Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Once through the portal there was a flurry of activity, questions asked and answered. And we got quickly and efficiently bundled onto hippogryphs, escorted by one of the Argents temporarily on Acherus for coordination. Lily of course got shunted to DK-medical instead.

The plaguelands didn’t quite look how I remembered, as we glided on down, but it had been a while, and I often had a poor memory for images outside of trying to draw them. As my gaze scanned the ground for Light’s Hope, I must have drawn on my more supernatural vision.

Because suddenly, the world was bathed in light. A lake of molten gold sitting behind the curve of the mountain, but still blindingly visible through all the stone. The plaguelands might own the sky, and shallow soil, but the earth here blazed with Light. A river flowing in from the west, only half visible to whatever magic sight I was using, and I got hints of other rivers, and maybe with a lot of effort I could have seen them.

We came around the curve of the mountain, and I was able to see the actual settlement- or at least the dome of consecrated space. It wasn’t labeled in words - not written words, and I didn’t hear anything from it, but as our flight descent crossed into the shielded space, I was able to feel through some indistinct sense, the echo of a martyr. Death, with intent to drive back evil.

It let me through just fine. But then, it also keeps letting DK’s in, when it really shouldn’t, so maybe not the most perceptive of magical wards?

Upon landing we got handed off to a different member of the argent faction, while our escort went to carry news to the people in charge.

The woman who had been told to get us settled in sighed. “I’m sorry in advance for the fact that I’m likely to be overly blunt and grumpy - but managing logistics here in the plaguelands is a nightmare at the best of times, and I got exactly no sleep last night. So. Welcome to Light’s Hope - we’re working on getting the situation under control, but in the meantime, you, and plenty of others, get to sit around in our partially constructed fort. Some ground rules; first, don’t get into fights with any of the other refugees - I don’t care that some of them are Horde, this land is a sanctuary, and you’d better respect that. Second, While this is holy ground, it’s also smack dab in the plaguelands. Don’t wander out beyond the border, and daily medical checks are not optional. Third, food and drink are currently being strictly rationed, so if there's a good reason why you need special considerations tell me now.” She looked at us warily, waiting for more complications.

We shook our heads in negation, and she relaxed. “Okay. I think that’s all the rules. We’re not going to ask anything else of your stay, but if you want to help, there’s no shortage of work to be done, either.”

I exchanged a glance with John, and saw an agreement - we might both be profoundly tired, but neither of us was going to be able to sleep for a while, and it would be easier to just wait until dark.

“Low thought work - burnt out from last night?”

“We can arrange some yes. What skills do you have, and feel up to using?”

-

We’d gotten split up, but I wasn’t exactly worried - it was a small encampment, and the danger of the last night was now not my problem. It was something I would never have done as easy work in my old life, but with the loss of a disability, and after a few months in the scribes guild - I could handle being a scribe easily enough.

But as I sat beside cots full of injured who had been evacuated, and transcribed letters for those who couldn’t hold a pen, or had never been literate to start with, something rattled in the back of my mind that I should have done.

And then, between helping others, a tapping on my ankle caught my attention. My earth elemental wasn’t manifested, but that didn’t stop it from making me notice. ‘Distant friends, promises to keep. Write your own letter.’

I didn’t answer verbally, but I pulled out a sheet of paper and began to write my letter to Konona.

Began to write my letter, crossed out half of it, and started again.

Repeated this a few times, before crumpling up the sheet in frustration, and starting a new blank. This one, I didn’t try to make pretty, make safe, make kind. I just wrote it, in the only tone I could deliver all the way through. Just snarky enough, I didn’t have to address how I felt.

-

Most of the day disappeared. I know things happened, but nothing really made an impression - not the other survivors streaming in through the day, not the medical check ups, not the off-brand lembas bread that we had as rations. I collapsed into bed after supper, and for the first night in … a long time, didn’t notice my dreams.

-

I woke up feeling well rested and profoundly better than I had been yesterday. Which given the events of the night leading into that day, really didn’t say much. It’s hard not to get better, if you survive, when one hits rock bottom.

My fire elemental yawned. It was the first sound I had heard from it, since I had almost been turned. ‘Ick. Was miserable - best mage was miserable. 0 out of 10, do not do again.’

I turned my gaze to stare at my shoulder elemental. Because yes, I agreed with the sentiment, but did it just meme at me?? Since when do elementals snark?

‘Stealing your words. Weren’t using smile-warm speaking. Weren’t listening to mage. Going to listen to me, speaker?’

That last was a challenge, naming us as different wasn’t something Fire did often. My fire elemental met my gaze, with her own burning stare. I looked down, eyes stinging.

‘It’s okay not to be okay. But no more chasing judgement. Or you might find it.’ My fire spirit growled, and I curled around my knees, hiding my face behind crossed arms.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I was apologizing before I had even figured out what exactly I was sorry for - almost dying? Disappointing even my elemental spirits? Not being good enough, never being good enough?

There was a pause, the feeling of warmth around my shoulders. In a softer hum, my fire spirit continued. ‘Not sure what the right answer was. What we could have done. Light-fire, not our fire. Couldn’t burn out plague without killing you. Did try, even without active support from you. Earth-water healing can’t manage it, from your other-world-memories. Change came too quick, probably wouldn’t have made it even if acted.’ My fire spirit cried, too, as she continued. ‘But you froze - stopped listening, stopped looking. And you couldn’t hear me. You let your fire go.’

I winced. Again. Because, it was true, but I wasn’t sure I could change enough to not make that happen again.

‘Might not change, but try? And pick a new goal - went to Outland, to save mage. Go to Northrend, to do what?’’

We sat for a while, and as the emotional turmoil burned, hot tears tracing salt on my cheeks, I thought about that command from my fire spirit. Because, changing myself, on a fundamental level, would be hard, might be too hard. But, picking goals - setting out to do things; That, I can do.

-

As I walked to breakfast I was tossing over an idea. It wasn’t what my fire spirit had asked. And objectively, It was a stupid idea.

But.

I knew Lily. And with John there to act as a buffer … could I just tell someone? Set down my secrets, not because I had to, not because they already knew too much, were too close to lie too any longer - but just because I chose to?

My thoughts were interrupted - by someone in may space, touching me. I nearly decked him, before I identified who it was. John, dragging me into a hug, and nestling his face in my hair. “I woke up and you weren’t there -” A hiccuping sob, and the sentence was left to stand unfinished. But I got the point, and winced slightly, held him as my guilt surged again - we might not be in the habit of sleeping together, but leaving him to wake up alone, after what had happened before...

His next words were said into my shoulder and didn’t carry all that far. “Why didn't you save yourself? You’d given up your secret to save me - it’s not fair that I couldn’t save you.”

“Sometimes life isn’t fair.” And then in hesitant tone, “And I know It might not feel like it - but you have saved me - every time you remind me how to smile ... “

“It isn’t enough. You’re not allowed to die - promise me.”

I drew back, “You know I can’t promise that. I can’t conquer death.”

“Then lie to me - but I need to hear that you’ll stay.”

“I’ll stay.” As long as he continued to love me, as long as it was in my power. But, he asked for soft lies - the boundless optimism of lovers, and youth. “We’ll live forever together - make a world where everything is sunshine, and nothing hurts. There’s nothing that could hold us apart -” the lyrics of a song snuck in, “you and me, we’re a miracle; mountains move, and oceans part, when they are standing in our way.”

John laughed softly. “Thank you. I needed to hear that. And, it’s good that I can tell when you’re lying to me.”

I sighed. “Well you did ask me to.”

He hugged me tighter. “I know. Thank you.” In a soft voice. “You weren’t lying when you said you’d stay.”

-

There was something of a commotion in the camp, after our breakfast of yet more enriched manna bread (my best description for it, would be combining American biscuits with hot cross buns, except with none of the tone clash you’d expect from that combination).

I didn’t hear the start of it, but the death knight’s reply was both distinctive, and easily heard through the noise of the camp. “I will be back to my obligations soon enough, have no fear of me staying here. But one of the few people I care about was injured, and her mortal hanger-ons are here.”

I adjusted to see her past the other gawkers. The first visual impression was, of course, death knight - dark armor standing out like a raven among sparrows. Twin swords, wrapped in a pale blue gleam sat hanging from her belt. No sheath? Or glowing through it? Brown hair hung down to her shoulders, shorter than my hair, but a similar style. Hers was a lighter brown, a caramel to my chocolate. But we had similar luster, despite the relative brightness, her hair a duller brown, than some of the bright golds I had seen.

I had been assuming she was human, until I saw the white ear tips poking up through her hair, the thin brown line of blelf eyebrows extending past the teardrop face. Both traits were subtle, hard to spot initially at my distance, and I found myself wondering, Is this a half elf? I thought Sindori features should be more pronounced - didn’t Arator look almost human except for the hair - and hers looks more human than his hair did.

And then her gaze locked onto me, and I got to see her move. She might have looked mostly human - but she didn’t move like a human in plate. Despite the metal, despite the crowd, she moved with a lightness, like gravity was lighter for her than the rest of us mere mortals. Maybe on a different elf, it would have been bouncy, but despite the floating stride, her cold gaze stayed locked on mine, unwavering, as she walked to stand across from me. “Epolmono, yes?”

I nodded.

The death knight eyed me for a moment, before reaching into one of the pouches at her belt, and drawing something yellowish that glinted metallic, from hammerspace bags. In one elegant motion, her arm snapped out towards me, the metal object hurling in my direction.. My first instinct was to dodge, but I didn’t manage to move before it hit me.

I grunted, the impact sending me back a step. It settled to hang draped over my arm, metal scales in a familiar arrangement.

“Lily said you’d lost your bags when the plague hit. Have some new armor. A gift. I don’t honestly care what you do with it - wear it, melt it down to make boots or bracers, sell it, disenchant it. Do as you will.” She walked towards me slowly, almost gliding. “But, allow me to make one thing clear,” She didn’t slow as she approached, and I found myself stepping backwards as she advanced. “If Lily gets hurt protecting you, again, and you weren’t wearing your damn armor - I will end you.” She yanked me forward by my shirt, until we were nose to nose. “Understood?”

“Yes ma’am.”

She let me go, turning on heel and striding away. I staggered as I struggled to regain my balance.

There was silence as she faded into the distance, the crowd staying parted in the wake of her passage.

A whistling exhale from one of the onlookers, before he said, “Wow. That has got to be the most scary gift-giving I have ever seen.”

-

And so, of course, three hours later, the mage post had a letter for us (John) from the mage district innkeeper, noting that that district had been secured enough that he’d been able to get back in to his inn, and that our bags were being kept safe for us - pending either our appearance, a letter confirming that we wished them sent to us (and were willing to put up with a security check), or one months time, after which they would default to being the inn’s property. It also included a less formal post script in which Steven hoped us all the best, and expressed worry over whether we’d been hurt in the events of the last few days.

We asked to get our bags sent, despite still not having the privacy for me to comfortably conjure armor, since not asking for it back would have been just as suspicious. Given the near death not having armor incident.

Of course, I did have the armor ‘gifted’ by Lily's 'friend', that I had struggled my way into immediately as she left. It didn’t fit all that well, and I had issues figuring out how to get it on - but also, it didn’t properly accommodate my back tendrils, so having issues didn’t exactly attract suspicion, just commiserating winces.

I could put on my ‘real armor’, tomorrow, with my relative privacy to get dressed.

-

We still hadn’t heard back about Lily’s status, when, on the third morning, a different dk came flying into camp on a skeletal griffon. In a growl that could be heard from a decent distance away, but was only barely understandable, the orc said, “Scourge leaders now guiding troops - this is time for your backup to come smash some liches.” As the planning Argents started hurriedly, but smoothly mobilizing, the orc came towards the more chaotic group of evacuees. In a far clearer accent, he called out “The scourge commanders have finally shown their faces - Any of you recovered enough for a good fight, come give these scourge bastards a thorough asskicking.”

There was a cheer, and several of the horde adventurers surged forward, about half stumbling, or getting dragged back down by a nearby healer. But there were a few who didn’t look so good among those standing. The death knight went to stand next to the one in the worst shape - another orc, old and from what I had heard the day before, having breathing issues. “If I let you come fight, old man, it’ll get you killed. No wisdom to pass on first?”

“Victory, or a warrior’s death. Are you going to deny me that?” And from the pointed glance it seemed that the older orc didn’t appreciate a death knight trying to stop him from chasing the orcish equivalent of Valhalla.

The deathknight grunted. “Fine. There’s a battlefield waiting, and I won’t stop you. Now to see if any of these alliance kittens have claws.” In the much thicker accent, the orc called out again. “Any of you alliance wounded fit to fight?”

I exchanged a look with John, and we both stood up. There were others, including our fair share of hotheads disregarding their injuries. The dk looked us over - “Any of you mage? Ebon Hold has portals, but going direct would get you there faster. Only so many griffons to the hold.”

“I am.” John said firmly, before asking in a tone that was weakened half by the natural cadence of a question, and half out of a mostly suppressed fear. “Are we going to be heading straight into a fight? Is the mage tower secure?”

The horde definitely picked up on the quaver, as one of the trolls jeered. The orc just raised a gauntlet hand in a gesture for silence, before speaking calmly once his faction had quieted. “The tower is secure. Or was, a few minutes ago. Should have time to get ready on the Stormwind side. But battle-lines move, good to keep your guard up.”

The horde and alliance teams split, going to different cities. As John began ushering people through the portal, a team of three argent knights, three priests, and a gnome engineer joined the crowd of our staging area. At a questioning glance one of the knights commented, “Most of the argent forces have already been mobilized. We’re the last of the reserves - but we can still make a difference.”

“Actually, I was wondering about you guys using our portal. Doesn't the Argent Dawn have their own Magi?”

A shrug, “With the former scarlet crusaders joining under our banner, we got a few extra - but none of them were keyed into the Stormwind portal rune. We could have used the team sitting in Acherus, but with a mage here among the group heading back …”

-

As we stood, adjusting our eyes to the light inside the mage tower, an out of breath messenger came panting up. “Need casters … to the gates.”

“Isn’t the necropolis over the harbor, still?”

“Yes.” A huff, and he continued, “there's attacks on both fronts. The other reinforcements should go to the harbor line.”

-

By the time we reached the gates, the wave of undead was visible, but still maybe half a minute away. I looked at the pass they were funneling in through, the narrow stone bridge, and saw the few things the Stormwind defenses actually did right. (Even if a drawbridge might have been better on the moat, a narrow bridge is still a good choke point.)

There were already a few casters, with staves or wands, in cloth (along with one night elf in leather) standing alongside the small team of guards. “It’s not as glamorous as fighting the damn lich pulling the strings; but if you lot can stop the wave of incoming undead from battering down the gates, or turning tail and assaulting one of the smaller towns, you’ll still be doing good work. I’m no caster, so I’m going to trust you to know your effective range. I’m not worrying about volley fire on this action, since our goal isn’t to break their morale, it’s to kill every last shambler. So, keep your eyes on the incoming wave, and cast when ready.”

I looked out at the incoming, distant, enemies, and decided they were still well out of my range. I instead directed my focus to my elementals to scheme. ‘Earth,’ and I really should talk with my elementals and ask them about names at some points, since there was more than one elemental of their types, even if I only had the one aiding me. And then I tripped over exactly how to ask the question, before deciding to just run with a solution even if it wasn’t the right way, ‘can we do some area attack? The spell sometimes called Earthquake?’ Because it wasn’t a real earthquake - at least it had better not be. I wasn’t looking to use an attack with a radius best measured in counties, nor one that was basically useless most of the time (Low magnitude earthquakes happen all the time, and chances are, you won’t feel anything less than a four, even if the fault is right under your city. I should know, I studied this in several of my uni courses, and also lived in a city that tended to get almost daily quakes, that no one noticed unless you had special measuring tools, or checked a dedicated earthquake website for updates. And that’s still an amount of energy best measured in tons of TNT.)

‘We have no time to negotiate with the deepstone. But, it doesn't take much power to shake topsoil.’

‘Good. the ground in front of the bridge - don’t shake the foundations, move further if we need to please.’

‘It’ll take more power to work at that distance. But you can manage.’

‘Then get ready, because we’re going to do this.’

I didn’t get a spoken response, just the impression that my earth elemental was chuckling as it went to get into position.

It wasn’t easy to make out an individual undead in the mob, at the distance we were attacking from, but undead murlocs looked distinctly different from undead humans. And the mob was about 30-70 humans to fish people. Apparently one of the scourge commanders had an idea where to get plenty more recruits out of their elwynn forest outbreak.

It didn’t make anything right - no one who had fallen was recovered, and with the walls protecting us it didn’t feel like anyone was saved. But, knocking zombie murlocs on their buts might be the most satisfying I have ever done with my shamanism.

I didn’t have to be close enough to smell the rot, see the peeling flesh. Nor did I have to face the exact damage we inflected. I just got to watch as our spell fire made the incoming wave of undead disappear at a distance. And from up on the wall, it almost felt clean like the game had been.

-

There was another wave - desperate compared to the first, but almost more successful, just because it was harder to hit lone ghouls. After that was done, the one elven druid got sent out to do a flyby of the forest and see if there were any pockets of scourge left in the countryside.

They came back around sunset, with the report that the elwynn forest outbreak had started in a defias camp in the hills, and that from the druid’s best guess, the defias bandits had stolen one of the tainted crates bound for Stormwind. Aside from that pocket (and the possibility of undead murlocs in the lake), it seemed like the only undead in the woods were south of the river, in duskwood, where that was just a usual terrain hazard.

We were dismissed, to the first solid break in fighting Stormwind had had in three days. We wandered back to the mage tower, unsure of where to head next, but deciding that that was a good bet for coordination, and even if we didn’t find anyone who could get word from Acherus for us on Lily’s condition, an extra mage might still be helpful for the rush of portals to accommodate tired adventurers trying to go home, now that crisis was over.

As we walked, we saw broken things. Windows that had been smashed, streaks of blood and soot that hadn’t yet been washed away, and doors standing open, the former occupants dead or gone. But there were also places where things were getting better. A family sweeping glass from their street front, who looked up and waved as we went past (we waved back), the sound of a child’s laughter breaking the oppressive silence. And some sights were both, someone sitting on the curb weeping, as a friend hugged them. Hurt, but also loved.

-

At the base of the mage tower, there was a familiar face waiting for us. Lily looked up, from leaning against the tower, to track people entering the square, and as soon as she saw us, she pushed off the wall and began stalking towards us, glaring. “What part of staying out of trouble did you two not understand?” Her primary sword arm was in a sling, and still seemed injured, but I had no doubt she could still threaten if she wanted to.

I froze, unable to answer.

John thankfully, didn’t share my instinctive panic at getting scolded by a woman we respect. Or at least, didn’t share my failure mode, given the quaver under the cheerful tone, “Does standing safely atop the walls raining down fire really count as trouble? It was like shooting fish in a barrel.”

Lily raised an eyebrow. “And the reason there was a call to action, was that on the other side of the city, people were fighting a scourge commander. That still counts as trouble young man.”

John sputtered. “Young man - Lily, I’m twenty two. Older than you were when Lorderon fell.”

She smirked. “Once my little brother, always my little brother. Besides, even with the extra years, I’m still taller than you.”

John sighed. “Alas, yes, for I am a delicate fainting flower, and you are built like an orc.” In a less snarky tone he continued. “Anyway, it sounds like things are just about wrapped up - how about we finally go home?”

“I’m pretty sure that Sylvanas is not going to let us have our house back if we ask nicely, especially since the Ebon Blade aren’t technically Forsaken.”

John facepalmed. “Not that home - Go check on our other sibling, maybe say hi to the adults that looked after us after you and Dad got separated from us. That home?”

“Then lead on little brother - it’s time to go home.”

Chapter Text

On the Thermore side of the portal, we had to go through decontam. (Not that they called it that—but it’s what I call getting thoroughly checked for plague contamination by a light wielder, and a guard searching our bags for biohazards. Lily just accepted that one of her bags wasn’t going to pass, and handed it over to confiscation with a note that the potions shouldn’t be drunk by anyone living.)

We passed through a city less hurt than Stormwind; shaken, but unharmed. Wary glances and worried staring followed the woman with glowing blue eyes and black plate; the two of us with her, barely even an afterthought. No swords were drawn, but a few people kept their hands pointedly on hilts as we passed.

-

George was on shift, but Martha was home when we arrived. So was Charlene. They both had worried expressions as they came hurriedly to the door. (We’d decided to knock, rather than just use our key, so that they’d know about our arrival.)

There was a moment of silence, as the fear of news came crashing into our return. And Charlene then proceeded to hug, or perhaps grab, her older brother. “I was so worried—you being in Stormwind, and the news about the scourge attacks, and your letters were absolutely useless…” She continued to cling to him like she was afraid he might disappear. In a soft voice, but one that got louder as she continued, emotional weight stopping it from staying quiet, she mumbled, “I hate the scourge - I hate how it makes me feel like I’m back in that time, with you off on a different continent, and me not able to even try to help—just as helpless as I was eight years ago, just a little girl again.”

John didn’t say anything, just held the embrace for as long as she needed.

Lily waited until Charlene was starting to look around at the other people who had followed her brother back to their door before speaking, “Well, from where I’m standing, you look like you’ve grown up into a strong young woman - and I, meanwhile, have not aged a day…”

Martha sighed. “Well, it’s definitely you,” and then there was the faint start of a smirk, “that awful sense of humor certainly hasn’t aged well.”

Charlene turned from staring at Lily in shock, to openly glaring. Her glare bounced between Martha and Lily as she spoke, “Why? Why are you like this? Eight years, and you open with puns?!??”

John snickered. “Don’t worry little sis, we still love you, even if your sense of humour is pun-der developed.”

“I hate all of you.”

-

Sitting around the dining room table, I felt an intruder to the family reunion. The conversation drifted around me, my presence negligible in the flow of discussion.

Snippets of conversation stood out, as I stared into my mug, not quite listening.

With regards to what happened to Lily's group after they’d been separated, “We fell back to the church, and by the time we fought our way out, grabbed what we wanted to carry, and made it to Lordearon City, the prince had come home. Of course, we didn’t know that it was him - we just saw the broken city on the horizon, and turned back inland. We thought we were racing ahead of the scourge towards Light’s Hope. Then we found the battlefield where Uther fell. And by then, we were trapped. Kept trying for Light’s Hope though, for all the good it did us.” A dark silence followed as she failed to elaborate.

They let her shift the subject away, choosing not to poke deeper into that wound of trauma. Covering the past decade-ish was mostly a recap of things I already knew: Jaina’s Kalimdor campaign, years of mostly peace, with interesting nasties coming out of the swamp, politics with the Horde™, John’s mage training, and Charlene’s sword training (currently in progress). During the recap, a question about how Martha’s marriage had turned out (she and George have been generally happy) brought up that Martha didn’t have kids of her own due to having been unwilling to take the time off active duty that would require - apparently the fall of Lorederon, and battle for Hyjal had instilled a distinct aversion to being unable to fight when the next apocalyptic threat rolls around.

Which was fair enough, I guess.

We got reminded about supper time by George coming off shift; over food, we got to have another round of recap. I got brought back into the active conversation when we covered the events of the past few days.

During the discussion of ‘who would sleep where, round two: now with even more guests’, Lily got the basement (specifically for it being the coldest room in the house) and I got put with John, since the extra time had worn the edge off of the ‘you two barely know each other’.

-

It would still be days, weeks, months, (never?) before things went back to normal after the events of the past few days, but it was only a few days before we had some time in the midday to ourselves. George and Martha, not taking any days off, even for Lil’s return, because guards are even more necessary right now with the extra scourge activity. And Charleene went back to her practice, so that she could get up to a level she was happy with before showing her sister what she’d been up to in the passing years.

As she dashed away, the explanation hanging in the air, Lily snorted. “A few days' training won’t change that much, and I’d be happy to help, regardless of where she’s at with her weapon training. But I’ve been away a while, so is this trying to cram in training to do better when being watched, or trying to avoid me?”

“More the former than the later… but, I’d wait a week to let her calm down, and if she’s not ready by then, I’ll talk to her.”

“Thanks. So, is there anything you want to do, now that I’m no longer busy, and we’re not in an active crisis?”

And there’s the reminder, about that conversation I wanted to have. “There’s something I want to do, but I’d like a bit to chat with John in private first, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah, I can find something to do while I wait. Maybe come up with something better to tease you about - since I’m pretty sure you two aren’t embarrassed about being in love, and I don’t really want to poke at whether you trust me.”

That had been said in a light tone, even with the DK’s voice echos acting rather as a tell, but it still felt a bit more serious than the throwaway joke it sounded like. “I do trust you, but talking about my backstory requires some time with my emotional support human first.”

There were some faint snickers at my wording, and once I’d finished, Lily shrugged, “Fair enough. Well, go have your chat - you’ll know where to find me when you're done.”

Once we were out of Lily’s earshot, John said, with only a mildly questioning tone, “So, you’ve decided to tell her?”

I nodded.

“Not that I’m arguing the decision, but why now - why do you trust her, after a few weeks, when you didn’t trust me for months?” The tone wasn’t bitter, but it was still a dangerous question.

It was also a question I wasn’t sure how to answer. I froze up, trying to find the answer.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to answer that. Moving the topic a little, how much are you planning on telling her?”

“How much are you willing to support me on?”

John blinked, and then smiled, and spoke softly, “Oh.” In a strong, but still sweet tone. “That’s why you’re okay with telling her this early - you trust me to help.”

I nodded.

“I’m willing to help support you with all of it, any of it. Even the falling into a work of fiction, since while I might not believe it, the evidence is in its favor. And I think at this point I’m sold on you having memories of having been someone before being a dragon, because, uh, no offense, but some days it feels like you might have forgotten about being a dragon?”

I snickered. “Oh, I wish. It’d be nice to forget about the secrets and corruption bullshit for a few days.”

“Oh right - on the topic of keeping secrets, is there a reason we’re telling Lily, and not any of the rest of my family?”

I raised my right hand in the speech-accompanying hand gesture of ‘give me a second’, and then stalled. “Uh…” A forced exhalation to break the mental lag, “No I can answer this. One second.” A deep breath to gird myself, “So, uh, Lily’s one of the people I felt a little closer to from my ‘falling into a book’ thing. I recall her being fairly chill, and had kind of overlooked trusting the rest of your folks, sorry. But also, I distinctly recall Lily being fundamentally kind in a way not even the scourge could change, and a death knight assuming I’m a monster because of me being a black dragon feels a tad more hypocritical than a Theramore guard making that same judgment.”

“Okay, valid-ish reasons. Though, I will want you to tell them eventually.”

“Eventually. How about five years - if in five years, I haven't been killed and/or revealed from something else, I’ll tell them.”

“That’s a bit long, but I don’t feel like haggling it out right now. Let’s see how you feel next Winter Veil, and go from there?”

“Deal.”

-

Lily looked up from the book she’d started reading while waiting when we walked in. “Got your confidence together, I see. So, what did you need extra courage for?”

There was a sensible way for approaching this conversation. It was not the one I took. Snark and irreverence - the only way I can speak coherently on some topics and days. “So you know how I’m a Draenei right? Nope, actually just draconic shapeshifting. And I have memories from a human lifetime that can’t possibly have happened.”

John sighed. “And once again, oh girlfriend of many names, you have no light-damned tact.”

Lily looked between us, before focusing her gaze on John. “John, I thought you said your previous girlfriend was a dragon?”

He tried to play it off with a light tone, “Well... yeah?”

Lily’s eyebrow hiked up, in a tone that said she was pretty sure he had lied, and would like to hear the truth this time. “You’re telling me you had two girlfriends that were actually dragons?”

“We broke up and then got back together again, so I technically didn’t lie.”

Lily just stared at him for a moment. “Really, little brother? You’re pulling that on me? Really?”

“The situation was complicated, and Stormwind was not the place to be having this conversation. I’m telling you now, okay?”

“I don’t mind the lies per se - but please, do not start another ‘technically true’ debacle. Just do not.”

John blinked. “Oh right, sorry sis. I’d forgotten about that. Dad had been spectacularly unimpressed with us, if I remember correctly.”

“Yelled for half an hour, could have been worse. He could have come in right after we’d made little Charlee cry, rather than after we’d calmed her down.”

John winced.

I spoke into the natural break in the conversation, “So back to my pile of secrets.”

Lily quirked an eyebrow. It seemed friendly, but there was a core of ice behind her jovial tone. “So, you’ve got more than just being a black dragon that remembers having been human?”

“Um. Yes. That human lifetime - part of what makes it so impossible is that the memories included books and other media detailing Azeroth’s future.”

The death knight stared at me and then massaged the bridge of her nose, elbows leaning on the table, as she took in a deep breath. “So. I would very much like to trust you, but that sounds like complete bullshit.”

I winced. “Yeah, I understand why. But that doesn't change the fact that it’s true.” I looked directly at the glowing blue stare, and had to avert my gaze. In a weaker voice, “Or, at least, I think it’s true.”

The death knight stared for a moment longer, but I got the impression she was looking into the middle distance, more than examining me. “Would you permit me to use mind-magic to verify it?” Her tone was soft, not loudly demanding. “I don’t need to. I can, if I had to, take even stranger things on trust—but it is easier if I can lay the doubt to rest.”

And maybe, in another lifetime, the idea of letting someone else see my thoughts would have filled me with discomfort and shame, but I was too busy being relieved that I finally had a way to fucking prove that I rembered what I remembered. “Yes. Absolutely yes. Is there anything I need to do to help?”

Lily blinked. “You do realize that mind magic is a shadow-shifted school of priest spells, right? And that it’s easy for it to stray into being a violation of your privacy. I don’t want to talk you out of it, but that sounded far too happy a ‘yes’ for me to feel comfortable in your understanding of what you just agreed to.”

I looked her dead in the eyes. “I don’t think you understand how much I would like to be able to prove the truth. Go ahead and look—I am not afraid of what you’ll find.”

Here her eyebrow jumped up. “Nothing you’re ashamed of, no secrets you want to keep? It’s a painful experience, being known.”

“I am not afraid of you looking—the petty shame drowns under the weight of what it means to be a black damned dragon. And from one former monster to another - you know what it’s like to be forced in a corner and not have a choice.”

“From one former human, to another: yes, I do. And I know what it’s like, to choose to survive, and feel the guilt burning, because someone else didn’t.” She sighed. “Very well, you’ve made your agreement clear. Get as comfortable as you can, since once I start, you won’t be able to move until we stop.”

I adjusted in the chair, sitting with my legs crossed, before nodding for her to start. She placed a hand on mine, and for a brief moment, everything I saw was purple.

The faintest whisper, but I did hear it - who are you?

And then the purple haze drifted, replaced by flickers of things drifting across my vision faster than I could really parse, thousands of moments, crowding together, being seen, never mind that I didn’t store my memories visually. Decades trying to fit themselves into a single moment.

Lily moved onto a different question either out of frustration or with whatever she’d wanted to find from that question resolved. It was one that I didn’t quite manage to consciously hear, but which changed the vision from trying to compress my entire life into a second, to going to sleep on an ordinary day, and the moments of waking up in the egg shell.

She asked more questions, each coming with smaller sets of images than the first spread. What craft did you study before your life of war? Math, pages and pages and pages of calculation, integrating from loads to bending moment to curvature to displacement of beams, matrices and matrices, and mapping flow, and calculating the energy of water in pipes, and the water flow of a catchment, and hundreds upon hundreds of pages of engineering work. The arts, dabbling bouncing from one to the next, painting, drawing, inks, and sculpture, character sketches, and landscapes, photography, fighting with photoshop, and dozens of stories, most never written, a few with pages or chapters.

What of the sins you cannot let go? The bloody battlefield that was hatching as a black dragon. Sitting vigil beside a whelpling (brother in blood, if not in spirit) that I had poisoned, while we waited to see if he would live. Inaction, as Katrana Prestor walked past. Killing and killing, with claw and lighting and fire, murlocs, and demons, and ogres, and scourged victims, bleeding together into one tapestry of fire and death. And a knife brought down against myself.

Enough of that.

What of the future you saw?

Dark skies, above a black spire, death magic crackling from Arthas’s raised sword. Hammers in the deep, bolting and welding elementium plates to the black aspect, tsunamis and earthquakes ravaging the land with every pained breath. Standing atop the deck of the skyfire, ready for one more try at the Spine of Deathwing encounter. A crater filled with violet ash, where once was a city, and a mage with bone white hair, and a single streak of gold, about to drown Orgrimmar in vengeance. Chasing Anduin across Pandaria, always too little to hold him, or too late to catch up, as the Horde and Alliance destroyed the Jade Forest and each other in my paladin’s wake. Day after day after day of hunts on the Timeless Isle, each alike, my mage cursed to repeat the same grind, forever, or until she finally obtained the cloud serpent locked behind ever-distant approval. Losing a raid to being unable to figure out how to work master-looter, and then later into Highmaul, dying again and again to failing to dodge the circles in time. Abandoning my paladin, to start again. An elf in black plate, cutting a swath through the Iron Horde, howling winds and swords coated in blood. Standing triumphant atop the alternate hellfire ramparts, Archimond defeated, even as in real life my eyes could barely see the screen for exhaustion, and a clock in the corner of my desk proclaimed 2 am. And then Legion, tragedy and not triumph. Varian, Tirion, Ysera - the words of a fic written by another writer - too many of her heroes are dying. And a tear rolls down, was it from Elune - or from everyone hearing that song, mourning the green aspect? The tragedy of being put in charge because no one else was left. Other tragedies: the death knight I had grown attached to taking up the cursed swords, and leading her order into attacking Light’s Hope. Being turned away from the raid after a string of bad luck, and a change in raid leadership from camaraderie to finger pointing. Not being good enough, as dungeon after dungeon after dungeon failed, time and again, to drop my Legion legendary.

The purple settling again, as the flashing images caught up to point I had been dragged across universes.

I doubt this will find anything, but what evils do you plan?

A black dragon, corrupted, and yet permitted to live. The black flight surviving Wrathion. The faint, dream-like image of black dragon whelps, not monsters or victims, just children, living. Stopping Garrosh from nuking Theramore. Saving Varian from the broken shore, Saving Ysera. And here another image formed, from the fic I had been writing, before I fell into Azeroth. A druid bound in thorn vines as Xavius cackled, and in the moment his attention turned to Ysera, shifting into bird form, and flying to block the flung crystal with their body.

The connection broke, and I found myself staggering despite being seated.

Across the table Lily turned a very confused glare at me. “How the fuck is saving lives an evil plan?”

I didn’t want to answer. Because I knew. But I was the one who had wanted to be seen, wasn't I? You made this bed, Omenia, time to lie in it.

“The sanctity of time. With every action, every life saved, every change made, I threaten the existence of this world. And given how much trouble the bronze flight has without my involvement…” I clutched my arms, and shrunk inwards. I had things to live for now, things I wanted - why did I have to have this revelation now? Couldn’t I have had the ‘your very existence is an existential threat’ revelation back when I had been willing to die?

A hand on my arm, and I jolted back, chair skittering. But it grounded me back in the moment, and I saw Lily’s unrepentant gaze suggesting she had known how I would react, and poked me anyway.

“Stop worrying—what will be will be, and the bronze can play catch up if us choosing to act makes problems. You had one vision of the future, if a very odd one, and are acting on it. It’s not like you're the only person to ever catch a glimpse of the future.”

John interjected, “Velen, for example. He’s been at it a while now.”

My response was verbal muscle memory from Legion, stirred by Lily’s poke through my WoW memories. “For a prophet, he does a lousy job of predicting things.”

That got met with a snort of laughter. Once Lily had stopped laughing, she fixed my gaze, and spoke firmly. “But, it doesn't matter whether your vision ‘should be’ or not: you let me take a look, and I can still make a dent in the future with what I saw. It is more than just your responsibility now; we will bear the burden of choice together. I saw what you planned. And I say, I see no evil there.” With measured pauses, to give each statement weight, she continued.

“It is not wrong to live.

“It is not wrong to want your kin to live.

“It is not wrong, to try to save others.

“It is not wrong to act. Perhaps there is a fated future, but neither of us know it. Neither of us can know it, since to be inevitable, that future must also be ineffable. We are mortal, and ours is to do as is our natures, and act with what knowledge we have.”

“... Okay, presuming I accept the point about inadequate omniscience, I’m still not sure whether either undead or dragons count as mortals.”

“I don’t see why we wouldn’t—sure the lifespans are a bit wacky, but we still live as finite beings that can be killed just the same as any other mortal, give or take species-specific resistances. You’re alive, and have choices like the rest of us.” A smirk. “So, first choice—am I going to be planning changes alongside you, or without you?”

“Well. When you phrase it like that…”

-

As I sketched up a quick map of Northrend from memory, Lily spoke. “So, I didn’t see much anything you were planning to change from the Northrend campaign, and you’d skimmed over that stretch of time from your visions…”

“Well, in part, I don’t remember it all that well. My ‘visions’ weren't, shall we say, in order, and I got to choose what I chose to engage with. But also, Northrend was one of the most easily skipped parts of the timeline, and after my first look, I didn’t properly review it.” My recent conversation with my fire elemental, the discussion about my plans … there was another reason why I’d not thought of Northrend during that mind-walk. “And, frankly, I don’t know what I’d be going there to do?”

“Stomping in the Scourge forces?”

“I mean I could, but for the most part it’s under control. It’s not really a goal - not if it’s going to happen regardless.”

“I’d be tempted to say I’m going regardless; but well - I get the feeling that others of the Ebon Blade need their vengeance more than I do.”

“And I’d be just as happy not fighting undead. So are we even heading to Northrend?”

I was the one who’d gotten us started on the negativity, but, … “I can’t explain why, but I think I want to? Can we think of any other goals to aim for from the Northrend campaign?”

“Well, you're the one with future knowledge, but if we ignore the location specific stuff, the particular causes - then there are three things I can see us getting from joining the effort. Connections, more experience on the battlefield, and money. And while that last one is useful, working as a mercenary isn’t going to get you rich enough to buy peace.”

“I wonder, what is the going rate on the Horde?” After a round of snickering, I shrugged. “Not important. But as for contacts - heading to Northrend is probably a good way to get acquainted with other adventurers, and maybe earn some standing with the factions. Especially if we get involved with one of the major offensives”

“So, we plan to train you two up, until I’m comfortable letting you onto the battlefield. And to end the Northrend campaign with at least a few adventurers that we can use as contacts.”

“Sounds good.” I held up my sketch of Northrend, “Does this look about right for Northrend? And I did engage with the land along this coast,” I traced the path up from borean tundra up to Icecrown Citadel. “I just can’t remember much of the details.”

“It looks okay, if lacking in detail, but what’s with the divisions you’ve drawn on the map?”

“Some natural divisions between areas, the other part divisions in themes. Anyway, working in the approximate path of progress across the continent order, we’re starting with these two zones, the aptly named Borean Tundra which also managed to be the very boring tundra, and the fjordlands.” I moved to a blank section of paper and did a rough sketch from memory of the layout. “The Horde and Alliance bases take up the southwest of the tundra, with the Alliance on the coast, and the Horde a bit more inland. I think there was a village of friendly natives somewhere on the southern coast, and then the scourge camp holding the pass into the next zone. A lot of emptyish tundra, with druids vs. hunters. And I think there was a gnomish airbase in here somewhere with a non trivial faction having gone mad. And along this coast, we have the nexus, and the nexus war, aka the blue flight having their turn being the big scary dragons causing problems. Malygos decided that mortals having magic was a problem, and that the logical solution to this was genocide, so the mortals killed Malygos instead, and the black dragon flight got to take a year off from being the token evil dragon flight.”

“This entire description is going to be like this isn't it?”

I looked up. “It’s helping me put things in order, but I can try to make it more formal if you want.”

“Heck no—I want to hear you give Outland this treatment, once our actual planning is over with.”

“Sure. Anyway, the fjords - the other entry point into the continent, though I never found how you were supposed to get there, if you didn’t fly across, featuring Utgarde Keep at the centre of the area, and an awful lot of ‘I don’t have a freaking clue’. Moving on to the next three zones: north of the fjord is Grizzly Hills, and that’s an area with nice trees, and I think somewhere in this area might be a broken World Tree, but heck if I know where.” I pulled out a sheet to sketch Dragonblight, “Working back across the continent, there is Dragonblight-”

“Dragonblight? What’s with the name?”

“I’m not actually sure, but one of the defining traits of the area is the bones large enough to be seen from orbit.”

“Did you just say ‘seen from orbit?”

“Yep. You see that line running down the length of the sketch? That’s the spine of some great, ancient, being, and it’s drawn to scale.”

Lily whistled.

“Anyway, here, near the centre of the area is Wyrmrest Temple, sacred meeting spot for the dragonflights. I’m not going anywhere near it, since fuck being openly a black dragon. And along this curve are a series of flight-related shrines, which are beautiful clusters of flight magic, in addition to being graveyards and might or might not be under scourge attack, but Dragon Queen Alexstrasza has things under control, and see the previous point about me avoiding being revealed.”

“You really should consider talking to her now, and getting off to a good start.”

“Anyway, moving on, we have this area, which is the Northrend equivalent of Un’goro Crater, with two different tribes of small things with spears that don’t like each other. One of which was murlocs, but more friendly than usual I think?”

“And there’s Crystalsong Forest, which hypothetically exists, but has been thoroughly conquered by the City floating over that zone. I feel like I’ve missed something up the west coast, but anyway. On the east coast, we’ve got the area being ruled over by trolls. And then we’ve got the two capstone zones to the north. The Storm Peaks, and Icecrown. I can’t remember what the heck was going on with most of the Storm Peaks, but there's several wings of a titan facility up on a terrace on the north mountains, and Keeper Loken has gone evil or something. Anyway, Brann’s doing archeology, and us adventurers get to help.”

“And Icecrown. It’s dominated by the shadow of Icecrown Citadel, and the plains are covered with scourge. Most of what happens in this region is the very predictable war against the scourge thing, but there are a few vrykul villages, one of which was in the mountains here, the other was down by the coast. And at least one has explotiable politics, but I can’t remember which, or about what.”

As I sketched the zone, my pen came to rest at Wrathgate. “And there’s Wrathgate. There’s. Wrathgate.” I sighed. “It’s a disaster. Good men, soldiers, of both the Horde and Alliance, die in droves. And it’s not a disaster I can stop.”

“Why not?”

“For one, would the Horde and Alliance listen to me telling them that a ground assault is doomed? But the bigger reason is, too much gets dragged into the light; there’s too much rot that needs to be uncovered in the autopsy of the battle. I could save people I know are going to be there, but that’s simply condemning someone else to take their fate. I know they will be remembered, at least.” And Bolvar will take up a cursed mantle, self-hate and despair a perfect storm to fall by legion, but… his Arthas impression is lousy, and if I fuck with Wrathgate, we’d lose Fordring instead. And I rather take the known risk here.

“You’re making the call that it needs to happen? Not just something that you don’t think you can stop?”

“If it does happen, good people die. If it doesn't…” ‘Death to the scourge, and Death to living.’ I shivered at the thought of the plague getting fired at a worse time, such as, say, killing everyone but Arthas atop ICC. “If it doesn't happen at Wrathgate, then the weapons will remain. I know Azeroth survives Wrathgate, I am less certain of what happens, if it happens later. Wrathgate manages, at least, to be a disaster for everyone involved. Not just the Alliance and Horde.”

“Very well. I will accept your call on that.”

“Thank you. Now, as to planning: I want to avoid dragon-related problems, and I don’t think we can handle Icecrown Citadel-”

“I think, if I were to give my all to training, I could be ready by then, but yes.”

“So, does anyone object to chilling on the east coast with Brann instead?”

“That sounds like a plan.”

Chapter Text

We made sure to have an ear to the ground for when the official expeditions to Northrend would be heading out, but according to Lily’s fellow dk’s, that logistics puzzle was still at least a week out.

Which meant, instead, that we got Lily making sure we were ready. “I saw a bit of what you two can do from the scourge assault. But if we’re going to be heading to Northrend together, we need to get a better feel for each other's capabilities. Which means we’re going to be heading out to some sparring area, or practice ground, and you two are going to get a chance to show off before I rip apart your melee skills.”

“Lily, I’m a mage. What melee skills?”

“Okay you might be useless with that staff, but I assure you, even a mage or priest can still smash things with a mace or quarterstaff if they put in the effort. Hell, Aurora used to be a mage, and that doesn't stop her from being a damn scary swordswoman.”

John glared at Lily. “We can’t all be epic. Stop showing off.”

“I mean I could... but I could also work you into shape for our excursion into enemy territory, and that seems more fun, and more useful.”

“Ugh.” But John did lead us to the practice grounds, and went to arrange sparring-safe(ish) weapons from the people in charge of that stuff.

Which left me and Lily to do some of the other assessments she wanted to do. “Okay, let’s start with casting, since we don’t need any spare equipment for that. I’ve got antimagic, and you’re going to work up to the spells that might break it.”

“Uh. I’m not actually sure what the relative strength on my spells looks like?”

“Okay. That’s not great, but okay. Let’s start with your basic lightning bolt.”

If I believed spell injuries followed actual biology, that is *not* the one I would start with, but as far as shamanism goes… “Test one, lightning bolt. Ready?”

Lily brought one hand to rest above the runes of her runeblade, which she had frozen into standing upright without needing to be held, and the other drew a green shimmer through the air. “Ready.”

I went through the motions, gathering power and firing it, as soon as it just cleared my minimum cast. The shimmer in the air flared green, as my lightning bolt crackled across the shield. A matching blue glow sprung up on Lily’s runeblade, and after looking at it for a moment, Lily shrugged. “I’m good for another spell, unless it jumps way up in power.”

Given that I recall flame shock/lavaburst being a major part of shami dps, I shouldn’t jump straight to that combo next. Hrm. What spells do I even have?

Oh duh, I can ask. “Talking to my elemental spirits, one moment. Can we go through the list of spells I have, again?”

Air was the first to answer. ‘Lightning bolt, chain lightning. Shock-touch, or however you chose to name that attack. And though you have yet to ask for them, I would be willing to offer wind-shear, far-sight and to allow most air totems.’

Fire was enthusiastic, ‘Lava burst, fire-y weapons, that breath-cone spell, …. Uh, I think there was one more but I can’t remember the name …’

Earth chimed in, while Fire thought. ‘In addition to the earth totems, you have access to both bone-mend healing, and the shallow quake spell. … I am not strong enough yet, to stand as a fully realized elemental.’

‘Thanks. Even if that bit about totems is decidedly not helpful.’

In a cheerfully sarcastic tone, Wind replied, ‘You’re welcome.’

And Fire, who had been puzzling over the name she couldn’t quite remember, chimed in, having apparently missed the by-play, ‘Flame-shock. It’s called flame shock.’

My earth spirit was listening however, ‘Would that I could be more helpful on the totems, speaker, but that is your department. And thanks to Fire’s remembering, I would offer earth-shock.’

‘Sorry about the stupid question, but what is earth-shock?’

‘Shaking one person in particular, rather than an area.’

-

We tested my spells, trying multiple variants on the ones that were flexible (lightning bolt, lava burst…but not earth shock). John finished retrieving sparring weapons before I finished.

It took a couple tries to actually make earth-shock work, but when it did, it stripped through most of Lily’s shield in a single hit. Lava burst meanwhile was … intermittent. More so than the lighting bolt. My low-effort cast had been unimpressive, weaker than my lightning. But on the high end, it was just as potent as earth-shock.

Running through John’s spells initially had us both highly unimpressed, but as he pointed out, “I’m working up from the weakest part of my standard toolkit, and the point of scorch isn’t doing damage, it’s creating openings. No, If I wanted to do damage…” An almost lazy flick, and the molten orb of a pyroblast went straight through the barrier spell, on an angle, and about half a meter into the sand of the training ground. “I can do some damage.”

Lily took a step away from the cooling magic, “You know, I distinctly recall your spells having a cast time?”

“Snap casting is,” a grimace, “not exactly sustainable. And hard-casting pyroblast is only really useful if your opponent doesn't know where you are. Or can’t get to you. Or is willing to stand there doing nothing, while you chant at them. You know, very practical in combat.” We snorted. He continued, “Flamestrike is just as an unwieldy cast, but it at least works as area denial.”

“And for the rest of the time, I’ve got fireball. So let me know when your shield is back up, sis.”

A flicker of green, and a smirk. “Ready.”

The fireball splashed harmlessly against the anti magic, and Lily checked the glow on her runeblade. “About half my shield. It’ll do.” She then picked up one of the training sticks. “So, now we move on to the part that I’m going to enjoy a lot more than you will.”

John and I exchanged a look, before he gave me a wave, “Ladies first.”

I glared at him, but picked up the stick. “So, no magic this time?”

Lily smiled dangerously. “Yep.”

What followed was an utter curbstomp. Swing, and take a smack to my hand part way through, from a counter I couldn’t even track. Wait, and not be fast enough to parry. Thwack. Hit to my shoulder, to my knee, to my fucking fingers again. Lily was pulling her blows, but it still hurt about as much as the accompanying hit to my pride.

