he also could not leave the boy behind. He would stand no chance and starve or freeze to death.
“When I tell you my name and you give me yours, then we are no longer strangers.” Reynaud still hold out his hand. “I am Reynaud and I will bring you somewhere safe, I promise.” The Death Knight forced a narrow smile.
The boy hesitated for a moment before placing his hand carefully in the man's much larger one. “I am Arik.” The boy stated with his tiny voice tear-chocked voice.
Reynaud softly pulled Arik out from under the bed. Arik was extremely thin and the dirty clothes he was wearing seemed way too big for his tiny figure. He would need something to hold him warm otherwise he would not survive the ride to the Ebon Blade Outpost. Reynaud stood up and pulled the small boy to his feet who had started to sob again.
“We need… “ Reynaud started to explain, when the boy clung tightly to the much larger man. Arik was shaking all over and his soft sobbing passed into a heart-melting weeping.

More to come soon…

Réynaud is (c) by Vahilor

World of Warcraft World Setting © by Blizzard