Flowers for Beckyann

Beckyann sat at the small desk that she had been provided in the Stormwind Regional Headquarters of the 1113^th. Spread out in front of her were a variety of forms, documents, stamps, inks, quills, and paperclips. She had a large stack of papers in a wire basket on either side of the desk, one labeled 'Complete' and one labeled 'To Do' with the 'To Do' pile being much larger.

As she completed a document and pressed a seal against it, Beckyann sighed, looking over the stack of mundane forms and requisitions that she had yet to complete. It was going to take hours, and even though she no longer needed to sleep that didn't mean she relished doing menial tasks late into the evening. But it had to be done, or General Glou might become dissatisfied either with her own work or with the documents being submitted by others in the 1113^th, and she would be damned if she let one of her fellow brothers and sisters suffer as a result of a misfiled form, not when she was adept at such things.

With a groan she reached over for the next form in the pile; she was beginning to suspect that being tortured to death by the Cult of the Damned was actually lenient compared to this particular slice of the hells. Her glowing blue eyes examined the form, and she winced, ALMOST feeling like she could get a headache if such things could happen to the unliving.

“No no no NO! This form is supposed to be in BLUE ink,” she muttered angrily. “And it's not even stamped properly. I'm going to have to redo the entire thing. Just great!”

As her tirade ended, the door to the headquarters opened. Since Beckyann's desk didn't warrant a private office or anything fancy, she looked up to see a man entering bearing a bouquet of white roses. Her eyebrows rose in curiosity as he entered.

“May I help you sir? You're in the headquarters of the 1113^th, not the florist shop,” Beckyann said in a flat tone.

The man looked at her somewhat nervously, reading the card on the flowers before looking up, “U-uh, I'm l-looking for a M-miss Eastberg. D-do you know where she is?”

If Beckyann's eyebrows had not been grown with necromancy, they likely would have fallen off her head as they shot up rather abruptly, “Wait what? Those are for ME? Are you sure...?”

The man seemed relieved to have immediately found who he was looking for, plopping them down on her desk and backing up, nodding. “Y-yes Miss! Here you go! Have a wonderful night...er...if you can..”

With that he was gone, leaving Beckyann with a beautiful bouquet and a lot of questions. She hesitantly reached out to read the label:

Dear Miss Eastberg,

Thank you so much for your help today. No matter what anyone says, you are our guardian angel. We will never forget your kindness.

Love,

The Tanner Family

Beckyann smiled as she leaned back in her chair, recalling earlier that day.

****************************

She'd been taking a walk through Elwynn, heading back towards the pauper's graveyard that she'd found earlier on in the week. Curious as to who might be buried there and eager to study the inscriptions now that she had time to herself, she hurried down the path through the woods. As they had before, voices greeted her through the woods and almost immediately spoiled her trip.

“No! Stop that at once! It's so disrespectful! Get away from there you brats!” a female voice cried out.

“Shut up lady, we'll do what we want. Ain't gonna have you tellin' us what we can do. You ain't my mom!” a rather snotty sounding younger voice returned.

Rolling her eyes, Beckyann pushed on, rounding the last bend and coming up on the cemetery. The graves here were simple, with only a few headstones and steel markers to show where the dead lay. Although Beckyann had believed the place to be unused, it seemed that she had been mistaken. Standing amongst the headstones was a woman with two small children in tow, a bouquet of white roses in her hands. Several of the other graves were marked with similar flowers, and it seemed the woman had come to either tidy up the place, or at least honor her family members that were buried there.

Unfortunately for the woman, there were also about five or six teenagers who had obviously come into the cemetery to cause mischief. Ranging from fifteen to eighteen, they had wandered all over the cemetery and tipped over headstones and disturbed graves. As Beckyann watched, two of them stumbled into each other, laughing. It was obvious they were completely smashed from some local brew.

“Get away from that headstone!” the woman yelled again as two of the boys tipped another stone over. The woman cried out but didn't step forward, afraid for her two children. The sight sent a burning rage through the death knight.

“Enough.” she said, her tone menacing. Something in the way she stood made the boys pause, and they turned to look at her. “You will fix the headstones you've knocked over and then leave this place in peace.”

The boy closest to Beckyann sneered, pointing at her and shouting, “You aint' tellin' us either lady. Get lost. We're just havin' some fun!”

Beckyann didn't reply, simply reaching up to remove her glasses. Her baleful glare bored into the boy, and dark magic began to curl around her. The wind grew chilly, and the grass near her feet began to blacken and die as the words to a Death and Decay spell danced through her mind. Although she didn't lash out at the teens, the message in Beckyann's stance was clear.

The boys sobered up almost immediately, looking at each other fearfully and then begrudgingly turning and setting headstones back in place, cleaning up the cemetery. Beckyann just stood there, staring at them until they finished. As they turned to go, the bravest of them turned and spat in her direction, “You ain't gonna get away with this. The guards'll hear about one of you things threatening us. You're as good as dead.”

As the boy turned around, Beckyann pointed at him, dark tendrils of magic wrapping around his waist and drawing him near. He landed within her grasp, her cold, dead fingers closing around his throat. As his friends looked on in horror, Beckyann smiled and leaned closer, whispering into his ear with her black lips, “I don't sleep anymore. Ever. Remember that when you are in your bed and looking out of your window into the darkness. Your parents will never know what happened to you. They'll think you just took a fever in the night. That you must have caught something while you were out in the woods. And you did, didn't you? But we'll know. You and I will know. And it won't be quick. You'll wish your parents had come to check on you while you slept, but they won't be there to help you.”

The boy quivered in fear in her grasp, actually wetting his pants. Beckyann released her grip on him, and he fell to the ground, clutching at one of her boots. She shifted away from him in contempt. Glaring at the others, “Or you can leave, and we'll never discuss this again. Your choice.”

The boy at her feet scrambled to his feet and ran for it, his friends quickly following suit. Beckyann simply shrugged and straightened out her dress, turning to study the headstones she'd come to look at. Behind her, the woman cleared her throat and Beckyann turned, tilting her head, “Yes?”

“T-thank you M-miss,” the woman stuttered. “That was my husband's marker. I'd just gone to fetch more flowers for him.”

Beckyann turned away, shrugging. “I will not watch someone defile the grave of a person who still has loved ones to tend it. Think nothing of it. And my name is Beckyann. Beckyann Eastberg of the 1113^th. If they come to disturb you again, call on me.”

“I will Miss Eastberg,” the woman said, nodding happily. “You don't know what this means to me.”

**********************************

In the headquarters in Stormwind, Beckyann came to know exactly what it meant to the woman. The flowers were not inexpensive, and a poor family likely would have had to spend several week's pay just to purchase one of the bouquets. Beckyann remembered what it was like when she was growing up.

Clearly the gesture had meant much.

With a smile, the death knight took one of the roses from the bouquet, using an envelope opener to cut the bud off before affixing the flower in her hair. She smiled and got back to her paperwork, her mood uplifted.