Some four years, and I reset back to completely useless. Then again, wasn’t half the reason I quit sparring back in my old life that I lost all my progress every time I went off to uni for a semester?

And then, wonder of wonders, I actually managed a sword-on-sword collision, and our blades froze. My strength was enough to stop her strike. And in the moment of surprise, I got my first hit on her.

She made me pay for it, of course, in the next several exchanges. “Okay, I think I’ve seen enough. Do you think you’ll do significantly better with a shield, or second sword?”

I shook my head. “I can use a shield, but it’s mostly in the form of hiding and waiting for rescue.”

“Well, that’s not a bad skill to have. Basically the first step towards tanking, if you're not a crazy person like I am.”

John had been standing back, watching, and occasionally wincing in sympathy, but here he spoke up. “I’m not sure I would call it better, but you’ve got a knack with dual short blades, and berserk swings.”

“The problem is that a lot of the time using it, I am literally berserking. And friendly fire isn’t!”

“I mean, you’ve never had a friendly fire incident, but yeah, berserking might be hard to test while sparring.”

Lily looked at me thoughtfully, “Do you think you can try to mimic the style anyway?”

“One way to find out.” I picked up a second practice sword, playing with my grip until I was comfortable I could hold each sword one-handed. Lily had picked up a second wooden sword as well, mirroring me.

In my human lifetime, trying this style never worked. I wasn’t strong enough, graceful enough. I couldn’t use my off hand well enough, and I couldn’t use the two together. But in this lifetime … I could make it work, even if my general lack of skill continued to show.

Strike high and low together, parried. Parry her counter, have her slide around and get a grazing blow on my side. Cut an arc of space in front of me, have her flow back in with a stab. But we didn’t stop, and my bruises and frustration continued to mount.

Until, after another impact, my next parry glowed red-hot.

“I’d prefer a little warning, but sure, we can move to testing your enhancement magic.”

I paused, staring at my weapon. “Uh. I didn’t mean to do that.”

“I figured. But, hey, looks like it's easy enough to snap you out of it.”

John and I both snorted at that. “No. No it really isn’t. If I actually get a flashback - well, I’ll prioritize people trying to kill me, and I’ll stop fighting when the fighting ends … but uh, the incident I’m remembering, I didn’t ‘snap out of it’ until someone started singing at me.”

“It was only cheap rhymes.”

“Okay, I stand corrected. But the point still stands.” I sighed. “But, so does the point about my sparring still being sparring-safe. Especially since I’m not able to land a hit on you, Lily, most of the time anyway.”

We got back into position to start the spar, and as soon as Lily gave the go-ahead, anti-magic shield re-cast, I struck with blades laced with fire, and predictably failed to land a blow past her sword skills and the small amount of ice she used to reinforce her swords against my fire.

We bounced back and forth in this sort of sparring stalemate, as Lily waited for me to show what I could, and I failed to come up with ways to escalate. But as we struck back and forth, I felt a potential build. In every strike, in every footfall, in every percussive impact of combat, I felt something build. And after an exchange, when we’d fallen back into circling each other. I made another strike, with my dominant hand, painfully telegraphed, and Lily leaned back, to let the blow strike only air.

But its reach was longer than the blade. A crash of power, bright and blinding, Lily’s anti-magic shield burning away in a single flash of green, in the moment of the lightning. A scorched spot on the ground from redirected power.

Both of us froze, for a single moment.

And then Lily whisted, even as she rubbed one hand protectively against the leg that had been clipped by the redirected spell power.

“Not bad, not bad at all. Some of the power jump might have been just spending more time gathering power, but it also seems like whatever trick was letting you cast while distracted, was also making your spells stronger.”

“I have no fucking idea what I was doing.”

“Eh. If you can do it again, figuring out why it works can wait. So, do you want my assessment of you before, or after, I test my little brother?”

I shrugged.

“Right. You’re an adequate backline caster, but nothing special in that role. As for your melee abilities, your weapon training is virtually non-existent, but you’re strong, and seem to have a knack with dual blades. And then there's your combat-casting, which is both weird and has potential. I’ve not pushed you hard enough to get a read on your stamina, but... ”

But that is far too easy to test to destruction, and she doesn't want to kill or maim us. “My own empirical evidence suggests a decent pain tolerance.”

John interjected his own observation, “And you’ve got good spell resistance. Not sure how good your armor is though.”

“So, another thing to sort out before tossing you into melee: getting you good enchanted armor. Not the cheap chain Aurora told me she tossed at you. But that can wait, since I’ve still got weapon training to thump into you.”

In my most sarcastic tone, I grumbled, “Gee thanks Lily.”

With a bright, smug smile, she grinned. “You’re welcome.” She then turned to John, “And now, little brother, let’s see how well you can defend yourself in melee.”

John took a step back. “Uh, my first answer is to run away.”

“That can get you into its own trouble, but fine. You run - let's see how well you can stay out of melee range. Ready, set…”

John blinked away in a swirl of purple, the moment the first sound of ‘go’ touched Lily’s lips.

She started after him. She wasn’t as fast, but the moment John had to divert course, to walk around a set up weapon rack, she dragged him back to her with her magic. He fired off an ice nova, and she cast ice chains back. He fought against the spell, pulling against the chains to get more than a few steps away, while Lily pried her boots out of the ice.

It took a few more death grip rubber bands, and at least one tap to indicate a mock hit, but John did manage to get away from Lily.

“So,” Lily stopped chasing, despite not sounding particularly out of breath, “It looks like you pass. Barely. You did get clipped, but you probably could outrun an unmounted humanoid, even with them pulling tricks.”

John let out a sigh of relief, and immediately sat down.

“But it sounds like your stamina is lacking. Let’s add a morning run to our preparations.”

“Is it too early to retire?”

-

On our third day of Northrend prep, Charleene turned up part way through my exhausting weapon training. “Lily, … I’m sorry about avoiding you, but … I wasn’t ready a few days ago, but I think I’ve managed to be ready to show how far I’ve come?”

“That doesn't sound like you’re sure?”

Charleene flushed with embarrassment, and looked down, not meeting her sister's gaze. “Look, do you want to do this or not? I’m not sure I’m ready, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready, and I don’t have that kind of patience.”

“Fair enough. So - how do you want to do this? I’m always down for a spar, but I can understand if you’d like to show off in some other format.”

“A spar sounds fine.”

-

The two swordswomen stood in ready stances across the training field. Charlene took a step, and Lily answered, the two starting to circle. More than a dozen exchanges, in the form of movement towards attack, and answering preparation to counter, no blow actually being struck.

And then they erupted into motion, a lunge from Charleene, into a flurry of striking wood, until the two fell back into a more resting potion, swords touching flat to flat, as the two circled, and contemplated how to break the stalemate.

A flurry of activity, and a glancing blow, that I hadn’t noticed, except for the way both the combatants paused. “Do we have to count that? It’s not like I felt it?”

“Then we don’t have to count it - it’s not like in a real battle your enemies surrender at first scratch.”

Another clater of whirling wood, and this time it continued, in the pitter patter of parries, as the two danced around each other.

Lily stumbled, as a muted thud to the back of her knee swept one her legs out from under her, and left it sore, judging from the hand that instinctively went to massage it.

Charleene celebrated her victory, doing a little victory dance as Lily stood back up.

Lily smiled, and limped over to ruffle her younger sister's hair. “Good work. I see you’ve grown into a strong little warrior.”

In the put out tone of younger siblings, Charleene complained. “‘M not little. Almost as tall as you are.”

“Almost means you aren’t there yet. But I am impressed with how far you’ve come - with another year or two of polish, I’m sure you’ll be quite the terror on any battlefield.”

“You think so?”

“Of course - you're my little sister after all - how could you not be awesome. But you might want to go back to your official training, I don’t want your instructor mad that I’ve stolen his best pupil.”

Charlene groaned. “Lily, you’re being embarrassing.”

“Well I’ve got eight years I missed, to make back up.”

Charleene sighed. “Right, I’m heading back to practice - this is too much sap for one day.”

As Charleene walked away, a bounce in her step, despite the drumpy words, John asked softly enough not to be heard by her, “You were holding back?”

Lily sighed. And once she was satisfied that Charleene was sufficiently out earshot that not even dk-voice would reach her, answered, “It was a valid hit - but it wouldn’t have kept me down. A lot of the strike areas assume that your opponent will bleed out. At human rates. And against a blood magic specialized deathknight? Not a valid assumption. And, in a real fight, there's a lot of magic I might have been doing to tip the scales. But, between warriors, that was enough to tip a fight.”

“Bring it up with George - he’ll know who to talk to about training the kids for fighting things that aren’t human. It’s not just death knights that don’t die to normal injuries. There’s also demons … and trolls. And, if you get into the wrong fights, paladins.”

Lily snickered. “Darn light wielders, refusing to die. So annoying. They’re almost as bad as us death knights.” She then turned to look at me, “And speaking of people holding back - we should try to get some privacy to try your third style of fighting.”

Berserking? Oh right, dragon form.

-

During our run in the swamp the next morning, Lily got John to lead us to an out of the way portion of swamp where I (hopefully) wouldn’t get caught existing while dragon.

Once we were relatively satisfied that no one was watching, I let mortal form drop. Standing quadruped, my shoulders came up to about their chests. Lily looked me over, before saying, “You know, I was expecting you to be taller. Everyone talks about dragons looming over mortals, not cute little lion sized drakes. No wonder you had trouble carrying John to safety back in Blade's Edge. Anyway, feel free to start whenever you’re ready.”

“One moment,” I said, stretching out my wings, and trying to adjust some tension out of my shoulders. “There we go.” I dropped into a crouch, ready to spring for a lunge. My tail bent some tall grass behind me, as I turned to properly face Lily. She stood in ready position, waiting for me to move.

I leapt forward to strike, claws taking point. Lily used the flat of her blade to knock one of my paws off course, and I tripped over my own momentum, having to flare my wings with haste to avoid ending up in a very uncomfortable tangle of limbs.

I felt my wing wrists complain at the sudden load, and while I hoovered trying to regain balance, Lily tapped me a couple times to make the point that in a real fight this would not have gone well for me.

“If you know what you’re doing, a leap like that can work, but it looks like you need a lot more practice landing from that kind of jump, before you can afford to use it in combat.”

“Noted, but I’m not done yet.” I settled back on the ground, but used my wings to lift the weight off my front shoulders, and started swiping at her with my clawed hands. It still wasn’t a credible threat against her defenses, but I wasn’t over extending, and I could just keep up the tempo as she parried one strike, only to have to deal with my other paw. Behind me, there was a swish-swish sound, of my tail swinging back and forth as a counterweight to my strikes.

“Better. But I still see openings.” She ducked under one of my swings, and lunged forward before my other strike came anywhere close, smacking the side my neck with the flat of her sword.

And that sent me rolling, which resulted in me not quite managing to sprain my wing, by virtue of the muddy ground being slippery enough to stop my wing from getting caught, and being relatively soft under my back. “Ugh. And now I have to figure out how to get back up.” Actually, let's just cheat. I dropped into my human mortal form long enough to sit up, and stand, before dropping back into dragon form.

“Well that is one way of doing it. But you need a lot more practice moving in you dragon form before you’ve got any business fighting like this.”

“You’re not wrong, but I’ve got one last trick - I’m a dragon, I don’t have to fight in melee.” I launched myself skyward, and sure staying airborne is harder for a drake, than it is for a whelp, and I wasn’t really built to hover, but I could stay comfortably out of melee range - provided we ignored death-grip, and the fact that I couldn’t afford to be seen over the trees. “How’s your fire resistance Lily?” She called up her anti magic shield and I gathered up breath, before launching not the usual cone of dragon-breath, but the targeted lava burst of shamanistic fire at her. It burst against her shield spell, but it also served to prove the point.

-

Another three days of mornings spent running through the swamp, and afternoons spent training me in how to actually hit things with my conjured short-swords/daggers through something other than blind flailing, didn’t really change what any of us could do. But it was all the time we got, before Lily got word of ships sailing to Northrend.

We’d missed the first wave, not being true alliance soldiers, just ‘heroic’ mercenaries. And not having membership in any of the chartered guilds. (Lily came the closest, but the Ebon Blade was working with the Argent whichever expedition, not either of the Alliance or Horde teams, and they were still sorting the logistics out, would be for another week or two yet.)

But she’d also gotten news that the next voyage(s) for Valgarde (a fort, somewhere in Northrend,) were currently being organized at Menethil harbour, and were planning on taking freelancers. Like us, and also some of the more civilian persuasion for reasons relating to trade, supply lines, and giving soldiers something to do with their downtime.

“Okay, so. On the one hand, that’s a good opportunity to head to Northrend. On the other, if there’s an official portal rune for that harbour city, I don’t know about it. And Ironforge is still a few days' ride from Menethil Harbour. On the other hand, gossip in town, that I was listening to while you two thwacked things with sticks in the afternoon yesterday, says that there might be places for adventurers on boats from Stormwind, soonish. If we’re willing to wait for the Valiance expedition to need reinforcements.”

That rang a mental bell. “Valiance keep is Borean tundra. So, if we want to fight blue dragons…”

“Right. So, I portal us to Ironforge, and then we see about arranging transport from there?”

Lily commented, “I can summon my mount. The horses we turned after raiding the scarlet stables got the ability to use some of the deeper paths of the shadowlands to turn up just about anywhere. It won’t help either of you though - they’re picky about who they’ll let ride them.”

“Look, I’ve got the ability to travel very quickly between cities, and horses are not known for liking portals as a general rule.”

“I’m a dragon. Horses are for other people.”

“You know, that would be a great solution, if it weren’t for the flight-ism with regards to your scale color.”

“Yeah, but that’s a thing, so, any brilliant solutions?”

“Hike? Get a gryphon flight to menethil?”

I stared at John, “... Why did it take us that long to remember that option?”

He stared back; “You do realize that there’s likely to be a lot of adventurers trying to get a gryphon flight? It might be faster to walk depending on where we end up in the line.”

“Well, let’s go portal over as soon as we’re all packed. And I’m adding to our list of objectives for the next few years - get you two a solution for fast travel that isn’t ‘portals’, and that you can carry on around, since I accept that normal horses aren’t a good option for you two.”

John hmmd, before commenting, “Well, there was the flying carpet designs I read about a few months back... ”

Chapter Text

We played games with timezones to arrive in the morning, Ironforge time, which meant that I was about ready to go to bed, and looking at having another day still to go. And while it wasn’t a surprise, getting turned away by the gryphon-master due to concerns about overworking the gryphon was not a good first impression for the day.

We trudged towards the city gates, to join the throng traveling on foot to Menethil harbour. I was staring at the stone streets, with arms crossed, and a plodding walk.

Noise. Fingers that had just made that sharp noise, then pointing up at a violet shadow overhead. Twilight dragon! I started reaching for power, as I focused on the drake, only to recognize the smooth finned tail that was my last glimpse of it as it flew out of sight around the curve of the city.

I relaxed, and noticed both Lily and John looking between me and where the drake had disappeared worriedly. “Okay, should we have panicked? Since I’d just been trying to get your attention to see if you could recognize it.”

I shook my head. “No … I’d just mistaken which type of drake that was, initially. My first thought had been twilight, since that variant is distinctly purple - but that tail looked netherwing. And well - if that had been a twilight drake, they’d not have been flying peacefully.”

“Twilight drake?”

I blinked. “I’m not sure when, exactly, they were being made. But dragons corrupted into being old god cultists.”

John blinked. “I thought that was the black dragon flight?”

“I mean, you’re not wrong - but uh, even more so. Enough that their flight magic gets replaced. And I think they’d been reds before being flooded with old-god corruption.”

“So, that’s two old god dragon flights - any others we should be watching for?”

“I’m not sure if the nightmare is independent corruption, or more old-god stuff, but if a green dragon starts hallucinating and trying to murder everyone, that’s probably involved. It might also be accompanied by picking up the distinctive red-black colour scheme. But I think there were a few nightmare corrupted greens that kept their scale colour. Couldn’t tell you where that fight took place though. And then there’s the infinite dragonflight - bronze dragons that snapped and decided to try to break time rather than accept fate, blue-white lighting patterns on black.”

“... Why do all the dragonflights seem to turn black when corrupted?”

I shrugged. “Old gods like the colour? I don’t know. But I’ll add that to the list of things I’ll complain about with regards to the design of the black dragonflight if I ever get a chance to talk to the titan responsible.” After a pause, as we resumed walking, I realized that I’d missed something else I should have responded to in that. “And I don’t know of any colour variant for the blue dragonflight - they get to stay blue dragons, no matter how insane they get.”

As I talked, we walked, and I finished my monologue just in time to gape at the view out Ironforge’s gates.

Green grass, and flowers in bloom,coating the valleys. A brown blur jumped between the bushes in the ravine off to the side of the path, and I saw another rabbit munching on some of the white flowers. Snow still coated the peaks, but to see this much in bloom, when the only Dun-Morogh I had known was eternal winter ...

“Don’t the land just look beautiful with the summer thaw?.” The speaker was a dwarf in plate armor, a soft smile of amusement at my shock. “Did you think that Dun-Morogh has year-round snow?”

“Uh. Yeah, kind of.”

“Well, you wouldn’t be the first. So, are you also heading to Menethil harbour? Because we’ve got a little caravan going, and it would be easier to move together. Of course we’re also planning on taking the north tunnels, instead of the overland trek, so I was just taking in the sights here for a bit before meeting back up with the others.”

“The north tunnels?”

“Aye, did you not know? There’s tunnels connecting to farms on the northside of these mountains, and it might be a right hike to reach the first way station, but it shaves several days from the trip.”

I looked at the others, to see their reactions. John nodded, Lily shrugged. I turned back to the dwarf. “Sure.”

“Right, Name’s Darnug, and the rest of the group is this way…”

-

There was a blur of introductions, plenty of us heading to Menethil harbour for the same reasons. Names weren’t my strong suit even on good days, and I was too tired to properly connect the collection of names to the faces.

But I wasn’t useless at recognizing people either, and even if I wasn’t going to be able to remember their names, I was putting together a list of people, and distinctive visual traits.

There was the dwarf who’d added us to the traveling party, Dar-something, in gold accented plate, and asymmetric braids in his brown hair. The braids sat on the right side of his hair, along with a braided moustache. My initial opinion was that he was generally friendly, unlike the other dwarf ...

Ar-something? Who was either reserved, or just tired, but either way didn’t say much. Dark hair, black, or maybe navy blue. Red tattoos, a short beard. Tanned skin, and a pair of nose rings. Wearing a darker set of armour than the other dwarf.

There was the one night elf, who’s name I just plain missed, but he had long purple hair framing an angled face, sharp cheekbones and a scar across the bridge of his nose. He had a generally lithe build - not without muscle, but more willowy than dorito. Blue leather, embossed with gold moons.

He’d been travelling with friends, even before we all chose to walk together, and those two were a) a gnome with pink pigtails, in blue cloth robes, also with gold accents, thankfully not also moons. She was bright and exuberant, and I wasn’t sure if it was a bouncing-off-the-walls style of sleep deprivation, or just her natural enthusiasm.

And b) a human woman in fairly simple leather lined chainmail, with a gun. She had bright red hair, not real world ‘vaguely orange but called red’ red, but ‘I got into the crayons’ red. I couldn’t comment on her looking tired, since she was wearing a mildly obnoxious amount of makeup. But she sounded tired, and was responsible for more than one round of yawns. Her hunter pet was a large cat, in Kalimdor purple, and it did take a few naps on the carts, but it also occasionally pointedly prowled around the caravan, keeping watch. Especially as it’s owner got to the same level of exhausted mindless walking I was doing.

The last member of our band of adventurers, escorting a few civilian traders with their carts, was the odd man out, having been solo before getting swept up in the caravan. A human, in black leather, with blond hair, and plain looking.

Most of that day passed in a haze of exhaustion, and walking. Through endless tunnels, all the same. By the time we stopped and set up cots, I had no idea where we were, or when we’d traded tunnels for true night, and only really noticed the steady presence of Lily herding John and I forward.

-

I woke up a bit stiff, and a bit groggy, but that was jet-lag, not being stuck in mortal form, since I think I was finally starting to ‘break in’ this form, like a pair of well worn shoes. Still liable to give me trouble, but at least familiar now.

Sunlight was streaming in through the break in floors, from the skylight in the top of the dwarven bunker. Looking around at the corner of the floor we’d borrowed, only the hunter was still sleeping, but I wasn’t alone. John was carefully folding up the robe he’d tossed in pile last night - apparently deciding that wearing a robe over shirt and pants was too much heat for a day’s hike through the wetlands, and a lot of the bedrolls had yet to be packed up.

Taking in again the appearance of the sleeping hunter, her red cloak rolled up as an extra pillow, I was forced to conclude that her hair was not, in fact, as red as I had imagined I'd seen the day before.

John gestured towards the doors, where a crack of sunlight crept in. “They’ve cooked breakfast outside. There might still be some bacon if you hurry.”

There were exactly three pieces of bacon left, alongside toasted bread (cheese optional), and mixed dried fruit. I took one of the bacon pieces, leaving the two for the hunter, to a few surprised glances. Making up the difference in starch and sugar might not be good for me, but it was delicious.

The dwarf in gold-coloured armour was chatting with the civilian caravan master, and I wasn’t sure where the other dwarf was. The guy in dark leather was pointedly not looking at the last slices of bacon, and occasionally grabbing one last handful of dried fruit. One of which would in fact, be the last for the morning.

Lily was chatting with the gnome, while the night elf sat nearby, brushing his hair, and occasionally speaking. The hunters cat lazed on the curve of the wall, in a patch of morning sunlight.

And eventually the hunter did stagger out into the sunlight, making a beeline for the food. Her hair was a mess, and her face bore none of the makeup I’d noticed the day before. So she was awake enough to wash her face last night? One up from how I was feeling yesterday.

After sweeping up the bacon, and putting the last slices of cheese bread out of their misery, she finally looked up, to take in the rest of us in various stages of wide awake. Her expression was half squinting against the morning sunlight, and half death-glare. Her gaze was pointed at the cluster of chatting adventures. “How are you all so enthusiastic this morning? Toli, Nalian, you jumped time-zones with me - how dare you two be unaffected.”

Nalian shrugged. “Emerald Dream. A few consecutive years in there is enough to ruin a sleep cycle for decades.”

Toli just smirked, “Come on Bellinda, don’t you know me by now? Do you really think something as small as jumping between time zones messes with me?”

Bellinda just glared harder. “All. Of. My. Hate.”

Toli shrugged, before slowly reaching into one of her bags, and pulling out something I was guessing was a thermos. “Well, I was going to offer you a mug of tea, but if you don’t want it…” Her tone was teasing, and she poured a mug of steaming black liquid without any sign of hesitation.

“Gimme.” Bellinda took a deep sip, and let the steam waft. “Mm. I forgive you for being a morning person.”

Both of her companions snickered.

-

After the first hour, our group had split into two categories - those who had planned for the hot humid hike, and those who hadn’t. Or rather three categories - there were a few of us with enough heat resistance not to care. Lily was sitting in category three, with her chilling the air, and not having to shed heat.

I, the fool I am, was in category two, not three. I did find myself wondering about that for a bit, as my armour glued to my skin with sweat, but was forced to conclude that black dragon heat resistance didn’t apply while in mortal form.

John was in category one, having bagged up his heavy robes, and also casting a ward against heat as we moved towards noon, but sent me apologetic looks once it became clear I was melting in the heat, just like the dwarves; who were bearing it stoically, but I could see the sweat bedding on their skin, and soaking their hair.

Bellinda had stripped down to her under-leathers, but was still suffering with us, as was her night elven companion, in his leather robes.

The rogue meanwhile, was in his full black leather get up and not showing the slightest sign of overheating. As we were groaning beneath the summer sun, he asked with a mild amount of contempt, “You all northerners or something? No familiarity with a good proper summer I see.”

Nalian shrugged. “Starfall village, Winterspring. Moved out centuries ago, but still bear the influence of my childhood.”

Laurance looked at him askance, “Freaking elves.” He turned to look at the only struggling human in the party. “And what about you ‘Linda.”

“Gilnean.”

There was a round of blinks and curious stares. “I thought all of you Gilneans were hiding behind the wall?”

Bellinda stomped forward, throwing off the sun-beaten slump to stand tall and glare off into the distance. Between clenched teeth she growled out, “Lot of us got left to die, when they tossed up that damn wall. Guess the northern provinces weren’t worth shit to the king. So some of us who survived fucked off to rejoin the alliance. Stormwind’s less full of royal dicks.”

Laurance laughed with a very bitter tone. “Did you miss the time the house of nobles completely fucked over the guilds? Never did fucking pay up, just killed most of us who cared.” Laurance paused, upset, before forcing back some humour. “And hey, we’re heading to Northrend to kill the fallen Lorderon heir - so screw the nobility am I right.”

The other humans answered in a partial chorus, “Agreed,” to the worried stares of the elf and dwarves. Toli just shrugged.

-

But a lot of the walk was in silence, and I had time to think, and remember why the names bugged me. I didn’t recognize all of them - but ‘Nalian’, druid from winterspring, was so blindingly obvious, that when I remembered, I had to resist the urge to face-palm. One of my major characters from the fic I’d been working on last - and the druid I had seen only weeks ago when Lily memory-walked me, the one who’d saved Ysera in the timeline where they’d been given some degree of warning, or for want of a nail. I hadn’t quite written in that part yet. And given that … Bellinda, my warlock, with a worgen hunter cousin. Which made it a little weird that she was a hunter here, but eh. The bright red hair, and excessive makeup were even what she’d looked like in game. Which left me really confused as to who Toli was. But if both my Gilneans had been merged together, that was a lot more worrying than unknown friends.

But, fuck, if two of my characters have been merged, how much of the rest of my information is just plain wrong?

I didn’t have any divine revelation answering that question, by the time we reached the walls of ‘menethil harbour’ which in my opinion might be better described as an island fortress-town, but whatever, I wasn’t the name police. And it was probably just as well I didn't get an answer either - I didn’t need an additional existential crisis. It was worrying if some of my knowledge was wrong, but there wasn’t much I could do about it, except accept that my plans might not work out the way I wanted.

-

Today’s Northrend bound ship had already set sail, and had been full enough that there were two adventurers sitting around who’d chosen to wait for The Dolphin’s Grace instead of catching their ride on The Northspear.

I wasn’t the one asking curious questions, but I was listening while I ate my supper. The robed human wasn’t overly chatty, but the blue haired gnome in leather armour was talkative enough. “Well, yeah, I could have gotten on The Northspear, but one day’s wait isn’t that bad, and the repairs on my surveying gear after last time they got busted didn’t leave me much time to pack.”

-

Come the morning, as we were loading on the ship, we got another few sets of Northrend bound adventurers - a ship from Darnassus turned up and the people on it got a crash course on events of the last month, and a few of them decided to roll with the sea-change and jump ship onto our ship. That got us a second nelf in leather, and a draenei in cloth.

We also had some people on gryphons from the plaguelands area - a pair of humans, flying from Acherus (the man a dk), and our third night elf in leather, who had been out gathering herbs for alchemy.

The death knight and sibling got their own introduction courtesy of Lily immediately recognizing her fellow undead swordsman. “Oi, Thomas. Fancy seeing you here - not making a beeline for Icecrown?”

“Could ask you the same question. And who are your hangers on? Ever since your little elvish nightmare got in tizy about them, you lot have been at the center of Acherus gossip.”

“This is John, my little brother.” A hand on John’s shoulder to introduce him, before a vague wave in my direction. “And his girlfriend.”

Thomas’s eyebrow was hitting the metaphorical ceiling. “You were never that bright, even before you decided to take a round as the Acherus punching bag -”

“Lies and slander - I’m plenty smart.”

“You were never that smart, but getting taken in by some random claiming to be your brother is a new low Lily. Or did you just see a human with about the right age and hair colour and adopt them?”

Lily facepalmed. “I got my memories back weeks ago.”

“You what?”

“So apparently a shadow priest can seal memories. And related, I was a priest back in Lordaeron.”

“Huh. Thought priests were supposed to be scrawny-”

The woman next to him smacked his armour, “Oi. What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That you’re a wimp, honestly sis, can’t you hit a little harder than that?”

She huffed, before affecting a haughty expression, “I have no intention of hurting things with my fists like a common brawler.”

Her brother laughed, and when he’d calmed down and stopped laughing, he looked back at Lily. “So, I guess we’re both on this boat for similar reasons - keeping our little siblings out of too much trouble. After all, wouldn’t want little Dinah to break a nail -” both of the siblings had a brief chuckle before he continued, “But, got to say, having another death-knight is going to make this boat ride a lot easier - provided we can clear some deck space for sparing. I mean I could fish, but ... “

“Yeah, no, sparing sounds like a much more fun way of sating The Hunger.”

-

And we had one last arrival, a second pink-haired gnome, huffing up to the dock at the last possible moment and collapsing onto the deck once she’d been cleared to board. And while I had mentally glossed over the new arrivals to our group, her dramatic entrance caught my attention, and well, my first thought was she’d gotten her outfit from the same place as Kalecgos. Since just about every time his overly casual blue shirt got contrasted with the dramatic magi around I had to wonder about him turning up in the fantasy equivalent of shorts and a t-shirt, and here was this mage in literal shorts and blue shirt. Not quite a t-shirt, but close enough.

The other dk went over to the crew and started asking about spaces they could use for having their friendly stabby stabby, Lily addressed the milling crowd of adventurers. “So, we’re going to be doing regular sparring - if any of the rest of you want a sparring partner or two, feel free to ask Thomas or I for a bout.”

The anti-social spellcaster scoffed. “And share my skills with the scourge- no thanks. Even if I trusted you to be true in your defection to the Alliance, which I don't, what’s to say he can’t still spy through you?” She didn’t stop for Lily to answer, just turned and walked away to closer to the front of the boat, calling back over her shoulder, “No, I’ll not be revealing my skills, and I advise none of you to do so either.”

Lily sighed. “I’m pretty sure that he cannot, infact, do so through my mental defenses, but feel free to take what precautions you think you need.”

The dwarf in dark plate shrugged. “Not like I’ve got much to lose. I’m not one for any fancy tricks, just my mace, and strength of arms. And a month’s stagnation’ll do me no favours. But not right now, not today …”

Lily smiled, “That’s fine, let us know when you are ready. It’s not like it’ll be hard to find us on this ship.”

“That it won’t.”

That dwarf started to head below decks, and the other one shook his when Lily's gaze landed in his vague direction while sweeping the crowd. “Nay. No disrespect to you lass, but I cannot spar with an undead. Too easy to remember the unholy nature of your existence if we’re staring down across blades, even in a friendly context.”

Both Nalian and the new Nelf form around the plaguelands area seconded this, though the third night elf on the boat gave a different set of answers. “I’ll not share any secrets of my old order, even if the druidic circles have merged, and become more open, but I have need for practice with the healing arts of druidcraft, so if you or your sparring partners need healing after a match do let me know.”

Lily got a nasty grin, and called out to Thomas, “We’ve got a druid here looking for healing practice, you know what that means -”

“It means you get to be a training dummy twice over.”

“What makes you think I’m going to be the one needing healing after our spars? I plan on making you lose your fair share. Maybe a bit more even.”

Under his breath the druid mumbled, “What have I gotten myself into?”

-

Lily might have wanted to drag me into sparring practice, but by the time things were ready, the ship was also sailing out from dock, and therefore I was making way to the front of the boat to sit staring at the waves until I was comfortably not about to be seasick.

And no, being a shaman does not help. Being able to listen doesn't remove the need to pay attention.

Though smaller sailing vessels kinda did. Nice, calm air on the other hand really doesn't help. Storms produce their own significant seasickness - but a lot of the time with storms, all I had to do was stand out on deck for a few minutes, and the cold wet wind would settle it down right quickly (and then I'd be cold and soggy, which was its own kettle of fish).

And also with the big storm waves, you got to see the boat rock, you didn’t get seasickness for being out of phase with your senses, because you couldn’t miss the waves. But with nice calm air and small waves, they instead snuck past your senses and moved all your furniture one centimeter to the left while you weren’t looking and made you stub your toes on everything.

And the calm air wasn’t helping, because part of the point of being up on deck was to have the wind help make it more obvious you were moving. But this is where being a shaman did, in fact, help. Because while my air spirit might be from an arid land, and have little sway over the sea, it still wasn’t hard for her to mess with my hair.

And so, while I could hear the sounds of death knights sparring behind me, I sat alone for a time, paying my attention to wind and water.

Someone sat down next to me, I didn’t look away from the waves, but I did turn a little to listen. The Draenei next to me spoke, “Blessings upon you, kinsman,“ and my draconic translation really didn’t like that last word, attempting to also translate it as ‘fellow traveler’, and ‘sister-in-light’. “May I make introductions, or would you prefer to be left to your meditation?”

“Feel free to talk, I’m just prone to getting seasick, and watching the waves helps.”

“Ah. I can’t offer much respite from that unfortunately common affliction of sea-travel.. I do hope it doesn't bother you too much. Anyway, my name’s Azui.”

“Well met. I’m Epolomono.”

Something recognition crossed her face, and she asked, “Jevama’s friend, Epolmono?”

“Yep.”

She smiled, “Well met indeed, friend of a friend.” Her voice was warm, but her next words left me cold and raw, “What’s your cover story? As the only draenic speakers on this boat, we’ve got an opportunity to consider details -”

She hadn’t stopped talking, but I shoved to my feet. “I have no idea what you're talking about.” My snapping might not have been believable innocence, but I didn’t care.

I stormed away. Seasickness would catch up to me sooner or later, but with the cold fear pouring through my veins, and the hollow feeling of betrayal and loss and shame, there simply wasn’t any room for it.

And behind me the other draenei called for me to wait. I didn’t.

How dare Jevama betray my secrets- and why? Why?!

Why did she spread this knowledge that far?

The three social magi had managed to get the fourth mage to begrudgingly join them in spellcraft discussions, though they were about as far from the death-knight’s sparring as they could be and still be up on decks. Behind them, clutching the railing, was one of the night elves.

The gnome in shorts was talking heatedly at her not-quite doppelganger “Personal efficiency is all well and good, but you really should try to reduce the strain on environmental mana as well - really, the bleed on this spell is atrocious.”

From where she was standing off to the side, the mage I was starting to dislike said in a haughty tone, “And why should we? Magus Toli’s spellwork is perfectly fine for fighting the scourge in Northrend - after all, nothing of value lives there, and it’s not like we’ll be there long enough to feel the depletion.”

“If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right. You really should consider-” And John cut off as he saw my expression, “Sorry ladies, but I have more pressing business to deal with.” In a soft soothing voice, attention focused on me, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

There wasn’t a good way to answer that question, dark thoughts and splintering emotions, and secrets I couldn’t say, and for a moment I just froze.

“It’s okay, it's going to be okay. You don’t have to talk, just relax.” It was a soothing pattern to listen to, and nothing was fixed, but it helped. Slowly, gently, he pressed his hands to mine. And to my own surprise, more than his, I didn’t flinch away.

“I thought I could trust Jevama. I thought I could trust her…” I blinked away tears, to see John turn a worried gaze towards the other Draenei.

“Let’s move somewhere private to sort this out -” And we both winced, knowing that privacy on a boat is an illusion. “Never mind, but how bad is it?”

I ran back over the exchange “... I’m not sure? It’s not good, since apparently she” and I paused, tears glistening on my cheeks, as I struggled to find something true I could also afford to say, since saying she spread secrets without my consent would imply to our listeners that they were true, and I didn’t think I’d survive being outed as a black dragon on a boat full of random strangers, “She’s been spreading rumours about me or something -“ And I couldn’t, didn’t dare explain properly, just give some choppy fragments, and hope John could interpolate, or at least give me an excuse not to explain.

I saw John blink, computing my statements before managing a quick enough, “And in a contest of your word against hers, a draenei paladin is likely to be listened to over you. Urgh. But it makes no sense that she’d do that, given how you’d been on good terms last you saw her?”

I cried out in frustration, “I know!” I yanked back my hands from John’s gentle grip in a foolish, petty, and misaimed act of frustration, before gesticulating wildly “That’s why I’m so upset. Why would she do that?”

Azui had caught up, and manged to get together enough courage to address me again, “Wait, I’m sorry - I was wrong, I’m sorry.” And her voice faltered. “Oh light, I wish I could un-say what I said.”

In the same language, I responded with a hard. “You can’t.” In the background I heard one of the gnomes comment that they wished they could understand what we were saying, which confirmed the language to be dreanic.

“I can’t.” she acknowledged, before brushing a hand in front of her face to wipe away tears, to say resolutely, “Jevama has done you no wrong - all the wrongdoing here is mine.”

I snarled, “I don’t see how, if she’s telling her friends that I’m not what I seem to be.”

Azui winced, but continued to meet my gaze. “I made a mistake -” And deep breath, before in a painfully vulnerable tone, “I’d assumed you were like me.”

My answer was silence, a loud kind of silence, as I had to recompute what had been said.

“I asked about your cover story, because she helps a lot of us with ours. And I beg you, please, to forgive my false assumptions” She was crying now, tears rolling down blue skin, “And please - no matter what you think of me and my foolishness, do not attack your friend with this.”

She must have taken my continued stunted silence as disagreement, because she continued with, “Please, don’t attack her with this - there are others under her protection that don’t deserve to have their secrets unveiled just because she helped this foolish liar hide. Please, for them, for your friendship with Jevama, be merciful.”

I sighed. “I didn’t expect this, but it makes more sense than her betrayal. But I have no idea how to explain this away to our watching crowd.”

She wilted, “I don’t know how to make this right.”

I snarled “Sometimes you can’t.” And then was swept by a tide of guilt and shame - if I’d not run off, if I’d just waited, and let her explain - and lord knows I’d said enough stupid things that had scarred me for years. I’d not yet burned any bridges in the life by saying something stupid, but I knew myself. An exhale, and softly this time, “Sometimes you can’t. But maybe we can still turn this one around. I forgive you, and I hope you’ll forgive me for getting angry, and making a scene?”

A sardonic drawl came from our watching crowd, where the mage who continued to rub me the wrong way, asked “So, priest, what’s your side of the story, since you sure seem more upset than I’d expect from the person handing out insults. And I find it awfully suspicious that you two have been having your conversation in a language that none of us can listen in on?”

Azui froze, blinking like a deer in the headlights for a moment, before turning to address the question. “It was a mistake - I knew a few things, and guessed incorrectly about how they fit together, giving insult in the process. And I was afraid that my mistake would drive a rift between friends.”

“We’ve mended the misunderstanding, so please may this be forgotten?”

The mage huffed. “Fine. It’s not like I got much interesting drama out of it anyway. You just had to have your argument in a language I don’t speak.”

In an only mildly sarcastic tone, I replied “Thank you for being a considerate spectator.” The melting anger and upset left me without the numbness, and instead started to encourage my nausea. “Now, I intend to return to staring at the horizon and trying not to be seasick.”

“Ick, shoo.”

If I’d been certain I’d say it in draenic, I’d have called back to Azui, said something about how I’d been upset because she hadn’t been wrong. But I couldn’t, so I didn’t. And instead, I allowed the lie to remain.

And guilt settled alongside my seasickness as I stared out at the waves.

---

Chapter Text

That day didn’t stay horrible. I didn’t eat much of lunch due to nausea, but Lily and John kept me company.

“So, I hear today was a bit of a mess for you - you can have the day off from weapon practice.”

“Thanks Lily.” I’d meant it to be sarcastic, but it just ended up honest. “Hopefully I’ll stop being seasick before I end up sick of staring at the horizon.”

“Well, if you think you can look down periodically, I can bring over some of my scrap paper, and we can work on making some new glyphs.”

“I think I can manage that. I’m here eating, aren’t I?”

John gave me a poke, “Speaking of which, Epolmono, actually eat your lunch.”

-

I took the page Lily handed me, along with a flat board for writing on, and a pencil. “So, remind me, how do we do this?”

Lily sighed, “You were there when I explained-”

I cut her off, because I felt like she’d misinterpreted my question, “Yeah, and I’ve got a decent idea how to ‘read’ a glyph, and how it works in theory. What I’m not sure of is where to start, handed a blank sheet of paper, and no design suggestions.”

“Oh. Fair enough. Hmm, right. There's two basic approaches, top down: where you start with an idea for what you want a rune to do and figure out how to make it work, and bottom up: draw something with meaning, and figure out how to make it work.”

“That’s still not a suggestion on where to begin.”

She glared at me over the top of her drawing board. “Fine, you want a suggestion - work on your style - cut complexity. You can add it back later if you need to, but simple is good for focus.”

Part of me was tempted to ask ‘and what should I try to reduce to simplicity?’ but I didn’t need Lily holding my hand on everything, and that was a valid suggestion, since figuring out an art style for inscription was going to be enough of a challenge. I’d done a lot of art before, but I also tended to steal art styles, drawing things in different styles based on time of day, what I’d been looking at recently, and what I was trying to draw.

And I might have sold my ability to draw stick figures to the god of anime a while back, by which I actually mean, spent a bunch of my formative artistic years as an anime nerd, who had in her possession a guide to drawing in anime styles, and one of the things that had stuck was drawing flesh over the fully jointed stick-skelton.

But there were things that tended to be consistent about my art styles - a tendency to break things down into border conditions. I can shade - but how I break down an image to draw it creates an emphasis on edges. And I’ve got a tendency to draw small curves, vines curling, twirls of smoke, tree branches - different, but similar.

I started sketching little spirals and curves while I thought about the problem

My mind bounced from curves to an art style I had seen labeled ‘tribal’ curves and dots used to fill in a silhouette. Except … that wasn’t my style, and also I could go simpler - just draw a silhouette.

A wave nudged my pencil out of it’s curve, putting in a jag - and it wasn’t much, it wasn't a glyph yet, but I saw the bones of a wing extending from a serpentine curve, and I had my inspiration.

I ended up filling the page with black doodles, shaded a little in my sketches, as I worked on breaking down the shape of a dragon, various poses. Some went in different directions - one was blocky, looked more like a winged sphinx, another a Coatl rather than dragon. The one I settled on still wasn’t perfect, but the mix of serpentine curves, and sharp points flowed together to something both familiar and dangerous, and entirely draconic. Only, as I finally stopped sketching, I had to acknowledge that it didn’t look that much like an Azerothian dragon, more like my old sketches of fantasy creatures.

“Stopped for a reason?”

Instead of answering with words, I just handed my sheet of sketches to Lily.

“Huh. Was expecting a lot more writing based on what you’d done last time.”

“There's power in words, and I’m relatively fluent in at least one form of it, given that shamanism involves an awful lot of magically significant talking - but you told me to simplify, and the art of wordcraft, while beautiful, is not one of simplicity. And for me, at least, writing is too trivial to be bound in intent, without either the touch of poetry, or paragraphs of details. And both introduce, rather than reduce, complexity.”

“Well, I can’t fault you on your interpretation of ‘simplify’, and this looks like a good direction to practice, may I ask why you decided to start with doodling dragons?”

“Uh,” I twirled my hair, fidgeting and not answering, before finally sighing. “It was easy, and it’s one of the things I used to draw, before.”

“Ah. Fair enough. But it’s not like it’ll be easy to make some sort of ‘glyph of the dragon’ work; so you’ll need to play around with a different shape.”

Her saying the name caused me to flash to ‘glyph of the dolphin’, and thus gave me a fairly clear idea of what the glyph would do. “Why not? It's a fairly simple and clear glyph -changing a druid form to look like a dragon - probably flight form, to bring it in line with the other travel form glyphs.”

Lily blinked. “Okay, if you can make that work, there’s probably a half dozen people who’d pay through the nose for a glyph like that - but I don’t think you should start with that glyph.”

-

I held onto the sketches for the design, since it would be valuable at some point, once I’d established a few glyphs to muddle the trail, or had a druid I trusted with the secret. And I started iterating on my totems, since my particular totem style had a lot in common with inscription, and it could benefit from narrowing in on that design.

Working on that project took me the rest of the way to sundown, and I wasn’t convinced that it was done. Spirit link totem might be a wonderful thing in the game, but here in reality it continued to be an eternal pain.

-

I did try to get to sleep when the collective decided it was bedtime, but between the hammock being unfamiliar and uncomfortable, and my own native insomnia, I found myself still awake even after the snores from some of my fellow adventures indicated they were sleeping soundly.

I went to roll over and had the hammock sway under me, leaving me clinging to the mesh afraid I would fall out. Right. Enough of this nonsense.

I opened bleary eyes into the slightly lantern lit darkness of below decks, and slowly and carefully disentangled myself from the uncooperative bedding. My hooves were louder on the wood than I’d have liked, but no one seemed to have been woken up.

As I approached the bright patch by the stairs, both death knights looked up from their silent game of cards. In answer to their questioning gazes, I mumbled, “Can’t sleep, gonna stargaze for a bit.”

Lily nodded with a smile, before waving me up the stairs, rather than say anything and potentially wake people up with her unnatural voice.

-

Turns out, I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep. One of the night elves, who I was pretty sure wasn’t Nalian, was leaning against the railing, looking out at the glints of starlight on waves. It was hard, in the darkness, to tell exactly which of the other two night elves it was, since I couldn’t tell which colour hair he had, and I’d not spent enough time with them to recognize the different sets of leather in the darkness.

His hair was still done up, two braids resting over his shoulders, and a high-ponytail to remind me that night elves have absurd amounts of hair.

“Are you going to continue to stand there staring at me?”

I walked over to stand beside him, to talk more easily. “Sorry, wasn’t meaning to stare, I just couldn’t remember your name.”

He turned away from the railing to face me. “I don’t think we’d yet been introduced.” He did a gesture I didn’t quite recognize, but seemed like a variant on the little mini bow of introduction, “Hytheas Truewind, pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

I returned the gesture as I introduced myself. “Epolmono, pleasure to meet you as well.”

He chuckled faintly, “You don’t have to copy my formalities. Elune knows, I could use less of them.” His right hand returned to the rail, just as a noticeable wave had the ship swaying, “So, what is keeping you up tonight, Epolmono? I noticed you were a bit seasick earlier - are you feeling unwell?”

I shrugged. “It’s not helping, but I could also blame it on natural insomnia, unfamiliarity with these hammocks, or jet-lag.” Should not have said that last one. Azeroth doesn't have planes.

He looked a bit quizzical at that one “Time-zone adjustment? Why would you be having trouble with that? Or did you just come through the dark portal?”

Thank you, auto-translation based on intent. “No, just portals from Kalimdor.”

He stiffened, not glaring at me, some much as staring into some middle distance with an angry expression.

“Did I upset you?” Because just because I’d read it as anger didn’t mean that it was, since I’d often had trouble with reading disapproval where none had been meant.

He took a deep breath to center himself. His words felt directed less at me, and more like someone trying to dissect what they were feeling, rather than lash out. “I understand the utility of portals, and why it would be the travel option of choice, but it disturbs me the frivolity with which mages use the arcane. How ubiquitous it is, here among the mortal kingdoms.”

And I winced. Because fear of the arcane wouldn’t go well for an elf heading into Northrend, where the main hub was dalaran, city of mages.

He must have misread my wince, since his next words had a defensive bite. “I might not be old enough to remember the sundering, but it wasn’t some ancient history for me either - I saw how the folly of Azshara,” and he spit that name, full of hate, “scarred my parents. Do not judge me for my distrust of magi - would you ask one of your people to fight alongside a warlock, given your history with them?”


I started to answer, but his rant was picking up steam, and my words got lost.

“Maybe the mortal magi imagine they don’t live long enough to be corrupted by power the way the highborne were - but I see the way they keep reaching for it. And heading into this sort of trial, how many will damn themselves, reaching in desperation for what they cannot control - and how many fools would it take, actually finding some leyline or focusing device, to get us all killed. How am I supposed to relax and forget what misuse of magic did, when I hear these magi talking about deliberately ignoring the side effects from their incomptent spellwork just because they’re not doing it they’re own backyard.”

Another voice cut in with, “Do go on, tell me how you really feel - ‘fools’, ‘incomptent spellwork’, really,” causing both of us to snap around to look at them. It was the fourth mage, the other human. She smirked nastily, visible in the light from the stairwell. “Why, one might almost think you were complaining about us not spellcasting as well as you. I wonder - did you used to be one of the highborne? Are you jealous that we got to keep using magic, when your kin forbid you to keep practicing.”

Hytheas stalked towards her, glaring and growling.

She didn’t move. “Or are you afraid of the temptation? Go on, elfy-boy, take a taste of the forbidden arcane. It’s not like anyone else has to know.”

For a moment it looked like he would hit her. She smirked, a clear invasion to him to try. And then he stalked past her, heading below decks.

She sneered, and called after him, “Too proud to hit a girl?” No answer came back up the stairs, not even the angry footfalls I might have expected from a human storming off. She then turned to look at me. “Don’t get any ideas. I’m not here to help you - but your day was already shit, and if that fool is going to yell at someone about magecraft, he might as well pick on someone willing to fight back.”

I sighed. “I can fight my own battles, thanks.”

“Didn’t look like it when you went crying to your man at the first blush of trouble.” She then smacked a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, that was me being an ass. There's a reason I don’t try to talk much - I don’t seem to be able to not be a jerk about everything.”

“Well, you weren’t wrong. But, please, don’t antagonize others on my behalf. There's very few conversations I need someone else to tank for. And I was going to try to de-escalate the conversation.”

She shrugged. “Then it’s a good thing that I wasn’t fussed about being helpful. Better I be a jerk to the guy who was never going to like me, and bleed off some of the vitriol so that I can almost pass as a decent human being tomorrow eh?”

I didn’t reply. She didn’t seem overly bothered, choosing instead to walk over to a different section of decks and sit down and get comfortable.

-

I was one of the last people to wake up for breakfast the next day, despite there having been a few other people up the night before, one up later than me. And with my ongoing intermittent seasickness, I took longer to eat my breakfast than most of the other passengers.

Which made it really freaking suspicious that Bellinda and Nalian were still hanging around the food area (there’s a word for that space on a ship, but I can’t remember what that word is), when everyone else had drifted off. Only not everyone, because Lily had noticed, and was waiting for me to finish.

“So.” I let that hang in the air, partially a question, and partially a demand to move the conversation forward.

The flame haired human looked back firmly. “So, what are you? Since we both know you aren’t what you seem to be.”

And maybe it was the not quite awake feeling of the early morning, maybe it was my inability to internalize that my knowledge was wrong - and maybe it was the weird timing of the confrontation. Whatever the reason, my reply was “And neither are you. Warlock.”

“How the fuck did you - you’re another bronze aren’t you?”

“Another bronze?” And I had only moments to consider, and I still wasn’t awake enough - and instead of doing the smart thing and agreeing, I followed that question up with, “And no, I am not a bronze - it’s just the logical adventuring path that someone would want to hide, and you’re not a hunter. Or it wouldn’t be this timing.”

“I’ve dealt with bronze before. And don’t change the subject - what are you actually?”

I tilted my head, and stared at her. “Do you have any evidence that I’m not what I seem to be?”

“You don’t have any proof that I’m not a hunter, and any Northrend worthy hunter should be able to tell when someone’s humanoid, or not.”

“Then you would also be able to tell what I am, ‘hunter’.”

And rather than the human ‘hunter’, the reply came back from her freaking cat, that had been lounging off to the corner last I checked, but must have prowled closer during this conversation. “There are enough druids on this boat, that even if we can’t prove what you are, we can prove what you’re not. You aren’t human.”

And I nearly missed the significance of that last word, given my auto-translation, and humano-centric bias that even getting reincarnated into a fantasy world hadn’t fixed. Almost. “Not human? Of course not - afterall, the Broken look nothing like humans.” I began to stand leisurely, “Now if you don’t have any actual evidence…”

“Then why do you smell like one?”

I froze, partway to standing.

“I didn’t realize immediately - I’m not familiar with how your kind are supposed to smell, and you are partnered with a human. But you smell wrong to be a Draenei, even some kind of distorted one.”

I sighed, finishing standing “Fine, you’ve got me. I’m a dragon.”

“Which flight?”

Lily growled. “Does it matter?”

He studied me, the way Lily was looming, and shrugged. “I suppose it doesn't, right now. But I’ll be keeping an eye on you, so I advise you not to make it matter.”

-

I don’t want to say the night elf was waiting for me, but Hytheas did come over as soon as he saw me come out on deck. I recognized the braids, and was able to confirm that he was the blue haired elf in green leather (the guy who’d flown in from the plaguelands), rather than the green haired night elf in blue leather (the druid), and actually, that was an amusing coincidence of armour and hair colours.

“I owe you an apology for last night. While I dislike the entirety of her attitude, the mage was right - I was being a jerk to you, and I shouldn’t have been venting my frustrations at you.”

John, who had also been coming over, overheard this and asked, “Huh, when did this happen yesterday?”

“Insomnia club. We might all be grumpy and unable to sleep, but at least we have each other to snarl at, instead of our own echoing thoughts.”

John snickered. “Yeah, that sounds familiar. Now go reassure your new friend that he hasn’t annoyed you too much.”

Hytheas was staring at us. “I am incredibly confused by both of you.”

I smiled. “Yeah, that happens. And I’m not fussed about you getting excited at me last night - I’d rather not be ranted at, but that wasn’t that bad. Just don’t make a habit of it, okay.”

He gave a faint bow, “I will endeavor not to.”
-

Over the next few days, I got my sea legs under me enough to be able to get run through the sword fight practice wringer, and got to see various bonding between adventurers. The two almost identical gnome magi were deep down the rabbit hole of magic theory, and would have been testing more of it, but the captain was decidedly unhappy about them testing things aboard ship. The blue haired gnome was often seen more on her own, left out of the magecraft discussions, and not really liking her fellow sneaky types. Apparently actually stabbing people was ‘uncivilized’, when she could gather all the info, and ‘delegate’ the grunt work to the rest of us. Not all the groupings were along class lines though - the insomnia club for instance, which got an additional member in the form of the dark-clad dwarf, who after I saw him a few nights, seemed more sad than unfriendly. And the death knights decided to join us, after it became clear that the insomnia wasn’t a one off thing, though we each had different nights we were up late.

In fact, while it was looking like it would be later rather than sooner, the entire insomnia club was starting to get along more. We were getting used to each other being there, and of the problem pair, Hytheas, at least, was putting in more of an effort to restrain his impulse towards dislike of the magi. All four of them.

I got to help lend a sympathetic ear on another few evenings, and was rewarded by him actually attempting to get to know the mages. The pair of gnomes quickly overwhelmed him, and he had to excuse himself, but he was able to strike up a conversation with John. They didn’t have much common ground, but I got dragged in with a shared interest in poetry. Thankfully Hytheas never questioned my fluency in english poetic forms, though he was just about as fluent, so I guess he figured it wasn’t unusual to study eastern-kingdoms poetry as a non-human race?

-

Around the end of the first week, Lily managed to rope Hytheas into giving her at least one spar despite him ‘not being very good in a straight fight.’

I got the feeling she was holding back a little, but while he got in the first and second hits, he couldn’t really slow her down, no matter how many faintly bleeding gashes he left, and she did eventually manage to land a solid hit, sending the night elf tumbling, but he stood back up, and was ready to keep going, if favoring his side.

He sported plenty of bruises, and some healer-treated cuts, when, about half an hour in, after another decent cut that might have slowed me, but shouldn’t have slowed her, Lily started to sway. “What did … poison?”

Hytheas shrugged. “Sedative. You did know you were challenging a rogue when you dragged me into this.”

She sat down, rather than risk falling down, and her speech was more than a little slurred. “Did. You need better poisons. Too long.”

Hytheas sighed. “I know. I know. But do you have any idea how hard it is to make a safe sedative?”

The only response he got back from Lily was snores. He turned to look at the druid, “You might want to check that though, if you can - it might be perfectly safe on a fellow humanoid, but since death knights can’t sleep naturally…”

Thomas corrected the night elf. “No, we can. We just usually don’t bother, since we don’t need to, and sacrificing extra time in favor of nightmares isn’t a great trade.”

The druid healer leaned over with a flowing hand, before shrugging. “Doesn't seem to be any problems. And well, I could dispel the poison, but I’m tempted to just let her sleep it off, since it’s probably still good for you-lot to dream.” And this was accompanied by a glare at the awake death knight.

-

That night the insomnia club was rather barren, with just Thomas and me staying up, and I was getting used to sleeping at sea, so I turned in early. Thomas shrugged, and decided he would brave the nightmares just this once, since he didn’t really want to be stuck staying up alone with nothing to do.

-

I awoke very groggy, at some early time the next morning to loud noises. There was a lantern being held far too close to my hammock, and someone called across the boat, “Right, that’s everyone else accounted for. Looks like Ms. Fulton is the victim. Unless she mysteriously turns up, hale and healthy, and we just have unexplained bloodstains on the deck.”

Some other loud voices, that I wasn’t quite tracking yet, before the same voice from earlier, now a little more distant scoffed and said, “Probably tossed the body over the side - we are on a boat. No - it’s the timing I find suspicious, both the Death knights are ‘sleeping’ on the one night a murder happens? Get real.”

And an angry shout from one of the death knights, I couldn’t tell which just from their voice “For the love of - I didn’t do it! Look if I had snapped and decided to go on a murder spree, do you think I’d have bothered being subtle?”

Another voice, one I recognized as Nalian, who also sounded like they’d been woken up by the escalating commotion. “Cease these accusations. The culprit isn’t going to be going anywhere, and unless they were very careful, I should be able to pick up their scent from the scene, if you’ll give me a few minutes to finish waking up, and guide me to where you found the bloodstains. Unless you’d like to point the finger of accusation at me instead, just for trying to gather evidence?” A pointed silence followed. “I didn’t think so.”

Chapter Text

I poked the sleeping death knight a few times, until she finally stirred to pin my hand. “Unless someone’s dying, you are going to regret disturbing the only good dream I’ve had in years.”

“Well, no one’s currently dying …” The tone of my voice had her crack an eye open to look around. “But, uh, one of our fellow passengers might have been murdered last night?”

“Might have been?”
“Well there’s no body, but there's a highly suspicious bloodstain on deck, and one person missing.” Lily let go of my hand, deciding that she no longer needed to imprison it for the crime of waking her up. “And while you aren’t particularly high on the suspect list due to your alibi of having been knocked out yesterday, you are still on that list, and it’s been decided that we are all going to go attend the investigation, so that no one's left on their own.”

Lily’s mood was not improved at all by the news, but aside from a pinched, unhappy look, she was up and ready for trouble fairly darn quick.

Everyone was clustered around the ‘two’ druids. They were in cat form, Nalian purple like Bellinda’s ‘cat’, the other a deep blue, and both with silver markings shaped like moons in their fur. Both were sniffing the empty hammock of ‘Ms. Fulton’, who from my look around for who was missing was probably the other human mage - the one who had been generally abrasive, but still occasionally decent under that obnoxiousness. I hadn’t known her well, but ...

But while it stung, I also felt guilty about how it didn’t hurt. Someone I had talked to had (probably) been murdered, and it hadn’t hurt me as much as being cut away from people I cared about.

And there were the tears, pricking at my eyes. Not for this loss, but for the echoes of all the other ones I had repressed. All made sour by the guilt of being uncaring about this one in particular. I shoved it back down, buried it as best I could. Because, I couldn’t fix it - and my only choice was to commit to this world, and living in it. Things have been getting better dammit.

John, from beside whispered, “Are you okay?”

I shrugged, then spoke with a light tone that was brittle but helped to trick my mind back to not being upset, “Am I ever? Old traumas popping up in unexpected places. I cannot fix the past, and sometimes I wish I could forget it.”

“Ah.” John sighed. “I know that feeling. If you want to talk, I’m happy to listen.”

“Not right now - we have crises at hand. In fact, not on this boat at all, since I’m far too fond of privacy.”

A snort, that might have been laughter if we had been in a better mood. “And light knows, there’s none on a ship.”

There was a thoughtful hum from the blue haired gnome to our left in the crowd. “You’d think that. But last night, there managed to be an opening when apparently no one saw what was going on? Seems awfully suspicious.” She shrugged. “I mean the sneaking part isn’t too hard - but actually doing anything specific, such as say stabbing a mage, requires a break in the watch more than just ‘no adventurers were on deck’.”

As she mulled over the problem, the two druids decided they had a decent Idea of the smell of the missing mage, and the crowd of adventurers began piling up the stairs after them and the human rogue.

The blue haired gnome called up to the front of the column, “Hey Kelsey - did you check with the crew for whether they saw anything?”

“They say they saw sweet fuck all of whatever happened, but they’re the reason we got woken up at the literal first light of dawn. And frankly I don’t think they’re lying - if there wasn’t much noise, there's a lot of ways to pass unseen at night. And letting a mage scream is an invitation to get frozen to the deck, and even if our assailant isn’t a trained assassin, they’re not that useless.” A thoughtful hum. “Of course, they could be one of us trying to throw off the trail by leaving obvious bloodstains, or they could be just that confident that we’re not gonna find ‘em.”

I could see Hytheas raising an eyebrow, even though he was facing away from me, because night elf eyebrows really are that ridiculous. “I’ve seen some ‘rogues’ with no concept of subtlety. Just because someone should know what they’re doing doesn't mean they actually do.”

A snort from up the top of the stairs. “Well, you’re not wrong. But seeing as no defias thugs were invited on this boat ride, I’m assuming competence from you old man. You did manage to knock out a deathknight in an almost straight fight after all.” A pause, before he called back down the stairs, “I suppose it could be Flickerchime over there. Since she’s not got any training in anything but sneaking.”

She sniffed, and replied in an offended tone “I have gotten this far without having to resort to base violence, and I wouldn’t break that streak for one mage, no matter how annoying.”

A grumble for Thomas. “Yes, yes, you rogues have standards - someone here was committing violence last night, and if you insist that I’m a suspect, so are all of you. So can you shut up, and get over here so we can get this over with?”

Coming up onto the deck, I was able to see the brown stain spread across the deck, and yeah, I could see why everyone was assuming murder. Nalian took lead, but both druids began surveying the scene for scent trails.

And while they did, I caught Bellinda eyeing me warily. Not yet threatening, but not letting me have more than an inch of room to cause trouble. To be fair, I am highly suspicious. But I didn’t do this.

“Inelor, please tell me you’re smelling this too.”
The blue (and why was his cat-form blue, given that he had green hair?) kitty huffed. “If by this, you mean the complete lack of scent trail for the culprit?”
Thomas raised an eyebrow. “So what, are you suggesting the mage just stabbed herself, and disappeared?”

Nalian took a sniff by the railing, “Given that I’m fairly certain she got manhandled over the railing, from the way her scent and blood are smeared here…”

He glared. “So, are you two conspiring to point fingers at me then, just cause I’m undead and don’t smell human anymore.”
I couldn’t read the cat’s facial expressions, but the druid’s voice was clearly amused. “If anything, it clears both of you death knights, since you both stink. Nowhere near as much as you two should, for undead, but still enough to be ick.” Nalian patrolled slowly around the perimeter of the scene again. “I’m thinking magic? I’m not familiar with what it can do, but there's a distinct absence here.” He backed away, took a sniff, walked back. “Yeah, something’s definitely being hidden here.”

John exchanged a look with the two other remaining magi. “Do either of you know a modification of detect magic to check an area for magic?”

The gnome in shorts offered her suggestion, “Polar diffusion? It’s not going to be clear on spells involved but it should be able to tell what school of magic was used.”
“Got a brilliant idea for how to filter out our own arcane traces?”

She shrugged, “Nopee. But if it’s only arcane, well…”

John sighed, and then began casting, sweeping gestures around the area. The first pass, nothing changed, but on the second - on the second pass, blue sparkles began to be visible in the air trailing from John’s fingers, and as they fell they landed on the faint faded traces of some lattice, visible like a spiderweb in the air.

And then one of the sparks landed on the blood, and flared a bright, brilliant, green. And John flinched back, away from the emerald flare.

Toli looked at the result with a gaze I couldn't quite tell whether it was curious or annoyed. “Fel, really? Now that’s a surprise.”

My gaze caught Bellinda’s. There was, to my knowledge, exactly one warlock on this ship. And I was looking right at her. Her gaze back was hard - revealing her won't be pretty. She knows too much. But I can’t afford to wait - because if I don’t call her out, who will? But why? … Only I didn’t really know much about Bellinda. Enough to recognize her as a warlock, but not much about what she’s hiding behind her painted face.

As my thoughts went racing, and I hesitated about starting the fight, Toli spoke. “Do you mind if I cross verify your spellcast?”

Fuck. She’s a friend of Belinda, and she’s about to tamper with the evidence. And, then, because I’d failed to properly keep him in the loop, John smiled at Toli, stepping aside for her. “Go ahead, better to have confirmation on that very weird result.”

Beside me, Lily didn’t try to hide her voice, “So, this could get very messy, very quickly.”

Her fellow death knight snorted. “No kidding. Either we’ve got a hidden warlock up to no good, or your little brother faked a result.”

Lily looked at Thomas. “How would you tell the difference? It’ll be our word versus theirs.”

The other death knight winced. His sister, though, looked at Lily sharply. “You got a suspect for the hidden warlock?”

She shrugged. “No proof.”

Up near the front, people were turning to look at us, John shooting us a confused and worried glance, wondering what Lily had noticed. But before any of them got around to butting into the conversation, Toli finished her spellcast. “Yeah, no, that’s definitely fel. Huh?” She stared at her spell result in confusion.

Lily hmmd. “Huh. Thought she’d try to cover for the lock, but she just seems confused.”

The other pink haired gnome glared at Lily. “Who are you implying is the warlock exactly? It’s sure as heck not the druid over yonder Toli came here with, and while I’m glad you seem to think we’ve made good friends this quickly, I’m not a fucking warlock.” She took a glance back at the spell traces hovering in the air. “And I find it awfully suspicious that rather than stopping at the first spell trace, your brother kept going, and ‘found’ fel.”

John’s gaze flicked between the glowing green flame and the angry pink haired gnome. “First spell trace - what are you talking about?”

She jabbed at him with a finger. “The fading lattice spell.” She stomped over, and pointed at the flickering shimmer trail. “This one. Sure, it’s mostly dissipated, but it’s been hours. And it lines up almost exactly with the edge Nalian noticed earlier.”

She took a step forward, and John started backing away from her. And maybe on a different day, I’d have found her growl cute, but looking at the crowd of adventurers, watching the argument looking for an easy suspect, the high pitched voice sounded like a much deeper growl. “What are you playing at, Clarkson? Trying to misdirect onto some warlock, to cover up your actions.”

John tried for a soothing tone, but his hands were up, defensively. “Look, that was my first time trying to scan an area for magic - I thought the arcane trace was just feedback from my detection spell or something. I’ve got no clue what's going on -”

“Sure you don’t”

Toli might not have quite come to our rescue, but she derailed the argument. “Klossi, is it just me, or is this the spell signature for fel healing?”

There was complete utter silence for one moment, as if even the waves were holding their breath.

The angry pink haired gnome blinked, before looking at the other mage’s work. “Huh. … And that would explain the fresh signal - doesn't healing magic linger a few days or something?” She stared at the spell breakdown with the same confused look as the other gnome. “What the heck happened last night?”

As I looked at Bellinda, I realized that some of what I had seen in her gaze had been fear, that was replaced with a more vague warriness. But then, just because I couldn’t drag her into the line of fire as a suspect, didn’t mean that my half of our mutually assured destruction was gone.

Azui stepped forward. “I am no mage, and have no training in your craft. Would I be correct in summarizing that it seems Elena was in possession of a healthstone, or otherwise came to benefit from the spoils of the legion?” She said this with a bit of distaste.

The two gnome magi exchanged a look, nodding. Azui continued, “And, that therefore our only magical trace pointing towards the killer is a trace of arcane magic?”
John sighed. “Yes. And since I’m apparently the most suspicious person on this boat, is this where you turn around and accuse me on the grounds that the other two Magi are vouching for each other?” He crossed his arms, and met the priest's gaze. “I didn’t do it, for what it’s worth.”

“And for what it’s worth, I believe you.” Azui’s soft gaze hurt in its own way. “But I am biased. Still,” She let her gaze sweep across the assembled adventurers. “We do not have the evidence to single out the arcane caster responsible. Nor do we have the proof that there was not another hidden mage, the same way we apparently had, or possibly still have, a hidden warlock. Or does anyone have other evidence they would like to bring to this discussion?”

There were plenty of looks around the group, the cracks of implicit sides forming, but no one had evidence, or the willingness to meet the priests gaze, and throw around baseless suspicion.

One of the two dwarves, I could quite tell from the voice, spoke up, “We’ve still got a killer loose though. Nobody should be alone and we need watches, lest they take more lives.”

The other dwarf spoke, “Aye, Darnug. It doesn't sit right to let the killer stay loose, but with no leads, all we can do is try to keep ta rest safe. So we should partner up, make sure everyones always got back up with them if the killer tries anything.”

People were nodding in agreement, and here at least I could speak up with less fear of reprisal. “Trios. So that even if you do get the imposter as your partner, you still have someone as back up. Of course, it won’t help if both your teammates are up to no good, but…” I shrugged. Several people looked startled, and maybe a little scandalized by my blanket assumption that a friend they trusted wasn’t enough. But a few were nodding along. The three rogues for instance.
The blue haired gnome had climbed onto one of the barrels on deck, and was visible when she spoke up. “And no watch should be drawn from all the same group, since if one of them is responsible, they might all be.”

Darnug called back to us, in a confused tone, “Why are you ladies treating everyone as suspects? Didn’t the magi figure out it had to be one of them?”
Illa located him in the crowd, and I was able to trace her flat gaze back to the dwarf with side-braids, “Can you prove that you aren’t a mage?”
“I’m a paladin lass-”
She shrugged. “And you could also know a little arcane. I mean devotion to the light doesn't normally run in parallel with well planned murders, but it’s entirely possible for a person to have trained in multiple things, or dabbled in their youth, and be putting their skills to use now for stabbing. So we’ve got to be careful, even when it seems a little silly to imagine.”

-

We managed to get something of a watch schedule, through both day and night, to make sure that nothing happened to the crew or such. And an argument that no one would wander off, without bringing either at least one person they trusted implicitly, or a few people.

My watch was with Inelor and Laurence, between supper and the first true night watch. John had afternoons, with Azui, and Darnug. Both Death Knights were assumed to be on all night watches.

And both of them were having to be a lot more restrained in their sparring, unable to afford even an evening off. And that meant they needed more sparring to get the same effect.

Which meant that as someone Lily a) trusted, and b) finally had my sea legs, and c) someone who needed more melee training, I got to spend a lot of my time getting mild bruises, and occasionally landing hits back.

And as another consequence of that, Nalian’s group didn’t get to ask some of their follow up questions until late. Nalian, Belinda, and her druid cat approached my trio after the point my watch was officially over, but before I’d headed below decks with John.

“So, we didn’t push earlier, but given recent events, I think we need an actual answer to what flight you’re from.”

John startled, reminding me that I’d not gotten to read him in on the earlier conversation.

Nalian raised a highly unimpressed eyebrow. “Did you not tell your companion?”

John shrugged. “I know about that, I just didn’t know that you knew.” The night elf hmmd in response, but his expression seemed less offended on John's behalf, and more considering.

I meanwhile, still hadn’t figured out how to answer. Since I couldn’t reasonably spoof any of the other dragon flights, the closest two would be red and bronze, for fire or foreknowledge, and a) I couldn’t heal at all, and b) I knew basically nothing about how chronomancy actually worked, and c) my scales were objectively the wrong colour anyway.

Fine. Werewolf it up. “Black.”

Both John and Lily looked at me sharply, and Nalian’s eyebrows were making a bid for independence. Bellinda scoffed. “Try a less blatant lie.”
I can’t believe that worked. Hopefully, without any smugness, or too much surprise bleeding into my expression, I waved a hand, “Go on, why are you sure I’m not a black dragon?”

“You’re not smug enough, and you didn’t start accusing me given the opening. Every black I’ve heard of was either confident of their superiority, or trying to kill away any threats. Or both.”

I winced, because working from stereotypes is bad, and her over generalization could get people killed, but also she wasn’t, strictly speaking, wrong. With the black dragon flight’s culture, interactions with mortals fell into one of two categories - a dragon convinced that ‘meh, I can take ‘em’, or a dragon that felt threatened, but couldn’t afford to lose face with their flight by submitting to a mortal. So confident, or cornered. “Well, you're probably not wrong.”

“So, you’re not a black dragon - blue? Afraid of being on the suspect list?”

“I didn’t want to tell you about my flight before the murder happened either.”

She hmmd. “So have you got a different explanation other than ‘was already planning the killing’?”

I sighed, “Fine, I’m actually a storm-drake.” ‘Air, can we spoof a lighting breath weapon?’

“A what?”
“And that’s why I didn’t want to tell you. Because the only way you’d even know about my flight is if you were also a dragon, and in that case, you probably get annoyed about one of Odyn’s minions muscling in on your territory.” Bellinda looked about ready to scoff, but Nalian looked thoughtful. “Actually - how good are the elvish records? There were plenty of elvish settlements in the lee of Highmountian, and while I don’t actually know how long Stormheim has been, well, Stormheim, I can still talk about Suramar and Asuna.”

‘You have lighting, and you have channeled elements through your breath before in mortal form. It is possible. And risky.’

Nalian paced. “I can’t remember enough about pre-surrendering geography to know much about suramar other than it existed.”

The cat sighed. “Suramar city was close to a few other points of interest, and while I don’t know how many survived, if you have been living there, you should know of them.”

“The world tree in Val'sharah, still standing; black-rook hold, haunted and decidedly unfriendly. I can’t remember the name of the mage academy in Azsuna, but they, like just about everyone else in the court of prince Farondis, got cursed for betraying queen Azshara, and are trapped as ghosts. And there's a former temple of Elune, with fel corruption, on its own island a bit separate from the standing portions of Suramar city. Oh and Neltharion used to have his lair in highmountain. Used to. I don’t know whether we could hold him out if he wanted it back, but …”

“You’ve either been there, or you’ve found some very obscure maps. Fine. But that still doesn't prove the existence of some sixth dragon flight.”
“I’m not sure how it’ll work in mortal form, but I could try to demonstrate my lightning breath?”

Belinda glared. “Why don’t you just show your scales?”

Nalian answered for me, with ”Is there room on deck?”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to risk tipping the boat. So, want me to try showing my breath-weapon?” When they nodded, a little reluctantly in Bellinda’s case, I took a deep breath, faced out towards the sea, and exhaled lightning. It stung, my tongue hurt, and my check was twitching slightly, but I got to blink bright light out of my eyes, and listen to awed gasps.

“What’s going on!” Hytheas was sprinting across the deck, the warrior-dwarf who shared the night shift with him and Lily close on his heels.

“Nothing, nothing. Had just been chatting, and they had not believed me when I said I could channel lighting with my breath like that, and so I gave a demonstration, pointing out to sea. No one’s fighting.”
The blue haired night elf glared. “Frankly, I don’t believe your explanation. Nalian, Bellinda, do you agree that everything’s okay?”
“We were talking, and asked her to prove she could do it.”

Hytheas started at the other night elf, before throwing up his hand in exasperation, and starting to stomp back to the central section of deck. “Fine, fine.”

Once both of the watchers were back out earshot, Bellinda looked at me and asked, “So, what’s wrong with your flight, that you thought claiming to be a black dragon was a better idea?”
I winced. “Well, our flight was just one of many reasons why the All-father isn’t well liked except among his followers. The dragonflights have good reason to be pissed that he decided he didn’t trust any of them, and was going to make his own flight, and the other keepers aren’t happy about that either. And then there’s the mess with Helya, and the legends would have been written by his enemies, most likely…” I shrugged. “And I guess I was hoping that the black dragon flight couldn’t be as bad as Odyn’s histories made them out to be. Since his bias isn’t subtle.”

She snorted. “Sorry, but they suck.” She put a hand on my shoulder. “Still, I hear the other dragon flights aren’t bad, if you want to stick it to your boss a little. Just don’t go around claiming to be a black dragon again, unless you want to get in trouble.”

“Thanks.”

-

As soon as John felt we had enough privacy not to get caught immediately, he turned to me with an incredulous expression. “How the fuck did that work?! Seriously, how did you not get caught?”

“I have lighting magic, and the storm dragon flight does exist. And you and Lily both immediately turned disbelief on me when I claimed to be a black made it look like that was the lie. And well, admitting to being the imposter is a surprisingly effective way of getting people to assume that you aren’t. It’s more effective in ultimate werewolf, with the role trying to get caught being in the set, but saying it the way I did was an invitation for someone to call bullshit. It also helps that as Bellinda pointed out, I am not a typical black dragon. At all. And after that, I was rolling with the story, the identity. If I was a Stormdrake, and naive enough to underestimate the black dragonflight, and overestimate the significance of Odyn’s flight. And I have visited the broken isles. At least in the vision of Azeroth from my previous life.”

I shrugged. “And maybe, it was just a stupid risk. But also, anyone who knows I’m a dragon can probably infer from what I won't tell them, what flight I’m from eventually. At least if I told them, they’d have less excuse to assume I was trying to fight them.”

-

And despite everything, life aboard ship went on. We got used to keeping watches, and traveling in pairs and trios. Though some of us were better at it than others. The gnomes were basically inseparable, the trio moving together so seamlessly that it almost didn't seem like they were doing anything special, except that Klossi and Toli had changed the subjects of their chatter to not exclude the non-mage. On the other end of the spectrum, the other two rogues were definitely starting to chaffe at the rules, after around the second day. Laurence kept grumbling, and a few times growled at us to stop staring at him, even when we hadn’t been. Hytheas was significantly more patient about being reminded that he wasn’t allowed to vanish into the shadows, but the night elf still seemed to be sleeping worse with all the scrutiny. Though some of that might have also been just his vigilance wearing on him, since Hytheas was often doing an informal watch even when it wasn’t his turn to keep guard.

Days passed, and nothing happened. No new evidence, no real fights, and if any new secrets were revealed, they weren’t revealed to me.

After about a week of the new normal, Hytheas pushed his breakfast aside, and rested his face on folded arms.

I wasn’t one of his team, traveling with Lily and John most of the time, but I had been sitting next to him. “Hytheas, are you alright?”

His voice was muffled by his posture. “Tired.” He sighed, and sat back up properly, stretching to try to banish the sleepiness. “I can’t keep doing this.”

“Burnout from trying to stay on watch all the time?”

He nodded. Rubbed sleep from his eyes. And then turned to face me, “Do you three mind if I tag along today? Going to ask some magecraft questions, rather than keep waiting for something to change.”

I exchanged looks with the others, and it looked like we were on about the same wavelength. He was welcome, but we weren’t sure if it was a sign of trust on his part, or just him being too tired to remember why we were moving in groups of three. Because sure, we knew we weren’t the killers, but he didn’t know that.

“Sure, I’d be happy to help. If asking me some questions about how magic works lets you relax, ask away.”

We drifted up to deck, Hytheas asking questions, some John could answer easily, and others got back, “I don’t know, sorry” or “Huh, never thought of that, I wonder if that’s possible.” I started to tune it out, and Lily seemed also content to let John handle the conversation.

Something was wrong. Both Lily and I spun, trying to identify the threat.

A portal was open between Lily and John, one no-one had seemed to cast.

Hytheas shoved, sending John through the portal, and himself in with the follow-through. I barely had time to react, the portal closing behind them, and charged. Across from me, Lily dove in as well.

As I crossed into the fading portal, I had a moment to be relieved that we had made it, as we crossed the space between portals.

And then we were on the other side.

Chapter Text

I came tumbling out of the portal, unsure of where I was or what way was up. The distinct lack of ground wasn’t helping.

Air was rushing past, and I caught a brief glimpse of rolling brown hills spread below, and I couldn’t tell how high up we were.

I was about to resume my true form, consequences be damned, when the rush of air stopped, as did my out of control roll. “I’ve got you.” I looked towards the voice, and saw Lily floating alongside me, vague hints of golden sparkles around her feet. She smiled at me, and then turned to glare at the blue dragon gliding away. “Nasty surprise, eh ‘Hytheas’. Bet you were expecting us to go splat.”

The blue dragon banked to look at us, and I saw that he was holding a squirming John in his talons. “Well, I was not anticipating that a death knight would be able to levitate, no.” He let himself glide, to stay about on a level to talk. “But, to be honest, I’m happy that you could. I would rather avoid collateral damage when I can, and you are far harder to hate than the warlock pretending to be a mage.” His gaze was thoughtful, and questioning, “Will you permit yourselves to be taken prisoner? I have the distinct impression that John will be far more willing to listen if you two are spared.”

“‘Permit ourselves to be taken prisoner’ - do you think that I’m helpless, stuck in the air?”

“You’re slowing your fall with magic. What happens if I silence,” and that was the draconic word, implying suppression of an individual's ability to project intent, hitting both magic and words, “you? Strip away your magic, and leave you to the mercy of gravity?”

Lily looked at the distance between her and the dragon, and then at the distance to the ground. She sighed. “I concede the point.”

And I could have contested it, but my true form wasn’t large enough that I could be sure of holding onto Lily, and I imagined the blue dragon might have slightly more practice than me at fighting in our true forms. And we’d have a fight with one of the enemies holding John, which was not great, even if the blue didn’t want to hurt John.

John, who seemed highly annoyed about recent events, shouted up at the blue dragon, “And why do you think I’m going to listen to someone who kidnapped me, probably murdered Elena, and would have killed my family if not for something you hadn’t planned on.”

“They would have been fine. We are both capable of casting slow fall, and between us, we could have gotten them.” And despite myself being, in theory, a dragon, I couldn’t read the other dragon’s body language, only that it shifted as he continued, “And I am not sorry about killing that monster pretending to be a mage. Even if that was not, strictly, related to the problem that Malygos sent me out to fix.”

John was not pacified by the dragon’s comments, and the fact that we weren’t in a good position to fight, didn’t stop him from continuing to shout. “And what fucking problem was that, you - you arrogant jackass.”

The dragon responded by gazing down at the mage clutched in its talons, and saying in a condescendingly even voice, “You need better insults.” As John made another attempt to get free of Hytheas’s grip, the dragon sighed. “And it’s a few different problems compounding each other. One, Medivh proved that a few blue watchers, tracking the more high profile magi to stop another Azshara doesn't work. And also he ripped space-time around Azeroth, leaving a permanent planar weakness. And … just fucking Medivh.” The dragon snarled wordlessly, before calming down. “Two, the constant wars since then have driven you magi to draw deeper in desperation, often without regard for consequences, not caring about how it destroys the land, or deliberately choosing to ‘salt the fields’ of your enemies, not understanding that all of Azeroth suffers. And third, the thing that forced the timing of this war, the influx of adventurers coming back from outland, a world halfway into the twisting nether and drowning in arcane, who have not recalibrated their spells to use less fucking mana, and are buring through decades of potential every damn week.”

Hytheas was no longer flying level with us, the frustrated ranting having caused him to gain altitude from angry wing strokes instead of gentle glide. He finally noticed with the pause in his rant, and dove back to keep the two of us slowly floating down in earshot. And that dive, the sudden fast approach to our position made his next words all the more threatening, “And thus, you mortal magi will either be brought under control, or if necessary, be destroyed.”

He glided in silence for a few moments, the rest of exchanging worried and angry glances. Lily and I seemed to be in unspoken agreement not to agitate the possibly murderous dragon, but from John’s sullen gaze upwards, I wasn’t sure he’d gotten the memo.

In a less angry voice Hytheas addressed John, “However since you already seem to understand the need for control with regards to magic, I expect you’ll come around to our side quickly enough, and without any more unpleasantries.”

John looked up at the dragon holding him prisoner incredulously, “Do you really think I’m just going to help you hunt my fellow magi?!”

The dragon sighed. “Well, maybe you’ll be more cooperative after a day or two. And getting a chance to read through the math.”

After another attempt to get free, which the dragon didn’t even notice, John finally gave up. “... Maybe. Not likely, but Maybe.”

By this point we were drifting close to the ground, and a blue drake flew up to greet Hytheas. Or rather, “Hythagos, you brought back a mage?” She looked at us, “Or three? A willing recruit…?”

“One mage, and his kin group managed to tag along. Prepare a Class C containment. And I’m going to make a copy of the trend analysis.”

She started zipping off before he’d finished talking. We continued drifting down toward the snowy ground, and she’d returned with a slab of runed stone levitating behind her, and positioned it under us, just as we were starting to get into stabbing range of the ground. The primary circle glowed blue, and I hit an invisible wall of air as my glide path would have taken me out of the circle.

Lily, likewise was stopped by the glowing blue circle effect, and Hytheas dropped John on in. We were a bit cramped, but when a set of similar slabs were arranged to form a box around us, the space warped, and suddenly we had room to all lie down, and still have a little space.

“We’ll be back soon with supplies to keep you healthy and informed, and just remember, you can get free at any time, by agreeing to serve Malygos in the war that’s beginning.”

There was the sound of wings, as the dragons outside flew away. John then turned to look at me, “So will you be able to break out relatively easily?”

I would try, but that tone resulted in a snap-ish, “What makes you think I’d know?”

“Well, you clearly thought we’d have better luck escaping later, since you didn’t start a fight in mid air.”

My voice was icey, “Have you considered that I didn’t want to start a fight I knew I’d lose.” It didn’t come out sounding like a question, more a ‘listen up, you fool’. “That was an actual adult dragon, not a half trained drake more proficient in mortal form than with her own claws. And he had both you and Lily in check. So no, I wasn’t going to start that fight, no matter how much you might have thought the three of us should be able to take one dragon.”

Lily answered the implicit question, “Under good conditions, yeah we could have. But not while I’m stuck levitating. And while I might be willing to consider sacrificing a teammate literally in the dragon’s claws, I’d rather not. Especially if the dragon was willing to not kill us.”

John wilted under the twin glares. And brushed at his face, half formed tears, or just tired? “Sorry, it's just. I’d liked Hytheas. And everything I knew about him was based on a lie, and that hit a bit too close to home.” I winced at that, because, yeah we were working, and he’d forgiven me, but the scars were still there. John continued, not acknowledging my wince, “And unlike the last time, this dragon is actively murdering people, instead of angsting over their potential to do harm.”

“Oi. It’s true, but still. Rude.”

As answer, John stuck out his tongue at me. I answered the gesture in kind. Lily sighed, “Children. Play nice.” In a less teasing tone she continued. “They’re going to be back soon, if they aren’t still listening, so both of you, shut it with the revealing information.” She took a stack of paper, and a pencil, from her bags, and tapped it pointedly.

Despite this, the next communication was verbal, namely me saying, “I’m sorry. I’m not sure how to have done it better and still have it work, but It hurt you and I’m sorry.”

“And I’m sorry about being a hot tempered idiot. I think getting locked out of the loop wasn’t helping my mood either.”

I fidgeted with my hair, “Sorry about that too.” And even before becoming a dragon, there were pieces of human interaction I didn’t quite get, but, “Do you need a hug?”

John nodded and I held him for as long as he needed, before we let go, and scooted over to the paper of silent communication.

The pencil got passed around as we wrote down the problems: Trapped in magic cube, can’t currently cast (Something that Lily had tested while we were talking, and John confirmed), under blue dragon watch, don’t know where we are; and our assets: One (and a half) melee fighters who don’t need magic to cause trouble, draconic strength (?), the ability to plan without being listened in on, the fact that blues think John will help them once he cools off a little, possible fast evac by portals if necessary.

Our first plan was to wait until night time, and then test the containment against some very inhuman strength. If it didn’t, we’d ‘accept the truth’ and play along with the blue’s long enough to pull a runner.

Maybe not the best plans, but none of us were fictional super geniuses, so … keep it simple?

And keeping it simple meant that when Hytheas showed back up with water, blankets, and a ten page double sided report on the arcane overuse by mortals, we didn’t have the notes lying around any more.

-

Lily shook me awake from my nap. I didn't claw her, more because I’d been sleeping in mortal form, than for lack of trying. “You awake yet?”

I sat down, on registering where I was and that it had been Lily, rather than some threat, waking me. “Yeah, I think so.” I shrugged, let mortal form slough off, and shook sleep from my wings. “Ready?”

Lily didn’t stop me, just went over to wake John, so I began prowling around considering how to start my attack. I dragged my claws across the barrier, and felt exactly no give. No sign that the pressure was making a difference in the effect, and as I put more weight onto the claw with no sign of change, I gave up on that approach. Instead I put the flat of my paws on the barrier, and shoved.

My feet slid out from under me, and I flopped onto the floor uncomfortably. I got my paws back under myself, and managed to scramble back to standing, straining my claws to get traction. My tail must have been flicking in frustration, because I felt it collide with the barrier, which did not, in any way, make me feel better. “So that was a bust. Maybe a real black dragon could claw their way out, but I’m absolutely useless at this.” I shook the strain from my back paws, before beginning to pace, just to work out my frustration.

“It was worth a try, we know that didn’t -” She stopped talking, stared at something by my feet, “Not useless after all.”

I turned to look, only to be disappointed by the shallow scratch in the floor. “Lily, at that rate, I’ll still be clawing at the floor a week from now, trying to put a hole big enough to break through the plate. And I’m pretty sure my claws will break before the floor does.”

“You scratched it. They might have us suppressed, but innate magic is still working- and I doubt they made sure to proof their runes against … additions.”

John yawned, before commenting, “Adding more power to their suppression field seems like a bad idea, but you’re the rune expert. I just cast fireball.”

Both of us gave him a pointed look, and he rolled his eyes. “Sorry, humour still waking up. But seriously, are you planning on tossing more power behind their array?”

“I’m planning on hijacking their array. There’s enough magic in blood, especially the blood of a necromantic crime against nature, that I can draw my own additions, and empower them without being able to ‘cast’. There’s also the possibility that my blood reacts badly with their rune, breaking the rune, but I doubt they’re that sloppy.”

Lily quickly pulled out a sheet, and sketched out the jagged lines she wanted me to carve into the circle, and I set to work.

By the time I’d finished carving the first channel, I was switching paws, and switching angles, to give my claws a break.

I had to stop, breathing tight and vision blurring, half way through the second channel.

Lily knelt in front of me. “Omenia - you need to keep going. We’re too far in to hide our progress.”

I took a jagged breath, and put my claws back against the stone. Each claw stroke tore at my fingers, but I just kept dragging my claws against the stone. Half again as far, and the skin bordering my claws was starting to crack and drip blood, and tears were dripping down my muzzle. John was saying something, but I was no longer tracking his words, just the job before me.

Still, the soft patter of his voice was soothing, helped muffle the sounds of ragged breathing, the scratch scratch scratch of claws on stone.

Three quarters of the way through the last line of the triangle, during front-back swipe, rather than a side claw, the claw I was using lost traction. I went to bring another confused swipe against the stone, but Lily put her hand against my paw in a gesture of stop. “Stop, stop. You lost a claw. You can’t keep trying with that finger.”

I looked at the distance remaining, not much more on this spur, no matter how much it was going to hurt. The cross bars - those I wasn’t sure I could do.

I swallowed, preparing to keep going, and tasted blood. A quick feel revealed that I’d bitten my lower lip during the process. At least it wasn’t my tongue. I don’t know if biting through my tongue is likely to be a choking hazard as a dragon.

A sobbing breath, and I brought my left forepaw against the stone. As I dragged my claws along, the scars of an old bite wound ached, burning pinpricks in a sea of pain. Unimportant, save for the way my arm cramped, and physically couldn’t carve the stone.

A racking sob, as my arm’s betrayal was the bridge too far. And Lily let go of my right paw, drew her runeblade, and began to carve with her sword. The tip broke quickly, ricocheting off the barrier, and then getting stuck in one of my scales. I pulled it out, since while it might not have gotten in too deep, I didn’t want a thorn waiting to cause trouble. Lily didn’t stop, carving the gouges in the stone.

And if there were signs of her strain, I couldn’t see them, as the throbbing in my hands built in pain. From my curled ball of failure, I just watched angrily as she stepped in only after I had broken myself in the attempt.

And then, half way through the last stroke, with the terrible sound of snapping steel, her runeblade shattered into three shards - one held by her still, one spinning away across the floor, and the third embedded halfway into the invisible wall of our prison.

Lily stood, unbowed, but looked down at the broken blade. “Well, that’s it’s own point of no return. I’ve broken runeblades before, and it won’t kill me, but If we don’t get out of here soon, I won’t be able to do a field reforge … and you don’t want to be in a locked space with me after that.” She took the shard of the sword still attached to the hilt, and tried to scratch the last fragment of line.

Tried. She couldn’t put enough force behind the blade anymore.

And with bleeding paws, tired arms that could barely carry my weight, I crawled over to finish the last line.

And I felt as it completed, never mind that most of the rune hadn’t been drawn in blood. Red crackled across the stone and the rune blazed.

With a clatter, the shard of blade that had been stuck in the forcefield fell to earth.

We were free.

Oh the prison still existed, but with a blast of arcane (not fire, just raw force), John fixed that problem.

I staggered forward to the impromptu ramp of debris, my paws pained by every footfall, before I remembered mortal form. I picked myself back up, wearing my humanity as a shield against the pain.

It didn’t stop the problem, but I could run while clutching my hands to my chest, and thus safely away from further distress, so that was an improvement.

My feet carried me after Lily, and I scanned my surroundings. Glowing blue rune circles lit up the night - the one that had been around our prison was dark now, and I wondered for a moment how we had gotten out; since we’d apparently been moved while in our prison; and Lily hadn’t factored the out wards in her rune design.

And then I saw something moving near one of the other runes, heading towards us, and there was only running.

Pounding feet against brittle grass. Pounding heartbeat, from the demand for energy, from the panicked flight. Pounding pain, as my missing claw throbbed in time to my heartbeat. Actually I’m in mortal form, what’s my injury look like?

I pulled my fingers away from my chest, and looked at the injury. My fingernail was missing, and had torn with it a strip of skin. I couldn’t tell through the welling blood, how deep the gash in my finger was.

I staggered, as the spike of nausea caused me to stumble, but I managed to recover my footing.

I crested over a hill, and saw the ground drop away ahead. Lily was leading towards the cliffs, so I followed.

The two waited, on the cliffs, edge, as my slower run caught up to them. “What …” I panted, not having the spare breath to finish the sentence.

Lily answered anyway. “We’re jumping. Hopefully there’s a few caves we can hide in below, but if there isn’t, the cliffs might still hide us a little from pursuit.”

Rationally I agreed. My feet refused to get close enough to the edge. I shook myself - because if I couldn’t fall, then I would fly.

I jumped upwards, as I shed mortal form, and a downstroke stopped my paws from touching the ground.

“That works.” And Lily jumped clear of the edge, with John following close behind. I began to glide after them, since they could slow their fall.

Could.

I dropped into a panicked dive, despite knowing I wouldn’t catch up with them.

And with about a third of the distance left to go, they finally leveled off in a slow fall glide.

“Could you not.” I growled, annoyed that they’d scared me like that.

John shrugged, as we glided out over the waves. “Didn’t want us to get too far from the cliffs - and it’s faster than gliding the whole way down. Sorry about spooking you though - how does a dragon develop a fear of heights anyway?”

“Past life trauma.” And If I’d been in a better mood, I’d have played with the question, because I could come up with ways to make a dragon afraid of falling. But I just glided the way down in silence.

I spotted a cave, off a ways in the cliff, but still close enough to run to. “Cave that way.”

They looked in the direction I was pointing, but didn’t seem to see it. I wondered about that for a moment, before realizing that I’d managed to miss my night vision being significantly better in my true form.

Lily landed slightly before John, and the wave froze beneath her boots, forming a chunk of ice to stand on. It bobbed as the water moved around it, and Lily’s motion sent it rolling. But she just kept walking, new chunks of ice forming any time she would touch water. John had a harder time trying to balance on the haphazard path, and I flew down low enough that my claws were brushing against the cold water.

“Spirits of water grant passage,” and I altered the invocation to suit my needs, “To my mate, that he might return swiftly to shore.”

The cold water wasn’t the friendly shallow water I’d practiced on. It was white with the fury of the shore, and it’s voice beat against me like I was the cliffs to be crushed to sand, ‘It will cost you speaker. And you don’t have tribute with you, to pay in preparation.’

“Then I’ll pay it.”

‘Very well. Safe passage, for you mate. And from you, the strength to carry him.’

I nearly crashed into the waves, as the sudden weight on my shoulders forced me down. My claws burned as the salt water engulfed my wounds, and I screamed, instinctive powerstroke pulling me back up, but lashing the tips of my wings with cold, sending a spray of freezing water that made John yelp, and stumble back.

Proving that I had managed to pay the cost, instead of disappearing into the dark water, John was able to easily recover his balance off the flow of ice.

My desperate flight carried me to shore, and we were able to make it under cover of the cave as a dark shape flew over the cliff near where we had jumped from.

The dragon wheeled across the sky, searching for us. But despite the fact that the flow of ice clearly pointed to our cave, that I could see him clearly enough, the dragon kept searching.

“What - why isn’t he coming down after us?”

Lily looked sharply out the cave entrance. “Where?”

I settled onto my hindquarters, and pointed with my injured paw.

Lily squinted out into the night ”I don’t see anything but night - maybe he didn’t see you either?”

“He’s another dragon - he should have about as good night vision as I do.”

John shrugged. “Well, apparently he doesn't. So let’s not tempt fate by sticking around, and instead portal out of here.” He started spellcasting, and I could see the violet shimmers building, before they abruptly disappeared halfway through a word. John blinked, before staring in confusion at his fizzled spell. “Well, that’s not good.”

“Portal isn’t working?”

He nodded. “Portal is not working.” He looked thoughtful, and both of us let him have that moment to think. He did break the silence relatively quickly with, “Almost certainly blue flight warding. And casters keyed into the wards can probably portal in out just fine. Or the dragons just fly up far enough to get out of range, and uh- I’m pretty sure Omenia can’t carry both of us.”

“I can’t.”

Lily sighed. “John, you got any spare daggers I can borrow? Or sticks. I’m not picky.” He handed over a dagger, and she began doing something to it that involved a) glowing blue light, and b) flakes of metal on the floor.

I shifted back to human form to sit down, and suddenly couldn’t see much in the inky black darkness outside.

The ground was cold and damp. I was cold and damp. And bleeding, don’t forget that. But, boy, I wish I could. Ow.

“If we’re going to be stuck here, then we need to do at least bandages for this,” I waved my hand pointedly, before yanking it back to tuck safely against my chest. Not that it made anything better, but instinct. “And I don’t know about you two, but I’m cold and damp and…” an unwanted whimper finished my sentence. I shivered, and shook myself to clear the doom spiral. “It’s been such a fucking day, and I’d like it to be over. But first, bandages, warmth and food.”

Lily gave me a weary look, “We can’t hide here, especially not with a fire going. It’s a tiny cave, and they might still be searching. But food and bandages we can do. Though before I bandage you, you’d better pick the form you actually want to be in - since I don’t think you want to be running around as a human shaman.” I sighed, and hissed as I pulled myself into my kroknul form. Lily turned and asked, “John, you got any spare cloth in your bags?”

John was rummaging through his bags, and answered with a slightly forced sounding cheer, “Do I have spare cloth sis? Who do you think I am? Do I look like someone who doesn't carry around hobby projects while adventuring?” He pulled out some of the cloth scraps from sewing projects I’d seen him working on, and a decent roll of uncut cloth. “Take your pick.”

Lily pawed through the cloth scraps, talking while she did so. “It’s not going to be the best bandage, because there are shortcuts that light wielders can get away with, the ordinary medics can’t, and I didn't learn the normal version as a priest. And the death knight version is worse. But, to start with, raise that arm as much as you’re comfortable doing - the higher it is relative to your heart, the slower it’ll bleed. I’m not too worried, since it is a small wound, but even small wounds can add up to big problems.” She settled on her pick of scraps and folded up one of them into a wad, before walking over, and slowly, gently, carefully, applying the wad to the shred in my finger (it still hurt, touching it at all), and then using the other fabric to secure it in place snugly. That hurt a bit more while she was doing it, but meant that it hurt a lot less everytime I accidentally moved my finger, so the whimpering stayed minimal.

If I cared about my dignity, going to tears over this little scratch would have made me feel even worse, but I remember my broken leg, and paper cuts. Pain is not proportional to injury significance.

And after fortifying up on cold lembas bread, we headed back out into the night, to gain more distance.

Chapter Text

I was tired, cold, and everything ached.

I don’t know how long we had been walking, but I was about ready to be done with this water-lashed beach. As soon as I figured out a better plan than trying to climb back up the cliffs. Because at this point, I wasn’t willing to try carrying either of them while flying, and leaving them would make my day even worse.

One foot after the other, keep walking.

We came around a corner of a cliff face, and there were others. Figures in robes, and others in plate.

The thing that saved them from getting immediately stabbed was that I was too tired to care, and Lily’s replacement blade had approximately zero reach. She dropped into a ready stance anyway, shielding both of us behind her, and had parried one startled flail, before the two parties managed to register more than getting blindsided.

The force was color coordinated … in purple. With a familiar looking eye iconography on tabards. And the swordsman, immediately on noticing the non-undead hiding behind the deathknight, pulled back. “Alliance adventurers? Sorry, saw the eye glow …”

Lily shrugged, relaxing her stance. “It happens. So, I’m choosing to assume you lot aren’t secretly blue dragons.”

One of their casters asked, “Ran into one of those? Most of the ones in this area aren’t worried about ‘secret’. Anyway, they took a few more prisoners recently, and we’re about to go launch a rescue, if you lot want to tag along.”

“Nope. I want somewhere warm, safe, and not full of blue dragons, to sleep off this god-awful day.” I shivered, and had to fight back stupid tears, why am I even crying? “I’m tired, and miserable, and I exhausted my fucking patience three hours ago scraping runes into the inside of their cages to break out, and I just want it to be over!” I wiped away tears, using my un-bandaged hand.

The purple group had stepped back, startled by my emotional outburst. And a few of them were sending me pitying looks. That was fine. One of them was sending pitying glances at Lily instead for having to babysit me. That got a watery glare back.

John put a hand on my shoulder, and I didn’t even want to snap at him, and he said, “I second that. This has been such a fucking day, and if you could point us at somehwere safe to pitch camp, or at least some clue to get past their portal wards, that’d be really great thanks.”

They exchanged looks, before one the ones in robes shrugged, and took a step forward. “Well, if you don’t mind red dragons, I can lead you back to Amber Ledge. Otherwise, It might be a bit of walking to get clear of the portal wards, since we’ve got our own set around there to stop blues getting the drop on us.”

“Don’t care. Lead on.” I rubbed at my arms to try to warm them back up, and got ready to stagger onwards towards camp.

The purple mage led us around another few turns in the coastline, before having us ascend up and around a hill, to end up atop the cliffs. I’d lost track of distance by then, and my feet were going numb, so I have no idea how close that was to staggering into the bubble of warmth around the base of the mage tower, courtesy of a sleeping red dragon.

“Don’t wake up the sleeping dragon. Now, you’ve got bedrolls right?”

As an answer, I reached in my bag for mine. I held it, waiting for advice on good sections of floor. “It won’t rain on you if you want to camp outside, or I can try to find you some floor space in the tower if you need the feeling of walls…”

I spread out my bedroll on the floor, and grabbed John with a mumbled, “Warm? Share.”

He started slightly, but nodded. “If you want to. Not sure how to fit us both in one sleeping roll though?”

I made some grabby motions at his kit, spreading out the other bag-protector thing on the ground, before unzipping my bag to be a bottom layer, and using John’s sleeping bag as our top sheet.

Our escort yawned. “I hope you two sleep well. I’ll be heading inside, but if you need help…” I waved him away, and started to crawl into the bed-like object.

Lily's voice stopped me. “Your clothes are damp - take them off, I’ll see about getting them dry by the time you wake up.”

My clothes might have been cold and damp, but taking them off didn’t make me less cold. It was as much desire to be warm, as any modesty, that had me rushing to get under covers

The zipper was cold, and I pulled the bag slightly to not have it resting as close against my skin. John lay down next to me, and I wrapped my arms around him, pressing my face into the shoulder of my impromptu heat pack.

I, at least, managed to get to sleep fairly quickly, as the warmth eased the growing stiffness from cold and muscle aches.

-

The light was obnoxiously bright, and I went to roll over, only to find the pillow I was hugging was significantly heavier than I was expecting. My arms, still aching from yesterday, refused to lift that much.

By the time I had extricated my arm from under John, both of us were unavoidably awake.

Still buried under the covers, but awake and tired. Wasn’t the point of sleep to fix tired? It did at least fix being cold.

Lily had walked over, a spear she hadn’t had the night before slung across her back, and handed down our clothes. “So, are you two feeling up to being teased over actually sleeping, the first time you slept together?”

I glared up. “No.”

She shrugged. “Well, I’ve got warm clothes for you regardless.” She handed back the blue skirt and purple t-shirt I’d conjured while half-asleep the night before. “Though you might want to fish pants out of your bag so that you can put your armor on. Even if we are under Kirin-tor, and red dragon protection at this little fort, it’s still probably a good idea to wear armor all the time here in Northrend.”

I couldn’t actually adjust my mortal form without having to bounce back to my dragon form, and the privacy screen of the sleeping bag wasn’t going to hide the change in bulk. However, we’d grabbed a few wintery sets of cloths during our hasty packing, so I was still able to change into cold weather under-armor.

Having to put on the gifted chainmail was frustrating though. Since it still didn’t fit much better now than it did when Lily’s fellow death knight threw it at me

And, my finger was well on its way to being inflamed, which made it even harder to do basic tasks, when my entire dominant hand was one wrong twitch away from forcing me to pause.

After one of those moments, the red dragon sprawled on the grass sighed and shifted into the form of a high elf stretching as he walked over, “Would you like me to heal whatever you’ve done to your hand?”

“If you’re offering.” I held out my hand towards the healer.

The red undid our hasty bandage job, and looked at the injury underneath. I didn’t, not wanting to look too closely at the possible infection. He looked up sharply, asking “How did you manage to injure yourself like this? Did you try to claw your way out of their containment?”

“In point of fact, I succeeded.” A cough from the deathknight in the clearing, “with a little help finishing the job. And also I was following her plan for the rune hijacking anyway.”

“Impressive. Now, I am told that the magic to disinfect a wound stings.” Without waiting much, he wrapped my finger in flame-like magic, which felt a bit like pouring hydrogen peroxide onto a cut. Part way through it changed, in a way I couldn’t put words to. When it cleared away, my finger was still missing a fingernail, but the torn skin had mended, and only mildly inflamed. “Try not to break your claws again. Healing doesn't include regrowing the keratin, and it will likely still be uncomfortable for days yet.” He nodded towards the mage tower looming over the flower patch of the red’s camp, “While you recover, they might provide suitable busy work, if you and your companions wish to involve yourselves further with this conflict.” There was something questioning in his gaze when it landed back on me, as if he was watching to see how I’d react.

I bowed, “Thank you. For the healing, and the advice. I’ll talk to them after I have breakfast.”

He hmnd, and wandered off, leaving me very unsure about whether I’d just passed or failed that test. Or whether there even had been a test.

John smiled, even as he ‘complained’, “Come on, don’t go volunteering us to help, who knows, I might have wanted for us to head on back to howling fjords afterall.”

Lily shrugged. “I mean, you’re welcome to try. But I have the feeling that until this is dealt with, we're going to keep tripping over blue dragons, and I’d rather do more straightforward fighting, and less spy games.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

The inside of the tower was dark by contrast with the mid-morning sun, despite the lamps and reading lights. Magi were scouring through tomes, or scurrying about the tower. One of the magi looked up from his work and smiled at our approach, the expression genuine despite weary circles beneath his eyes. “Ah, the ones who rescued themselves. Glad to see you all up and about. I don’t suppose you’re choosing to stick around? To be honest, we could use the help.”

“So where should we start?”

“Well, as you’ve noticed, magi across Azeroth are being captured and brought to various blue dragon encampments across Northrend. My team has been sent here to get to the bottom of the mystery, but so far all we’ve managed to do is mount rescues of captured magi in hopes that the blue’s might have let something slip to one of them.”

John blinked. “Let something slip?”

The old mage commander sighed, “So far none of the prisoners we’ve rescued were told anything meaningful, just held in harsh conditions and insulted by their captors. Or were in some sort of statis, told that the blues would ‘deal with them later’.”

“One moment.” John reached into one of his hammerspace bags, before pulling out the brick of paper Hytheas had handed him, and thunking it onto the table. “Hythagos seemed to think that I’d come around to his side after reading through this - and had been remarkably talkative when he’d captured me. I’d been having a stressful few days after a warlock got murdered on our boat, by the dragon in question, so I can’t remember everything he said, but paraphrasing, ‘you mortal magi meddle in powers you don’t understand and need to be brought under control, are using too much magic, and even after he’s been dead a decade, Medivh is still causing problems for everyone.’”

One of the younger looking robed figures carrying stacks of paper snorted. “Fucking Medivh.”

Several of the other magi looked up to glare at the stack carrier, who shrunk back and tried to hide behind the paper they were carrying. John shrugged. “Yeah, I think that’s what the blue said too. At least one point we can all agree on - Medivh sure made a right mess of things for us.”

The mage we’d been talking to, cut off the discussion of Medivh with, “Thank you young man, we’ll scour this for insights on what the blue dragons might be about to do next. You’re welcome to stay and provide insights, but if you and your friends would prefer a more active job, we do know there are other magi being held at beryl point in need of rescue.”

-

After about a week of helping out the Kirin-tor contingent with hit and run rescues, we got our first adventurers dropping by without having had to be kidnapped by blue dragons first. A mage that had been rescued out of a stasis box had asked them to convey thanks on their behalf, not willing to venture out from the safety of valiance keep right now.

My missing ‘nail’ was growing back in smoothly, and while it was still another week or two off from being fully mended, I could reasonably consistently hold a blade again. Only about a third of the blues were skilled in antimagic, but that was still a solid too many fights where Lily had to fight without help.

I mean, she didn’t need the help, but if something had gone wrong on any of those engagements, it would have gone bad fast. And, as I twirled my conjured blade to make sure my finger wasn’t going to ache too much handling the blade, I wondered how long this status quo would hold before something changed in the war. Our side was working on something, I’d seen enough messenger drakes flying in to deliver messages to the red dragon in command, or carry messages back to other camps.

But our side wasn’t the only faction that could change the stalemate, indeed, with the current ratio of losses, the blue flight had to change their approach, and sooner rather than later. They had to be planning something - an ambush planned to catch one of the strike teams? A strike on amber ledge with more than the uncoordinated drakes that Surristrasz and his team of reds had been smoothly repelling?

What’s the next phase of the conflict going to look like?

My thoughts, and also testing of range of motion with my hand, were brought to a halt by the Kirin Tor commander who handled most of the liaising with adventurers striding out of the tower and out into the camp area around it with a stormy expression, and whistling sharply, before calling out “Adventures! We have a situation that needs to be dealt with in a hurry.” His gaze scanned over us, making sure we were listening, “A high ranking archmage, that had been on her way here, is missing presumed captured. Time is of the essence, and we need you to get any information on where the blue flight has taken Lady Evanor.”

The human hunter from the group from Valiance Keep shrugged and said, “Sure, sounds simple enough. Just grab one of the blues, and get ‘em to talk. You guys got any shackles or whatever? I didn’t exactly plan on capturing dragonkin when I came up to northrend.”

“Yes we do. Give me a few moments, and I’ll locate where they’re stashed in storage.” He looked at our group, “Lily, will your team also be helping out with this mission?”

A look exchanged, and then she nodded.

“Thank you, I hope we manage to recover Lady Evanor quickly, before they drag too much information out of her…”

-

We’d swung around inland, and were sitting camped on a ridge to the south of beryl point. I didn’t know where to begin so passed the buck to the others with, “So how do we want to approach this?”

Lily hmmed. “I’d say wait till nightfall, but the blues tightened up their guard after our repeated rescue attempts. And it’s going to be harder to grab a guard without alerting the camp, than it was avoiding the guards with our better night vision.”

“I was actually thinking of what leverage we can use to get one of the blues to talk to us.”

Lily shrugged. “Torture? I don’t like it, but I’ve got enough practice after my time in the scourge.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Setting aside the ethics debate, there's one other key problem with that plan - it assumes torture works as an information gathering technique.”

Both of the Clarkson siblings blinked at me. “Okay, you’re gonna have to explain that one.”

I sighed. “It does sort of? It’s good for breaking minds, and getting people to offer words to you - but you're just as likely to get a desperate lie as they make up information they don’t actually have to appease you, as they are to actually tell the truth. In fact, it encourages them to spin a good lie, since that combines getting the person torturing them to back off, with extra spite value. And trust me, spite can be a good motivating factor in refusing to give up. ”

“Point accepted. I’ve seen a lot of spite. Most people don’t have that cunning to fake a breakdown though.”

“If I knew more psychology I could argue my point better, but are we willing to table the idea of torturing a blue dragon or dragonkin for information, in favour of getting the info in a way that’s less ethically objectionable and less likely to get false information? Like bribery, or stealing plans, or something.”

John waved a hand back and forth, as if gesturing to pro’s and cons, “Well, I’ve no desire to cause excess pain, but give or take your ability to lie, we aren’t subtle. To steal the plans, we’d need a rogue, and none of us have that sort of training. I doubt your farsight is going to do the job.” And that was a valid comment - since a) I couldn’t read draconic, and b) even moving my line of sight to a position closer, still ran risks. “And is there anything we could barter - no, before you even suggest it, I’m not going to try an infiltration.”

“Then using magic to extract information?”

“The arcane doesn't work like that.”

I pointed at Lily, “I was thinking of her magic.”

Lily didn’t blanch, by virtue of being already as pale as death, but her voice still made it very clear to me that she was afraid of that suggestion. “Could we go back to the torture plan; I’d rather not bind someone into undeath just to get them to talk.”

“Shadow priest mind control?”

She facepalmed. “Oh right, I can do that. It’s still black magic, but eh - relatively painless and non damaging, other than the assault on their agency, which is happening with just about any route forward. So.” A pause, letting that resolution hang in the air. “Now to figure out how to catch someone with information.”

-

Nothing ever goes according to plan. First rule of adventure. The plan had been for us to move up under cover, until Lily was close enough to begin a mental assault at distance, and hope that she found something before the other patrols realized that our target had stopped working.

And if not, run. See how many were willing to chase us, and how far, and maybe catch one that over extended.

Simple, straightforward.

And still managing to not go as planned.

Lily was currently a very blue looking sheep, and I was trying to figure out whether I should try applying friendly fire, grabbing a sheep in mortal form and trying to still pull a runner, or just stall.

Fortunately, Hytheagos seemed to be willing to be stalled, settling to a landing position in front of us. “You lot aren’t subtle. So, have you aligned yourself with the pests from the Kirin Tor, or are you crawling back to serve the winning side? I’ll try not underestimate you this time regardless.”

I muttered under my breath, “Failed step one.”

And of course, the other dragon heard me. “Yes, you rather did, didn’t you. Either your failed attempt at sneaking up to this camp, or your failure to listen when you had the chance.”

“Actually, I was talking about you underestimating us again.”

The dragon sighed, and with a flick of a claw, my world became silent. The air moved, but I could not hear it. The earth sat beneath my feet as always, and I could not feel it. I could breath, but there was no power in my breath. I breathed, but could not speak.

But I still had my claws. And I had daggers, already conjured, that did not fade upon being cut from magic. I threw one of them, and it tumbled through the air, a clumsy throw. The dragon didn’t even bother to move, as my blade missed him horribly. He just looked at me, and in a chiding tone, asked, “Really? I don’t have opposable thumbs half the time, and I can still throw a blade better than that.”

And from the other side of him, a deathknight stood up. “I can’t say that was a good throw, but the false sheep form isn’t smart enough to avoid walking on a knife, so I’d say it worked out.”

“Fine,” the dragon grumbled, “it looks like you’re getting that rematch. No poisons, or falling to tip the scales in my favor this time, but I don’t have to hold back either. Tell me deathknight, are you prepared to fight a dragon?”

With a smirk, and perfect confidence Lily said, “Nope.”

Hytheas did the sensible thing of leaping into the air to dodge whatever trap the death knight was plotting.

And failed to interrupt the mind-walk.

He fell right back out of the sky, but it didn’t look to be much worse, than say doing a belly flop into a swimming pool had been back when I was human. It didn’t break the connection.

Lily was still standing, but leaning on the stick of her new spear in a manner that suggested, along with void-dark eyes, that she wasn’t home right now, call back later.

I walked over, to be ready to carry her if we had to run before she was done searching, as per the plan.

Which would probably be yes, and very soon, since a dragon falling out of the air like that is sure to draw attention.

Sure enough, there were several drakes wheeling our way. I didn't wait for the dive, instead wrapping my arms around the mostly out of it deathknight and lifting. I couldn’t lift her at first, but a surge of strength from the earth made her as light, and as endlessly heavy, as the sky we carried on our shoulders.

I stumbled as I ran, barely able to carry her even with that strength, not for weight, but for want of leverage, not having chosen a good grip for trying to carry someone, and not being tall enough for a comfortable angle to keep her constantly clear of the ground.

And even if being reborn as a dragon had made me strong, it hadn’t made me fast.

Ice splashed against my shoulder, the impact sending me forward faster, but also causing my grip to slip as I winced at the spreading cold.

Fortunately, Lily chose being dropped onto the ground as a sign that maybe she should wake up, and while we lost a little ground to her standing up, her run alone was faster than mine while carrying her.

My arm was too stiff for me to trust it to run in ‘ghost wolf’, but I managed to sprint enough to only take another blast of frost to my back. It hurt enough to have me choking back a scream as I ran, the extra set of tentacles that a broken draenei is cursed with apparently being sensitive - or at least the version I created were, and having them frozen against my back was highly unpleasant. ‘Fire, help?!’

My fire spirit whispered back, ‘On it’, accompanied by water dripping down my armour as the ice melted away.

John was by my side, urging me to keep running, and I couldn’t disappoint him even as my breath was ragged with the pain.

-

We came at last, panting (or at least John and I panting), to a stop after about two hills across the tundra.

“They,” pant, “still,” pant, “following?”

“Not that I can see, and before you ask, mission successful.”

“Oh good.” My breath hurt, but stopping the panting to say anything made it worse and I had to pause, “I’d hate to do this again.”

Chapter Text

We returned to camp before the hunter’s group, and the Magi looked at our seemingly empty handed return in disappointment, before brightening as Lily began relaying what she had found, and requesting a map so that she could try to place the location she had observed in Hytheagos’s memories.

Apparently, despite the actual blue dragons in the area, the warden we had to fight was just a blood elf with a combination of fanatical devotion and sadism that had gotten her promoted for breaking other magi to the cause. Several of our magi were puzzling through the problem of her wards … to which it sounded like the solution was going to be explosives to shatter the protection. Why is that plan ‘A’? And is plan b twice as much explosives?

It was around this point that the other group literally dragged their dragon kin prisoner up to our camp. Their warrior kicked the prisoner forward, scoffing at the blue’s muffled cry of pain. “That was nothing. Either cough up the information, or quit your whining you pathetic sack of scales.”

The blue glared at his captors, “Monsters-” Another kick from the warrior, “I will die before I tell you anything.”

The hunter shrugged. “I mean we could just grab another one of your ilk. I wonder, do you have a mate? Maybe she’d be more cooperative.” He stared out into the distance think for a moment, before snapping his fingers. “Oh I know - we’ve got a deathknight, I’m sure she could break you to her will so easily. After all it’s not like accidentally killing you if she pushes you too far would stop her getting information now would it?”

That party’s gnome caster looked over at my approach, and called out to me, “You’re traveling with the dk right? Care to get her over here to force our captive into coughing up the information the mages need?”

“We already have that information, tormenting your captive further is pointless”

The hunter rolled his eyes at me, “No need to be snippy.” He sighed, “I guess we should have known better to try racing a deathknight in getting information, but man I am impressed at how fast you guys finished up. How’d you guys manage it?”

“Shadow-priest mind control.”

“Huh. Thought your caster was a mage. Oh well. Suppose that would be a fast way of getting answers.” He shot a glance back at the captive dragon-kin, before looking up at the warrior standing guard. “So looks, like we don’t need our captive anymore -”
The blue dragon-kin made a desperate lunge to try to get away, managing to yank the chains out from under the warrior’s foot, as even the skinny caster version of dragon-kin still have the added bulk of being approximately centaur-shaped, but only making it about two steps before having his legged hacked out from under him.

The warrior looked down at the crippled prisoner with a nasty smirk, “Really now - we could have been planning on letting you live. Then you just made an escape attempt, and got hurt, for nothing.”

The blue just whimpered from pain.

The hunter waved at the warrior, “Come on David, I’m getting sick of this thing’s whining - finish it off will you?”

And I could have acted. I had tracked where this was going enough that the hunter’s sentence wasn’t a surprise. But I wasn’t brave enough, didn’t feel like I could afford to argue here.

The blue wasn't innocent in this war. I wasn’t close enough to be splashed by his blood.

And yet.

It felt like there was innocent blood on my hands for my inaction.

-

And, because I didn’t act on my distaste, my punishment was to be stuck working with people I couldn’t trust.

Which is to say, the two groups had merged for the attack, and apparently despite combining two groups together, we still had only .5 of a healer. Which is to say, counting me and Lily together, we still only reached about half a healer. I could only mend ‘earth’, which is to say, limited to healing bone, and maybe ‘structural’ components like tendons. Lily meanwhile technically had the full priest healing toolkit … except for the non-trivial risk of spontaneous death-knight combustion.

The other group’s caster was apparently another mage, and I was feeling really petty annoyance about someone I disliked also being a mage. And, having not seen the other mage fight, I had no grounds for my jealous certainty that John was better.

“Epolmono,” And my focus was drawn back to Lily, since I had been not quite paying my full attention to her planning with the other team. “Henry is doing most of the scouting with his owl companion and beast-sight, but I want you run farsight as well. You have a knack for noticing … unusual things.”

I’d gone through a few iterations of this during our nightly raids, and while it might not be the most perfectly traditional version, it worked for us. “On it.” I got seated comfortably, in a pose that hopefully would be comfortable to not move for several minutes, closed my eyes, and began. “Wind, please share with me your vision, that I might see at a distance.”

When I opened my eyes, it wasn’t my physical eyes, rather I saw the world spread out below me as I gazed down from the sky. I had to pull higher, to find the quarry that housed our prey, but it was simple to see the blue dots of the sky-platforms even from the height where my own body was invisible among the grass.

I let my virtual position drop descending towards those dots, until I was as close to the ground that the wind could hold the vision, which was still high enough the scurrying dragonkin were barely visible below me, but the floating platforms were closer to me, and I could see the light wards shimmering against the darker blue of the platform. Target confirmed. I began to mentally trace out the general paths of the dots swarming below.

I let the magic fade, dropping back to where I sat on the dry tundra grass.

-

We chose to go for the inquisitor first - make sure she didn’t run if we attacked the blue flight presence there. It increased the danger we were in, but Lily was okay with the extra risk so …

The blue dragon kin patrolling atop the cliff got an arrow between the eyes, and didn’t manage to alert his fellows to the incoming attack, allowing us to wait at the edge, as the inquisitor’s platform drifted down towards one of the mage-cages, hoping that between two mages, and a very unlikely divine caster we would be able to ensure a safe landing even through the risk of anti-magic getting tossed our way.

“Go.” And everyone else followed the call without hesitation, but my feet refused to let go of the ground. The warrior shoved me, and I was sent tumbling into mid air.

I nearly dropped form in panic, but John’s slow fall caught me first.

We landed on the platform, explosives first. The wards shattered in the violent wave of heat and pressure.

And with the wards gone, the inquisitor fell to but a few blows - her fate sealed from the first strike from Lily, but struggling on through to receive two more from the warrior. A simple straightforward victory, or it would be if not for the immediate anger of every dragon-kin in the quarry. Because, no, in real life, your enemies don’t just ignore you killing their teammates nearby. And the blue flight was already on high alert in the area from our constant hit-and run tactics. They weren’t going to let us run this time either.

“Mages, re-slow fall, and then counter-cast. Shut down their magi. Eplomono, you’re melee today.” Lily called out orders, before jumping from the platform towards the waiting dragonkin. And I was still scared of falling, but I took the running leap after her.

She landed, spear point leading, cutting away at the dragon-kin swordsmen and forcing them to give just enough clear space to put one steel clad foot onto the ground before her slow fall shattered under the incoming arcane barrage. I lost sight as she rolled with the landing, and a blue non-dragon intercepted me.

My ability to fight in melee had notably improved since coming to Azeroth, but counting on me to avoid damage was still something of a shot in the dark, as evidenced by stabbing my opentent in the hand instead of successfully parrying his swing. My right hand, though, had an opportunity to put in a second, unopposed, cut.

Both of us were injured, but the sword had failed to break my ribs, and couldn’t cut past the chainmail, and from the way the blue was having to hold the two handed sword with one hand, the same was not true of my strike to his hand.

It burned, the line of bruises across my chest throbbing with every breath, and hurting more as my instinct to hunch to protect it, caused my bra wire to press into it, but it did not stop my breath, and my right hand swung up to take my distracted foe across the throat.

And from there, I danced with fire and steel and thunder. A storm of death, and yet barely a shadow to the warrior cleaving through to my left, or the spinning red arc of a spear and the circle drawn in blood on the ground marking a death knight's dominion.

I caught more injuries, ice freezing my shoulder armor to my breastplate, and a cut that hadn’t even been aimed at me which had just barely clipped my temple and was gently dripping blood down past my nose.

An attack for which my only description would be that it tasted violet, that had me stagger back, wide open for strike from an opportunistic sword-wielder, save for the spear that thwacked into the back of the dragon-kin’s knees, buying me a few seconds to recover from whatever that disorientation had been.

But most of the attacks weren’t at me- every blue dragon-kin and mortal minion, trying and failing to kill the death knight, and hoping that her spell-plagues would die with her.

Metal crashed against metal, blunting swords that had been made to cut through cloth and flesh, not whatever metal comprised the death-knight’s unholy plate armour. Orbs of violet light, too, but I didn’t see her stagger from that either. And the frost slowing her down filled the air with the sound of splintering ice, and couldn’t hold her.

And all the world was noise, and pain, and the blur of clashing steel.

I had forgotten the hunter, but it was with the thud of an arrow that the last draconic defender fell, and we were greeted with the rewards of our slaughter.

Blue robes, dyed red with blood. Blue scales, on chunks of flesh no longer attached to the bodies they once belonged to. Figures distorted in death, trapped in the screams as desecration and corrupted blood, and a thousand paper cuts stole their lives. And corpses, mostly intact, save for the lighting burns, or arrows.

I wanted to be sick. Here, look at how far I’d come - killing other dragons (or dragon kin) with ease like a true black dragon. Or like an Azerothian hero. Behold, a victory. This is the price of being a ‘hero’, paid in the blood of my victims.

I wanted to be sick, but my body refused to obey. In pain, yes; but not sickened. It refused to give me that ease from the guilt, and from the realization, that actually, I could live with this blood on my hands. They were people, but they had the option not to fight. Maybe not an easy option, or a good one, but … can dragon-kin shapeshift? Could they have just copied me and left their flight? What are they actually?

My musing was interrupted by a pair of mages landing beside us. “I’ve got the key, but it looks like it was … damaged when we broke the wards.” He then looked at me, and at the warrior, “Are you guys alright?” He did not ask whether Lily was alright, since the death knight was in her element, devouring violence. Blood trailed across her skin, some of it disappearing as I watched, pulled back to mend small cuts and nicks.

The warrior grumbled, “Could use a good defrost - this damn ice,” He shook his gauntlet to emphasize the point, showing that he literally couldn’t set down his sword at this point, and his other arm was pinned to his side, forcing either a one handed grip, or very close strikes. He continued, saying, “- is a real pain in the ass. And it’s really fucking cold. Not gonna slow me down though.”

I looked over the state of my own injuries. The cut across my forehead was annoying, but not particularly dangerous. Probably. It didn’t feel particularly like I was in danger of concussion, and it couldn’t be anything more than a shallow cut without having had enough force to damage bone. The bruises hurt, and I wasn’t looking forward to walking back, but I could walk. We should probably also defrost my shoulder. At some point. “I’m fine to walk.”

John gazed at the way I was trying to instinctively shield my bruised ribs, but didn’t comment on it. Lily gave both us injured melee a quick look over, before visibly weighing outcomes. The hunter broke the stalemate by saying “Wings, from the south. We’ve got incoming about a minute out.”

“Then let’s move out - we got what we came for.” As we started to jog back towards camp, Lily added, “The reds can do a safer defrost, anyway, camp isn’t that far.” But she was eyeing the warrior’s arm with a wary gaze, even as the warrior’s jog seemed unbothered.

As we ran a second camp of blues joined the hunt, and we all agreed that we weren’t going to stop until we were safely behind our lines.

-

It wasn’t that long a run, but by the end of it, Lily’s worry for the warrior was growing on me. Specifically, around the point the ice on my shoulder started cracking off in broken pieces and melt-water that had me shivering with every stray breeze, and the warriors ice gauntlet didn’t.

And the way he was slowing down as we ran.

And the way the “Fine” responses to Lily’s poking at how he was feeling as we ran had changed from annoyed exclamations, to slurred mumbles.

(She’d also been poking me, but since I was shivering as I ran, I figured it was fair.)

One of the red drakes circling the amber ledge base camp descended to land at our approach. She shifted into mortal form on landing, looking like a high-elf in bright red robes. And once again, I was struck by the vibrant hair, and casual grace that accompanied that kind of elves. A pointed glance at the warrior’s frozen arm, before sweeping the rest of us with a question, “Any other serious injuries?”

The warrior managed to pick up on the implication despite the way they'd been reacting more sluggishly the longer we walked, “Isn’t ‘at bad. ‘M fine.”

Both of his teammates turned to raise eyebrows at the, and the hunter said, “Dude, you’re not fine. Let the nice dragon heal you, and we can go back to killing the evil ones.”

“Fine.” The warrior went to hold up out his ice covered arm to be healed/defrosted, only to stare at in confusion as it barely twitched. “Uh. Maybe not fine?”

“Ya think?!”

The red dragon sighed. “Healing that is going to be painful - given that you have two fire wielders,” A look at John and myself, “And didn’t defrost it, I’m guessing your arm went numb enough that you didn’t notice the problem?”

The hunter shrugged and answered for the warrior, “We were also running from three camps of blues by the end of it, so…”

“Well, it will become the exact opposite of numb as I heal it, and I will need to rush to make sure the unfrozen tissue is saturated with healing almost immediately, which is going to make it feel far more like burning than healing. I suggest you brace yourself.”

She waited, but the warrior made no moves to follow that advice, so she went ahead with ‘healing’. And I really didn’t like the guy, but neither did I want to listen to him scream.

At least though, it was fast. While I couldn’t see the condition of his arm under the armor, it seemed like the healing was also effective, as he flexed his fingers in contemplation, and then picked back up the dropped sword smoothly.

The red drew her gaze across us again, trying to spot injuries - I saw her rest for a moment on the cut on my forehead, before moving on. “Any of the rest of you need healing?”

The hunter growled, “After hearing Kenith scream like that when you healed him? Even if I was injured I’d not let you ‘heal’ me. Who would be crazy enough …”

And that was my que. “I picked up some painful bruising, if you have the magic spare.”

The hunter eyed me in disgust. The drake meanwhile startled, and then settled on a half-smile. “Of course.” She started to gather magic before looking me over and asking mildly sheepishly, “Where is the bruise? I’m not good at diagnostic spells yet.”

I gestured to the line of bruising burning across my chest. While I didn’t have my spirit sight open, I could feel my fire spirit sitting just above the injured area, and she whispered to me, ‘Small empowerment? Want to study healing fire.’

‘Of course.’

My fire elemental didn’t whisper back words, so much as an eager smile.

The fire healing felt soft this time, like a hot bath, or a proper stack of quilts. Something cozy and gentle and kind. Which made the way my fire elemental started crying all the more dissonant. ‘Unfair, can’t can’t can’t. Pretty, can’t hold, can’t keep, can’t imitate.’ Another sob from my fire elemental, and it felt like she was imitating me a bit too well, ‘why can’t we be enough?

I sent back to my fire elemental, ‘It's okay. You don’t have to be able to heal. It was a nice dream, but it was only a dream. Black dragon fire doesn't heal, and we both knew that. I love you anyway. It’s okay.’

Fire grumped back, ‘Still Sad.’

-

The Kirin tor commander, who’s name I should really know by now, grumbled upon being shown the broken key, “Delays, more delays. This is the last thing I need right now.” He glared at the broken key like it was the avatar of his problems, “Fine,” in the tone of voice that suggested he didn’t think there was anything fine about this mess, “I hate to bother Lord Surristrasz, but he’s our only hope of repairing this key to save Lady Evelyn. Since he seems to like you,” and that seemed to be pointed at me in particular, “I’d like you to be the one to ask him for help.” He then relaxed slightly, and said, “It’s good to see you all looking alright though. The blues keep being easily fought by your team? It gives me hope that we might be able to defeat them without having to divert forces from fighting the scourge.”

“About that. This group needs to have a field medic, or the next time someone might actually lose an arm to frostbite. And get a proper scout-infiltration team, since while I’ve been able to brute force it thus far, that won’t last. If the Blue’s had been slightly more prepared, or luckier, with their attacks, you would have lost the entire strike force on this last mission. A good stealth team could have gotten an intact key, without having to fight their way out, and risk one of the blues having a plate-braker, or their mages being a little smarter with their spell targeting.”

“The red dragons keeping Amber point safe are fine medics-”

Lily crossed her arms and unflinchingly stared down the mage. “Either one of those red dragons can accompany our team into the field, or you can figure out who we have to talk to to get a proper combat medic attached to our strike team. Given that you assigned us to talk to the red dragons, I imagine that the second option would be much easier for you to arrange.

“You realize that the Alliance isn’t going to want to re-assign any resources here while the war with the scourge is going on? I’ve got barely anyone to work with.-”

“You’ll have less when we start losing people. The blues might be on the back foot, but it won’t stay that way.”

“Fine. You see about repairing the key, I’ll get a healer for your team.”

-

Lord Surristrasz turned out to be the red dragon that had healed me, that first day. And also the one who had formed his own circle of flowers from radiating red magic into the same stretch of hill while lying down in dragon form.

He was talking to one of the drakes, but as soon as the drake flew off, we caught his attention. “And what brings you to approach me?”

“I’m not sure how much you know about what the magi are up to, but uh … the key for the rescue was broken when we took it off the blue warden, and it was suggested that you might be our best bet for repairing it, or figuring out how to work around it.”

His gaze turned sharply upon me, and for several moments he stared at me like I was a puzzle that wasn’t quite lining up, before saying, “Yes. I can do it.” And there was an undercurrent to that I couldn’t quite understand, and the red reduced the intensity of his scrutiny. “And they were wise to send you to ask - the games they play are of little consequence, plucking at loose threads, while the fabric of this world’s future is being shredded. Still, it might be a useful experience for the drakes, and you could certainly use more practice.” He shifted to his high elf form, and reached a hand out, “The key?”

I handed it over.

A thorough examination of the object, before he looked back up at me. “Tell the mortal mages that I will have the key, and my people, ready for this mission by noon tomorrow.” His voice was still calm, but it had a knife edge only barely sheathed, “And you had best see to it that both you and the drakes I will send with you survive.” There was no ‘or else’, such a thing was not being permitted as a possibility. Or at least, it carried the implicit message of ‘you don’t want to know what I will do if you fail’.

-

I had just barely woken up, still stuck in my metaphorical loading screen for the day, not having finished breakfast and willing to be a person yet, when there was a commotion in the camp.

I continued eating, not looking up. I managed to filter out at least one question, but the answer was clear, a new voice, and too god-damn awake for the early morning. “Knight Spellsinger reporting for duty. Responding to the healer request you filed.”

“Doesn't it normally take weeks for requests to go through at the best of times?” This was the hunter, in a skeptical lilt.

“For a low priority assignment, requesting through the alliance healers association, a week is about as fast as you're going to get, yes. The rescue of Archamge Evanor is considered to be a high priority, and I could make myself available on short notice.”

I finished up the bacon-like breakfast meat I was chewing on, and decided to look up at our new ‘party member’. And I already had a good guess of class, from knight+healer, but I wasn’t expecting the halo. Lightbringer helm - one of the paladin tier sets from Outland, that I had hunted down early for transmog, and couldn’t remember now which raid it was.

I stopped and stared. Raid tier set. Me in my conjured armour, with a group that barely survived Outland questing, in the same party as someone in raid fucking teir gear.

Looking at the rest of her gear, it looked like she only had (or chose to wear) the helmet from the Lightbringer set, with a chest piece I also recognized from plate class transmogs. Northrend dungeon plate, the one with the excessive belts, and the weird metal ring sitting over the actual plate. The paladin was also wearing the pants from that set, I wasn’t sure about the boots or gloves, and the shoulder plates were simple and dark colors. So mostly a very subdued color scheme, except for one bright glowing gold exception.

The golden griffon nuzzled up to her paladin, and got a soothing head-pat, but after she was done, Spellsinger made some sort of gesture that the the griffon clearly interpreted as a ‘shoo’, maybe a gentle shove?

John looked between the leaving griffon, and the paladin, “Should your mount be flying off?”

Knight Spellsinger’s answer was unbothered, but terse. “Borrowed, returning to his usual owner.” She looked over the crowd her arrival had lured out. “The request indicated that there was a strike team I’d be slotting into …?”

Lily stepped forward to start the introductions, “Lily Clarkson, tank.”

The paladin looked at the glowing eyes, the dark plate, and hissed. After a pointed deep breath to calm down, she managed a level tone, “Death Knight. You are aware of the issues relating to using the light to heal your kind?”

Lily nodded, “I know. But if I want to bring the rest of the team home alive …”

The paladin gazed into the middle distance for a moment, before nodding. “Moving on, the rest of the team?”

The rest of us exchanged looks as if trying to figure out who next - I’d thought that the hunter or warrior would have no hesitation, but it looked like they were having a silent conversation. With a shrug, John decided to break the stalemate, “John -”

His introduction was cut off with a sound like cracking glass, and a sudden cold breeze sweeping away the artificial warmth within the wards. I spun, looking outwards for the threat, and saw half a dozen blue drakes shimmer into view in the sky, their invisibility dropping alongside the violet shards of the wards visible for just a moment in the breaking. And two actual dragons, fading in slightly later than the drakes, their spell lasting just that touch longer.

Following the violet cracks to the ground, more dragonkin on the ground, too many to count.

For just a moment the world hung in readiness, the blues floating in the air, the shattered wards fading into the last violet shards.

And then with a roar, and a blue-violet blur, the fight began.

Chapter Text

The moment of stillness broke, shattered into light and noise, I saw one of the drakes diving, and I lunged sideways to dodge the strafing breath. The warrior next to me swore, and I saw a flash of gold around the paladin.

I dodged, but the air was full of screams, the air shimmered from spells. But I had no time to look-

Another drake, I barely saw. Diving, tripping clear.

The air went white.

I was clear of the initial line, but the splashing cold air billowed into my face. My eyes shut instinctively, shielding sight from scything air. I whimpered as the sensitive tendrils behind my ears were bombarded with this killing cold.

Before I could open my eyes again, a second blast of cold against my back drove me into the grass.

Everything burned, the ice became like hellfire, my skin screaming. I couldn’t see, my eyelids glued shut with frozen tears. I could not see, my vision white with pain.

A breath to scream, and the motion cracked the frozen plates of skin.

Pain flooded my senses.

Fade to white.

Light like waking up. A warmth that pushed away the blinding White.

It didn’t touch my ears, but in my spirit sense, I heard music, mixed with a faint growl. The sunrise on a winter morning, hot chocolate and love, from a solstice back in my first home town. A firm hand, brushing away the ice burning against my skin. Just enough room to breathe without shattering the skin on my back. And without my control, my lungs pulled in that breath. The light that gripped me was kind and gentle, but unrelenting. I was not allowed to die.

A different warmth, the warmth of my own fire spirit, brushing a clawed hand across my face, and allowing the frozen tears to drip drip away.

I didn’t rise immediately, instead cracking one eye open, and surveying the battlefield from my position of seeming defeat. The faint sideways tilt to how I’d landed had helped keep my airways clear, and kept my right eye from being pressed into the grass, but it meant that I couldn’t see anything to my left.

I had to look around the ice entombing the hunter, and the spikes jutting up from the frost breath barrage blocked a few sightlines.

Still I could see enough - the red drake defenders had engaged the blue drakes, and the combat being fought slowly in opportunistic lunges, and close approaches seemed to have both sides distracted from the ground combat.

I could see the tail of Surristraz, but from the sounds, and the shaking ground, he was engaged with the blue dragon in a remarkably melee confrontation, for a fight between a champion of magic and a healer.

I couldn’t find the other full grown dragon. Or Lily. But as I looked over the lay of the land, I watched shadow hands dragging one of the dragonkin away from a mage, and off to my left.

Most of the kirin-tor contingent seemed still alive; though with a scream, cut short much like the life of the mage, it was made clear that they weren’t going to stay that way. Sure, the melee guards were doing their best, but there were more of the bipedal, sword swinging, dragon-kin than there were guards, and the guards seemed only able to control individual attackers.

John’s run carried him past my sightline, and I could see that there were two dragon-kin chasing him. A spin, robe flaring as he took the turn fast, and with a pyroblast cast in a single outflung hand, and exactly zero cast time, he brought that number down to one. And then caught a slash across that arm before blinking away, running again, this time with an injured arm cradled close to his chest.

How dare they! No hurting John, I forbid it. I considered for a moment trying to stand, but each breath was sending spiderwebs of pain where my back had hurt earlier. I might not be able to do much, but I’m sure as hell going to do something. … Spirits, totems, get them to fight for me?

I moved slowly, carefully, wiggling my right arm free and slowly inching my fingers to the magical bag on my belt where my totems were stored. It was hard, my arm stiff with cold, and I couldn’t see what I was doing, and my fingers were too numb…

Another wave of light returned feeling to my fingers with an almighty surge of pins and needles that had me grinding my teeth to keep from crying out. But after that pain subsided, I was able to feel my way through to fishing out a totem. I couldn’t see it, but that didn’t matter. A whisper, but echoing, “Help them.” A presence in the air, the pressure before a storm. I grabbed through my bag for another of my totems, “Help me protect…” A warmth, I wasn’t sure how my fire spirit had taken that order, since it wasn’t attacking, but I trusted my spirits. And I knew which spirit was that last one, I had a clear idea of what totem I was about to invoke, even if it was one I had never used before. “Protect him.”

I caught a glimpse of my earth elemental, not the tiny spirit I had grown used to dancing around my ankles, but one taller than I was, one fully material, and coming in swinging.

I caught but a glimpse before the amount of power I had shoved onto my elementals came due as a crippling headache that had even the ordinary light feeling like it was driven through my eyes, and splinting my skull.

I closed my eyes, but I couldn’t close my ears, and every clang and clatter and scream of the combat ricocheted off the inside of my skull with noise.

Lily, her voice impossible not to hear with the way her unique tones interacted with my headache, “Get back here! I will make you suffer for running away, you damn dragonkin.”

A reply, in a familiar draconic voice, “Really, ignoring your opponent and going after my underlings instead - am I boring you?”

Lily growled, and spoke in a sarcastically friendly tone, “Unfortunately, your minions going after my allies is a little distracting.”

“It’s a shame I cannot hold more of your attention. Still, it seems the choice to have them ignore you in favour of your squishy companions,” and here there was a clatter, and a grunt from the death-knight being smacked around, “is reaping added benefits. After all, I was told to stop underestimating you.”

More sounds of combat, and my ear was drawn from noise to noise.

A scream cut short. It wasn’t Lily, but that was all I could tell about who it was. My headache was going down, even as the sounds of conflict continued. I risked a glance, and bit back a swear as I got an eyeful of glowing paladin.

Bright motes were rising from the ground, consecration almost blocking my sightlines. Our new healer had wings active - I couldn’t remember the actual name for that spell - and if I didn’t still have a light sensitive headache, I’d have oogled the shiny golden feathers. I couldn’t hear the words she was mouthing, but her sword hand flung a bright flash of light skyward, before she ducked back behind her shield to avoid a two handed power-strike trying to shatter that arm.

From behind, another of the martial, biped, dragonkin, this one with a polearm, swept the paladin’s legs out from under her. The ice cracked as she landed on it, and the blinding spray of shards missed my eyes by sheer dumb luck.

A third dragonkin, advancing on the paladin, who might be (knocked) down but remained far from being out of the fight, stepped on my back, and I couldn’t hide the gasp as the drove the breath from my lungs. I had no breath, and a silent scream.

“This one’s alive.” The dragonkin speaker ground a taloned foot into my back, and might as well have been the weight of the world for how it was crushing me, “And hang on, I think we found our shaman-”

My world was pain, the weight of it crushing thought down to the primal need to make it stop. I strained to buck off the weight, ending up rolling left, and with a thump the weight fell sprawling on the grass next to me.

I gasped for breath, my lungs burning for air, and I was sick of the pain clouding my thoughts. There was something I should be doing instead of panting …

Air, calling, ‘Move, speaker!’

I kicked, sliding backwards, smooth scalemail given little resistance from the partially melted ice, allowing me to easily clear the space where a sword came down. I put my other hoof into the space occupied by the face of the dragon-kin, who stumbled back, spitting teeth.

But the one that had tripped when I’d rolled out from under him was back up, and was swinging his blade in my general direction. I raised an arm in a probably futile high-block, since I couldn’t track where the blow was aimed, and an arm to block my face wasn’t going to do much anyway …

A blur of gold, the particular sickening thwack of flesh going squish, and no blow reached me. The thump of a dragonkin falling down, and I moved my block to scan for the next threat.

Clang. The paladin was sent tumbling from an impact, and though there wasn’t even a scratch on her armour, she seemed slower to stand, and the blue after her stepped around me, swinging his blade at the back of her head.

A knife existed in my hand, and in a back-hand grip I smashed the blade behind me, into the dragon-kin’s leg. It didn’t stop his strike. Wouldn’t have even if I had been fast enough to have had a chance.

But instead of cutting her, his blade hit the air around her head and stopped, imparting concussive force like he had hit a helmet and sent her reeling again.

The blue brought his blade up for another strike, and I couldn’t tell if the rising steel would fall on me or the healer, and it didn’t really matter.

I was too groggy to think as I raided my arm skywards, unsure even what I was doing.

The sky cracked, and in an arc of blinding white, came crashing down.

I blinked away the after image of lightning, and for a brief moment the battle was quiet save for the ringing in my ears. But save for a faint warmth, like a handshake, my arm was undamaged from the lightning strike.

Looking around at the charred grass, and the still bodies of two blue dragonkin proved that the blast wasn’t harmless for those around me.

I looked sharply to the paladin, but she seemed fine, lunging sword first at another enemy combatant. Good. Friendly fire isn’t.

I staggered to standing, pain from my back surging with the motion, and did a slow spin, scanning for threats.

One of the red drakes was down, but two of the blues had fallen. Winning, not my problem. The pair of dragons tanking our big threats had neither won nor lost yet. Possible problem. John ducking behind my earth elemental with a smirk, as the dragonkin after him had to backpedal hard to avoid being squished. Doing fine.

Fwip. I staggered from the impact. Fwip. A second arcane missile smashed into my scales, a concussive impact to my hip, but also creating vertigo somehow, and something fierce. But the way it spun me faster let me find the caster, and I sent a lava burst down range as the third missile cracked against my chest.

My fire totem might be in use, but I had firepower to burn. Even in mortal form, I had so much fire left to rage with.

I spotted another of the centaur shaped dragonkin casting a spell, and I didn’t wait for her to notice me, just gathered more fire to me.

Ice came flying towards me, but melted in the air around me, and my lava splashed across her wards, specks breaking on through and burning sizzling holes in her hide. Our gazes met, and with a glare that would have frozen me solid if a glare could kill, our caster duel began across the battlefield.

I was injured, had a headache that pounded to the tune of my heartbeat, and my earth spirit was too busy to help. Which meant it was time to cheat. I can cast while moving, at least for lightning spells, and those actually got stronger. And the other type of cheating - I wouldn’t win a pure caster duel against a blue dragon-kin, so fight it on my terms with daggers.

I didn’t so much fire a lightning bolt; as reach out and shove with a fist full of sky, crackling with wrath. And then it was in melee, and what I lacked in raw strength (allocated to my earth totem), I made up for in lashing fire, that stuck and clung to her scales, burning through the dragon-kin’s shield spells.

I didn’t see the spell as orbs or bolts of magic, just a flash of violet, and the taste of iron on my tongue. My pounding headache was blinding, and my inner ear was worse than useless - it felt like the grass was rolling, I might as well be out on the open sea as the ground swayed under me. And my hand-eye coordination had finally been put out of its misery, and no longer existed.

What was that physics joke - that theorem about tiny particles (electrons?), where you could know where it is, or how fast it’s going, but not both? My hand might be anywhere in a vague cone in front of me, but I’ve got a feel for how fast it’s going… Let’s move faster.

I finally managed to locate where exactly my limb was relative to me, by crashing it into the shoulder of my opponent, approximately point first.

The ground swayed under me, and I fell to my knees, gasping and trying not to heave. Fire splashed above, and the enemy caster fell beside me, screaming.

The screaming stopped.

And there was silence.

I tried to look up to check, and managed to fall sideways, to be lying on the torn up grass, as I looked up at the ghost of a battlefield, the space haunted by the dead, the dying, and my victorious allies trying to count the survivors.

Done. I let my eyes close, shutting out the spears of light trying to drive their way through my eyes and into my skull. A deep breath, and a slow exhale through my nose as I fought back nausea. I’m just going to lie here a few moments.

Breath in, and let the breath trickle out as a faint whimper. Now would be a lovely time to pass out, and wake up feeling a bit better.

I had no such luck though, uncomfortably awake as my senses continued to sway, as the pain in my back that I’d forced my way past built back up with every shiver. I whimpered, as another shiver racked my body.

“Epolmono!” John, John close, and calling my name. I tilted my face, cracked an eye open, scanned the area for him, then gave up the effort as unnecessary when he continued with, “We need a healer over here for her!”

Not my department. In this life, at least. So far. I’m gonna fix that lack of healing magic someday … just you watch me...

The paladin called back, “She’s not critical. Others are.” The same voice, closer. “Get her to drink this,” presumably, ‘this’ was passed to John.

“She’s -” He sounded stressed and I didn't wait for him to finish his sentence, before interrupting.

I twisted into a parody of sitting up, the pain burning in fault lines across my back, and nausea strong in my throat. After a moment to swallow back the urge to vomit, enough to force a word free of my lips, I held out a hand without opening my eyes, “Give.”

“Uh. … If you’re feeling up to it.” My hand stayed out, and he put a glass vial into it. Without hesitation I chugged it down. It was sickly-sweet, like honey, but I couldn’t honestly care. I wonder what it’s supposed to -

-

I woke to bright light against my eyelids, and the foriegn feeling of being well rested. I opened my eyes easily to the morning, or from the sun’s position, mid-day, and went to stretch as part of an enthusiastic wake up.

That was a mistake, every one of the scabs on my back pulling at the motion. I hissed, wincing at the renewed awareness of the places I was hurt. It was better now that it was before - my headache, for one, was entirely gone. Unfortunately, my back was still a mess, and a lot of scratches that I had barely noticed were now aching and sore.

Taking in more of where I’d ended up, I was lying on John’s sleeping bag, next to the tower. There were a few other people lying nearby - a few mages, heavily bandaged, and one sleeping red drake, curled away from me.

The warmth magic around the tower area was back in full swing, and the ice from the battlefield had melted, but the bright growth was now a brown mess of ripped dirt, and trampled flowers. In the middle of that space, there knelt a paladin, one glowing hand drawing soothing magic across the back of a high elf. One of the red flight, in mortal form (presumably).

At the edge of the area, tarp had been spread over a pile. I couldn’t be sure at this distance, but my guess was it might be bodies of the slain from the battle. A smaller pile than I expected. The blue dragons, at least, couldn’t fit beneath the tarp. As I watched, a kirin tor mage, leaning on his staff like a crutch, in tattered robes, with bandages wrapped around an injury on his leg, walked over to the pile. Fished in his bag for a scroll, and pulled a body out from under the tarp, before placing the scroll on the body. A moment, hunched there, facing away. And then the motions of spellcasting, before the body disappeared in a flash of violet light.

My attention was pulled away from the dwindling pile of the dead, by a familiar sounding grumble from next to me, John having walked back around the tower and just entering my line of sight, “I love you, but for the love of light, would you stop almost getting killed? Please?”

“Look - that was not my fault this time. I dodged the first frost breath just fine - and then I did my best to not look like a target, and I saw you just barely avoiding a few sword swings.”

A huff. “I guess we deserve each other then.”

I offered a hug, and he leaned in. “I guess we do. And hey, look - we’re both still alive. We’ll stay that way, if I have anything to say about it.” For just a moment I held him, creating the illusion of safety in my arms, like my arms wrapping around him were enough to keep him safe. Like I didn’t need protection myself.

And for a moment it was warm and real and bright.

Then the real world came intruding back, to the tune of a death knight’s voice. “So, you’re up, and from what I heard about those potions, you should also have a lot of mana back - you up for giving bone-mending a field test?”

“Lily.” I looked warily at the death knight, “Please tell me no one’s been stuck waiting on me to wake up to get medical attention.”

She wiggled a hand, a so-so gesture. “There’s been no shortage of healing to do, and Spellsinger over there has been doing a darn good job on triage so far, but since bone mending is one of the only things she can delegate, and it’s hard to mend a break using the light …”

“Fine then. Lead on.”

Lily didn’t lead me very far, the red that the paladin was tending being my first case. As we walked close, he looked up, and I recognized the mortal form of Surristrasz. Both paladin and dragon looked up at my approach. “Time to shift back?”

The paladin muttered a negation, and then said, “Let me brief the shaman first.” Turning to me, she took a calming breath, before speaking, “So. I’ve been told that you have the ability to heal with earth, but little if any practice?”

I nodded, and gestured for her to continue.

“I am not fluent enough with shaman healing to know how you would acquire magical diagnostics-”

“Neither am I.”

She winced, before pinching the bridge of her nose. “Then I shall pray that bone mending is intuitive enough, and prepare also the back-up plan. In the case where you can’t heal the broken wing bone, or do so poorly, I will take over fixing the problem, and you will instead work on making a cast to keep the bone from moving back out of alignment immediately.”

She’s got this under control. Good, no pressure. She’ll be able to fix this when I inevitably screw this up. … bad thoughts, stop that.

I stretched, palms out and fingers bending backwards as a focusing gesture, before pulling more than just my fingers back on the sweep inwards. I couldn’t tell what I had tangled around myself, the motes of magic unreal, unable to survive being looked at too closely. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

And with that, the paladin backed up just enough, that when Surristrasz shifted back to his true form, she was able to quickly support the broken wing, taking the weight of the wing tip, and stopping the re-manifested limb from mangling itself any further.

I couldn’t quite see the spot where the wing was broken, no shards piercing the skin, and Spellsinger holding it as close to alignment as she could manage with her human arms and lack of pre-engineered table designed to support the curvature of a dragon’s wings. I could, however, see wrents in the wing membrane of both wings, from where his opponents claws had hooked through the flesh, and torn great bleeding gashes.

I couldn’t see the broken place, the thing I needed to fix. But, maybe, ‘I’ didn’t have to. ‘Earth?’

My earth elemental didn’t manifest in a way to be seen, rather I heard the rumble of its voice around me, felt its presence as a guiding touch on my hand, directing me to touch the injured wing. First with my left hand, upon the scales before the break, fingers above, and thumb below the bone. ‘Listen, Feel how it should be.’ then with my right, my dominant hand, around the other side, the loose section of wing, floating ungrounded . ‘And how it is.’ And I could - the hinge was closer to my dominant hand, a tilted diagonal, a subduction fault, could feel the slip between the two pieces of bone, intuit the shape of the break from how it slid - tiny shudders with each breath.

And it was a silly thought, nothing like healing, but my mind traced out the load path, the UDL of the wing’s own weight, traveling along the bone beams, into the shoulder joint, and down into the ground.

Bone was nothing like concrete, too organic, and too good at dealing with tension, with bending moment. It was closer to wood - but thinking about that, in the context of trying to repair a break - thinking of the way tensioned reinforced concrete could appear self mending, of steel reinforcing and earthquakes, and pulling the cracks back together afterwards.

With a ‘click’ that had me wincing instinctively, and a hiss of pain from the dragon being healed, the bone pulled back together. The steel of my magic, my intent to heal, to repair, pulling it into position, and holding it back together. I could feel it trying to yield, the stress building in the tiny cable of intent. I poured more magic in, verbalising the command to give it more power, “And stay fixed.” The tiny cable was wrapped with dozens more, a cord of power holding the bone back together with minimal stress.

Next to me, close enough that I couldn’t help but hear it, the paladin made a small gasp of surprise a tiny wordless sound. And then after a moment's concentration, a flash of light around her hands and the broken wing, she let go. The wing that had been broken held its own weight. “Don’t even think of flying for another month, but it feels like that will be able to hold its own weight without much risk of rebreaking.”

The red dragon cautiously pulled his wing back to a comfortable resting position against his side. “Indeed.’ He looked specifically at me, ‘for a first time healing, you have done well.’ He then turned back to the paladin. “I can handle the rest of my injuries from here - you need to rest, mortal.”

“I can continue.”

The dragon fixed her with a sharp look. “I saw the mana potion you chugged between your attempts at resurrecting the fallen. Saw the second one you took, before starting on the injured magi.”

The paladin shrugged. “And I can still survive at least another two. I know my limits. Still, the hard part is done.” She stretched, before starting to walk, and beckoning me to follow with a gesture. This ended up taking me back to the line of sleeping wounded that I had woken up in. “‘Dreamless sleep’ potion will mend their bones somewhat, but you do so better. And while in the potion’s trance, they’ll not have to feel you doing it.”

We fell into a rhythm of working - she pointed out where the problem was, and I pulled the bones back together, reinforced them with magic like steel. She used small amounts of magic to sooth the damage to flesh around the bone, and we moved onto the next fracture.

Near the end of the line, I heard footsteps approaching us. John and Lily, each carrying steaming bowls, and walking pointedly towards us. “Food. Lunch might be a bit late, but you two should both eat.” The paladin made a glance down the line, before nodding, and moving to a mildly torlebale section of torn up grass to sit on.

I took the bowl of soup, and spoon handed to me, only mildly warry. “What’s in it?” And then looking at John again I noticed that he didn’t have any or himself. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“Mammoth, since apparently you aren’t the only person who makes non-fish stew.” He sat next to me. “And I already ate. Sorry, but I needed the time to relax, and forgot that you probably needed to be reminded about lunch.”

“Eh, you're not wrong. My sense of when in the day it is all wonky. Between the battle, and the potion induced nap …” I let the words trail off, and began to actually eat my soup.

We ate in silence for a bit, until Lily spoke up. “We had planned on launching our rescue of lady Evanor today, before the attack. Despite losing most of the fighting force we would have taken, I think we have to make the attempt now.”

I hummed a questioning noise around my mouthful of stew, “Mm?”

“We don’t have the force to repel another attack - but with any luck, neither do the blues. And - we need Evanor back. She’s apparently good at constructing wards fast - and since ours just got ripped down - and we lost a lot of our fighters to the ice barrages, we need the wards back immediately if not sooner.” She looked pointedly at the paladin. “Are you,” and a questioning wave at me, ”and Epolmono, fit to fight?”

“I can keep going.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

The paladin sighed. “I would like to prescribe recovery time. But, you aren’t wrong. We need to strike, and we need to strike now. There is more healing I could do here, but nothing urgent remains.”

“Then are we agreed - as a group of four, trying to do the rescue anyway?”

Chapter Text

I let far sight fade, and settled back into my body. “Saw four patrols, clockwise. Plus two going counterclockwise. There’s a guard at the box as well - Two drakes, and six dragonkin, mostly casters. Not sure how many I missed.” I looked at Lily, “We going to be pulling a repeat of the quarry?”

“No.” It was fast, and firm. “The attack on our base showed that one blue dragon can effectively tank me - I don’t want to bet on the blue drakes not being able to do the same. And we know that the moment we get noticed, the rest of them are going to come join the fight. How far out are the patrols? In sight of the box?”

“... I don’t think so? They’ll probably hear a scream though.”

Lily stared into the distance, as if she could see her prey at this distance. “How many per patrol?”

“Four, two with polearms, and two casters.”

A thoughtful hum, before she spoke. “Doable, probably - we might be able to take out one or two patrols before the alarm gets sounded, but we’re going to need to be prepared to run away from where they think we are - plan is to try to take out another couple while they're still converging on our location.” She rubbed her hands together. “This is going to be fun. Do try to keep up.”

The paladin said nothing, just stared at the deathknight for long enough that I was growing uncomfortable even though it wasn’t directed at me, before nodding and saying, “Fine.”

-

I didn’t manage to find the patrol that my aerial perspective scouting said should have been closest, and we finally found some dragonkin by a group charging at us, one of the casters slowing down to call, “Mortal adventurers attacking!” An inhale and then another shout, “Southwest!”

Through that noise I just made out one of the melee dragonkin saying, “Fuck. How many of those damn cockroaches are there? Didn’t we deal with the ones at Amber Point - they can’t be ready for an attack so soon, fuck.” Before squaring up, and charging us.

The other caster apparently decided the paladin in tier gear was the biggest threat, as evidenced by her wince and the crackle of violet around the otherwise invisible arcane blast impact.

Lily with her spear was doing a good job distracting both the melee dragon-kin so that was at least one problem I didn’t have to worry about. John and I both shot spellfire at the caster attacking our healer. The enemy dragon-kin proceeded to ward against our fire magic, and with a smug flick sent arcane missiles volleying in a counterattack towards John.

He winced as each orb crashed into his own hastily raised magic-shield-spell-thingy. A second volley got tossed our way, as the blue dragon-kin gave a predatory smile, tasting weakness and trying to leverage that.

A golden hammer shaped object colliding with the casters forehead stunned it momentarily, and John took that moment to stop cowering behind his shield spell, and fire back. He was halfway through the gestures for fireball, when the other enemy caster reminded us of its existence with an arcane blast that sent him tumbling.

But I hadn’t been inactive either, a lightning bolt jumping from my outstretched fingers towards our focus target, and as part of the same motion, pulling back, yanking with kinetic force - the earth shock shattering one of the centaur-morph dragon-kin’s forelegs. It stumbled forward, still dazed from the hammer of stunning (was the in game name of that spell hammer of justice? Unimportant.) It stumbled forward, fell into Lily’s range, and got dragged across the battlefield to be impaled on her spear. Lily’s currently engaged in melee opponents both took the opportunity to stab at her for overextending, but the death knight seemed un-bothered. One of their strikes glanced off some very solid thin air around the seemingly exposed section of torso that her armor didn’t look like it covered. (Had Jevama talked about armor magic at some point with me?) The other one landed a solid thrust with the point of their polearm, which got through the magic of the armor and got as deep into her flesh as the blade could reach with the other blade edge of the polearm getting stuck on the armor’s forcefield. So not especially deep.

The death knight went back to toying with her two melee foes, and the rest of us were free to gang up on the second caster. I had apparently moved up to being the biggest threat, as I found myself once more cut in isolation from the world, unable to hear it, feel it, as anything more than the purely physical space I happened to occupy.

As I drew out daggers and firmed my will to make the dragon kin regret trapping me in purely physical violence, John engaged the dragon-kin in a caster duel, spells flitting across the air and being deflected by wards against the elements being thrown around. Easily deflected on the part of the dragon-kin, only barely fended off by John. It wasn’t a fight he’d win solo. But he wasn’t solo.

Without magic, bound in a mortal form that still reflected the weakness of someone for whom physical fitness is a recent concept, I couldn’t strike with enough force to get my blades through the dragon-kin’s hide.

The paladin, taking advantage of the momentary distraction my failed stabbing provided, showed she had no such issues, as she drove her sword through the enemy caster’s chest. It crumpled, but spat with blood and hate, “I’ll be avenged, the flight will prevail and you will all be purged -” A hacking cough, spitting blood, “All you filthy mortals tainting magic-” Another series of coughs, each notably weaker.

The paladin’s voice was soft. “I am sorry that was not a cleaner strike. Your hate is not enough reason to draw out suffering.”

“Just an animal-” A pause as it struggled for breath, dying, “-to be slaughtered then - not a person enough to be … hated…”

“Person enough to deserve respect, even as I hate you.” And this was still just as soft, even as she claimed hatred. The paladin wiped the blood from her sword. “May you find happiness in your afterlife, somewhere where you can’t hurt my people with your hate.”

The melee tussel reminded us of their existence by Lily chiming in, “So I was going to say we finish these two dragon-kin off and keep going, but after that dramatic moment and the fact that they literally don’t stand a chance, I feel like we should offer them a surrender.”

The two opponents she was fighting growled, and the one that had drawn blood said, “You can be hurt deathknight, and our allies are coming any moment now. How dare you claim us hopelessly outmatched.”

“So that’s a no on surrendering?”

Both of them struck at her in answer - she parried one, and let the other clang off her armor. With a shrug, the death knight returned to putting more bloody gashes across her opponents, not worrying about striking deeply, so much as following into the next strike and the next two parries. But then, actually killing things was the job of a tank’s teammates.

My lightning flashed, and I had a moment to regret my more caster specialization - at least in melee combat, I had less time to think about what I was doing. While it looked like John wasn’t getting the full effect of his magic against the dragon-kin, the raw kinetic impact of a pyroblast managed to floor one of the dragon-kin, opening just enough of a gap in the flow of combat for Lily to land a decisive strike on the other one.

As the one that had taken a pyroblast struggled to rise, Lily cast chains of ice and started sprinting towards the quarry. We struggled to try to keep up, and I, having the most breath left due to blatant cheating (ghost wolf form), was the one to ask, “Is it a good idea to leave one of them alive and able to point out which way we ran?”

The death knight shrugged, “Maybe not, but with any luck his allies will stop to give him medical attention. And he saw us running towards the captives- I think we’ve got enough clearance now,” And just out of sight of our first engagement, she made a hard turn, leading us west, and away from our target location. “Not much of a misdirect, but might stagger them finding us slightly.”

-

We found a double group that had combined to look for us. “Doable. John, you see the bush there? Drop a flamestrike around it. I’ll get them in position before your spell finishes. The rest of you stay back until then.”

With a nod, and the start of John’s spellcasting, Lily charged towards the group of foes. Before she’d hit melee range, she flicked outward with her weapon, sending a wave of ice-tainted air to be the first blow of combat, and rather than finish her charge, she let that sweep steal her momentum, and with a pull inwards dragged one of the far casters to her location, and with a stomp, created the circle of anti-consecration. The melee dragonkin drew back from the circle of her magic, having charged forward to meet her, and in that moment the column of fire crashed down - hitting the melee dragonkin with a wave of fire and force sending them forward towards the death knight, with her just out of range of the flamestrike.

She took advantage of that momentary weakness to lash out, spearpoint flashing red with blood magic, and then actual blood spraying from the wounded dragonkin as she pulled back the spear from out of their scales. And then it was back to the dance, her making only opportunistic jabs between the parries and the work of dodging her four remaining melee enemies.

But at least, we only had three casters to deal with. One of them was focused on Lily, and I noticed the death knight flinch at one of the spells, but it didn’t seem to stop her, so she’d probably be fine. But that was two casters going for us.

John was stuck hunkering behind his spell wards, and I was gathering lightning as I ran into melee, when I found myself blasted back in a painful blast of violet energy. In the moment it took me to recenter on myself, to put my senses in order, and deal with that damn vertigo, I lost the spell I’d been trying to cast, and barely got two steps forward before the next impact sent me stumbling back, dizzy and about two steps from being motion sick.

And I took that spinning disorienting sense that nothing was where it was supposed to be, took all of my anger and shoved.

The ground screeched.

It hurt. It felt like I had ripped my own skin in that shove. But as I tried to catch my breath, choke down a scream, choke down the nausea, nothing attacked me.

I saw the last shake of my very localized earthquake finish as I returned to paying attention to the fight. The earth was torn in a jagged line at my feet where the wave had started, the rip from that initial shove visible, as were dozens of tears in the scrub grass from wave ridges breaking as they failed to settle back where they’d started.

None of the enemy casters were dead, and it didn’t look like I’d managed to seriously injure them either - but I had managed to knock one of them down, and stop all three from casting for the duration.

John used that window well, and though one of the caster-kin managed to get a shield up, it didn’t stop the pyroblast from going straight through the flame-ward. And through the dragon-kin’s scales.

Two enemy casters left … only the one I had knocked down with the earthquake wasn't getting back up, despite me not seeing any injuries on them. So one left? I’d apparently been identified as the easy mark by that remaining caster, as arcane orbs began to fly my way. Each impact sent me reeling, headache and nausea growing ever stronger. But not as fast as I was expecting, the aching softness of the light pulling away the threads of my pain.

John’s spellfire managed to force the caster dragonkin on the defensive, and I took a look at where Lily was fighting, and she had managed to cut the number down to three, and from the way one of them was gasping, it was quickly going to go down to two. John still had the enemy caster stuck on the defensive, so I decided to resolve Lily’s fight a bit faster, and gathered magic for a chain lightning.

All three enemies hit staggered, the one already looking sick fell. Lily took advantage of the moment of weakness to finish one of the other two, and then there was one. I fired off a second lighting bolt, but didn’t have time to assess its effects before a voice shouted “Stop! Or your companion dies!” I turned, saw what I had missed. What even Lily had missed. What we had all missed.

Another group of blue dragonkin had come up behind us. It looked like a partial group - maybe leaving the one alive earlier had bought us a bit of distraction, since one of the casters was unaccounted for. The other was dragging an uncooperative sheep away from the combat, presumably our paladin since I couldn’t see where the knight was, and it did look like a polymorph. But, that meant two of the melee dragonkin had snuck up behind us, and were currently holding John at bladepoint. I wasn’t sure what was keeping him from blinking away, but it was clearly working. Probably a silence spell.

“Don’t even think of trying anything - you can only use your magic to grab one of us, and you care about your brother,” A nasty sort of tone, mocking, taunting, a violence of words, “don’t you death knight? Or go ahead, prove that you don’t care about anything but slaughter - I doubt the boy's lover over there would forgive you.”

What can I do - Is there anything I can do? Destroy them. All of them. Leave none to threaten that which is yours. I said, anything ‘I can do’ which that isn’t, and also shut up old gods. Shut up.

“Make your demands while you still have that power. I will kill you if I get a chance.” Lily’s voice was as cold as an arctic blizzard. It hurt, just a little, to listen to. Though that might have been a side effect of my shamanism, since no one else seemed bothered.

“A death knight's power is in their runeblade - destroy yours, to save your brother.”

With exactly zero hesitation, no room for debate, or for John to get any non-verbal signals across in rejection, Lily snapped her spear. And this wasn’t the crack of metal, only wood, but the sound still carried that sort of awful presence. The light of the runeblade was gone, and a flake of broken wood fluttered down. “Satisfied?”

There was stillness. All of us stared at the death knight holding the splintered shards of her soul-bound weapon. Her hands clenched around the broken wood sending more splinters loose in anger. And then the blue dragon-kin making the demands laughed, “You actually did it. I can’t believe -” He’d stepped away from John, no longer holding his blade to my partner's throat, and that was when all hell broke loose to the sound of a polearm being dropped.

The other blue dragon-kin who had been left to continue holding John in check hadn’t been dragged into melee range of the death knight by her black magic gripping spell - rather, she had used it to pull a Vader, and force-choke the blue dragon kin. Slightly less effective than Vader’s version, in that we could all see the fingers of force, and the dragonkin was desperately prying them off his throat.

But he hadn’t been able to scream, and it took the polearm being dropped for his allies to notice. Which meant Lily was also able to toss a priest shield onto John before the fight resumed like breaking glass.

The melee dragon-kin that wasn’t being strangled had just a moment too much confusion, Looking between his companion, and the ‘disarmed’ dk. The death knight who was closing the distance with inexorable haste. The dragon-kin swung his blade at her, at the weakness in her saronite armour, where it was only magic guarding her. The halberd cut through that protective ward, Lily having made no effort to stop it. And she continued, unbothered by the weapon embedded into her.

The dragon-kin had one moment to realize his mistake, unable to pull his weapon out of her flesh fast enough to block, before, in a swirl of black sparks and ice blue glinting, she swung with enough force to obliterate the remaining shards of her weapon. Her enemy fared little better, more than one snap of bone, and shards of wood, and ice and steel, ripping through as bloody shrapnel.

Lily yanked out the weapon stuck in her side and used it to go after the other dragonkin that had just managed to get free of her grasping hands spell.

Of the two remaining casters, the one that had been wrangling the sheep fired arcane missiles at John, who between the first and second missile regained both voice and spellcasting ability, and added his own defensive magic to the almost broken power-word:shield.

The one from the previous group of foes, who had only barely managed to fend off the spellcasting of a mortal mage, meanwhile was shaking too much to be able to actually cast whatever spell it was trying to manage.

I tossed my weakest blast of fire at one of my allies - specifically, I broke the polymorph. The very grumpy paladin brought her blade in a golden arc of *smite* against the caster that had rendered her helpless.

The last dragon kin caster was too busy panicking to be a threat. The poor thing was hyperventilating, and making awful stuttering sobbing noises. Lily looked incredibly frustrated, but managed to make her voice soft despite the magic warping her voice. “Kid, you are allowed to surrender.”

“Can’t - have to-” Another sob, “Debts - betraying flight by giving up.”

Lily shrugged. “I don’t know your situation - but you are in no shape to fight, and unless you manage to focus enough to fire at me in the next minute, I’m just going to leave. … and if you’re being made to fight against your will, I recommend making a bid for sanctuary - if you’ve got nowhere better to run, Light’s Hope cathedral isn’t a bad choice for a place to escape from this war - the scourge might attack it again, but I doubt the blues or mages are going to check there.”

She drew runes onto the polearm she had claimed from her fallen foe - first in blood, and then etchinging them into the blade with lich-fire blue energy. Once it was done, and the dragon-kin caster still hadn’t attacked, the death knight signaled that it was time for us to keep running.

Our paladin looked at the still bleeding gut wound the death knight was ignoring. “Shouldn’t you have healed yourself, death knight?”

Lily shrugged. “Eh. Unimportant. Keep running.”

The paladin growled, “Either heal yourself deathknight, or so help me, I will start patching you up with the light.”

Lily grinned, “That sounds like a challenge.” She twirled her polearm into a carry, and called over her shoulder as she started springing towards the distant patrol we were hunting, “You’ll have to catch up with me first.”

With a wordless snarl the paladin was running after the deathknight.

John and I exchanged a look. “What just happened?”

“Your sister is a lunatic.” I looked at the direction they’d run and winced. “And we’d better hurry after them if we don’t want to get left behind.”

John turned to look at the backs of our other two party members running into the distance, and swore faintly, before using magic to close some of the distance. “Literally and figuratively - the fucking emotional whiplash of the last five minutes.”

I fell into a ghost wolf run, and just barely kept pace with the blink running mage. “Remember when it used to be us messing with the rest of the team by doing that?”

“Yeah. And I remember when I used to have fun. Now it's all undead and getting kidnapped by dragons and panicking over possibly losing people I care about, or almost getting killed myself and I hate it.” We’d caught up to the fight Lily had started with the next patrol of dragon kin, and the paladin with hands wrapped in glowy magic, now silently getting the job done. John growled, “Time to get back to work.”, before beginning to recite the incantations of his spellcasting.

-

We burned through that encounter without significant injuries, and no stress over morals, which given the week I’d been having, seemed highly improbable.

So of course, we discovered that the last of the patrols had collapsed back to join the defense of the box.

“It doesn't look like we’re going to be able to split them any further. Anyone got any bright ideas for how to handle this?”

John looked at the ridge line separating us from the last fight in this gauntlet. “I could maybe try to sheep one? It doesn't work right on dragons, from what I remember -” And he looked at me, just a little in that, which I don’t think was intentional, but it meant that I wanted to seize the opening to re-contextualize that action.

“What about your double-pyroblast opener - it’s more likely to overpower their resistance isn’t it? And it's just as likely to take one of the enemies out of the fight.”

John faceplamed. “Or I could do that. I can’t believe that I forgot to consider my old opener.”

I legitimately couldn't tell whether the paladin was being sarcastic when she said, “While we are suggesting ideas for what our teammates might do, our shaman might consider grounding totem.”

My self-doubt said this was an attack, a poke at me being an idiot forgetting to use totems, and overlooking something useful. My common sense said she was just trying to offer a helpful suggestion on how not to get us killed. I decided to split the difference and just sort out grounding totem. ‘Grounding is an Earth totem right?’

The wind teased my hair, ‘It is air, speaker.’ The breeze moved a bit more distant stirring the grass before me, ‘It is easy to touch the earth, it needs no encouragement to take the spells. No, the work is mine - tricking the spell into flowing down. As payment ...’ the grass waved back and forth as my air spirit thought, ‘Tell me one thing no one else knows.’

My response ended up said out loud, instead of projected at the spirit, “I’m sorry, what?!” And before anyone could react to that, I continued with an aside to the humans present, “Talking with the elements, one moment.” I then directed my attention back to the wind, ‘How is that a price? And how am I supposed to know that no one else knows it?’

‘You used to talk to me often. Now … you are more grounded. It is good that you connect more to the earth, and to your mortals. But you do not fly enough, little dragon, for that to be your tie to air. And you have countless things known only to you, child of two worlds.’

‘I do.’ And that was so open ended, so I was stuck trying to narrow it down to just one thing, to one thing I knew that wasn’t known on Azeroth… What had I already said to people? What does Lily know from what we shared? What’s the meaning of life, the universe, and everything … ‘A writer in that other-world wrote a story, where everyone asked what the meaning of life, the universe, and everything was, and were answered with 42. When they asked what that was supposed to mean, they were told that the real trick was figuring out the question. But, if that universe spun on any single number, it would be the universal constant - the speed of light. Funny how that number was enough to wipe cities from that map.’

The air didn’t answer me directly, but I got the impression of it playing with that answer, as it tussled my hair. I smiled, and looked up at the others. John noticed that experison, “So you have a nice chat with the voices none of the rest of us can hear?”

“Yup.”

“And no comment on why you were startled like that at the start of that conversation…?”

“Mmm, no.”

Lily stretched, signaling that she was done touching up the runes on her new blade, “Well, it sounds like we have few ideas on how to do better this time. Time to go test them out. And fair warning, I will be very grumpy if any of you get yourselves killed.”

“Yeah yeah, same to you sis.”

-

John’s double pyro opener did clear one of the enemy casters, but that left us with a lot of them attacking us. Lily managed to pick up the attention of both drakes, which was good, and one of the melee dragonkin, which still left us with too many.

I dropped my set of totems, manifesting my earth elemental with my earth totem, grounding totem with air, and fire having it’s attack totem. However, this was not a free action, and I had to duck back to dodge a swipe at approximately neck height. It looked like I had only one dragonkin in melee with me, my earth elemental was dealing with one of the others, and the last one was after John, and failing to catch up.

Another two jabs towards me, each dodged, before I managed to catch one of my daggers on the hook of the blade as the dragonkin was pulling it back for another jab. I didn’t have enough strength to beat the blade-lock, to rip the polearm out of my foes hands, their two handed grip having more power than I could manage. But that second of weapon-lock got my other blade at the front of the ax blade, and from there, I was able to twist the blade, slipping past, inside the guard. The dragonkin pulled the blade back, but that just helped me to run faster, my left dagger holding the inner curve of the blade just shy of my back. My first strike with my main hand was not into the dragonkin’s throat, my foe having thrown one arm up to block, but rather into the other hand, not even deep, just enough to have the haft of his weapon fall from bloody fingers.

Disarmed. I brought a hoof down on the weapon to make the point. “I don’t want to kill you. But I will if I have to. I suggest -”

The dragonkin decided to try punching me rather than surrender. My arm crashed into his, the impact of my block sending his arm wide, and probably bruising both of us. And my other arm drove a blade in deep. A kick sent the critically wounded dragonkin staggering back, only to trip, and not get back up. Either dying, or trying to stay out of the fight. Hope it's the second, but probably the first. Oh well, I tried. Not my problem.

A glance showed that John was no longer being attacked by a melee dragon-kin, though he was under continuous spellfire bombardment. My earth elemental was struggling, almost out of energy. My air totem needed to be renewed. I sent a surge of power towards my air totem, and went after the dragonkin menacing my earth elemental. At the last moment The dragon-kin saw my approach, and managed to just barely get his pole-weapon between us, enough to hit my scale at glancing angle, and stop my charge with the sudden impact. He pulled the blade back, made another jab. I tried to dodge sideways, but it caught my arm at an upward angle and slid between my scales.

With blood dripping down my forearm, I grabbed the weapon haft and yanked. The dragon-kin met my tug of war with superior strength, and ripped his weapon free - in time to be hit full on from my earth elemental. The blue scaled humanoid crumpled beneath the impact.

An arcane blast hit my elemental in the side, and it, too, crumpled. And the de-manifested earth spirit hid behind me, shaking with distress. I stood my ground, braced as the next wave of arcane slammed into me, overwhelming my grounding totem. I felt each impact like a hammer blow, running in my ears, and sending me shaking uselessly. I couldn’t fall, gripped by the light. But neither could I stand under the barrage.

“The shaman is distracted - now!” The two drakes both fired their breath weapon attacks at Lily. I saw a flash of green contrasting the flash of violet that followed, her antimagic shield flaring, but not quite enough. The last orbs in the arcane barrage hit past the broken spell shield, and produced a sound like cracking ice. And the thud of someone falling down, to the accompaniment of more awful cracking noises.

I couldn’t see what was going on, barely able to look up from the dirt, but the Paladin’s angrily muttered, “dammit, I was starting to like that one” did not fill me with confidence. Neither did her lunging past me, shield first, at the drakes.

One of the drakes laughed in triumph - “It worked, I can’t believe it worked!”

“Celebrating so soon? Should I be flattered that you think I’m still human enough to die?” There was no echo in the death knight's voice. Because there was not the slightest trace of humanity to be echoed, only the sound of black magic.

And for just a moment, the entire fight stilled as everyone turned to look at the deathknight.

I managed to get my arcane induced nausea under control enough to look up. It looked comical, almost, like Halloween make up, like a horror movie trying to look scary, and winding up well past the suspension of disbelief. There were jagged cracks where the ice had shattered, painted red from the skin that had ripped with the ice. Several had to be hidden by her chest plate, blood leaking from gaps far too pointedly for there not to be. But the part I was having trouble looking at, the reason both sides had written off the deathknight, for at least a moment, was the rent in her throat, where one of the ice shards had ripped across leaving a ragged gash so stained with blood that I couldn’t see how deep it went, only too deep.

And then the undead moved - proving that a little thing like critical injuries and serious blood loss couldn’t slow her down in the slightest. Death grip pulled in one of the enemy casters. “Sorry about this, but you don’t get to surrender today.” Her runeblade was swirling with black magic as she drove it into the enemy casters throat. Not a single drop of blood spilled, all devoured by her sanguimancy. “Blood for blood and all that.”

The paladin and death knight stood back to back, each one handling one of the drakes - Lily with a hungrey sort of ease, and the paladin on the defensive. And to my surprise, both of them having infused magic into the ground, and apparently not having canceled each other out. Golden motes of consecration rose from pulsing blood red circle of desecration. Lily’s voice still sounded painfully inhuman, “Paladin, let me know if you need a rescue. I know you’re supposed to be a healer.”

And I had work to do, because they might have their situation under control, but there was at least one caster still loose. I could barely aim from vertigo - I certainly couldn’t run charging in. My earth spirit was still recovering. I poured power into my air spirit, focusing intent on reinforcing the totem.

A brittle sort of laugh from the paladin, just that touch jagged, before she answered Lily. Her voice was clipped, in between pants for breath, “‘ll be fine. Not my first time panic tanking. You good to heal yourself?”

John began to bombard the enemy casters with fireballs, taking advantage of my defensive warding, to abandon defense for offense.

Lily’s weapon ripped a gash in the drake’s wing, forcing her target to land. “I can make do.” A clang of combat, as the paladin blocked with all her strength, and didn’t have to give ground. “Not going to ask you to make an opening trying to cast in melee - but if you’ve got a spare heal, I’ll not say no.”

“Fine.” And that was the tone of voice of someone who didn’t consider it fine. Nothing changed immediately, but in a gap between threatening her foes paw with her sword, the paladin apparently managed to slip a healing spell while blocking. The flash of gold, and the faint flinch of the death knight tipped me off.

Her opponent tried to capitalize on that opening, and got a spear point to the snout for his trouble. Not deep, barely a scratch, only oozing blood, but the drake staggered back.

Lily strode into that opening, getting the point of her weapon against the drake’s neck, and with enough room in her reach to make that a clear threat. “Either you yield, or you will die, drake. Pick one.”

The drake’s answer was to spit a blast of frost at the death knight. Ice coated her skin, freezing her hair against her face, and freezing the blood on her armour into ice crystals. It in no way stopped her from making good on her threat, leaving only one active foe on the battlefield.

The last foe who launched skyward, wings still intact, desperate to clear the range of deathgrip. They fled, flying for the coast.

“Is it over?” I looked at the bloodstained battleground, at the sudden stillness.

John’s reply was a shaky, “I sure hope so - not sure where it would escalate from here, and I vote we don’t stick around to find out.”

The paladin was already walking over to the prison cube, and gave a mildly sardonic, “Motion seconded. With prejudice.” She pressed a gauntlet hand against the stone, “So where’s the key hole?”

John went over to help, and I sat down. Pressing my palms against the Northrend scrub-grass, I took in deep breaths to steady myself. In, hold, out.

Lily’s voice next to me, voice still that unholy mockery of speech, but it was as quiet and soft as she could make it and still producing noise from magic alone, “It’s over, you’ll be okay.” She sat in front of me, a comforting presence, as long as I didn't look up at the bloodstains, “John’s okay.” A faint huff of laughter preceded her next words, “Assuming the paladin is mildly adequate at healing, I’ll be fine. The injuries might look scary, but undead are surprisingly easy to heal, give or take light related burns.” A hand on my shoulder, a comforting weight for once, instead of triggering my flinch response - maybe because the armor between us, her gauntlets and my shoulder pads, meant it wasn’t skin contact, just gentle weight. “It's over, and we’ll be okay.”

I looked up at her, the frozen blood on her armor, on the skin of her face. “Over?” Flashes of future-past to come, Malygos and the instances of the nexus. The echoes of this war being fought in cataclysm, taking Tarecgosa’s life as the factions scrambled to pick a new blue aspect, as a conservative traitor sold them out to Deathwing. The years and years of war to come, Horde and Alliance painting the continents red with blood, and violet with ash. “It’s not over,” I looked into her ice blue eyes, “So many are going to die before it’s done. This war is far from done.”

I felt the soil beneath my hands, torn by combat, turning to mud from bloodshed. I felt the weight on my shoulders. And there was a fire in my voice, acrid and stinging and unyielding, “My wars are still so far from done. No, it’s not over - it’s only just begun.”

Chapter Text

Lady Evanor wasn’t in great shape, when we pulled her out of her prison cube. She was gaunt, and her hair was matted in a way that suggested that it had been a while since she’d last gotten to bathe or use a hairbrush. Her bright purple robes were crumpled with use, but not particularly stained - but then the arcane didn’t often draw blood. She had bruises maring an otherwise decent looking face.

And she came out of the cube ready to steamroll anything that got between her and her objects. Sure, she could barely stand; but there was fire in her eyes, and steel in her voice. “Is Amberwing ledge still standing?”

Lily waved her hand in a so-so gesture, “As of half an hour ago, yes, but the wards are down. So, who knows.”

“I know you adventurers hate escort missions, but you are going to get me there, and it’s going to be in time to fix this, so help me light.” And she was only barely standing, and the shortest person in that clearing, but by god, she loomed over us.

“That’s plan A.”

“And plan B is running for the edge of the portal wards and abandoning the point I take it?” She didn’t wait for a response to that question, clearly considering it rhetorical. “You do have a plan to get me out of here, I trust.”

The paladin and death knight met eye contact, and then began casting suspiciously similar spells, calling their magical horses. “Evanor, you ride with the paladin - she’ll do a better job of carrying you with her, and little brother, you’re with me -” Lily then turned to me, “Your travel form can manage a decent clip, and if you have to break off, a tan wolf hides well in this grass.” Unspoken, but not unheard, was that if we split up, I had other options for running away. Sure, the blue dragons can also fly - but dragonkin can’t.

I saluted, and then proceeded to shift forms and start running, because the horses would overtake me, and probably quickly.

-

I couldn’t outrun the horses, and I didn’t try. Just running as fast as I could sustain across the grass, I reached the camp a bit after the pair of unnatural horse-like entities. The warmth of the Red’s magic was a welcome balm after the ice and bloodshed of fighting.

I pulled up a nice section of flowers out of the way to sit down in, and let the fuss of people with actual work to do go on past.

Normally I get bored inside of five minutes sitting down, but I was tired enough today that the gentle murmur of wind rustling the grass was enough to keep me content, without even the effort to listen properly.

The paladin was the first one to sit down next to me, and while she didn’t say anything I was able to feel that hot-chocolate-and-nostalgia feeling of light magic washing away the headache.

And then she stopped channeling magic and said in a quiet tone so as not to carry too far, “You should get a few days of leave to let the magic settle. Healing-overload would not interact well with your mild case of unsettled-soul. I won’t pry, but if you want me to lean on command for you, I will.”

“Please.”

With a softly spoken, “Of course,” she stood, and left my field of view.

John turned up a few minutes after the paladin left, thumping down onto the grass with an exhausted sigh. “Today has been just such … it’s been an absolute day.”

“It’s been a damn long month, yeah.”

A forced chuckle, “How many decades do you think we fit into the last year.”

I hmmed. “Two, five, or twenty four depending on how we count it.”

He sat up slightly to lean over and look at me, “Twenty four, really?”

I shrugged. “It makes sense when I count it.” How old am I? It should really be a simpler question than it is.

“Oh right, you ageless folks toss around decades like candy.”
Oh right, he’d said decades in our last year, not years. Oops. “Who are you calling old, you young whippersnapper.” In the most teasing tone I could manage, “Get off my lawn, darn kids.”

My reward was a chuckle. It sounded sweet. We teased each other, getting more and more ridiculous about that imaginary age gap, made all the more teasing by the fact that we both knew that I wasn’t actually some immortal space-goat. That I was about the same age as my boyfriend, (or a lot younger if you only counted years lived in this world, which I didn’t).

-

It was interesting to watch the waves of violet ripple across the sky, as wards went up, and I had sufficiently lost all sense of time today, that it took a northrend sunset for me to realize we’d missed dinner by about three hours.

This would not have gotten me up, but John grumbled, and stood back up. “We should check that there's a night shift, since everything’s been absolutely topsy turvy today.”

“Don’t worry, there's a night shift organized - and it’s a good thing neither of you two are on it, since I wasn’t exactly being subtle.” Lily was sounding a lot better, and when I looked over at the death knight who had snuck up on us, I found myself reminded of some of the costumes I had seen of Frankenstein's Monster, with the stitches holding together the gash across her throat. She caught my questioning glance, “I gated to Acherus once the magi thought they had it under control here, and that they had their emergency plans together. I’ll not have the opportunity once the portal wards are rebuilt, and better to bug a necro-surgeon than push the Light’s tolerance too much. Or push my tolerance for the light too much.” She shrugged. “Not sure which one’s the limiting factor. Might not matter which it is. Eh. Also fixed up my new runeblade while I was there.”

“Uh … possibly rude question, but do your injuries heal naturally, or are you going to be stuck with twine holding you together for the rest of time?”

She chuckled, “Nope, and nope. Or maybe, ‘define natural’.”

She probably would have continued with a semi-serious explanation but I was too tired to be patient. “Healing magic? You’ll get better, but you have to cheat.”

“Pretty much, yeah. One of the perks of being undead though, is that you can cheat like nobody's business. There's a lot of downsides, but I’ve got to say, I like being able to mostly ignore little things like blood loss and hypothermia”

I gave a small huff of laughter, “Well yeah - you’re already flagrantly cheating death - it’s not like the biology police are going to get you for something small like not having blood.”

In between cackles, John managed to ask “Biology police? Seriously Poly?”

Why didn’t I think of that nickname? It’s easier than trying to remember how many ‘O’s go in my fake name. “And yeah - the real cosmic laws are mostly the physics department - do not get caught breaking the universal speed limit of c, enforcement on that is nasty, but biology is right pain to try to keep track of all the minutia, like having the right amount of junk air when breathing to avoid oxygen poisoning - what kind of engineer designed these terrible systems, honestly.”

“I hear you three are having fun.” The word choice had me expecting disapproval, but when I looked up, I could see the smile sneaking across our paladin’s face. “Dropping by to tell you - You’ve got the week off, starting tomorrow, enjoy it. If you’ve got anything you need in Dalaran, there's going to be an outgoing portal mid-morning.”

Lily sat up sharply. “Is there a team incoming to replace us? Or are the kirin-tor trusting the new wards that much?”

The smile had vanished in favor of a guarded expression. “They do. I don’t, which is why I shook down my contacts for loose adventures. I hope none of you have problems with the horde, since Freewoods is bringing his team, and Dayshield said she could make it.”

None of us did, at least in the abstract, but as we went back to our conversations, I found myself puzzling over the name Dayshield trying to figure out where on Azeroth I knew it from. Was it one of my blood elf ocs? Not L’aurora, her family name was something different right? And Lily would have reacted if that was a fellow death knight she’d know well-ish.

-

The blues apparently made a poke at our wards around dawn, but judging by the fact that I got to sleep in until late, they didn’t bring the wards down this time. Lady Evanor was still sleeping, having apparently been too stressed to get to sleep until after midnight, but one of the other mages had a bundle of notes ready to be brought with us to Dalaran to hopefully prevent repeats of the ward breach we’d had … yesterday. That was yesterday morning, but it feels like a week ago.

Freewoods turned out to be a tauren warrior, and an imposing sight looming in dark armor, for all of about three minutes, before the gentle chiding that he used to corral the rest of his team ruined the image.

While both groups had agreed to play nice, them turning up was our cue to leave for the day.

We got bundled through the portal, and I wanted to geek out. I wanted to revel in seeing the mage city for the first time, but as I looked up at the skyline all I felt was boredom. They were pretty, in purple and cream, and the delicate spires against the background of the sky might have been interesting once, but it was a while since the last time I cared about how to build.

Nothing was actively trying to kill me, and I didn’t have anyone needing to be saved, and I just didn’t have the energy today to care about any of the rest of it. Unfortunately, once we had finished our quick courier job, other people did have the energy spare to pay attention to me. “So, I know this is a day off, but this is also likely to be our last stop in town for a while. John, I’m trusting you to know what’s good in terms of mage equipment these days - and this is literally the mage capital city, so you should have no trouble doing your shopping.”

“Got it, but meeting space, where, when?”

“Good point - our first step should probably be getting lodgings sorted out, give us a place to meet back up…”

The paladin medic looked over the crowd with a thoughtful eye. “Legerdemain Lounge is probably already fully booked, and I’ve heard the Hero’s Welcome might be decent, but since it’s picking up all the slack …”

“Is there an alternative?”

She shrugged. “Well, there is my place.” A deliberate lightness to her tone “If you want. No pressure.” She began to walk away, but looked back at us as she did so.

John snickered, “Smooth.” We fell in line behind the paladin, and allowed her to lead us, “But also, how on Azeroth do you have a place here already?”

A teasing smile, “It helps, being a Dalaran citizen,” and then she shrugged, “But also, it’s a guild-house.”

I almost crashed into John as he stopped in shock. “What’s a guild paladin doing getting shunted between teams, and slumming it with us? Is this one of those ‘basically just a mailing list’ mega-guilds that never has any time for their members? Mercenary contracts getting sold off to the highest bidder?”

“That. That has nothing to do with my guild. It’s not their fault…”

“‘Fault’ eh? And whose fault would it be?” it was said somewhat teasingly, a poke at poor word choice, but there was a serious core to it.

Rather than answer John’s question, she turned her back to us, and began to slowly walk away. “I’m going home. You are still welcome to follow me, but I’m not going to demand you trust me that far.”

We all unfroze and scrambled to keep up. John offered a “Sorry”, before continuing without actually dropping the subject, “but you gotta admit that it looks a bit weird right?”

“As I said, you don’t have to trust me.” This was accompanied by an exaggerated shrug that let even me notice the tension in her shoulder as she walked ahead of us.

“ …” as I started to address the paladin, I found myself awkwardly blanking on her first name, and had to reboot my sentence to avoid needing her name, “Look, you escalating on the defensiveness that hard, has set off alarms that there might be something wrong, but we also should stop poking at what is clearly a sore spot.” I gave the other two as firm a ‘back off’ look as I could manage, and then turned my attention back to the paladin. “You don’t owe us your answers.”

I caught her faint wince at that, but none of us poked at it - we knew there was a secret, and I was the last person in the city to shame someone else for choosing not to share all their personal details. At least, not without being a raging hypocrite. I decided that it bore repeating, if that was a flinch of guilt for secret keeping. “You don’t owe us answers. You are allowed to have secrets, even as a paladin.”

A long moment of silence, before a quiet, “Thank you,” was offered as the end to a conversation that the paladin clearly didn’t want to have.

-

It didn’t take too much walking to reach the guild hall, since while it was an actual city, far bigger than in game, Dalaran was still also a small enough city to fit on a single floating disk of rock. It was definitely not the kind of sprawling metropolis one saw back in first-world 20th century earth.

So, none of my two hour hikes across town sort of thing. And the guild hall wasn’t exactly on the farthest point of the city for stretching out walk times, though it was still in the outer ring, rather than in the main central business district area. Maybe a half hour’s walk?

Our paladin didn’t have to point out our destination as we came into sight of it - it was made clear by another paladin, clad in a full version of the same tier set as our paladin, sitting on the steps by the door, who flung down a stack of papers and stood upon our appearance. With arms crossed she glared at our paladin guide, who slowed to a stop.

The two had a bit of staring contest, before the other paladin decided to be the one to talk. “So.” A pause, and then in a deceptively calm voice she said, “Val.” and at that I had to resist the urge to startle. Because that was a name I recognized alright, and if the guild name was any variation on Valhal I was going to have to have a pointed conversation with the heavens about fate (or at least, talk it out with the wind). Thankfully my internal freakout didn’t interrupt the actual conversation, as that was quickly followed with “Little sis. I just got the strangest collection of letters. Do you want to guess what they said?”

“Not particularly, no.”

“That’s fine. I’ll go through them. First there was the message from Voranaku,” And here her voice finally dipped into openly upset instead of vaguely painted over, “Apparently you decided to run off while he was still on bedrest from the last mission. A mission that you were also on, and should have taken a rest-recovery week for. And for bonus points, I finally found out where you’d run off to from a Horde adventurer, instead of you owning up to your complete lack of common sense.” The other paladin tapped her fingers against her bracers as she talked, a staccato pitter-patter that continued into the silence as she waited for a response from ‘Val’. But her impatience proved stronger than her resolve to stare down her sister, and she added on icily, “Exactly how close are you to a mana potion overdose by now?”

And that gave our paladin the fuel to finally answer, “Want to find out?” she smirked, raising a hand in manner that suggested spellcasting intent. “I could speed run the detox -”

The older paladin blanched, “Don’t you dare!”

Our knight Spellinger continued as if she hadn’t heard the interruption, “- just a simple cast of cleanse.”with the word, there was a flare of magic, and she staggered forward.

“You didn’t.” The other paladin hissed, grabbing her sister to stop her from face planting onto the pavement.

There was a moment when I couldn't tell what shape the paladin was in, whether she was conscious enough to stand without being held by her sister, but Val quickly recovered enough to get back to standing unsupported. “‘M fine. Ish. Might have misjudged just how much that was going to hurt.” With one hand she shaded her eyes, shielded her face from the light of her glowing helmet. “Would like to get inside and sit down though.”

“Light dammit Val. Did you really just pull that just to get out of a lecture?” But though her voice was angry, it was also quiet enough not to set off a headache, and the older sister patiently helped her to one of the couches in the living room.

“Worked dinnint?”

With a groan of frustration, the other paladin slumped onto the couch beside Val. “You are such a brat.”

Lily glanced at something outside, and ducked back outside the door frame, but was back with a stack of paper in her hands, and then set down on a table, before either of the paladins noticed us again. Or rather, it was the sound of the papers being set down that reminded the older sister of our presence.

“So, you three - I’d ask Val to handle the introductions, but I doubt she's up for saying that much…”

Her voice was muffled by the couch pillow she was using to block out the bright lights, but Val’s reply was audible. “Group from Amber Ledge. Caster is John, a fire mage. Shaman -” and She had to drop the pillow as she bent over coughing.“‘M fine, anyway the odd draenei is a shaman - flexible range, lot stronger than she looks.” She made eye contact with me, to address the next bit clearly, and I could see that she was having trouble focusing her gaze. “Didn’t get your name, only your nickname.”

I shrugged. “Turnabout is fair play - I still don’t know your first name either, Spellsinger.” I turned to address the new paladin. “Epolmono, but feel free to shorten it, John’s taken to calling me ‘Poly’”

‘Val’ answered my implicit question, “Valerie.” A waved hand indicating the person next to her on the couch, who proceeded to pick up her own introduction.

“Alexandra, prot paladin, assault coordinator, and unfortunate older sister.”

John squawked, before recovering enough composure to only gawk a little. I figured this was a good enough reason to ask, “Context please?”

“I’m a major player in deciding who gets called in for the grand assaults.” She shrugged. “But I try to leave the titles at the door to the guildhall - just be one of the fools getting patched up on Val’s couch, rather than the person having to choose which of Azeroth’s finest mercenaries errant get sent to do the impossible.” She brought a hand to the bridge of her nose and took a calming breath. “I’d say that was too bleak - and then I remember fighting a fallen Narru and Kil'Jaeden in rapid succession. That shouldn’t have been possible.” She jumped tone as she jumped topics, dragging the conversation back away from her stress, “Anyway there’s still a death knight in the room we haven’t yet introduced?”

I bit back a snicker at the ‘elephant in the room’ that no one here would get and was saved by Lily introducing herself, “Lily, unfortunate older sibling myself,” and a carefree hair ruffle of John marked who the younger sibling was, much to his annoyance, “and fellow tank. I can’t say I’m particularly important to the ebon blade though.”

“... Val brought home a tank. A death knight tank.”

Lily adopted an edged sort of teasing, and I could hear the echo of the spite that would have driven her in a different timeline. “Got a problem with your sister bringing home a death knight? Afraid of getting displaced by her teenage rebellion? Scared that she’ll come run missions with me instead of you? Get corrupted by exposure to my terrible influence.” This was all said with a smile, but she was also leaning forward as if ready to pounce on the paladin’s magic-ism.

Alex drew out a teasing, “Welll,” accompanied by an exaggerated examination of our tank, “You are dark and spooky enough to be her type. I remember her obsessing over -”

“ALEX!”

Hands up in a teasing gesture of surrender, Alex dropped that line of teasing, “But no, just honest surprise … but I suppose it’s fitting that she finally found a tank she likes, and it’s one that’s allergic to her magic. Val, what is your luck?”

An angry grumble. “If you figure that out, I would love to stab the fucker that cursed me.”

And though everyone else had calmed from Lily’s earlier tension, we were sitting around joking, and relaxing, ice had settled in my stomach. Guilt gnawed. Because it might just be a stretch, just my catastrophizing, but it seemed like ‘Val’ might be ‘Valfreya’ in the same way Lily was ‘Lilystar’; in which case, I was the bastard responsible for her cursed luck. For not just incorporating Lfg into my personal lore, but exaggerating it, until she was all too often the only survivor of missions turned disasters, finding every single idiot tank to be partnered with.

Is every writer haunted by the prospect of their characters trying to take revenge on their cruel god? Or is that just me?

Thankfully, the conversation kept rolling, the two tanks holding attention even when they weren’t particularly trying to, and stopping my momentary freeze from being noticed.

Lily chuckled, “Yeah, it is kinda amusing that I got matched with a paladin healer given that, but it’s been something of a rolling disaster down at amber point.”

“Do tell- Val hates gossiping about her missions, and if she brought you back with her, it’s probably been the fun kind of disaster, rather than the nasty kind.” Alex leaned forward, an expectant listener ready to pull out the metaphorical popcorn.

John shivered, and I wrapped a comforting arm around his shoulders - because apparently that worked on people who aren’t me.

Lily settled in to start storytelling, but then sent us a glance to check that we were okay- I waved her to go back to tanking the conversation and she complied. “I wouldn’t call it a fun disaster - and trust me I know my fun disasters of a fight - taking back Acherus after Light’s Hope was one hell of a fight - a bad misstep, and it would’ve been easy to fall out of the necropolis, plus everyone knew everyone else’s fighting styles - that had been a glorious disaster. What’s been going at amber point has been less fun, and more exhausting. There’s the emotional barrage the dragons keep throwing at us, starting with the infiltrator on the boat, and the attempted swordpoint recruitment, and the repeated hostage situations that keep getting thrown at us … ugh. And then there was the battle just after your sister turned up - the darn blue dragon tanking me instead of the other way around - and that could have been a fun fight - if could have just focused on fighting Hythagos, and not had to panic at all of the minions he brought attacking the mages.”

“What about the fact that we’d all been clumped in one area to meet the new arrival, and the pair of strafing runs - I dodged the first, and still was barely conscious.” I couldn’t let the summary pass without bringing that up - because it was real, because it hurt, because forgetting that killing cold … “None of the other team survived, did they?” The problem with addressing what happened was that involved actually addressing what happened. And the fact that part of me wants that answer to be ‘yes’.

“Their mage survived the entire fight, though got his arm cut off in the fighting. He was sent home to learn one-handed casting. Or find a way to engineer up a new arm. … But yes, that pair of ice barrages were devastating - it was lucky that most of the kirin-tor people weren’t clustered with us when the fight began.”

First, relief: those assholes were gone and I’d never have to deal with them again. Second: disgust with myself for being glad that nominal allies were dead. That anyone was dead. There was no third wave, no feigned mourning, or amusement, just the acknowledgment that this was so, and that I only cared about what it said about me, not their fates.

I let that, too, fade.

The conversation continued until it was broken by the annoyed voice of our paladin saying, “I’m heading to my room- you lot are too loud with my headache right now. Feel free to pick rooms. If you’ve got questions ask my sister, and none of the crew currently in the city cook worth a damn, so find a shop in town you like the smell of. Alex sort out keys, or letting them back in tonight - you know where I stashed the box. And if you three have questions, bug Alex.” It took her two tries to properly shove off the couch and stand up, but Val had no problem once free of the very soft grapple, in walking across the room to the corridor connecting the dorms, and took the energy to chat with her, despite having been sitting out of most of the conversation.

Even though we were on leave, it was still time to get back to work.

Chapter Text

I let Lily lead me through getting armor, but well … I made her lead me. Her energy was boundless, and mine had run out about a day ago. There was plenty said, and I just couldn’t focus enough to listen even though it was my armor being shopped for.

The good news was that I didn’t have to deal with getting fitted for the armor, and the delay on getting a custom piece made, since the shop clerks had a few mostly magic armor pieces that could work even on a terrible fit and while a broken draenei is notably different from a normal draenei (see: back tentacles), that only hit my chest piece, and everything else could be done in draenei standard without exceeding the flexibility of tightening straps and minor size change enchantments. The bad news was the chest piece that accommodated my unusual mortal form was literally a chainmail bikini.

Extra bonus points - I still had to put up with a fitting anyway, since the under-leather layer of the armor couldn’t be magic because of reasons.
I didn’t snap at anyone, didn’t try to break the hands that had to touch my back as they brought the measuring tape around, didn’t even growl. And I only flinched twice, once at the first touch on the sensitive tendrils, and the second a worse startling at the faint half-touch of them trying to be careful and only managing to add the feeling of being hunted to my ‘ew people’ response.
The follow up of both of us apologizing at each other was almost amusing though, especially since no one had gotten hurt.

… I was having a bad day, started doing something that was going to stress me out, gotten startled, and no one was bleeding. I hadn’t even snapped and said anything cruel. What the heck?

We paid for the armor while I was busy pondering that mystery. The armor was a touch expensive, but the kirin-tor had given us our pay for our stint at amber point, and with a little bit of my savings from Outland thrown in, I got to walk out with good (enough) gear.

“So, that’s that done. Got anything else you want to do in town today?”

I shrugged.

Lily looked thoughtful. “Well, you were practicing inscription before the mess of last week - we could go play around with that a bit more back at Val’s guild hall.”

I shook my head. “No creativity left today. No energy … Not up to doing much beyond reading.”

“Well, this is the mage city - if they don’t have a public library I’ll eat my hat.”

“... public libraries are a thing on Azeroth? Well, I know where my afternoon is going now. Find me if something happens, bye.”

-

John and Lily came looking for me, some three hours later, to make sure I ate supper. They found me crying over a novel, of friendship and betrayal, and the choice in the end to reach out one more time, even though the protagonist didn’t believe that there would be anyone reaching back and …

And some days, one just needs to cry over a decent-ish story, you know? Or at least, some days I needed that, needed that ability to feel. Cry with the angst, safe in the knowledge that this was fiction, and that at the end there would be a happy ending, or at least, an ending, and I could set the book down.

-

As promised, there was someone awake at the guildhall to let us back in after supper. He , however, wasn’t anyone we had met yet - a light skinned elf. Upon making eye contact though, it was clear that this was a high-elf … or a dragon. The violet hair was making me think dragon though, since from recollection blelf hair tended to be either human colors, or redshifted. And if this was a dragon, with violet hair … I’d ask questions before jumping to stabbing, but I’d shifted into a wary stance.

“Netherwing, not black flight.” This was said calmly, and without hesitation, in response to my twitch towards combat stance. And, taking a third impression, I noticed the yellowing bruises, and the bandages snaking up his arms. Signs of a fight past, but also signs that someone had cared enough to do something about it. I gave an apologetic half smile, “Sorry - I’ve still got some twitchy reflexes.”

“You didn’t actually try to stab me - I’ve dealt with twitchy adventurers before. It’s fine.” A very deliberate smile was offered, before his expression settled back into a not quite right human mask. “Voranaku, part time flying mount, and mildly adequate combatant. Valerie is helping me get better at the latter, but…” a shrug. “I’m still more useful right now in the air than in a grounded fight. And I presume you are Lily, John, and Epolmono?”

We confirmed our identities, and he let us in.

-

I could barely sleep that night, in a soft bed, in a safe sound building, as if none of the war had happened, as if my dramatic declaration that I was only getting started had meant nothing. I made the mistake of thinking that last part too loudly while tossing and turning out of bed.

My fire spirit tapped my nose. ‘It meant everything. Silly.’ She manifested enough that I could see her pointedly making eye contact. ‘Words have power, speaker. Especially when you mean them.’ And I did mean them. Didn’t I? (Shut up old gods.)

“I know that. It just feels wrong to be resting like this, while the war is still going by.”

‘We don’t go out, just because you aren’t devouring everything - perk of being dragonfire. Can gather fuel in the quiet hours, in the moments of peace. Can rest, if we want to. Turn up when it matters with mana to burn.’ She tapped one of the many sore spots still maring my back. ‘Mend first. Then war.’ A wisp of laughter tinged smoke. ‘There’ll still be plenty of war left for us.’

“Ugh yes, this is Azeroth, war is never in short supply here.”

-

Fire poked me again, the next morning. ‘Remember to mend, Speaker - not just the last wounds. Hoard happiness, to kindle resolve. Maybe bake? Have time today.’ And I found myself snickering at Fire’s expression, which got mirrored laughs from Fire laughing at my laughter.

Sugar turned out to be surprisingly expensive, almost more expensive than the baking chocolate, but Dalaran had both available, and brownies were one of the only baking recipes I felt comfortable had enough slack to work from memory with only a ‘generic oven temperature’ to work with, rather than the precise temperatures listed in a recipe.

They ended up being overly gooey in the middle, overly crisp on the edges, and a duller flavor profile than my better brownies. I also managed to summon everyone hanging around the guild hall to come ask if they could have a square or three.

My air spirit also seemed more active than usual, gusts wafting away some of the scent for its amusement despite us being indoors. ‘Burnt offerings for the spirits, speaker. You should know this.’

My grumpy rebuttal of, ‘I did not burn the brownies that much,’ was met with amused chuckling.

-

John returned to the guild-hall late in the afternoon, nose buried in a book. The smell of brownies got his attention fairly quickly though . “Your work?”

“Yep. Want a chunk?” He nodded, and I cut a cube from the tray. “It might not have been the best use of my day but …”

He took the offered plate, and used that moment to trap my gaze. “If it made you happy, It was the best use of your day.”

“You can’t just say things like that, John. It’s ridiculous and sappy-”

“What I’m hearing is that I need to be even more sappy, my love. Keep escalating my affection until you accept that it’s a native consequence of dating me.”

I bent over laughing, resting an elbow on the counter top, and my face in my hands.

“Not quite the effect I was going for, but I’ll take it.” I couldn’t see his expression, but I could hear the smirk in his voice, “to be blessed with the sound of your laughter, oh glorious muse.”

I wheezed out words between laughs, “ow, my ribs. Can’t stop giggling.”

“Well I could try kissing you silent, if you need the respite.”

Inhale, laugh too hard to speak, Inhale again, “You’re welcome - ha- to try. Kissing never did much for me.”

And rather than actually make good on his threat, or escalate to another teasing line, there was just silence, before softly, “Do you not want …?”

And yes, kissing was boring for me, most of the time, and as my previous boyfriend would attest, I was really fucking lazy when it came to fucking. (Semi-hemi-demi sexual. Because demi-sexual meant something different than ‘partialy ace’, on most of definitions I’d seen.) And both of those things could be true, and I could still, once I had my breath back from my laughter, stand up and put the effort in to kiss some sense into my idiot boyfriend.

It clearly worked for him a lot better than kisses ever worked on me. The dazed look on his face, as we broke apart for air, the way he went to say something only to end up with inarticulate mumbles.

“Good?”

He was still on the mental loading screen for a few moments, but once he’d managed to get the processing power back together, there was enthusiastic nodding.

“Good. Don’t get too used to the kisses, because I don’t care about them, But I’m willing to put an effort in to give you the physical affection you need out of this relationship.” A thought struck me, about normal couples and kissing, and the months we’d spent in Theramore. “Just checking, but you weren’t stoically suffering in silence or some such during early spring - not saying anything about what you wanted out of the relationship because I wasn’t pushing it along? Because let me tell you - you’re going to be having to carry the physical aspect of this relationship, I’m far too easily distracted from sex in favour of more interesting things like punning with you.”

I’d not left adequate pauses for him to answer, too caught up in the line of my monologue, and my punishment was losing the answer to the first question to his blush and sputtering at the second half of that ramble.

Hiding a red face behind his hands, he managed to get coherent words on the second try, “-u can’t; you can’t just say things like that.”

“Why not?”

In the long suffering tone of the mage that enjoyed far too much my verbal bullying he groaned, “Omenia -”

Both of us froze, at the significance of that mistake. The good humor was snuffed out faster than a candle. “Shit.”

I chose a more proactive response than swearing at the action - ‘Air, is anyone listening?’

The breeze that yanked my bangs around showed clear irritation at my sharp demand, but offered a soothing, ‘No, you two are alone, speaker.’

“We’re clear. No accidental eavesdroppers, as far my air spirit can tell.” ‘Warn me if that changes.’ Before the wind could reprimand me for that, I amended, ‘Please,’ to the end of that projected request.

A ragged inhale, the relief and lingering tension blurring together in his voice, “I’m sorry, Light, I’m sorry.” He brought one hand to absently yank at his brown hair, “I can’t believe I fucked that up like that …”

I brought my own hand to rest comfortingly on his shoulder, and focus his attention to something other than the doom spiral. “It’s okay - we’re alone, in a quiet space, and I am perfectly capable of pulling a runner before rebranding again, if need be. It’s fine.”

A sharp bark of laughter, “You would, wouldn’t you. What race next?”

“I’d say Blelf, but I need more chances to study how they look. Still I’d be a pretty elf, don’t you think?”

“You’d be the prettiest elf … but you do realize there are no elvish shamans right?”

I shrugged. “Then human probably, or changing the name on Photine, and hoping the Alliance has forgotten about that one by now. This Broken form is stretching my shapeshifting about as far as I can push my sense of self.” And that settled like a weight on my shoulders. “My next rebrand would have to be a civilian, or jump class. So, three strikes, and I’ll be out.”

“I’m sorry again-”

I cut him off, “and I forgive you, again. John, relax. Yes it was a mistake, and yes it would have been a bad one, but nothing happened this time. And we could have talked our way out of a mistaken name probably.”

“Frankly, I’d not bet against it, given that you’ve already managed to bullshit your way out of actually claiming to be a black dragon once. I still can’t believe that worked.”

“Exactly, and in conclusion - we don’t use my true name without first establishing a privacy bubble, which the kitchen is not; and also, I’d like it if you’d be a bit more forward about what you want, and save me from having to put in effort to figure it out.”

An amused huff, “Well, that’s better phrasing than last time. … And I did have a couple other reasons not to ask back in Theramore - one, the possibility of my parents or younger sister walking in on us. Two, the outrageous but apparently true claims that I hadn’t been able to verify back then.”

“Ah. Yes, I can see why that might have put a damper on our relationship.”

“Just a tad.”

“So… Do you want to go back to our room, and try a thing, or should I go back to practicing my line-work?”

-

We had not, by the end of the week, pushed far enough to have either of us wincing around healing injuries - at least not beyond the normal winces that came with things like ‘sitting up wrong’. Of course, given the degree to which magic could speed up a recovery, even with us being careful to let the healing magic wear off and prevent build up, I was about healed by the end of the week. Not that we were close to pushing that limit, even ignoring the sped up healing.

I had plenty of time to advance my inscription during our break week.

Both Lily and I had new glyph designs to show for our week’s practice. She’d gotten the finishing touches done on a ‘glyph of scourge imprisonment’ which apparently would help a priest to shackle (scourge) undead, taking advantage of Lily’s insider knowledge on the scourge, and the fact that she as the glyph-maker could imbue a touch of her authority into the glyph to make it harder for the scourge to resist.

I made an iteration of my little ‘glyph of the dragon’ that felt like it would work, and we moved onto testing ink-imbues. We wouldn’t, and couldn’t, do the last test - transferring a glyph onto the skin of an actual druid, and seeing if it worked. However, moonglow, hunter’s, and the new snowfall ink all gave me positive responses.

With that project done, (as much as it could be), I doodled a bunch of sketches. It wasn’t until Lily decided that I should come watch her spars as a training exercise, that I stumbled into a spell I thought I might be able to draw a glyph for. Specifically, one of the spells she wasn’t using in her spars.

Death Grip. Combined with a relatively generic effect, speeding up recharge.

Getting her to demonstrate the grabbing hands repeatedly until I got a feel for the shape was interesting. And nearly broke my ankle on a bad landing, for one the times it was me getting dragged around.

My first inclination was that it should be drawn something like smoke, dark and roiling curves snaking across the battlefield, but the actual spell was all sharp lines, reminiscent of the shape of shaman lighting.

I wasted a sheet trying to replicate it, before realizing that my idea for the glyph needed me to maintain some of the curves, needed that flow. It took another before I figured out how to create an ouroboros-like shape in sharp jagged lines, with sharp claws dragging out of the roiling smoke surrounding the cyclic core of the glyph.

It was a simple, straightforward intent of a combat glyph - one that would help gather energy for the spell to make casting it easier. The actual linework was a nightmare. Still I got it done, and got to the testing different inks step of the process. The right one ended up being close to the last ink we tried, but shimmering ink (made from Outland herbs) ended up being the ink that actually worked.

For a given definition of ‘worked’. Every time Lily hit something, the glyph built charge, but it discharged really fast, so unless the amount of charge built scaled with injury severity, all I’d managed to make was an ominous looking temporary tattoo.

John might not have been doing inscription, but the afternoon before we were scheduled to return to duty, he had something cool to show off - shoving open the door to the common room with a “Poly, Lily, I got it working!”

The ‘it’ was being trailed behind him, floating around waist high, a roll of mildly embroidered fabric. I raised an eyebrow, and with joking sarcasm asked, “So, how do you balance on that floating log?”

“It unfurls - I’ve just got it like this to fit better in doors.” He went for the door, “So let’s go see this thing unfurled outside - It’s going to be great having my own pocket mount.”

I got Air to scan for listeners, and when that came back clean, said, “Aw, have I been replaced by a better flying mount?”

John startled before pointing an annoyed finger at me - “Stop that. If I don’t get to joke about you being a dragon because of the risk of being overheard, you don’t get to cheat and get me in the habit of laughing about it.” And then with a teasing smirk, “Besides, it is an upgrade - a chance to flex, and none of the hassle of convincing you to do exercise needed to go for a flight.”

“Rude. Valid. But still rude.” I felt my lips twitching into a smile despite the tone of my words. “So, want to give that carpet a test run? Prove that it’s worthy of replacing me-”

‘Speaker!’ Air grabbed my attention, cutting off my sentence. ‘The paladin is approaching.’

Lily noticed my abrupt stop in the flow of speech. “Everything alright?”

“It’s fine - Val’s almost back.”

“Ah.” Both of them caught the second message there, and a pall fell over the conversation, as they got too distracted by imposing censorship of my secret and not enough on acting natural.

I made an attempt to fix that. “So, is this a two seater, or am I still going to be stuck running in ghost-wolf?”

“Well …” John drew that out, with exaggerated calculation, “The design specs only rate it for one person, but … it’s rated for one bull tauren, and both of us are lighter than that. Want to give it a try - I can cast slow-fall if it fails…”

“Never mind, I’m still afraid of heights, remember?”

A smile, and a joking wave of dismissal. “Pshaw, minor details. But I suppose I’ll just go for a flight by -”

John’s sentence was cut off by the door getting opened with prejudice. Val looked us over, the defensive line of her shoulders softening, “You three are all here - good.” She took a breath, and the tension re-settled on her like a cloak “Rohin’s tasked me with getting a group together fast, and without causing much alarm. Are you in, or do I need to shake down my other contacts?”

Lily grabbed a bag from beside the door, and nodded. “I’m in.”

John looked back and forth between the paladin and his flying carpet - “Let me go put this away, and get my combat gear on - it won’t be that long…” At the lack of refusal, he ducked out of the common room, and back to the room we’d claimed.

I should have been grabbing my own armor, but instead just stood there blankly. “What’s going on?”

“Violet hold has been breached - the blues were waiting for the brief gap during the ward-replacement. So far it’s contained, but the current team can’t hold the line, and re-ward at the same time.” She then noticed what I was, or rather wasn’t, wearing, “Go - put your armor on if you’re going to be part of this.”

That was enough of a prompt to go retrieve the armor we’d bought. I nodded, and followed John back to our room.

---

Chapter Text

We did not, in point of fact, draw attention by power-walking through town in armor - at least no more than the intrinsic ‘ooh shiny’ reaction to Val’s armour, the curious looks at a ‘blelf’ traveling with an alliance group, and the flinches at our deathknight’s presence. A group of five adventurers, moving with purpose through town in armor - one party among dozens doing the same thing.

We got stopped, trying to enter the courtyard in front of the violet hold. Not because we were suspicious characters, the guards were quick to assure us, “Just protocol Ma’am, We’re supposed to keep the area around the Hold clear during every ward tune-up, it’s nothing to worry about, and with any luck the process will be done few hours so you can go about you business in the area again.”

“Knight Spellsinger.” Val showed her Id, “Lieutenant Sinclair is expecting us.”

“Ah of course of course,” And the guard got out of the way to let us pass, saying in a whisper directed to us, “Best of luck, and light be with you. It sounds like you’ll need it.”

-

Once we were actually solidly in the courtyard area, it was clear that more was going on than the cover story was slanting towards, based on the medical cots tucked out of sight of the outside city, and occasional flash of violet light spilling out from the doors to the hold. Getting closer the sounds of combat joined the visual clues, grunts of bracing shields or defensive spells, and a roar of pain and rage. Followed by a thud, and a whimper from a distinctly different voice.

One of the two casters by the cots noticed our approach and called out, “Reinforcements are here!”

“‘Bout damn time. We can’t hold much longer -” A crash of spellfire, and a curse, and the speaker cut off for a moment. She continued, as we got close enough to match the voice to one of the magi firing spells from the back of the semi-phalanx holding the door. “Die you stupid dragon!”

The dragonkin roared back, ”Same to you, bitch!”

Lily stepped forward, just enough to get her spear angled over the shields of the guards at the front, and quick as a striking snake struck at the dragon-kin. Our ‘elf’ looked at Val, and at her nod, shifted into his true form to jump over the line and pick off another dragonkin from the current wave - since I was assuming that there would be more dragonkin coming to reinforce the eight (now only six) dragonkin threatening the hold.

As if on cue, another portal waved into existence, to the swearing of the kirin-tor beside us. I decided to let my allies take of the current targets, and in the back with the casters, began gathering as much of a storm as I could hold between my hands, static trailing with every combing of the air between my fingers.

Blue forms shimmered, emerging from the portal, and my chain-lighting carved a line of blinding light, and blackened charred scales. The first dragonkin through the portal never even got a chance to scream. The second dragonkin was screaming for both of them, as she crumpled to the ground. The third fell back through the portal, carrying part of my lighting with them. There’ll be more coming, but being able to take out a group of foes with a single chain lightning is satisfying. Disturbing, but satisfying.

The mage commander clearly shared my opinion that was not the end of them, saying “Well, that might buy us a few minutes. If you five are ready, we’ll pull out and hope you can hold long enough for us to rebuild the wards.”

We nodded, and Lily, who had the remaining three dragonkin under control, gave the word, “We’re ready, go.”

“Best of luck then. I hope to see you again.” And with one last look, the Kirin tor contingent retreated. The doors thudded shut behind them with a horrible finality.

I began to overcharge a chain lightning for the next wave, as the last few dragonkin standing were finished off by the death knight, with a little help from Voranaku. As the sparks swirled around my fingers, I heard Air warn me, ‘You cannot keep casting like this speaker.’

‘Am I asking too much?’

‘You are asking too much of yourself, speaker. Your power is finite, and this is harder for you to cheat. Another few like this, and your magic will be spent.’

Earth, at my feet, joined the conversation. ‘Do not forget your strength.’

And that might be in some ways a metaphoric statement, reminding me to use my advantages, but it was also an entirely literal reminder of the fact that actually, I am physically stronger than I have any right to be.

Still I had this spell ready, and I was going to clear one last portal with it before switching down to melee.

Another portal opened, and my power flashed across the space. And came cracking back. I was on the ground, before I had a chance to register what had happened.

My hand twitched without my control, and I could taste blood on my tongue. Blood from my tongue on my tongue. To complete how awful I was feeling, I got a mildly condescending comment of ‘Ignorance of your enemy and of yourself will invariably lead to defeat,’ out of my old god whispers.

Lily’s voice, recognizable even through the fog. “They've got spell reflect! Watch your spells.”

One of the biped dragon-kin loomed over our death knight, and swung as he spoke. “Good advice mortal. Here’s another piece - watch your footing.”

A thud, the angry grunt of deathknight, and a growled, “Get back in melee range!” That was probably accompanied by a death grip to enforce the order, but I couldn’t look up to check, too busy choking on where I’d apparently bitten my tongue after zapping myself with reflected lightning.

Val’s drake called out, “The raider appears to be the only one with spell reflect.”

“One, you absolute lunatic - blasting all of them at full force is not how you test that, and two, which one of them is the ‘Raider’ - they're all raiding us aren’t they?” A grunt, and the sound of spells rippling against a mage barrier, “And three, Spellsinger, what’s Poly’s condition?”

I’d managed to get my airways clear, and with blood dripping out my mouth and onto the floor of the hold, I heaved enough breath to say, “I second that question.” Another spasm, but the elbow prying my face off the floor held.

Our healer was terse, and I could feel the shape of her healing by the breaks each word spoken produced, “Fixing the fried nerves-” and the word she had actually said was lightning-shadow, but auto translation continued to be helpful, “Almost done.” A spasm in my legs that came with it it pins-and-needles feeling bad enough to have me swearing, and the healer continued, “She would have survived that without help. Bitten tongue might have been a choking hazard though. And done.”

I spat out the last mouthful of blood, and no more came pouring out of the tender spots in my tongue to try to choke me again.

I shoved off the floor of the hold, got one foot under me, and took off running. Lily got bounced off another wall, and proceeded to drag her caster opponent back to melee range. The last dragonkin got interrupted in firing spells at John by the netherwing drake darting across the hold to fight it.

The shape of a centaur-morph dragon-kin made it hard to figure out where to backstab, so despite the fact that I’d buried a pair of daggers to the hilt in its side between gaps in it’s armor, it was still able to keep fighting. It cast a spell, hands wrapped in blue, Lily blinked curiously, before with a faint half shrug, she resumed her assault on the pair of dragonkin.

In a gap between the tumble of angry technicolor dragon-like entities over on the other side of the hold, the netherwing drake called out a belated answer to John, “The six limed one in armor - the one Poly just stabbed I think. This sorcerer doesn't seem to have a spell reflect.”

In a growl the pinned dragonkin answered, “No, but I still have some tricks.” And then seemed to explode with violet light, the blast wave catching the wings of the drake on top of her, and flinging him towards the roof of the hold in a maneuver that made my hidden wings ache in sympathy.

The dragonkin ‘raider’ I was attacking swore as my daggers scored another set of holes in his hide before dodging a swing from Lily half by accident, swirling to deal with me. “The death knight might be an abomination, but this should still work on you.” And another copy of that spell, hands wrapped in blue, was shoved at me.

It was cold, but not as cold as the blasts of ice that had been thrown around back in previous engagements. With a toothy grin I repeated the oblique boast. “So, was that supposed to do something?”

The dragonkin snarled and spun towards me, sword leading. I dodged back, letting the swing pass by harmlessly. I dodged more slashes, not even trying to close enough to put a dagger in given that the dragonkin was still bleeding, and also didn’t seem particularly vulnerable to being stabbed.

Lily sighed next to me. “Poly, don’t you know? You taunt it, you tank it.”

“I’m tanking them just fine aren’t I?”

From across the room, Val called over to us. “Whatever that spell was doing was vulnerable to being cleansed. Probably a disease, because the dk ignored it.”

The dragonkin was beginning to snarl at Val, when he abruptly fell silent, and slumped to the ground. It wasn’t a significant puncture hole compared to the stabs I’d already inflicted, but a jab from Lily was apparently the final straw.

With a lazy flick of a hand, and the clawing black magic, Lily dragged the last enemy sorcerer over to our side of the hold. And then she flicked a half smile at me, “Looks like the glyph works for recharging deathgrip - we just didn’t test enough bloodshed. Foolish oversight really.”

“I suppose I should have expected a death knight glyph affecting a spell called deathgrip, to involve killing things. But I just created the glyph, what do I know?”

John tossed a fireball at the enemy sorcerer, and called over to me, “Plenty, just not how that glyph works apparently.”

Lily distractedly fended off another swing from the dragonkin fighting her, her focus on scanning the hold for something. ”Can one of you look around for me, I can’t exactly turn around while -”

Val called out, “Another portal incoming.”

A sigh from our death knight “I hate being right.” A pause as the sounds of violence overwhelmed her words. “Up on the top balcony right? The one spot in the hold I can’t see from down here?” An affirmative and the death knight was moving, turning away from the fight, and heading for the stairs. This served to bait a strike at her, and rather than properly dodge, she accepted a bloody gash to grab the weapon, and pull the dragon-kin with her to the next fight.

The sorcerer made the mistake of gawking for a moment, and I struck. I hated the blood on my claws, but I could and did strike to take another enemy out of the fight. I saw the dragon-kin crumple as I pulled out my daggers, and I turned to follow Lily, before a jagged breath from the ‘downed’ foe had me turn back warily. The dragon-kin was pressing a hand to his injury, and made no move to continue the fight. I shrugged, and offered, “Sit out the rest of the fight, and we won’t hurt you any further.”

The dragonkin looked up in acknowledgement, but didn’t say anything in return. That was fine, I left my beaten foe behind, and ran after the continuing fight.

Up on the upper ledge of the hold, Lily had some five dragonkin more or less under control, the green light of anti-magic-shell devouring the incoming arcane, and Voranku was dealing with a few of his own, but the caster by the portal was still channeling magic into it. Another dragonkin emerged from the portal as I watched.

I punched an earthshock into the caster, sending him staggering back a step, and breaking his channel. As he staggered back, off balance, I lunged into another strike, and fired an undercharged lava burst, that only barely reached its mark, but gave me the cover to clear the remaining distance, hooves clicking against the floor with each accelerating footfall, and driving my blades into the clearing smoke.

I scored two deep cuts on my target, and got a point blank arcane explosion to my face.

My head was ringing as I got my feet back under me, and the wall was helpful for returning to standing, but my dizziness quickly cleared with the increasingly familiar feeling of light-healing.

At the point where I was about to rejoin the fight, I got a single arcane missile phasing through my scale armour, and thudding into my chest. Thankfully the convenient wall was still there for balance, and even better, none of the rest of the volley ever got launched due to a fireball finishing off the wounded dragonkin.

I turned my attention back to the pile of dragonkin Lily was dealing with, and began trying to reduce the number, striking with my daggers, and remembering that there were good reasons for me not to toss around chain lightnings right now at the last minute as the power built around my striking blades. Instead of chain lighting, my fistful of lightning hit only a single target, who proved not to have spell reflect active.

My fire resistance is a lot better than my lightning resistance, right? Even when in mortal form … I pulled on my fire, not just the light coating I normally enhanced my daggers with, but the cloying lava that would splash as I struck, and angling away from Lily, began striking at the different dragonkin. Each strike stole my breath to stoke the dragon fire, but it was easy to breathe in the rhythm between strikes. Each strike hit its target easily without any spell reflected back at me. “Spell reflecting would hit the magic component of a mixed spell-stab right?”

John, from just in sight on the stairs, shrugged. “No clue, I guess I'll just have to join you two on the testing things out spell first then,” And with a flick sent a fireball towards one of the attackers.

None of the dragon-kin currently in the hold bounced fireballs back towards John, so we continued trying to whittle down the number of combatants.

Of the seven we were fighting when the portal closed, we still had three left when the next portal opened. A different set of three, at least. And the number briefly flickered down to two, before the next wave of attackers came pouring out of the portal and bolstering it back to six.

Not all the ones we beat were killed, some chose to flee back to the Nexus through the opening portals instead. We let them run. (The one I had let live earlier was one of the ones who ran, though he waited for the second such opening, after he’d already seen us let others escape.)

Two more portals with the number growing each time. We were trying to take them down, but the portals kept coming and we were off balance, and getting more unbalanced rather than less. Our one saving grace was the fact that Lily didn’t seem to be having any trouble staying alive under assault, but having to dash across the hold from portal to portal was taxing her ability to force everything to stay in melee with her, because this wasn’t the game were a tank smacking something would be enough to keep it’s attention - I certainly would rather go attack the squishy looking targets rather than the scary woman in plate, and while chains of ice and death grip did a good job of dragging targets to melee and making them sit there, it didn’t help if she had to move an entire group with her to pick up the next fight.

Another portal opened, as I mused on how we were going to get this back under control, and it was the perfect topping on our rolling disaster. No one was free to interrupt the portal keeper that had come through. Lily was dealing with her cluster, Val was busy keeping Voranku alive with the sword wielding keeper he was fighting, and John was trying to burn down one of Lily’s clusters while being chased around the hold.

I accepted the fact that I was going to have to do it, and let the dragon kin currently swiping at me with his claws follow or not as I lunged towards the next fight.

Earthshock took point, and I let each impact of feet on stone gather momentum for my storm - mana was going to be tomorrow's problem if we all survived today. This bastard better not have spell reflect, but I was about to find out, bring my hand up to throw -

Silence.

The fight was still going, I could still hear the striking of metal and inarticulate shouts, but I could no longer hear the elements, and the charge around my hands fizzled into nothing as I came staggering to a stop in front of the caster, who seemed almost as surprised as I was. His words felt like they were muffled, but I could still hear them perfectly clearly because it wasn’t my actual sense of hearing that had been turned off. “Huh, I wasn't expecting that to actually work.”

In response, I gave a soundless growl and slashed with my blades. I carved straight through his scales, and left an angry red line of charred flesh and severed muscle underneath, the silence not stopping magic already in effect like my flametongue weapons. As I struck out a second time, my daggers bounced off harmlessly, my strength faded, and my pure muscle tone was just not anywhere close to enough. What the heck?

And then there were clawed fingers around my throat, as the other dragonkin I had been fighting caught up behind me. My hands scrabble desperately to pry them off, but the draconid’s fingers might as well have been metal bars for all they bent. My feet were clear of the floor, and I couldn’t get the purchase to do anything.

With the silence binding me, I couldn’t have been heard even if I had my airways clear to scream.

Fuck. This. Bullshit.

Transforming into mortal form took magic, took effort of folding my nature into that persona. Letting go though - it was as easy as breathing. Easier in fact, given the current case of strangulation.

Standing in my true form, I was also conveniently out of my attacker’s grip, my size change having forced us apart. Him being behind me was now to his disadvantage, since it was easy to swing my tail to impact with a pair of thuds - the jarring impact I felt as my tail hit the dragonkin, and then the echo of the dragonkin hitting the wall.

The caster in front of me yelped in fear on realizing what I actually was, and then screamed as I brought my claws across his chest and sunk teeth into his shoulder, the taste of blood on my tongue frankly a relief, with how it drowned the smell of combat.

Ripping my teeth back out of the dragonkin’s shoulder brought with it a spray of blood and a pointed reminder of why using bite attacks was sub-optimal actually, as I had to wipe the spatter off hastily closed eyelids, with paws I was out of practice using.

The claws raking down my wing were probably deserved, given how distracted I was. In pain, and still half-blind, I spun with a jet of fire spilling from my lips like a battle cry. My paws hit scales, and since I was sure Voranaku was still on the other side of the hold, I struck at the target I had found. It crumpled before me.

A test flare of my wings lit up the claw lines in bright lashes of pain, but they still caught air. I launched skyward, and carefully scrubbed the blood away from my eyes.

A deathgrip snaked across the small room, bringing the dragon-kin that had been chasing John over to Lily’s side. Voranku was still failing to best, or be beaten by, his target. And Val was looking straight up at me with a pinched frown. She caught my look, and the frown changed to something worse, a bitter half smile. “Are you going to suffer a witness to live? No one outside the hold would ever know.” Her green eyes maintained unflinching eye contact with me, not the judgmental glare one might expect, but something more reserved, a judgement held in reserve for the moment I struck and damned myself in her gaze.

“I would know.” ‘Character is who you are in the dark’, afterall. “I would know, and I might be a monster, but I’m not that monster.”

“Are you sure-”

I cut her off, “If you want me to harm you, you’d better start actively threatening lives.”

A sort of toxic sweetness in her voice, “Am I not threatening yours?” A pause, to emphasize what she was about to say, only for an interruption to remind us of the ongoing fight.

“Val!” Voranaku had come off the better of his last clash, in that unlike the dragonkin he’d been fighting, he was still standing and able to shout, but the blood pouring past the paw pressed to his shoulder made it clear he was still in bad shape.

I did my best to make shooing motions at the paladin, despite being in mid air, and not in a particularly smooth hover, “Heal, you can argue with me later.”

A pointed look was thrown my way but the paladin went back to her job with fervor, leaving me to pick off dragon-kin harassing Lily. My fire probably should have been less effective, their magic resistance interfering, but I was still able to burn my way through, and I had a safe position to snipe from, sitting in mid air as I was. Unlike my lighting, I had no fear of having my fire returned - black dragons might burn if you try hard enough, but it was still my fire.

Once Voranaku was no longer in danger of bleeding out, and safely sitting next to the doors, Val returned to dealing with the black dragon in the room, with a finger pointing at me, “You. Do you have no respect for the Alliance, or just no forethought? If you let me leave when this is over, I will be obligated to report it.”

“Uh huh, and It’ll be annoying as hell, but I can burn this Identity, and turn up with a new name somewhere else.” Not a shaman, not openly, but I could turn back up. … Ask Lily and John for advice on how to start at ground level as a human adventurer? Neither of them have the traditional stormwind experience, but they might have some ideas. … And I’d get to wear my human form again…

“And what of your friends?” A sweep of her hand at John and Lily, “This certainly looks like conspiracy to commit treason. Are you going to leave them to take the fall for you?” And that was barbed, pointed, her voice laden with scorn and doubt.

I slipped in the air, taking too long between wingbeats, and too long also to speak, to rebut the truth I had just gotten smacked with.

And off to the side of the hold, my partner came to our rescue. “Okay first off, I second my girlfriend's position on friendly fire not being friendly, secondly outside the hold, Dalaran does not have outgoing portal wards. We disappear to parts unknown, ‘The End.’” The lightness was feigned, but it worked.

An unimpressed glare, and sharp words, “You’ll be leaving portal traces around Dalaran. Do you imagine for a moment you won't be chased?”

I echoed the feigned lightness, growing easier to pretend, and easier to talk as I steamrolled the conversation with humor, with disrespect. “Yeah, sure. And we’ll have what, a five minute head start? More than enough of a lead to get clear of the city. Or we get Lily to portal us to Archerus - even easier to pull a runner across the plaguelands, you think? Glide clear of easy arrows, and then we fly away into the horizon never to be seen again. I mean, I wanted to stick around and fight on the Alliance's side, but eh, if you're going to send the people I care about into exile with me, am I even losing anything?”

Yes. The answer to my rhetorical question was a clear unequivocal yes. I would be losing the ability to ever return to civilization, losing all of those luxuries, the food and the books, and the craft supplies, and all the trappings of people. Even if we found a place in Stormheim or Highmountain, I was adapted to a European tradition, and English cities. I would be losing the ability to bond with the rest of John’s family, to receive my letters from Konona and Jevama checking that I was alright, and asking about what I’d been up to, and reminding me that they cared. I cared about more people than just the ones here with me.

I would be losing the chance to ever save Azeroth, to fight my wars, just to keep this small family safe. I could do it. There’s nothing easier than giving up on the world, and sliding into depression.

And I’d be ripping John away from his support network, away from his passions, and It was all too easy to see it smothering the spark I love him for. At least I know he can travel, and leave a home behind. The material losses wouldn't break him either. But would Love, love of life, or our love of each other, survive abandoning our causes to save our lives?

That was the question, wasn’t it?

“And you, Lily? Are you going to throw everything aside, and just run away to be some mountain hermit?” Val’s agitation was growing with each exchange, her words loud and fast.

Lily’s voice was firm, “My loyalty to the Alliance doesn't extend to letting it kill me.”

“At least one of you has some fucking sense-”

“So, yeah I’d run away with my family, rather than let them try me for treason."

With her face in her hands, our healer screamed in wordless frustration. “Why?! Why are you like this?”

“What, acting like decent people?”

She spun on me shouting, “Throwing away your tactical advantage just to try to convince me of that - why does it matter my opinions, why are you trying to convince me that you’d just abandon your mission and let me report you? Because it doesn't matter how charming you are, I will.” A ragged breath as she inhaled to continue her rant. “There is nothing for you to get here, nothing you can play me for - I know my honour, and my duty.”

“Is it too hard to believe that I might just not want to hurt you.”

A hiss. “Yes, it really is. I might have been able to believe that you wanted me alive for something - maybe even that you like me the way a cat likes its toys, but that answer is solid bulshit. Maybe you don’t care enough to hurt me, but you are here, spying on my people, specifically to help your flight destroy us.”

And I had been fending her off with half-feigned frivolity, but that accusation stripped away my amusement and revealed an anger rotting underneath. “And every Draenei is also spying on the Alliance for the burning legion?” I nearly hit the ceiling, my angry wing beats creating too much lift, “And let me guess, every treasonous human is secretly working for SI:7. Do you really believe that the dragonflights are monoliths the way your people clearly aren’t? I’m not working for the black fucking dragon flight, I’m not spying on the Alliance, I’m just a runaway trying to make a home in exile.”

Val started to say something, and I stomped on her words deliberately, not wanting to hear them.

I barely wanted to hear my own thoughts, the echoes of racism, the clear and blinding parallel running head first into the fact that that comparison was itself fucking racist. In my previous life I’d been a privileged white woman, and unlike humans with black skin, the children of Deathwing actually did have a reason for being hated, and if we wanted to, any of us could pass as normal, like I’d been proving for all the months of not being discriminated against.

I wanted to rage at this paladin for assuming I was a monster. I wanted to rage at myself for comparing a group of monsters to good honest people who didn’t deserve the similarity of scale color. I wanted to rip the team at blizzard apart for making that fucked up piece of story design.

What actually came spilling out of my mouth was, “I never chose to be born like this! No one ever chooses how they’re born,and fuck you for judging me on something that was never my choice! I’m a liar and a monster, and a killer, and I never wanted to be any of those things, but Deathwing’s flight never gave me a choice, and the world would never give me a choice, and I’ve been doing my best to try to help anyway - I’m here fighting, because you asked me to come help. Not for intel, or even for money. But because, despite the fact that every single city would kill me if they knew what I actually am, I want to save this stupid beautiful world anyway, and fuck you and fuck Deathwing, and I absolutely hate the old gods and their whispers, and the way I’ll never be able to trust myself enough to ever really be able to ask someone else to trust me.”

I hung there in the air, panting, exhausted from the rant, more than the actual fighting that we had been doing just a short time ago.

And across the room, the paladin shot back, “And you know that I can’t trust you - you admit that you can’t even ask for that, so why do you care?” Her hands were punctuating her words, there was something painfully raw in the question, underscored by her shaking the air, like it could shake answers out of me by proxy. “Why did you agree to come, when you knew that this was going to go down in flames like this?”

“What would be the point in living if I didn’t?! What would be the point, if I stopped caring, and sat around in a grey world where nothing mattered and I waited to die? I care, and I have always cared, and I decided years”, the inn, hands stained with my blood, and then realizing, even before I was saved, just how much I did not want to stray down that route,“ago that I am always going to try to care, going to make life worth living, and part of that means trying to bond with you people, even when you would never like me if you look too close.”

Voranaku tried to call out something but I only had ears for Val, who sagged somewhat, like something in my mess of words had hit her, and with a sigh she said, “This would be much easier if you were evil.” She looked up, like she was going to say something else, but her drake companion finally managed to speak up enough to be heard.

“Guys! Enemy Dragonkin!” And with the arm that wasn’t pressed against his side the seeming blood elf was gesturing furiously at a spot under the stairs.

Lily jumped the ledge with the last of the dragonkin she was fighting getting dragged along for the fall, and I descended in the air to be able to see the problem. I’d just gotten line of sight on the violet barrier holding in one of the prisoners, when it shattered and the dragonkin that had been breaking the wards offered a cheeky grin as he faded into invisibility.

Chapter Text

A roil of red magic pulsed off Lily, breaking the dragonkin’s invisibility, and allowing her to easily stab the saboteur. Too little, too late to save us from the incoming fight, but it meant we wouldn’t have them trying to open up any more cells.

A water elemental came surging out of the broken containment shouting, “I … am fury … unrestrained!” It saw me, and came surging up, a bolt of water hurling towards me, accompanied by the shout of “Die, traitor to the old gods!”

Unable to resist the snarky line despite the shouting that had been going around, I directed the words, “Yeah, looks like being evil would have made my day a lot simpler,” towards the paladin.

Lily laughed back, “You’d think not being evil would have made my life less complicated, but no, not at all. It’s much more fun this way - so you got any shamanistic suggestions on how to piss off a water elemental?”

Any answer I would have given was cut off by another spray of ice water hitting my face and blasting me back across the hold. I landed on the upper story, and ducked down towards the floor to be hard to hit, as I spat out the water, and dried off my face.

From the ground level, several loud thuds and splashes suggested Lily had at least temporarily figured out how to annoy a water elemental by stabbing it. Poking my head over the lip of the balcony, I was able to see Lily’s slashes sending sprays of water and ice shards across the hold, but the elemental kept reforming around the injuries and hammering on the death knight’s armour.

This is probably a bad plan, but we need the elemental gone before the next incoming portal. Leaning over the railing, I tossed a burst of fire into the back of the water elemental. She whirled snarling, and I got hit with the icy spray splashing despite having ducked back out of sight.

Unlike in my mortal form’s clothes, the water easily flowed off my scales, but I still scooted along the balcony to somewhere that wasn’t (as) covered in ice water to gather fire for my next shot rather than sit in the cold. Down in the center of the hold, I heard the angry sloshing, and shouting voice of the water elemental calling up threats at me.

I hid behind the lip of the upper story and, using the first moment of properly waiting, shifted back to mortal form to fish my totems out my bag, and activate them. I didn’t have to do the full ritual, but it was good form. “Air, I ask that you ward us against our enemies' spells.” I considered using my fire totem, particularly in frost resistance, but decided I needed my fire spirit free to work more directly alongside me. “Earth, let our skin be as stone.”

From down below there was another sploosh of a water elemental getting whacked around, accompanied by a deathknight scolding her opponent. “None of that. Focus on the person thwacking you. If you need some more motivation, don’t worry - she’s not alone in being a threat to the old gods.” Lily’s voice shifted from the amused conversational pitch of scolding her foe to something far more threatening. “I’m wearing the proof your masters bleed. Tell me, do they also die? I’d love to find out. And if not, then I’ll just have to make them wish they could.”

“Foolish mortal. You are nothing to the Masters. You cannot even compare to me.” A building susurrus accompanied her words, perhaps the real sound of rushing water in the hold, but just as likely it was me hearing the spiritual echo of her magic, and with a roaring crash of water she yelled, “Now, drown beneath the waves!”

“Do I look like the kind of mortal who drowns?” Lily laughed as she slashed through the angry water, blood red light glowing off her blade, and refracting through the animate water, casting uncanny waves across the ceiling, “You’ll have to try harder than that!” An inarticulate roar of rage was accompanied by Lily calling out at the water elemental she was taunting, “Missed. You’re no good at this are you? Are your masters as pathetic as you?”

I was able to fire my next volley without having to duck back down, the water elemental too distracted to notice me.

Fireballs reigned from both myself and John, and an ongoing arcane bombardment showed that Voranku might be sitting on the bench with his injuries but wasn’t about to take that as an excuse to stop fighting. Val, standing next to Voranaku on the entrance stairs, was calling golden light, though I couldn’t tell whether it was healing or harming, nor who she targeted, only that there was light.

At last, with a roar of fury, the water elemental burst, and an explosion of icy spray, bouncing Lily back, and soaking literally all of us. “Was that it?”

But even as Lily started to say something, I saw the droplets coalescing, “Burn the droplets - don’t let her reform!”

My fire was tied to breath, and shouting took just enough to slow a cast, but the harsh sound of my breath aligned perfectly with the rhyme of hoof-beats on the floor, as I drew a flame-tongue weapon through the orblets near me, and raced to line up a shot. I lunged in mortal form, and landed on my paws as a drake, changing forms for the extra defense.

On the lower floor, Lily and Val had created their glowing pain-circles in hot and cold running (un)holy, and both of them were smacking back the droplets coming from the different stairs. Lily, more effectively, but the paladin wasn’t useless at it.

Rather than cast chain lightning on my own side, I tossed it at John’s side of the hold, following it up with the call to, “Flamestrike my side!” Sure enough, when John finished his cast, moments later, the flamestrike came down on the upper stairs choke-point, bringing with it a blissful wave of warmth that cleaned the ice water chill from off my scales. I didn’t get to something as articulate as ‘thank you’ but just made an appreciative “aAhh,” during the few seconds I allowed myself to bask, before hunting down the remaining strays that hadn’t made it back to the central death-and decay lit waterspout.

The Water elemental did manage to reform, but we’d hit her hard during what was probably supposed to be a break on her part, and she was notably weaker afterwards.

Weak enough that John was able to chat, “So, taking advantage of our current break in incoming dragonkin, how about we try to sort out a bit more the current issue -”

“I thought we’ve mostly sorted it out - we don’t kill the guildies, they don’t kill us, we disappear when the mission is done? Do you really want to reopen that discussion when we've just gotten to an agreement that I’m probably not evil enough?”

The highly annoyed water elemental took a break from trying to squish Lily, tossing a volley of ice water at John, growling angrily, “How dare you mock me Mortal!”

John ducked the bulk of the attack, and the rest splashed off an angled shield spell “You’re going to work harder to stop me mocking you, speaking of, back to talking over your fight,” He then turned to me, “You are definitely not evil enough, Omenia, but actually what I was bringing up was the fact that us spellcasters are doing a lousy job killing shit fast enough.”

I sighed, and only avoided massaging my face with a static charged hand by the fact that after so long in mortal form the shape of my paw disrupted that automatic response. “Which is why we’re chatting mid-fight.”

“Glad you understand.” There was a pause as I pointedly didn’t respond, and both of us tossed more firepower down into our foe. “Anyway, I’ve got a few ideas on how we can handle this better when the dragonkin stop letting us play with the water elemental. First off, we need to sort out a way to detect spell reflect with minimal self inflicted damage.”

From down on the stairs that had become our ‘bench’, Vornaku spoke up. “I can keep doing that.”

John tossed a judgmental look at the other drake in the party. “You keep using full power spells for that. Forgive me if I don’t find that comfortable.”

Vornaku’s response was not snarky, which was honestly surprising. “I am a netherwing drake. My arcane resistance is not much lower than theirs, so yes, I use enough power that they actually bother to reflect it.”

“Let me do it then - in my true form, my fire resistance is perfectly up to handling my fire, and I think the blues don’t resist it as much.”

Despite being in his true form, I was still able to read the distress in Voranku’s expression. “But without that, and still injured like this,” with his good forepaw, he gestured at the arm that was too stiff to move, let alone fight with, “What else can I do to be of use?”

“Can you conjure mage-water?”

It was a testament to the drake’s need to be useful, that his response was to brighten and nod, “Yes, that I can do.”

“Good, then get conjuring. Even if we don’t use my next idea, fire’s going to go through their wards better than arcane.”

I shook my head jokingly. “Delegating conjuring water now John, tisk tisk.”

“Well, I am a fire mage, I can’t exactly go around cooling adventurer’s drinks now can I?” He then shook off the humor, “Anyway, idea number two: We take advantage of having a fire proof drake, to drop flamestrikes on a melee cluster. And yes I realize this means I just suggested my girlfriend tank, but uh ...”

“l’ll forgive you eventually. Maybe in a century or two”

“So, around the same time you suggested it would take to get a date with you?”

I snorted with laughter at the reminder of how we’d joked around when we’d first met. “You know, we should really start up again with the fake backstory thing. That was a fun little game.”

“Ah but I already know that secret m’lady. You can’t hide -” A blast of water in John’s direction that splashed off his wards interrupted his sentence, and got a glare directed at the water elemental. “Rude! Can’t a man flirt with his girlfriend around here in peace.”

Lily called up at John after a few spear swings, “Fight now, be lovey dovey with your girlfriend later.”

We returned to fighting.

The water elemental didn’t do another burst, but once she was looking on the edge of cohesion, she latched onto Val. “I might not be able to purge you mortals, but will you survive the rest of your enemies without your healer?”

A raised shield broke the direct surge, and kept mouth and nose free, but the splashing water bombarded the paladin, with Northrend ice water that still carried an edge of killing cold despite being indoors. I saw glints of golden light bouncing through the water, but it was hard to tell whether that was the light of Val’s helmet, or actual healing spells being cast from cover. She was forced back, step by step, impact by impact, driven inexorably across the golden circle of consecration drawn on the hold’s floor.

Lily’s attempt to force the water elemental to pay attention to her had some impact on slowing the servant of the old gods, but the amorphous foe stretched to reach her target even with tails grounded firmly by Lily’s feet.

One steel covered foot hit the wall behind her, and braced. In the gap between watery fists crashing down, Val threw her weight into a lunge, kicking off the wall, and crashing shield first through the water elemental, spinning on the wet stones, and bringing all that angular momentum around into a sword strike with the blade that she must have drawn at some point during her retreat.

The water elemental splashed across the hold.

I burned the droplets around me, the others calling their own magic to kill any trace of life that might remain, but the water was just water, and stayed inert, in puddles on the floor and droplets dripping off sodden clothes.

“How much of a gap do you suppose we’ll get before the next portal opens?” There was a round of shrugs, which was about the answer I was expecting, so I went over to where Voranku was sitting to take my share of the mage water. At the bottom of the hold, down by the door, the smell of death that was starting to claim the upper balconies wasn’t as bad, and I swallowed down nausea with the clean taste of mage-water.

Val unbuckled her boots to pour water out and shot a look in John's direction, but whatever request flashed in her gaze never made it to her lips, and she put the still cold armor back on in silence. While Voranaku conjured mage water for us she tended our injuries in that same ongoing silence.

As the golden light washed away the pain in my wings, I looked at the paladin, sodden bangs dripping down her face, and at her inscrutable expression, and I broke the silence. “Look, I’m sorry…” and I couldn’t quite finish that sentence, because what was I sorry for exactly? I’m not going to apologise for being a dragon. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t what I seemed to be, and that you’re stuck working with a team you don’t trust.”

That got a single muffled snort of laughter. “That isn’t exactly a new experience for me.” The mild good humor didn’t survive contact with her talking however, and she continued in a flat tone, “You can stop trying to earn my trust back, I’ll continue to heal you as long as you continue to work towards the mission.”

It hurt. But it wasn’t the first friendship to fail to survive contact with my true self, and it wouldn’t be the last, if we survived this gauntlet. I closed my eyes to blink away the pricking sadness. “You still don’t have to spend mana healing any of the bruises that won’t affect this mission - save your energy for your friend.”

She didn’t say anything, but neither did the healing cease, so with a shrug, I sat back and let her spend her attention on me.

We got maybe a minute of quiet to steal Voranaku’s mana and enjoy not being under active threat, before the next portal opened.

“So, are we trying Plan Crispy?” That got me a bevy of weird looks, and a laugh from John, so net success.

Lily shrugged. “I’m not convinced of your true form fighting skills, but I can’t deny that bathing the entire melee in fire will level the fight in your favor. Hopefully it’ll be enough, and if not - I’ll still be here to take over.”

“Here-” Goes nothing, the rest of my sentence remaining unspoken as the rush of a dragonkin squad out of the portal signaled the start of a combat that I opened with a cone of dragon breath. A flame-strike crashed over me, pleasantly warm against my scales and in the blinding cloud of heat and sparks like glitter, I was able to land strikes on the surprised dragonkin. Blood sprayed across the floor, and quickly dried beneath the onslaught of heat.

The caster apparently had flame wards up, so instead of being overwhelmed, she started bombarding me with arcane missiles, but Lily yanked her out of the melee, and into single combat with the death knight, where the poor dragonkin wasn’t going to last.

My melee ability in my true form was still lousy, but my fire breath wasn’t much weaker than my lava burst, and none of the poorly blocked blows drew blood, though I did get smacked around with enough force that I could already feel the forming bruises.

Lily picked a second target off me, around the same time my fire breath made the two remaining survivors break and run.

“Looks like the plan is working on getting the fights done on time - Omenia how are you feeling?”

“Bruised. Just barely warm enough.” I shrugged, “Probably fine.”

Both of us glanced at Val, who startled at the implicit question, but nodded in answer.

-

Some four or five portals later, I was definitely feeling the strain. My wings were pressed tightly against my side, after a glancing spear strike had put a gash across the other wing from the one that had gotten slashed up around my reveal. My hind legs were not made to hold a dragon’s entire weight, and those were both more than a little sore from the tempo of paw swipes, even with the third point of contact of my grounded fore-paw. Relatedly, both of my ‘arms’ were missing scales that had been battered off by repeated strikes to whichever limb was holding my weight at the time, and thus was an easy target.

The one upside to my bloodied limbs was that every strike there was one not aimed at my eyes. I’d gotten extra cuts to my wings, power flapping away from the couple attempts at an eye stab. But I’d take the hits to my wings every time, if it let me keep my sight.

Aren’t wings full of critical blood vessels in birds and bats? How critical are those gashes to my wings? But Val didn’t tell me to switch, and my ability to tell how injured I am … Either Val (or Lily) was going to tell me to retreat, or we’d find my limit with me face-planting into the floor. Yet another downside to my tanking.

Unfortunately, my tanking still seemed to be working better, provided it didn’t kill me. Lily, when not fighting defensively, was utterly terrifying. And the dragonkin weren’t rated against the kind of fire I could handle.

Which was the third problem. I might be fireproof, but like a hoodie on a hike, what started off as not even warm enough, starts to turn into uncomfortably hot as you keep going and the heat keeps bearing down.

I could handle John’s fire, but apparently I wasn’t 100% immune.

As I was suffering in silence through tanking, turning my urge to cry into deeper angrier gouts of fire breath, I got my reminder of yet another reason I don’t tank. A purple blur broke my rhythm, and I turned an anxious gaze to scan the room for threats my terrible perception had missed.

A strike from the foe still left in melee bounced off my nose, and got my attention back to clawing the foe in front of me. A fireball from my caster support proved too much for that foe, and looking for my next target revealed that there was nothing left in melee with me.

My scan for other threats caught on the splash of purple before I remembered that the other drake in the room was nominally friendly.

Then of course, came the question of what he was doing dragging a foe off me to fight solo, since unlike Lily, Voranaku was injured and not that much better than me at melee combat. I mean he was better, actually trained in how to move as a drake, but I could see in the aborted twitches, the faint hesitation before each strike, the indications that he was doing too much thinking and not enough practiced fighting. At least though, he was fast, and good at dodging strikes.

A carefully targeted lava burst brought down my stolen foe with a scream of pain that faded into hiccuping whimpers, and the acrid smell of burnt scales. I then addressed Voranaku, when it didn’t bring a risk of getting him killed from mid-combat distraction. “One, aren’t you still injured, shouldn't you be sitting down? And two, isn’t the plan letting me tank the groups?”

He shrunk back slightly, before checking the instinctive flinch. I wasn’t sure how I’d provoked that reaction, but he was able to rally quickly enough to make me drop that line of thought, “I am,” though, looking I was able to see that the wound was no longer enthusiastically bleeding, having managed to scab over as if it was hours old, instead of minutes, but small droplets were beading from spots where his movement had pulled on that scab. He gestured towards my oozing arms, “But so are you, little cousin. And you might have the blessing of the black flight, but I’m still not going to let a smaller drake fight while I sit on the sidelines if I can help.” He settled into a braced stance, wings half flared in display, “And I can help.”

I growled back, “The only reason I’m tanking is to be able to keep a cluster standing in the fire. I can’t have you stealing combatants if you’re not going to be faster than nuking the area at actually killing things.”

Lily dropped an interjection into our conversation. “Omenia, ease up. He didn’t grab a target off you until after John switched to single target spells. Also, does anyone see the next portal?”

We all looked around, searching. I didn’t see the portal, but I did see … something by one of the cells. I lunged across the hold on principle.

The barrier around the cell shattering confirmed that I wasn’t wrong about there being a stealthy saboteur stirring up trouble, but my claws found only empty air, and I didn’t have time to find an invisible foe, with the beast inside the cell set loose.

Two heads snapped at me, and I dodged teeth by the thickness of a claw. The firebreath that came with the bite rolled off my scales, almost harmless against a black dragon. Slobber splashed in hot droplets across my scales, as I flattened myself before the biting gnawing thing intent on devouring me. My tail, catching on the stone wall behind me, broke the frozen stalemate between my need to run and fight. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, and I clawed, frantically, blindly, at the threat looming before me with gnashing teeth.

A tiny voice of rational thought, spectating like some distant observer, noted that almost dying to a four legged toothy thing large enough to hold me down had really not helped my phobia of dogs.

My breath, ragged in my throat in the frantic heaving, dragged with it enough air that I could not help but taste the scent of the killing ground this sealed cave had become. Burnt scales, acrid like hair. Blood, dripping from my arm where I had tried to block. Blood, on claws and teeth, mine and my foes blurring together, and enough to make me dizzy on scent alone. And the horribly unclean smell of rot and death. It clung, sludge on my tongue, and fed the churning nausea the panic had set loose.

My nails clawing into the skin of the looming terror proved the distance between us, and I put enough force into frantic shaking blows that even fingernails could cut. Not a trace of technique left, just the molten panic rising in my throat and clawed fingers raking with all the force I could put into them. My stance was wild, my feet god knows where, and my back straining.

A bite sinking dots of burning pain into my shoulder, bringing the skin of its throat close for my clawing hands to scratch at, as if human nails could drive back this hellhound.

With a roar from the beast, I was dragged upwards by my shoulder and slammed into the stone of the cave.

Blood ran hot and sticky down my hands, but my only reward was another impact, my legs battered against unforgiving stone, and back straining to hold together as the beast tried to shake me apart.

A third shake, and I was flung away, the lines of scratches I was drawing in flexible skin cut sharper by the sudden motion, even as my fingers ached in muted protest.

My body slid down the wall where I hit, and for one terrible moment I couldn’t remember how to stand, my legs unable to hold my weight. But on my third try, a foot caught on the ground, and I was able to kick up into a lunge, vision blurry from silent tears, but still able to see the orange shape enough to draw blood with clawing fingers in a parody of an uppercut.

My lunge was too much, and I had to catch myself with hands pressed against the ground, panting and physically unable to stand. I needed to fight, but all I could manage was to get stuck with the sound of my breath and my heartbeat pounding in my head, the sounds of my own existence like hammer blows against the growing headache.

With a growl, I lifted my head to find the threat I had to fight - if I couldn’t use my hands, than I’d bite out throats with my fucking teeth if I had too, and I couldn’t rest until the fighting ends. The orange monster was facing away, but I had to make it stop - I couldn’t run, and I couldn’t rest until it was dead or gone.

Crawling forward on all fours, I sank my teeth into the back leg of the lava beast, and ripped a chunk of molten flesh free. Spitting the hot stone from my tongue, and drawing in air, I struck again. And again. And again.

The beast fell, crashing down in a whimper of pain, and a spreading pool of molten blood.

I needed to rest. I desperately wanted to rest. But with the sounds of other things moving, I had to hold - stay frozen, make no sound, and don’t move a single muscle or they might realize there was someone else there. My legs screamed in protest, but I stood perfectly still.

(Rationality would have reminded me that these were my friends, I wanted them to know I was there. But I couldn’t hear that voice just then.)

A voice, speaking in a way I could still hear, still on my team, despite the fact that every black dragon fights alone, said ‘Rest, speaker, I will keep watch. You are safe for now.’

I trusted that voice, but I wasn’t prepared to do any big moves, and if I let my limbs falter as they wanted, I was going to splash into the puddle of molten blood. Swaying, despite how close to the ground I was, I limped carefully, quietly, back into the cave away from the heat and the people, and let myself sag to the ground only once I was clear of the burning liquid.

It was still swelteringly hot, and as the seconds passed to the tune of thundering heartbeat and panting breath threatening to take on the edge of a whine, the panic bled away leaving me scrapped raw, and so profoundly tired. And the fading adrenaline gave room for the bruises, bitemarks, and the sweltering heat to beat down on me in waves of pain and dizziness. There was some reason I was trying to stay quiet wasn’t there? But it hurts. I whined, tears running down my nose.

A voice, that I could only just parse together words, “- hear that? Omenia, where are you!”

Omenia - I should recognize … He’s calling for me. That's my name now isn’t it? Oh wow, that’s a bad sign, forgetting my name. So, very not thinking straight. But I didn’t have the energy to sort out what was wrong, when every breath was accompanied by forcing back a rising urge to puke and I hurt too much to think. A voice I trust said ‘safe’. Someone who’s looking for me. Help?

I pressed through the fear holding me in a vice grip of silence, to warble the notes of a wordless tune that my dad and I used to use to find each other. It was safer, somehow, than calling for help.

“What the?” A pause, probably accompanied by listening to my continuing stream of notes, “I think she’s behind the corehound.” There was noise, movement.

Figures blocked the light as they climbed over the fallen beast. In another life, I might have let them come, been relieved to let another help - but, despite my understanding of a friendly voice, my overclocked overheated mind couldn’t parse approaching figures as anything but a threat.

I lifted my head off my crossed arms and hissed. They startled, and stayed back. This was safe, and I relaxed again. One of them began to sneak forward, and despite tear blurred vision I still saw the moment, and growled a warning. “Stay back.”

“But-”

An echo of my own voice, sounding distorted slightly, “I can heal at a distance. Let her calm down.”

Bright light, and I ducked back down to shield my vision with my hands … paws. With the blessed surge of relief, as the light began pouring in, I was able to note that apparently I’d managed to get confused on which fucking form I was in. Well, damn, no wonder my legs are killing me.

Val, because the paladin was Valerie, not Valfreya, not actually speaking with a copy of my voice, paused for a moment to speak in tones of fascinated horror. “I didn’t think it was possible for black dragons to get heat-stressed. Also, how are you still conscious?”

I, feeling significantly better for the light healing, shrugged, and then bit back a swear because miraculous pain relief only went so far, and trying to stand like a biped without using my wings had thoroughly messed up my back. In a slightly warbly voice, I spoke the words I’d come up with before trying to shrug, “Adrenaline and spite? Your healing?” And I was feeling better, but it still wasn’t good, “And uh - I don’t think I’m in great condition to walk, but this corner is not cooling fast enough.”

She didn’t glance at Lily, didn’t sound like she was being coerced into volunteering information by the presence of someone who would know to call her on it, nor did it sound like the things you say on autopilot, lacking that saccharine edge of bedside manner. “I can let you walk, even keep fighting, if you are willing to deal with light-dependence.”

“So is that the catch, being able to keep fighting?”

“Yes.” And Val wasn’t me, but the moment when I’d her voice as my own - I could hear her tells, hear calculation before the feigned resolve.

“Liar.” She flinched, but unlike me, didn't volunteer a monologue in response to being called out, so I filled the silence instead. “If it was about pragmatic manpower reasons, you’d have already forced that healing on me, and let me suffer the consequences. I think the actual reason is that you can’t convince yourself that I’m a monster. You’ve not managed to write me off as evil, as a foe to be hated. You care. You can say that you’ll never trust me, but I think you’re still listening.” I couldn’t prowl towards her, but as I sat taller, she unconsciously mirrored me, standing taller herself. You are, aren’t you? “So let’s revisit the question - not this healing, but the underlying question - are either of us actually willing to kill the other? And if not, as I think is true - are you still willing to get me killed? Are you still going to call down the guard on me, to hunt me down like a monster?”

“I might be a healer, but I carry a sword for a reason - I don’t have to think you a monster, to stop you from threatening my people.” There was silence, long enough that I almost leaped in to answer with disappointed anger, but just as I was about to speak, she continued, “... but I don’t think you’re an active threat, no.”

A tentative step onto that bridge of trust, “So you’re not going to report me?”

She fixed me with a stern stare, “What scheme are you hiding, that you cannot simply admit to being a black dragon on being caught?”

“What scheme - ‘conspiracy to suffer the existence of a black dragon’ remember - I’m not going to fight, but I’m definitely not going to stick around to be killed by the alliance for being a monster, when my only defense is the word of a single paladin suggesting that ‘maybe she might be a person under the ominous black scales’. Does it look like I want to be turned into dragonscale armor the moment the alliance gets a clue what I am?”

She snorted, “The Alliance already has several clues ‘Photine’. Si:7 has been tracking you for a while. Are you also one ‘Lucy Firr’? So yes - I’m going to tell Rohin, I’m going to tell the information agencies, and as long as you continue to not be actively working against the alliance, you can continue to be slightly less of a monster than the average mercenary.”

“And when,” in about a year, “the black dragon flight does return to being an active threat, am I going to get a knife in the back for the unfortunate color of my scales?”

“If I say nothing? Yes. So, if that time comes, would you rather have the word of a paladin, saying that you are at odds with your flight, and might even be a good person, or would you rather continue to run away from your problems?”

I could have called her on the strength of her word, but for all that she had lied, multiple times today, it felt like there was a solid foundation of truth underneath, much as how I might lie every day about what I am, but I could still cleave to oaths, and hold to my word.

“I’m done running.” The serious tone lasted all of a sentence, before I smiled sheepishly, “But boy, am I going to procrastinate walking towards my problems. For instance, I’m still not going to openly be a black dragon, even if your bosses do know.”

Val shrugged. “That’s fine. You won’t be the only dragon I know who prefers to keep her true identity hidden most of the time.” And amused twitch towards a smile. “Half the dragons currently on my guild roster prefer to keep it a secret. What's one more?”

“Is that an invitation to join your guild?”

“Well…” She shrugged again. “Registering with a guild will help reassure the twitchy spies that you’re on the side of good … and, well, I don’t mind having you three camping in my guild hall.” A look at my injuries, and at the bloodstained hold, “Provided we don’t all get killed by more blue flight assault.”

On que, the swirls of a portal flickered into sight across the hold. John growled. “You just had to jinx us didn’t you?”

With the help of the paladin’s healing, I stood, and walked out of the cage to join the fight on the field.

Chapter Text

Despite the jinx, we were still alive, (or undead, see the death knight in the room) when the wards finally came back up halfway through getting bounced around by the blue dragon who’d shown up following the ‘you want something done right’ principle.

Unfortunately, arcane injuries have a tendency to cause nausea, and I’d already been getting that way from the smell of the hold, and the panic rollercoaster of the core hound. I spent the entire middle of that fight losing my lunch off in a corner of the hold, ignored by the blue dragon and all six of the dragonkin still up and stabbing at Lily.

Once I’d gotten my inner ears to agree with themselves on what direction down was, and staggered back towards the railing, I got treated to Lily, blood streaming from a broken nose, smiling up at the blue dragon and purring “Ohh that was a good strike. I’m really starting to have fun. Do it again, will you?”

“That was nothing - you want to see true power, then let me show you.” The blue dragon gathered power, arcane motes sparkling, before, with a sickening lurch, we were all standing at her paws. “Can any of you withstand my true power?” And with the last syllable, a wave of purple smashed outwards.

-

I woke up, the fight still ongoing, to the feeling of the light, and a blinding headache. The burst of fire I launched at the blue dragon on hearing her breath weapon loudly crackling was a solid 80% petty spite, and shouldn’t have been all that effective, but it hit the back of her head, and while only a dazing impact, it had her stumble forward in surprise.

I did not see the blow that must have struck into that opening, but I heard the pained screech of a dragon, and heard the wetness in her breath. Saw her stumble, and fall, as she spoke her last. “...Luck… but … well fought. Perhaps... we have... underestimated... you.”

I considered the prospect of standing up to leave the hold, before deciding that I couldn’t be bothered, and rested my nose on my paws, to either pass back out, or start crying. Or both maybe.

I did not pass back out, much to my annoyance, as the headache made every pant from the people cooling down from the fight feel as loud as a metal concert at full blast. And then the jerks had to start talking.

“So glad that’s over.”

Lily chuckled, her voice still sounding weird, not in a dk marner, but just … excited? There were words for that tone of voice, but I couldn’t tell through my headache and dk voice echoes. “I don’t know little brother, I was finally starting to enjoy it. Maybe another few dragons coming to play would have been even better.”

“Nope. You save the psychological warfare for the blue dragons, and also, fuck fighting anything else for, like, a month. A month’s vacation sounds wonderful right now.” Footsteps and his voice coming closer.

I mumbled an annoyed, “‘oo loud. Want ‘a sleep.”

His voice was soft, when he spoke next, but still each sound was another spike of pain. “Sorry, but you need to shift to mortal form.”

“Ugh.” I crinkled the shapeshift together, forcing human hands on to the paws I was leaning on, and letting the change ripple from there. “Happy now?”

“Your broken draenei form, Omenia.”

With a whine I pouted rather than scrape up enough focus from the last of my reserves. John didn’t relent and poked my shoulder. With a wordless grumble, I straightened out the metaphorical paper, and folded the correct shapeshift, which stung, sitting painfully over already sore legs, and messed up back. I started crying, again.

John, not prepared to deal with crying girlfriend, sounded a little panicked.

I lost the train of his words, them passing from language to someone being too light damned loud right next to me, and instead of a restrained mumble, so as not to hurt myself with the sound of my voice, I screeched, “Shut up! I love you but shut up. My head hurts, and everything is too loud and it hurts!” And then I was shoving hands over my ears, and hurting my back more with the muted sobs wracking my frame.

I clearly felt the heavy-handed press of the light, the places where it tried to brush away my pain, and succeeded in making me feel like there was someone intruding on my personal space.

I was caught between an urge to snap at the person inflicting healing on me, and the need to do exactly nothing that would offend the person. The second one won out long enough for me to register, that despite everything, it did seem to be working to make my headache batter, and that was all it really needed to be doing to get me to forgive it more than just the impression of condescending headpats from someone invading my personal space.

My frantic breathing, and hiccuping half-sobs faded into faint sniffles as I brushed away tears, and turned back to John. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap, I’m sorry-”

John brought a feather light touch to boop my nose, and in an attempt at a whisper, said. “Stop apologizing in panic, and relax you silly dragon. I’m not going to be scared away by you being a little mean when you’re upset - I kept coming back to chat when you were more obnoxious for less reason.” We sat in silence for a moment, respecting my headache, at a comfortable closeness that didn’t have me feeling restrained or threatened, just soft companionship.

And then I got metaphorically stabbed by the ray of sunlight that came lancing into the hold, as the doors opened.

-

Even being carried, the trip across town to the infirmary was a painful exercise of echoing footfalls and muscle pain, and having to stop every block or so, to toss healing into re-sealing a cut, or the bite marks, or just into the bottomless pit of trying to make my everything stop hurting.

Lying down in a cot at the destination, and not being jostled, and not having to do anything, was such a relief.

-

My sleep was choppy and ragged, and not just because every few minutes I woke myself up with a lance of pain from my miscellaneous wounds. Nor could I blame it on the frequent medical checks, since the faint ripples of light only served to ease the discomfort that grew with every restless shift pulling at skin still welding itself back together.

No, my restless sleep was either a sudden return to form from the old gods, or my fear for the future taking the driver's seat. In broken chopy bits, interspersed with the normal dream weirdness, I got a thousand variations on a theme.

That theme was Wrathion, and genocide, and bloody conquest. The black prince proudly proclaiming himself the last of his kind. The ghost of Deathwing looking at the things they had in common- both of them destroying their flight, both of them responsible for attempting genocide, with the only difference being that Wrathion did it better. The blue dragon flight survived, had their aspect still, and had enough of their kind left to elect a new aspect when Malygos fell.

The black dragon flight was exterminated. Pockets lived on outland, and an uncorrupted black hidden beneath highmountain, but Wrathion sat and smirked, and never even had to lift a talon, as he hunted and killed every single black dragon, even the ones who ran. Even the one who saved his life, and stood by his side, until there was none left to distract the black prince. (I had almost forgotten about Farhad, but apparently my dreaming mind still remembered that lore crumb.)

-

My second day of bed rest saw the appearance of a nightmare where I got turned into dragonscale armour by Wrathion's, nameless, faceless, pet rogue. Among other things I hate the old gods for: overhauling my nightmares to be able to actually render pain. ‘I have no mouth and must scream’ indeed. Particularly since in the dream, losing my agency, being dead and just a suit of armour, didn’t make the pain any less.

In my lifetime as a human adult, I’d just about lost the art to wordless screaming. That nightmare taught it back to me.

Getting out of here might not make the nightmares go away, but I needed out - I needed something to do during my days, something positive and hopeful, and not just lying there dreading my next night of nightmares. The books John brought were helpful, but any of them that I had the patience to spend hours reading without pause, I also was capable of finishing in only those few hours, and I was rapidly losing patience with the books, and my intermittent ability to focus.

And I was also pretty sure, from the annoyed neighbors at that particular wake up, that I needed out of the medical wing to let everyone else get the sleep they needed to heal.

In theory I was still bed bound. In practice, it was easy to shove down the pain as stiff muscles protested being stretched, and walk to where Val was working alongside the other healers.

“Val.”

She looked up, and with a faint flash of annoyance, pasted on a smile. “Eplomono, I see you’re feeling better this morning. Did you want something?”

“I need out of assigned bed rest.”

She gave me a highly unimpressed look. “You might be up and walking, but you aren’t yet stable enough to spend a day unsupervised.”

I huffed. “Then supervise me- but I need out.”

“Is there something specific you’re stressed about, or want to be doing? I could tell your friends to bring something besides the books.”

“Look, I can’t give you a rational explanation, but I need to get out from under this roof, and have actual control of …” I waved a hand trying to encompass that space of small freedoms to control who saw what and how my bed looked, and what I chose for dinner, instead of hospital food, “of my choices and my living space. And somewhere I won't be disturbing everyone else when I wake up from a nightmare again.” Her face shifted at that last reason, from one unreadable mask to a different equally inscrutable one.

She sighed. “All right. Give me some time to wrap up my shift, but I’ll see if I can get you released to my supervision.”

-

Stepping out into the sunlight, and feeling the breeze tussle my hair in welcome was exactly what I needed. I wasn’t skipping, but the shoulder being offered to lean on went largely neglected, as I walked out through the sunny day with refreshed energy.

That good mood proved to be useful when we discovered that one of the other Valhall groups had come back to the guild hall, and that I still wasn’t going to get to relax in my true form indoors either. Specifically when I discovered it, by opening the door to a gnome I almost recognised.

“There you are! What have-” She cut herself off, “Ah. What’d you take them into, Val?”

Val shrugged, an answering half smirk to the gnome’s teasing, “I’d call it my usual, but both the tank, and Miss Off-tank here survived, so …” She let the sentence trail off, before giving the serious answer. “We handled Violet Hold containment during the re-warding.”

The gnome looked back at the dk tank helping me walk, and in a teasing voice said, “I don’t know, it looks like you still have a dead tank - maybe that’s the trick for breaking your curse: find a tank that was already un-dead before you started.”

Lily’s effectiveness as a crutch was undermined by the giggles this produced, but the death knight still managed to help me get inside.

Meanwhile, Val rolled her eyes and gave a very sarcastic, “Har, har,” before looking between us, and the group sitting around the common room. “So, you lot know each other?”

From where she was sitting on a couch the ‘hunter’ answered, “We were on the same boat north, before that lot got kidnapped by the blue dragons. I wasn’t expecting to see you guys alive after that, but I guess the blue dragons weren’t prepared for there being more than one sneaky dragon on board?” Bellinda let that curve up into a question as she glanced up at me.

Val looked sharply at Bellinda. “You knew about that?”

The warlock shrugged. “Well yeah, I might not be an actual hunter, but I can still identify non-humans that are pretending, as long as I have my ‘hunter pet’ with me. So unless you can think of some other non-demon shapeshifter besides dragons, that’s pretty open and shut. Besides, she admitted it. Well, first she’d handed me some bullshit about being a black dragon, but we got the actual story - apparently there’s another group of dragons living in isolation on some islands North was able to verify, and she’d underestimated how bad the black dragons are.”

Val’s voice was incredibly judgemental in contrast to her usual charming and non-judgmental affectation.“And you believed this?”

Belinda shoved off the couch, and with an irritated stride, cleared the distance to be standing next to the conversation. “Hey, I get that it sounds weird but don’t just accuse me of being gullible - she demonstrated the storm dragon breath weapon, answered questions about the shattered isles-”

“Broken isles.” I corrected.

“Broken isles, thank you - about them, to North’s satisfaction, and besides all that, do you honestly think that that naive sweetheart could survive five minutes in the black dragon flight?”

The collection of expressions I saw on the faces turned towards me was priceless. Val’s dumbfounded expression as Bellinda kept talking. John’s half restrained smirk of amusement. Voranaku, still on the steps outside, facepalming. The gnome must have read the truth off our faces because she was clearly suppressing a laugh.

Rather than break down in hysterical chuckles of my own, I snarked back, “Excuse me, I’ll have you know I lasted more than a month before running away from my flight to do my own thing.”

“Wait you-” “I’m sorry, what?!” Bellinda and Voranaku talked over each other, but the exclamations of surprise still were fairly clear.

I spun to properly address the netherwing drake, “You were there for the reveal - me being a black dragon can’t be that surprising.”

“You ran away from your flight at what, a month old? That is incredibly surprising, Little Cousin. More so, that you survived.”

“At least a month I said - it was probably around three months before I left. And I guess it wasn’t worth hunting down one rogue whelp.”

“Given how unlikely that a lone whelp would survive, it would not have been worth the effort.”

I snorted. “What, like it's hard? If I never go back to fishing in the ocean inlet north of Stormwind, it’ll be too soon, but it wasn’t any harder than the goats around our nest that we were expected to hunt without training.”

His rebuttal to my counter was one word. “Winter.”

“Point taken.” I might have had a safe cave, and the ability to light a fire, but the cave had been cold even in mid-autumn. I would have been unable to keep up fishing come winter. Of course, that was where my main answer came in. “Mortal form solves food and shelter though, provided one can human well enough.”

“And most can’t.”

Val cut into the break in the discussion, with a thoughtful frown. “Omenia, how old are you?”

“Uh. That should really be a simpler question to answer than it is.”

She raised an eyebrow, and repeated the question. “How old?”

“Mentally, or physically?”

“If you’re trying to claim maturity on the grounds that your mortal form looks like an adult-”

Voranaku finally entered the space fully, taking the steps forward to put a hand on Val’s shoulder. “By the standards of her flight, she is. I don’t like it either, but a drake is an adult, regardless of their age. A whelp shouldn’t be pushed to grow that young, but what’s done is done.”

“Actually I was about to claim that I’m older than I am, on the grounds that I have memories from two different lives rattling around my skull, and this can be verified on the grounds that how else would a freshly hatched dragon know university level math and also how to write well enough to get hired by the scribes guild.”

Lily, stepping to my side, offered “Also, her mind is clearly an adult’s, even if her other life was a sheltered civilian. I’ve mind-walked her to verify a different claim, and I can assure you, she is an adult.”

Val was looking pained by this and was massaging the bridge of her nose.

If she’s not gonna be asking me questions… I turned to face Voranku, “I’d really be considered an adult by the standards of the dragonflights?”

With gritted teeth he said, “Yes. You would.” A focused inhale, to calm down, before he continued. “Our bodies reflect our souls far better than a human's would - we don’t change from whelp to drake to dragon based on years, but rather based on maturity. If, as you say, you lived two lifetimes, the surprise is that you are not a two year old Dragon.”

“Uh, I was an adult, but I was still getting my life together you know? I’m only in my mid twenties, and I didn’t exactly have things sorted enough to get married and settle down with a stable job and the 2.5 kids of a suburban mom.”

He sighed. “I think that sentence was proof that you are very much grounded in that other life.”

“Well yes. I am.”

Val sighed. “I don’t like the fact the timeline would put you at a mere two years old, but I concede that you are, mentaly, an adult, and what you choose to do with that isn’t my problem.” Another calming inhale, “But Light, the idea of a dragon your ‘age’ doing what you’ve done - I’m not comfortable at all with either the relationship, or the violence.”

There was the slightest bit of bite to my response. “Every black dragon you will ever meet, knows violence down to their bones. Or do you not know what the flight insists a hatchling must do to earn a name, to earn their right to live?”

“No, I don’t.” Valerie looked like she was already exhausted by the gloom in this conversation, but she pressed onwards. “I’m not going to like it, am I? Tell me anyway.”

“No, you won’t.” I continued with the explanation, “Put simply, when a clutch of blackflight whelps hatches, it’s a free-for-all battlefield, and only those who kill their siblings to survive are permitted to live. And, I’m pretty sure, any whelps crippled from that little hatch ritual would also be put down, though I didn’t personally observe that.”

I looked at all the guild members here, and they looked horrified, or, in the case of the gnome, terribly, profoundly, sad without that edge of surprise.

“There was a reason I ran from my flight.” I shrugged, and looked at the paladin, “So any more questions you want to ask before you sort out that ‘giving me a good reference to not get stabbed by Si:7’ thing?”

“You know, phrasing it like you’re only answering questions for transactional benefit doesn't inspire trust.”

“Snark is how I cope with emotions I don’t like. And two - enlightened self interest. I like living in a world where I have friends, and a working society, and people are happy. Happiness is contagious, and if you can’t make enough on your own due to tentical-ly depression, store bought is fine.”

That got me a groan from Voranku, and cackles from Belinda and the gnome. Valerie met my gaze with a look that made me feel known in a way that made me want to pull my shroud, made of snark and references no one would ever get, tighter around how I actually felt to hide from that understanding. “I have several questions I would like to ask, but the most important one that Si:7 needs, is this: why did you leave your advantageous position in stormwind, to chase after John?”

“Uh. What? When did I do that? I mean yes, I was following John on outland, but what sort of advantageous position did a random draenei adventurer have?”

“The scribes guild - you had access to the flow of information, without the risks of actively steering politics - why leave that to be just a random adventurer?”

“... Look, I was just after work that would give me some resources to work with, that I could do with no credentials. Job hunting is its own special kind of evil, and I could manage well enough. Besides, working with inks was kinda cool. But I sure as hell wasn’t there to spy - I didn’t want anything to do with the keep. Do you have any idea how terrifying it was to get called to the keep to record minutes in place of the other scribe? Bolvar, Anduin, Katrana fucking Prestor - actually being the same room with them got me to the threshold of panic so hard it loops back to calm - if any of them had actually given me a second glance I might have decided to just start running at top speed, and maybe never stop.” The urge to snark, to pull back from how I felt with distracting details had my mouth keep running. “And also, how the fuck did you guys not know who Katrana was? If you guys caught me, how did miss tall, dark, and scary, not get caught? And also, didn’t Daval Prestor get caught or at least disappear under highly suspicious circumstances.”

“Lord Prestor was very well liked, at least by most of the major players except the Kirin-Tor. And he was tragically ‘killed’ before any suspicion could be justified.” She paused, eyeing me. “I’m guessing though, that he was also a black dragon?”

“Yes, he is. And unfortunately, unlike his daughter, he’s still very much alive. I’m hoping that within the next several years we can fix that.” Because if we don’t, Azeroth dies. “But hey, you were right about a treason conspiracy, just wrong about who was being conspired against - I’m looking to kill the black aspect, and it doesn't get much more treasonous for a black dragon than that does it?”

The gnome, in a tone of innocent curiosity so caked on I was immediately ready to call bullshit, asked, “Hang on, wasn’t Daval Prestor engaged to Calia Menethil, before his disappearance?”

Belinda fell over laughing, as Val, Lily, and John exchanged horrified looks. John got to voicing it first, and added the specfic detial of exactly which black dragon fathered Onyxia - “Oh, holy cow, how narrowly did we miss being in the timeline where the Lich-king and Deathwing were brothers-in-law destroying humanity together?”

I snorted a half laugh “Can you imagine?”, before continuing in a more level tone, “But I’m just as happy not having to deal with an evil overlord alliance thanks - dealing with either one by themselves is too much for one little drake thanks.”

Val turned back to me at that. “Yes, about that. What are you planning to do about your aspect, given that you just declared yourself against him?”

Plans never survive contact with the enemy. The act of planning is the most important step towards victory. Both those statements can be true.

I set aside my future knowledge for a different revelation, or possibly never, and just outlined the skeleton of the plan - get stronger, help adventurers get stronger for plan ‘will it blend?’ aka kill Deathwing with sheer bloody minded determination and applied firepower straight through his shenanigans immortality, keep an ear out for the elements writhing in more torment than usual, … “And, when the cold war breaks back into being a hot one, I’ll need to offer my support to Queen Alexstrasza, which means I probably need some line of communication already open with her before then but, uh, entirely justified anxiety?”

“Oh good, we’ve moved that step from ‘convince you that you need to sort things out with Alexstrasza’, to ‘provide encouragement to get you to do that’?”

The death knight was only being mildly pointed with the critique, so I shrugged, “Well, you weren’t wrong. I just didn’t want to hear it. I still don’t, but uh, ‘planning past tomorrow’ and all that.”

“Um, what?”

I sighed. “A misused quote, anyway, framing the problem as ‘what do I need to do to personally contribute anything to killing Deathwing’, instead of ‘what can we get from Northrend’ changed the answer.” Another sigh, “Which is, of course, why we plan. Thanks, I hate it.”

“You're welcome.”

Val took the opening to ask a question, “Why would you not be able to contribute anything to fighting deathwing?”

I snorted. “You’ve actively healed my combat skills. I don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of actually hurting deathwing. Best I could manage might be prying off some armour if he’s distracted enough.”

She raised a very pointed eyebrow at me. “And have you done nothing so far to damage Malygos?”

“That’s different. Malygos is actually invested in his flight, and using them as agents. Deathwing is a flying siege weapon who can 1v4 the other aspects, and not lose, without any support from his flight. Killing his entire flight would not notably impede his ability to kill us all.” An annoyed huff, “Of course, he’s still going to make use of the available resources, and every single one of them is going to throw themselves into the fight if they're not dealt with. So that still needs to be dealt with, and who’d bother to spare a foe that doesn’t yet understand surrender?”

Val prompted me with a gesture to continue and the question of, “So, how do you plan to subvert your flight?”

I opened my mouth to respond, “...” but I didn’t have a plan, didn’t have any leverage, couldn’t -, a gaping lack of answers opened, like a black hole in my chest, pulling and pulling, and leaving everything tense with an answer I couldn’t give.

Say something, just start planning out loud - “...” My breath moved, fast through my nose, but I couldn’t exhale to start a word. I just stood there, eyes darting across the faces looking to me for an answer I didn’t have. I’m the one who knows too much, it’s my job to make a fucking plan, why can’t I do this? The silence fell away into fathomless depths, and the pressure built inside my chest, unable to exhale, unable to form the words, nor to let go of the words I couldn’t speak.

I don’t have a plan.

I never did.

Choking on solidified silence, condensed crystallised panic congealing in my lungs.

“Omenia, breathe.” The order should have been something easy to do, something I could finally get right, but I couldn’t even do that, strangled by the anxiety pressurising my chest. When I failed to follow orders, the voice gave another prompt, “Can you name what city you’re in?”

That would have been insultingly easy, if my voice was willing to cooperate. But on the second try, I got my lips to move the tiny distance needed to whisper, “Dalaran.”

“Good. Name at least three people in the room with you.”

I did, and after another few simple easy questions from the deathknight by my side, I’d managed to get myself unstuck from the paralysis of being stared down by a woman in power who I was afraid of disappointing, and couldn’t give a good answer to, or even any answer. I carefully boxed up the multiple instances of crippling shame from my previous life, and collapsed into a couch blinking away tears. Enough valid reasons for insomnia and triggers, and I still wasn’t over the eternal crippling shame of saying the wrong things to my friends back in highschool once.

“May I suggest a plan instead?” I waved her on, and Lily continued with, “One, we can use the current Nexus war as a case study in subverting dragons away from their aspects - both trying to change their perspective ourselves, and looking at how the red dragonflight approaches the problem with a flight less entrenched. Two, if you show rebellion is possible, you might find others looking to get out from under their aspect’s thumb. I mean, at least a few of the Acherus residents weren’t there for Light's Hope, and are still managing to side with us.” She gave me a wry smile, “So, looks like talking with Alexstrasza is the next thing you can panic about. Now that you no longer get to panic about not having a plan.”

I brushed away tears and glared at the deathknight, before saying sarcastically “Gee thanks Lily.” And then after a few deliberate breaths to try to locate where my emotions had gotten lost and drag them back to being somewhere coherent, offered a soft, “But, actually, thanks for providing me a skeleton plan.”

Voranku offered a slightly strained sympathetic look. “If you want another suggestion?... You might want to approach the dragons on outland – the netherwing have no fondness for the black flight, but our dislike of the current leadership may weigh in your favour. And if any of the black flight still survive in the northern mountains, they seem disinclined to return to Deathwing’s command.”

I let myself lean back into the couch, and the metaphorical support of the guild. Drat, looks like Val might be about to recruit me afterall.

Chapter Text

So, as soon as I ran out of things to be panicking about, a knock on the door had us all snapping back to attention.

Lily looked at me, and after reading something off my expression, she took three long strides across the room and opened the door without waiting for quorum.

The silver haired draenei at the door looked familiar enough that I was sure I should recognise her. She addressed the deathknight blocking the doorway, but I could see her gaze scanning the room inside. “Lily is it?” My facial recognition continued to be not the best, but I knew that voice. “Would you happen to know whe- '' Jevama interrupted her question mid word, her gaze landing on me, and her stance hardened as she snapped back to looking at the others in the room with me. “Why is Eplomono crying?”

Without the slightest flinch Lily responded, “She had a panic attack. And that’s enough stress for one day, so if she doesn't want -”

“Let Jevama in.”

Lily glanced at me, before stepping smoothly out of the way. Jev did not immediately relax on hearing my voice, but her stance was significantly less confrontational as she crossed the room towards me.

Jev sat on the floor, specifically so that she was looking up at me. “This is where I would be waving my finger in teasing reprimand, but it seems like a poor day for that. So instead I will simply say, you said an awful lot of nothing in your last letter, and that seemed like enough reason to come check on you.”

“I can’t actually remember what I said in that letter, so…?”

Jev’s gaze was searching mine for signs of my emotional state, but she did answer with a little edge of scolding. “You mentioned being on leave in Dalaran for a week, chilling in rooms of guild Valhal. No explanation of who guild Valhal are, or how you met them. No mention of your entire kidnapping from the ship up to Northrend, which I had to find about from Azui instead.”

Toli looked between us, with a curious lilt to her expression, “Oh yeah, what was that about the fight you and Azui had?”

Jevama looked back at the gnome, “I’ll not reveal things told to me in confidence, and that is not a conversation for prying ears. Such as yours.”

I sighed. “At this point, everyone in the room already knows I’m a dragon.”

Jev blinked, recomputing. “How long? Are you safe?” She looked ready to stand and try fighting the entire guild if she had to to get me out.

My huff of laughter didn’t even sound particularly hysterical despite the recent emotional loop-de-loops leaving me with that same sort of exhausted high of lingering adrenaline with nowhere to go. “Hey Val, am I safe here?”

“As long as our agreement stands, yes. But I can’t promise sanctuary forever.”

I thought about Wrathion, and didn’t manage to hide my shudder, but I did manage a smile, “Not expecting you to.”

John, probably misinterpreting my shudder, offered me a smile and a little encouragement. “We’ll help you talk with Alexstraza. Relax, and let that be next week’s problem.”

My, “Sure,” sounded incredibly fake, but that was okay. ‘Fake it till you make it’ applies to de-stressing right? I shook away that issue, and returned to the previous topic in the stack. “So, what did you tell your friends about me that caused her to automatically assume I was lying about my backstory? I mean, she was right, but I wasn’t going to just admit that when I was cornered with nowhere to run away.”

“Didn’t you just tell us you were a black dragon?”

I waved a dismissive hand at Belinda. “Shush you. You had evidence, and also telling you was carefully calibrated to get you to assume it was bullshit.”

Toli laughed, “Well, it worked.”

Jevama looked pained by the discussion, and muttered under her breath, in what I guessed was draenic just because it didn’t sound like she was trying to talk to anyone else present, “The problem with success is that you have too many crystals to catch when the wards fail…” In a louder voice, and in a language I was sure the others in the room could hear from their reactions, she answered, “Strictly, I told her that Epolmono is a friend of a friend, who might be in need of a healer for her team.” And then she turned to me, and I could faintly hear the shift in her accent as she switched to her native tongue to conceal the rest of the conversation “However, as she told you - I help others hide who don’t quite fit as they should, and she is one of those. I told her nothing of your secrets, and you none of hers, but I had hoped the two of you would have more patience for each other's secrets.”

I sighed. “And if I’d been certain that I could have spoken in draenic, I’d have told her that most of the reason she’d upset me like that was that she was completely, utterly, right. And apologized for making a scene.”

She gave me a measuring look, “So, it was not wrath that prompted silence in your letters.”

I shrugged. “I can only maintain interest in writing letters for so long without talking face to face. I’ll keep writing them, but it's a chore, so, sorry if the quality is starting to slip.”

“To confirm, you are … alright?”

I snorted. “I still have a subscription of issues, but I’m getting better, not worse. That’s part of why the letters got forgotten, to be honest. Moving on from the problem made me forget it would bother you. Speaking of people being alright though, how bad was the fallout from my Outland reveal? You didn’t exactly include incriminating information like that in the letters back.”

“Must you phrase it like that?”

I snickered. “Yes, I absolutely must.” Settling back into the couch I waved for her to continue, “So, situation - how much trouble did I create for you?”

“More than I would like. Not enough to make me regret helping you. Indeed, as neither of the two reprimands I got were directly for helping you …” She sighed. “But while I avoided the trouble from helping a black dragon, it has raised tensions between my people and the alliance as a whole. I have some leeway to help you more openly, since the alliance is not officially at war with your people, but … there is hatred in the human court towards black dragons, and it is not a hidden hatred. And even if, officially they have backed down, it is possible I am still being watched. It is better, I think, that I don’t stick around and adventure with you in person to avoid leading investigations to your door.”

From her position, sprawled on one of the other couches Bellinda snorted. “Associating with you can’t possibly be more of a clue than her continued romance with known dragon fucker mage boy over here”

The gnome gave the warlock a scolding smack. “Behave.”

John feigned offense, waggling a finger at Bellinda, “I will have you know, I have only dated one dragon out of the two girlfriends who turned out to be secretly dragons.”

“Wait, it happened twice?!”

Val sighed. “Ignoring the warlock in the room, and the futility of trying to hide Omenia when she continues to associate with the Clarksons, you do bring up a good point about the tensions with your people. It would not be much, but I could offer a place in my guild roster to help your people network into the Alliance. Mine is only a small guild, and not one that fields grand assault teams, so it would not be that helpful for one with high ambitions, but if you know someone who would be well suited to a more casual environment, there is an offer open.”

As Jevama considered her response, I decided to be annoying. “So was that spy speak for, there's a spot open for another dragon watcher, or a genuine attempt to integrate the draenei better?”

Val smiled back at me. “I believe the answer is ‘yes’.”

I shrugged. “Fair enough.”

Jevama massaged the bridge of her nose, and huffed out an annoyed exhale before answering Val. “I know a few who might suit, and be willing. However, as I’m not simply assigning a spy to watch her, I’ll need to talk to them about whether they’ll be interested.”

Lily rolled her eyes, “If we’ve decided to stop being subtle - Jevama, I need to talk to you in private about how you met Omenia. Omenia, you’re welcome to join us for that conversation, but the rest of you had better give us privacy.” Glowing blue eyes scoured the congregation of adventurers. “And I will know if you try to eavesdrop.”

“Of course I’m coming.” I stood to join the conversation. Or rather I tried to stand - gasping heavily I had to brace against the sofa arm, every breath sending another flare of pain through rioting muscles. I managed to stop inarticulately panting long enough to huff out. “But you two are going to have to help me walk back to my room.” Carefully taking one hand off the couch, I began to massage the back ache I had set off by trying to stand. I couldn’t put out the metaphorical fire just by beating it down with a firm touch, but it did get it back down to a manageable sort of back ache.

-

I was exhausted, simply by walking down the corridor, and flopping into bed, but I was able to track the conversation enough to growl back at Lily when she moved from confirming that the Draenei do have mind-mender trained priests, and that Jev hadn’t pointed any at me. “If that was such an obvious solution, why haven’t you pointed me at any, Lily?”

She shot an unimpressed glance back at me - “When was I supposed to be cultivating contacts with priests while in the scourge? The only priest I know you’d trust with the truth, I don’t trust to be a mind-mender.”

“Wh-” before I’d even finished voicing the question, I’d managed to put together the venn diagram of people I’d told the truth to and ‘priest who can’t heal’ to get to Lily herself. I waved the half formed question away, and Lily returned to focusing on Jevama.

“Still, while I would dearly like you to consider that mistake, I can understand why - pushing Omenia to trust a healer carried some risk of it instead pushing her away, and you correctly identified a need for help she could trust.” Lily’s steepled hands made it look like it supposed to be a calming centering breath, but it hissed through gritted teeth as fuel for her rant, “But for the love of light-” Her fingers abandoned that calming pretense to jab forward in punctuation to her words, “Do. Not. Bring. A known suicide risk. Onto a battlefield. What. Were. You. Thinking?!”

Jevama didn’t flinch backwards the way I might have, instead bracing against the metaphorical onslaught, but I could still see the darting sideways glance, of someone looking for an answer they didn’t have.

I cut in. “A) It was my Idea. B) Didn’t you also let me onto a battlefield? Hypocrite.”

“There are degrees, and I’d already seen you on a battlefield before I learned about that issue. And I would not have let you come north if you were still self harming-”

“Don’t say that like I was making a pattern of it - there was one incident, it was a mistake, I’ve moved on. End of fucking story.”

Lily began to list examples on her fingers, “Denying yourself unnecessary comforts, to live in a cave. Specifically inflicting upon yourself a food you despised. Inaction to save yourself on a certain bloody night in Stormwind, despite being able to get out of that situation as a dragon.”

I glared at the deathknight, “I’m sorry, how? If I’d been from any other flight, I could have gone to the cathedral for healing, but a dragon of my flight is the enemy. And If you were think I should have just copied the warlock and fucked off the moment we heard about the plague and left everyone else to die-”

Lily cut off that rant with an answer to the first half of my question. “Land on a rooftop out of sight, roof hop the last two one or two rooftops and make it look like you’d been roofing hopping the entire way to dodge the scourge. Or just come begging for sanctuary - they wouldn’t have trusted you, but they wouldn’t have wanted to risk a dragon getting turned either.”

“It would have revealed what I was-”

“And it would have saved your life! In fact, isn’t that exactly what you did in the violet hold - dropping your disguise the moment you needed to to stay alive?”

“... Yeah, actually.” I sighed. “And I think I did consider flying, I just thought that my scale colour would be liable to get me shot down, rather than healed.”

Lily conceded the point with a sigh of her own. “Not by the priests, but with your stealth - I don’t know whether you would have been shot down if you tried to fly.” She then ticked off the next point. “And, unlike Jevama, I also got to see the degree to which you’ve been healing - and you have been healing.” She then gave me a level look. “Also, the politics involved mean that telling you to take the year off you need would not actually help. There were reasons we came north - and those reasons include saving your life in the years to come.” A faint spark of amusement curled through her voice, as she finished with, “So you’d better not get killed or I’ll be annoyed with the wasted effort.”

The conversation moved onto talking about exactly how my bracelet was doing its antidepressant thing, which was more boring than I wanted to listen to, so I waved them away, and then had to deal with being alone, and bored, and unwilling to get out of bed.

-

Being unwilling to get out of bed ended up being the part I compromised on, so when John wandered in to check on me, and settle his bags into our shared room, I was busy writing notes. Specifically, as I got poked to do periodically, I was finally writing down a summary of what I remembered.

In the most cryptic, unintelligible, and generally annoying code I could think up in one afternoon. I didn’t want spies looting my bags for prophecy - okay it was probably obvious that the notes were code… but with any luck the lack of sense and out of context frame of reference would make it impossible.

And I suppose if not, prophets do exist in Azeroth.

“How are you feeling?” John noticed the sheets of paper, where I was scribbling out drafts of wording both cryptic and meaningful, “and what are you up to?”

My response to the first was a yawn that was half groan. “Tired, bored, and full of aches and pains. So about the usual. As for what I’m working on - tell you what, you can have a crack at breaking my little code, if you’re willing to copy for me.”

A soft smile graced his face as he looked at me. “You could just ask, without framing it like that. But sure, I’d love to play another of our little word games. What have you got so far?”

I handed him my stack of papers, before dropping out of mortal form, and wiggling into a comfortable position on the bed that still left enough space for him to sit, a mirror of how I’d cozied up with my previous partner that life time ago, only now I was the one lying in the ‘backrest position’, and my dragon physiology made it easier to curve around to watch what was being written while still lying down. With one wing I gestured to the space I’d left.

He looked at the space I was offering, hesitating. “Are you sure- is it a good idea for you to curve like that while you’re still healing? And I don’t want to hurt your wing if I lean back…”

“Don’t know, but the pose feels comfy. Sit?”

Hesitantly he took the space offered, letting more pressure rest as I leaned in to the gentle touch. I let us have a moment to savour the closeness, before moving the topic back to my writing project. “So is what I’ve got there sufficiently unintelligible gibberish?”

John looked at my page of paper, and back up at me. “I’m not a spy, but given this nightmare, I’d say yes. With headings like ‘Vanilla 2’ and ‘Pottery’ what even are these notes? And what even ‘Servant Sabre vs Servant Sabre’?”

That last one had taken me about five tries to get right - because ‘king arthur pendragon’ was far too clean a mapping to both (Lich) King Arthas and Bolvar Fordragon. At least it felt like there was too much linguistic mapping, if that was what I was using to pick up the mapping to Bolvar. But my other obfuscation ideas lowered the value of having the same substitution turn up twice in the same sentence referring to two different people for being a nightmare to translate. Until I hit on F/SN servant sabre, which I wasn’t going to map to much of anyone else, while lowering the clarity of king Arthur for everyone else.

“I suppose I could be convinced to explain my chain of ‘referencing the reference without the reference’”

John’s comment of, “I probably don’t want to know do I?” was undercut by him leaning slightly to face me more clearly and show he was an eager listener.

He gave up after the first page, but it was still a very nice afternoon, for a day spent lying in bed reluctant to move.

-

Of course I had a nightmare that night - even with the bracelet helping, having nightmares was simply my new normal these days. The difference though, was in the shape of the nightmare. It wasn’t Wrathion, again. It wasn’t the good old classic of ‘everything I felt ashamed about’ or the new staple nightmare of being the type of monster I was supposed to be.

No, it was different. Both better and worse - it was a simple nightmare - I was back in the violet hold, but instead of shifting to my true form to escape the strangulation, I’d flinched and ended up dying as a mortal - and then my spirit was stuck helplessly watching as everything fell apart.

The water elemental, with more strength remaining, was able to actually drown Val, before being beaten. And then dragonkin kept coming, and the survivors weren't enough. The dragonkin kept coming until Voranku self-destructed against the dragonkin’s spell-reflect. Until Lily disappeared beneath the attackers overwhelming her and I was left helplessly screaming as John was cut down.

I woke up screaming from that nightmare.

Instead of being afraid of my corruption, of my willingness to use violence, the nightmare was the fear that it might not be enough. That I’d rather die a human, than accept being a dragon and fight for the things I love.

And it was wrong.

-

It was my third day of recovering in the guild hall, under Val’s supervision and with gradually reducing amounts of healing during the regular check ins, that we got another visitor here to talk to me. Or rather to ‘talk’ to Lily.

I was sitting at one of the guild hall desks, working on my notes and failing to come up with anything else to add, when there came a knock on the door. Walking over to see who it was didn’t bother me much, my back ache already mostly gone (yay, magic healers).

It was someone I recognized, namely my boss from my early stay in Stormwind - the head of the scribes guild, Catarina. Also accompanying her was a guy I didn’t recognize, in what might be mage robes.

“Ah, Eplomono. Is Lily around? I need to consult with her on rune magic.”

I shrugged. “Last I heard she was going off to spar with her fellow dks for a bit - that was last night, so she might be back soon, or it might be a while.”

“What I get for not sending mail ahead of time.” She then directed her focus far more towards talking with me, as I guided her and her guest to sit in the guild common room. “And what about you, have you been continuing to practice inscription?”

“During downtime - got a glyph-of-death-grip working last time my group was on recovery.” I paused the train of discussion to offer, “Either of you want drinks? We’ve got water, some imported juice, tea…”

Catarina accepted a drink with, “Water would be fine, thank you.” Her companion simply waved me away as he sat slightly outside our conversation.

I got out the glasses of water, and continued the conversation as I walked back, “Anyway, I’ve not done any glyph work yet this recovery break, so I’ve only got the one glyph design to show off.”

She pulled out some note paper before asking, “Have you been encountering many problems with ink compatibility?”

“If by many, you mean having to try every single fucking ink variant on the market…”

“That’s rather expensive for one glyph, especially if you aren’t making your own inks…”

I shrugged. “I could make ‘em, but I’m no herbalist, and buying the raw herbs only to have to test them for ink potentials…”

“That isn’t usually a problem with fresh herbs…”

“Well it’s the method you taught me.” My train of thought caught up to my mouth, remembering that that was as Lucy Firr, not Eplomono. “Oops.” And If I hadn’t just gone oops, maybe I could have played it off. “Fuck.” I sighed. “How much trouble am I in for being an unregistered shapeshifter?”

“Not as much as you could’ve been.” She took a calm sip of water, before continuing with, “Especially considering what you’ve been up to since leaving Stormwind.”

“Is that a poke on me getting revealed, three different times, or is saving mages and getting kidnapped by blue dragons illegal now?”

She blinked, “No. What I meant, was that you’ve shown a lot more regard for those around you than you would if this was just a cover identity.”

I fidgeted with my hair. “That does make more sense.”

“So,” she continued, “any objection to going on to the more direct interview?”

“No good ahead and ask questions, and uh… I’ll try not to be too spooked by the word interview.”

“Okay. You mentioned something about another life, could you elaborate a bit on that?”

Open ended question, gee thanks. “Okay, so, I can’t explain how it happened - I’ve got no idea what mechanism allowed it, but I woke up in the egg with memories of a human life.” Realizing that there was a bit of context that I had to provide I quickly added, “It is common for a dragon to be aware in the egg, but the past life memories bit is weird.”

She paused in her note taking, “So in that past life, what did you do?”

“I was an engineer.” I backtracked on that, “Or rather I was in my final year of my degree,” terms and conditions apply, “I never got to graduate. And another point of clarification, it was a human life, but it wasn’t in Azeroth. It wasn’t a world that could have been Azeroth or could have become Azeroth, by my reckoning.”

“Hmm,” She looked at her notes, “Guns, explosives, or weird tech?”

“Neither.” I set down my glass so that I could punctuate my sentence with flailing hands, “Excuse me, there is more to engineering than making things that explode or making weird - ugh!” I ran my hands down my face in frustration. “Civil engineering: One of the most well known fields of engineering my university had to offer, and it involved none of that.” I paused to recover my breath before continuing. “It is the fine art of making reliable cities; This is buildings that don't fall down in earthquakes, or high winds -!” I cut off remembering cost analysis, and places without earthquake risk, “Actually possibly neither of those concerns, it depends on where you're building it for - but where I was studying we have earthquakes and high winds, and our buildings are not allowed to just come down in a quake!” And buildings aren’t the entirety of civil engineering, “Building reliable roads, where people don’t get hurt! Foundations that hold up, and don’t liquefy in a quake! The art of building sewers, that work!” I paused for another breath, and for emphasis, “Engineering is about taking the ‘weird tech’ and making it reliable, accessible - making it so that - so that the cutting edge innovation can be used safely by people, it’s not mad science!” I abruptly realized that I had stood up at some point in my rant, and shrugged sheepishly. “Sorry. I just have opinions about Azerothian engineering.”

“That sounds more like masonry to me?”

“Masons are the people who build the plans the engineers make - some of the time, we’ve moved beyond masonry as the usual building material.”

“So, what would the usual building material be?”

“Steel reinforced concrete.”

“Concrete? What would that be?”

“Stone cast into whatever shape you need it. Cement, water, aggregate mixture, secondary siliceous materials … I swear fly ash was involved somewhere in there, but I can never remember whether it was in the recipe for the primary cementing agent, or in the admixtures.”

She looked slightly out of her depth, “We definitely need to get you to talk to someone about this.”

“I don’t promise to remember more with time,” And under my breath, “or not to rant about engineering again,” I continued back at normal volume, “But sure.”

“I think we can keep it to Masons or dwarvish builders.” she replied with a hint of a smirk. “So, you said this world definitely couldn’t be Azeroth, what other examples can you think of?”

“Magic. We had none. And mankind was alone. No dwarves, no vrykul, no titans. Just us rising apes on our lonely ball of mud.” The rising ape, to Azeroth’s fallen angels. If one squints, a lot, at the titan crafted vrykul.

The conversation continued along this vein, with me revealing my past world in overview, but kept some cards, like WoW under lock and key.

I still had a lot of pocket rants I could be led into left unspoken, when Lily turned back up. Her arrival was heralded by a death gate opening in the corner of the common room, and about a moment later with a chipper stride, and a notably unhealed collection of bruises, she emerged. She took in what was going on and asked, “Okay, so why is the leader of the scribes guild paying us a visit?”

“Doing a follow up visit with one of my former,” She looked at me for a second, “Employees.”

Lily sighed and looked at me. “Are you getting into trouble again? Can you go a week without someone turning up to ‘check on you?’”

“Excuse me, I made it several whole months in Theramore without incident.”

Lily looked skeptical, but didn’t contest the point, instead turning to Catarina, “So, I don’t have a proficiency in spy games - can we just - what is going on?”

“Mostly, Guildmaster Spellsinger’s report needed independent verification.” A gesture towards the mage accompanying her. “And there’s a request for you to get back to what you were doing.” She waved her glyph notes, “Although, I did have questions about glyphs and how my ex-apprentice was doing as well.”

“I’ll be happy to answer glyph questions - but what’s that about a request for us to get back to work?”

The probable mage spoke up, “Considering your involvement at Amberwing Ledge, we’d appreciate your assistance in moving forward with our efforts against the blue flight.”

“Can I get some hard details with that mission assignment?”

The mage shifted uncomfortably. “That’s currently need to know information.”

“So we’ll get briefed when we get back to the field. Okay.”

“Master Whitecloud is coordinating the Dalaran end.”

I spoke up with what might have been an annoying, stupid, question. “Uh, is it okay if we don’t ship out immediately? I’m still on medical leave, and I don’t want Val angry with me for sneaking out of medical leave.”

Toli, wandering into the room just in time to hear this last sentence, started snickering. “She’s not that hypocritical.”

Chapter Text

As soon as things had quieted down, and our guests had left, Lily pulled me aside for a chat. “I owe you an apology.”

“Okay that’s a worrying start. Why?”

She shrugged, sat down onto the floor in front of where I’d turned my bed into a chair. “Because, you weren’t wrong to call me out on bringing you into the field. Yes, we have good reasons and telling you to stay behind would be worse … You need a mind healer. And I haven’t gotten you one, and I haven’t helped you to get one for yourself, and while there’s about a hundred good reasons why I can’t be your mind healer, starting with the fact that I don’t have access to the light right now, and minimal training in how to do this the mundane way. But I can, and frankly should, help undo the harm I’ve been doing.”

“Uh…?”

“Encourage you to talk things through and unpack what’s going on in a safe space, rather than let my ex-scourge approach to mental health keep going.” She winced. “I’ve not got my mind as sorted out as it needs to be. Those priest memories keep not quite fitting right. But there's a difference between not being able to work out a way to fit morals and fun violence together, and dropping the ball on my responsibilities like this.” She leaned forward, voice speeding up to stop an interruption, “And since I know you fairly well by now, here’s the explanation you’re about to ask for- As a scourge death knight, openly admitting mental health problems and unpacking them was among the list of human luxuries that would get you killed. So instead, when I was trying to help a fellow knight, I’d work to take over getting critical mission objectives done, steer them away from problem topics, and give them milk run violence for catharsis, distraction, and to avoid dk hunger. Which is obviously maladaptive now, but … Anyway that’s how I’ve been fucking this up. Do you want me trying to help with more human appropriate methods now?”

I waved Lily to go ahead, “Sure.”

“Is there anything you’d like to start with?”

My initial response was shrug, not being overly fussed about what to unpack with Lily, but she dropped the bit of the conversation, allowing the negative space to grow, the silence to stretch and loom, and I found myself answering just to drive back the silence. “If we’re going to be unpacking my trauma don’t we have to start with the … with the self harm risk?”

“We can, but start where you feel most comfortable starting. This isn’t an emergency intervention - you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“Yeah. I guess. It just feels like I have to start with the big points first?”

“‘Does one unweave a tangle by pulling on the most taut string? Disentangling a loser thread might still help solve a knot’, to quote my teacher. Or phrased closer to how you would say it, ‘if you want to start with something small or seemingly petty, it will still be making progress’.”

Small. Petty. Yes, those I could do - and that air of disregard always made it easier to talk - so, of course, what came spilling out was neither small nor petty, “I’m going to fuck it up with Alexstraza, you know that right?’

Lily didn’t wave away my worries immediately, like she might have done in previous conversations, instead giving me a thoughtful look, and asking, “Why?”

And yeah I might do a great line in being friendly and charming, and giving speeches, “I might be great at making a good impression when I try, and I can give speeches with the best of them, but It doesn't matter how well I do, given that I’m going to ruin it by saying the wrong thing and burning all my bridges right when I need them.”

Lily cocked an eyebrow in faint negation, “You haven’t done so so far? From my perspective it looks like you are doing a good job of gathering people who would support you.”

“Which black dragon have you been watching? I’ve got three people choosing to help, and their circles of friends who only support me because those people chose to support me, and I’ve already had one adventuring group that I’d actually been bonding with report me, and I’ve messed things up with Azui, and it’s only a matter of time before Jevama decides she can’t keep cutting herself on my sharp edges and - Ugh.” I yanked on the reigns of that runaway thread of discussion, “So look at my vast web of alliances: one boyfriend and his family, a paladin who is at this point probably running more on sunk-cost-fallacy than actual care, and a tentative truce waiting for the first true mistake to come crumbling in.”

“Or, taking a positive slant, a paladin that cares enough to come check on you when you're letters stopped being reassuring-”

“Yeah, and I haven't gotten the foggiest clue why.”

Lily gave me a confused look. “Wouldn’t you do the same?”

I snorted. “Out of sight, out of mind. It only takes about a month for ‘best friends’ to forget to write letters when one of them moves. All friendships are contextual, and we neither spend time working together, nor am I on that edge to provoke her heroic self-image. Just you watch, that’s going to come tumbling down when I no longer ‘need to be saved’.”

“It won’t. Not all relationships are transient-”

I sliced through the air with a gesturing hand. “They are - every last one. ‘Those we love, those we leave, and those who then moved on’ - it doesn't matter how real a friendship or kinship; it only exists when being observed. Turn your gaze away and all that remains is just a ghost of memory, even when you’re still alive. I’ve been forgotten by people I once thought would be forever Lily - I’ve watched as my father fought to be remembered, by his siblings that wouldn’t, couldn’t meet him halfway, and write their own letters back. Walk away from the context of love, and no one remembers you no matter how loud you scream for it.”

I stood from my chair, needing to move, needing to have height. “Jevama might like me, but she doesn't, can’t, love me. And that isn’t enough - it can’t be a load bearing relationship. She will forget me, move back to easier friendships, one that doesn't take this kind of work. And I will move on, just like I’ve done too many times before. I used to be a clingy bastard, before I learned that nothing lasts, that it isn’t worth it to try to make something permanent.”

I paced around the room, burning with words trying to escape past my lips. “Why bother repairing a relationship when thousands of others can replace them. Why strain at trying to hold on, when everyone walks away to easier friends - ones they've known longer, ones that are easier to understand and have more in common. I can lean on you because you won’t leave John, and I can choose to stay with him - but the others, the good fades into pleasant mist, and all my sins are remembered - even when I don’t fade from someones life, I must love so shallowly, that it’s easy to brush my cobweb roots away the moment I say something stupid -”

“And why do you think that saying something stupid will unmake a friendship? Your snark and humor hasn’t driven anyone away yet.”

I waved it away. “Maybe not in this life, but I doubt that old god corruption has made me nicer - magically made me a kind lovable person- about every year I ruin my social circle with something small, petty, and unforgivable. Showing off nail polish art, forgetting about hand gestures that I never had a context to use. Quoting a series we were both fans of, friendship built on that fandom, only to realize that I had picked a joke offensive rather than funny. Academic snobbery. Being a lying liar who lies. The decision to partake in a limited time event rather than a boring class and being foolish enough to admit it.” I flicked away tears that had snuck onto my face. “I try. I try so hard - and I will never be a good person. Lies drip from my tongue no matter how I try to speak the truth. I will pour my focus behind living up to my word, only to break it in a moment of unthinking excitement.” (But unlike all the others, that one had been forgiven - lovers are willing to try to rebuild after a mistake, but I couldn’t seduce Alexstrasza to make that safety net. (Flirting - not a skill I’ve ever learned)) “I will never be good enough.”

“And that’s okay. No one is ever good enough, the light loves us all anyway.” She then shrugged with a sheepish smile, “Or it doesn't. But we keep living and being loved anyways.” Settling back into a tone so earnest it was almost painful she reassured me, “You aren’t alone, and I wouldn’t consider any of those things you’ve mentioned to be unforgivable. Just the type of mistakes people make. And unfortunately, being monsters doesn't make us any less people- so that’s just something you’ll have to live with.”

If they weren’t unforgivable, then why would no one ever forgive me. I didn’t voice that thought though, instead expressing, “Well, if you say so.”

She saw my disbelief, but only doubled down with “I do say so.” A pause, to give me the chance to speak if I still had to deny it, before she offered, “Now, I think we should steer back to some lighter topics, so that we don’t track doom and gloom about our daily lives-”

“That is a very tall order for a dk and a dragon.”

“Eh, something less personal then. To start with, how about tackling some other pieces of foreknowledge planning, since I think I’ve been letting you coast on short term planning too long.” She paused for a moment, but it was clear that she still had more to say, so I waited for her to ask, “To start with, were the visions I saw of the future in chronological order? And were they all of equivalent importance?”

I shrugged, “No idea, I can’t remember what you saw from me.”

“Arthas, atop Icecrown, followed by an ancient black Dragon bringing ‘natural’ disasters, a city reduced to purple ash, the destruction of a nice Jade statue while chasing Prince Anduin, ‘a timeless isle’, fighting ogres, then a splinter faction of the horde, before demons and more demons? Oh and Ysera, either dying, or being saved by a druid dying in her place.”

I was tracking the events as she recounted them, “Yeah, that sounds chronological to me. But no, they aren’t all equivalently important. Some, like the villains coming crashing down are very important, and others - what does my terrible performance matter? The Highmaul ogres are an unimportant local threat to a timeline that may never exist.” I sighed, “It helped to have you say that you would use my foreknowledge on your own, but I think with the little you saw you don’t have enough to save anyone.”

A prompting wave, “Then tell me enough.”

I went over the broad overview of the chronology to come: Deathwing’s reemergence, with the twilight hammer, and the angry elemental lords, and the extinction of the black dragonflight; Pandaria being discovered, Anduin doing a teenage rebellion, and Garrosh nuking both Theramore, and any hope of peace, only for the horde to rip itself apart, and turn on him; A renegade bronze - Kari-something, saving Garrosh, and trying to go infinite only to get shived, and drop a new timeline on us, and then Legion, and too many dying leaders.

“And the worst part was, despite losing several world leaders, and possibly the Ebon Blade -”

“Hold up, how did I miss ‘Losing the entire Ebon Blade’.” She then looked thoughtful, even as she continued to hold up a hand for pause. “... Or, wait, I saw a second Attack on lights hope in your mind - that got us all put down?”

“No. The Ebon Blade still existed, as bodies capable of holding swords in defense of a world - but the order turns back to the scourge for power.”

Lily winced, “Oh I can’t picture a world in which that turns out well.”

Before I could formulate my response, there was the crash of a door being slammed open echoing down the corridor, and the sound of metal boots stomping across the stone floor of the guildhalls front room, only faintly audible under the door to my room.

“Sounds like someone’s pissed. Should we go see-”

My question was cut off by the crystalline crash of something shattering, loud enough to be heard almost clearly - was it thrown against the wall to the corridors?

We were out the door and into the corridor, when another crystalline shattering sound was accompanied with “Light damned traitor scum - I hope there’s an afterlife for the undead just so that they can burn in it!” This was followed by a wordless roar, and another chiming crash.

Lily looked at the doorway to the common room, “I probably should sit this out.” A shrug, “Eh - doing it anyway.” She walked with an easy confidence into the room, “If you want to punch a less breakable target than -” a moment's pause as Lily assessed what was being broken, “rather than hurling empty potion bottles at the wall, I’m fine with mild wrathful smiting and thorough bruising.”

“MiId?!” A gauntleted fist smashed into the side of Lily’s face, straight through the magical protection of her armor, and leaving a trail of blood dripping from lips cut against teeth. “MiId?!”

Another punch, this time into her ‘exposed’ gut, again having rough force to break past the magic and send her staggering back, doubling over slightly from the pain, but grinning with bloody teeth.

“Wipe the smug smile off your face, you wretched snake!” Both of the paladin’s gauntleted hands reached up to try to strangle the DK.

I flinched at that, and traces of sparks gathered as I readied to fight on my sister-in-adventure’s behalf, with Fire growling from her perch on my shoulders. Earth however tapped my ankle, ‘Wait. Listen’

I stopped, because nothing good ever comes as shaman from disobeying a command to listen even if you disagree with the message they send. And as I paused, the lightning faded from my fingers, as I realised that I couldn’t stop Alexandra without risking killing her. But if I have to I will, ‘Earth - what am I not hearing?’

Despite the hands round her throat, the death knight's unnatural voice was clear, “How about you impress on me the reason for your anger?”

The paladin threw the deathknight to the floor, and I saw what earth had, in the way Lily fell - the way she let herself fall with a dramatic thump that would have winded a living human, rather than roll into a combat stance. “Why I’m angry - you want to know what I cannot forgive - that damn bitch Sylvanas, her traitorous scheming plague brewers - I was in Wyrmrest negotiating when the battle happened - and I could see, from that far, the cloud of green smoke!” The forceful stomp of wrath was aimed simply at the floor rather than the taunting tank, and I caught a flash of annoyance on Lily’s face as the wood splintered “And guess what - it wasn’t even the fucking Scourge!”

She was crying and laughing both, the terrible humor of the universe catching you by surprise with a sucker punch - “It wasn't even the Scourge!” Her metal clad hands pulled at her own hair as she paced, ignoring Lily again in favor of the rant. “It was the ones who got free - the free willed bastards and their damned banshee queen, who chose, who decided of their own fucking ‘free will’ to murder our army - and worse, to murder the horde army too.”

“We’re here on the frozen death trap to face down a threat to all our lives and all our souls, and now we aren’t even going to be fighting the Lich king - no it’s a crew of blighted traitors! I don’t know which is worse, that they saw an active battle and forgot any hint of strategy in favor of murder, or that they decided they would rather go back to being under scourge control if it means killing us all!”

The line from Wrathgate flashed through my memory ‘death to the scourge - and to the living!’ They hadn’t been trying to sabotage the war effort - no they were trying to kill all their enemies in one fell swoop. But for someone who only saw the aftermath, where the scourge walked away with complete control of Wrathgate, and the mortal forces didn’t even get to walk away with nothing, I could see why Alex thought the things she did. And, well - did it matter that the forsaken had also been trying to kill Arthas, when they betrayed the soldiers at Wrathgate?

She panted, chest heaving not with excursion, so much as the echoing tremors of undiluted rage.

It was diluted now, diluted with sorrow no less deep.

The tears that had snuck in amongst her earlier rant were continuing to flow, glinting lines along her cheeks as she fell into the comfort of the couch, elbows resting on knees and face in hands.

I decided to make myself useful in other ways, and began gathering glass shards from the broken potion bottles.

When I looked up again, everyone still in the guildhall had congregated in the common room: Val was picking her way across the room to sit beside her sister, the pair of magi were lurking in the doorway, and Lily was doing something with magic to clean the blood off the carpet.

“Why?” It was hiccuped in between sobs. “Why, Light? Why did you let this happen?”

It was a prayer directed at her god - but after I had known- known - that was coming and did nothing, it felt like a weight dropped on my shoulders. A block of ice, cold, and heavy, and dripping a cocktail of guilt and anxiety down my spine.

I had all my reasons ‘because’; but could any of them ever be enough to justify what I’d allowed to happen?

Probably not.

(But could I have changed it?)

(Which is worse - that I chose to do nothing; or the idea that I couldn’t have stopped it?)

(Unforgivable either way.)

-

Alex was pulled back to the field within the day - to the assault on Undercity. Her sister spent the entire evening waiting for her own call to action. Pretending to make potions while watching the door and her mail charm, until at last, the letter came to pull her, too, away.

-

In my dreams that night, I was sitting across a table from the black prince as he talked about the alliance failing to crush the horde, calling up a vision of Varian that he looked upon with scorn, “Is this because he is weak...? Or because he is principled?”

He looked back at me with a knowing smirk, that suddenly seemed to have very little to do with the topic we had been discussing in the dream.

“Here's the bigger question: Can principles win a war?”

-

After Val had gotten to sleep off her mana expenditure on healing, she declared that I was fit to adventure, and we were going back to the front of our stretch of the war. Never mind that I still wasn’t off ‘needing a healer to do regular check ins to make sure my body was actually healing itself under the holy band-aid’ - we were going back to the field.

The arrangements were as follows: the five of us plus Toli, under cover of evening, each with a flying mount and directions on how to reach the new forward base from the elven flightmaster.

The pair of mages were both riding flying carpets in the only simple flight arrangements out of our mess. Lily was riding the other drake in the party, due to borrowed griffons not tolerating undead riders overly well. And myself and Val were both on aforementioned borrowed griffons, with mine specifically following Val’s griffon’s lead, rather than going through the effort of teaching me to take control of a griffon.

It had pros and cons.

Pros - we sorted things out quickly without having to deal with extra reveals, and arranged a flying cover for the landing. Cons- I was going to be completely helpless in mid air, at a grumpy paladin's mercy.

At least in an emergency I could drop form and fly.

Cold comfort.

-

Hands warped in the cloth of the harness, face pressed against the feathers of my borrowed griffon, I felt myself spiralling into panic as I focused on trying not to look down. It didn’t stop me from seeing the black of the night merging with the black of the waves, and shivering at the empty night.

With an effort of will I peeled off my griffon enough to call out, “So Toli, why are you coming with us? I thought you were on Belinda’s team.”

Her voice sounded completely unbothered by any mere mortal fear of falling, “Eh, sort of? I go where I’m needed, or where it’s interesting. And let me say, you are very interesting.”

I shrugged, and offered the easy follow up to that. “I do try.”

The gnome snickered. “I’m not sure if I should tell you to try to be more interesting or less. I doubt -”

Her voice cut off a second before I saw the source of her startlement, and Val’s cry of “Incoming.”

With a swirl of black sand, streaked with blue sparks, a way opened. I couldn’t see where, or when, it led, but the drakes that came flying out were clue enough.

The infinite flight was here paying us a visit. Huh. And here I thought it was the Bronze that I had to worry about trying to kill me. Clinging to gryphon back, there was no way I could focus enough to cast - and my dragon form fighting skill …. “I don’t suppose you’ll let us go if I promise to give Noz a headache?”

The infinite drake at the front of the trio laughed. For one foolish moment I relaxed, began to unclench to keep slowing the fight with dialogue, and then with a single bright flash, I heard the time traveller's voice from behind me. “Good try - but we can’t have them learning from you.”

With a shove I was falling.

Somewhere there is a manual on how to fly, and in the section on how not to fly, was the maneuver I pulled as I dropped form, my wings straining to brace against being upside down.

That didn’t stop me from calling up, “I can fly, Jackass!”

The infinite apparently only had one charge of blink, because I saw them falling at me, and I had claws ready.

I scored bloody lines across their throat despite the poor leverage and scales, but not deep enough to do more than well up like a ruby necklace, before the drake crashed into me, as much weight as they could put behind the paw hitting the bone of my wing near my shoulder.

With a sharp crack we tumbled, scales dark as mud twinned with scales dark as a lightning storm.

I lashed out with my right leg, desperate to pry them off before they could make a better strike against my throat, and to my surprise, the infinite rolled with the blow, flinging themselves away from melee.

I flapped -

I didn’t flap my wings, one fluttering wildly in the swirling air as I fell.

The broken, or dislocated, wing hit me in the face at around the same time the pain did.

Blinding - and sharp in the way my broken leg had never been.

The leg had been soft, gentle, impossible to move, and aching in a thousand tiny whispers with every breath or mindless fidget.

This was a brand under my skin burning its way free, hot as any sprain flaring anger at mistreatment, and cold as a dagger of ice at the core of the pain carving across my shoulder.

With some last situational awareness I took a gasp of air to prepare for -

Impact.

The water was as ice - colder than mere snow and ice could ever be.

Sharp, and so terribly cold - equal, opposite to the fire in my wings - the lingering napalm of salt on blood at the center of the terrible wrongness there.

And salt water in my mouth from my lips having let some of the sea in during the impact and instinctive whimper. Ick.

I needed my wings gone. They disappeared, folding back into the place where my dragon features went when I invoked my human name - I was now stuck in mortal form, light knows how deep, in the middle of arctic ocean, at night. Definitely an improvement.

Except it was - without the burning pain in my wing, it was only the water I had to deal with. And, given a moment to think - the air pressure in my nose said I was face up in the water and also said that somehow despite doing the backwards equivalent of a belly flop off a high dive, I hadn’t had all the air knocked out of me. More lost than I would like, enough to make my fingers twitch with the need to surface.

Calm yourself, Omenia - you can do this.

A small snort of air, and I had a single glittering silver light, tracing exactly which way was up.

I kicked upwards, but my right leg lost the timing as my bruises twinged. My hands clawed at the water, but I was so heavy, and upper body strength was never my virtue.

Above, my bubble floated away, climbing higher, as I fell, deeper, deeper.

And with each stroke, it felt like I was some clay sculpture, setting from pliable and plastic, to unyielding porcelain.

With each stroke that failed to breach the air, my resolve crumbled. The air had been right there - human bodies do not sink that quickly - why couldn’t I find it.

My grasping hand found no sky, and there was no earth beneath my feet.

Only the ocean.

‘Help’ I didn’t spend my limited air, trying one more time in vain, but I reached, with my shaman’s spiritual voice, to beg.

I sunk deeper instead of gaining ground upwards, and as I fought to move my fingers, my arms, the cold water pulled me tight, crooning as it fanned out my hair - almost like fingers stroking across my scalp - a disturbing parody of care. ‘Relax, little drake. Sleep, you poor tired thing, and let me carry you down to the drowned god, and his sleeping city.’

My sluggish thoughts couldn’t place where I had heard that title before, but it was the exact opposite of reassuring. A desperate burst of strength clawed me free of the spirit’s grip - but not the Ocean’s, and after a mere moment, it had me again, no longer sounding half as nice ‘Yes, your Old god Master can have you - After my children have picked your bones clean.’

Somehow, the first thought I had in response to that was a flash back to Aragog going ‘And let go prey that walks willingly into my nest? Goodbye, friends of Hagrid’, with an inappropriate urge to laugh. Which managed to let me skip straight to step three - profit, without having to clear step two - panic first. ‘You hate the old gods too? Please help me fight them.’

‘You lie.’ The spirit’s voice was cold - as terribly cold as the ice black sea - as it drew out the hiss of the words.

‘You lie speaker - Twice over no less - for what use would a half drowned rat be in fighting them?’ And then, smugly, it whispered in my ear, ‘Or did you think that because you could speak and be heard, you could command me to listen? Your god might be lord of the lightless depths - but you, child of air and fire and stone - you hold no power here.’

It was dark, and cold, and the only spirit I could hear was the one coiled around my throat.

‘Of course I don’t have power here. When have I ever had the power to save myself?’ And in answer, memories welled up - of my argument with Lily, of the fact that I had had the power to save myself if I had just been bold enough - of Jevama reaching out with a handful of light, ‘But I can be saved - and I have the power to save others. I cannot beat an old god, myself, but I know they will be beaten - and what might that certainty inspire others to do?’

My eyes had slipped shut, and I had no voice left with which to speak aloud, only a vice grip of pressure burning brighter in my chest than the terrible cold all about. ‘I can strive against them to my last breath.’

Song lyrics holding an idea replaced reasoned argument as I tried to cheat cold watery death, ‘the choice to make - each man reaching out a hand - a prophet or just a crazy dreamer.’

A future where black whelps flew the skies again, free of the master’s call. A future where I got to watch John grow old beside me, and some distant day, the wars would end, and the salted earth would grow again.

‘Just a crazy dreamer - and it was only just a dream.’

And selfishly, the dream that I would have been a hero - that I would have saved, instead of needing to be saved - that I had the power to make a better future.

The power the infinite dragons must have thought I had - to go for me first. One more try, ‘Please, let me try to save them’

And as my awareness drifted, I heard the waters sigh, and release their aching grip. ‘It was a good dream, speaker.’

In the last spark of my awareness, I imagined softness, where the water spirit had been sharp with malice, ‘It earns you a chance to make it real.’

Chapter Text

Before they set out to fly by night, Lily made a point to pull her flying mount aside to discuss emergency protocol. “You know more about airborne combat than I do, so if we get attacked, how should I react?”

“Any plan we make now - understand that in a fight I will react to my rider.” Voranku grimaced, “Even if you are wrong in every way it is possible to be wrong, my training is to obey.” He sighed, “Which means you need to know the full set of non-verbal signals I was trained to react to - just to avoid an incidental command messing us both up.”

Thinking it was just frustration with having to teach her, she offered a comforting smile, and light tone, “We’ve got a few hours, and I’m a quick study.”

The sour expression didn’t ease, but he began to list instructions - from the basics like how to signal a turn or to surge forward to far more complicated things like how to signal a sudden dive or abort a manoeuvre. The explanation finished with “... And I’d prefer if you don’t try to stand in the saddle, because I’m not strong enough to hover with a rider in full-plate, and still fly back to land afterwards.”

“Got it - not sure how I’ll manage sword fighting while sitting -”

“It is a learned skill.” His tone of voice could have been just frustration at Lily not having time to learn.

Could be - but better to check, “You alright being separated from your normal rider?”

In the most stiff tone she had heard from him, “I am perfectly alright with being used wherever I am needed.”

“So you’d rather not have me as a rider, got it.”

He seemed about to say something and then turned to pace. After spinning sharply on heel at the edge of the room twice, he faced her with a piercing stare and asked, “Do you ever feel like nothing more than the weapon you were made to be? Is it just as much a waste of your freedom, to fight this war, as it is for me to carry another rider into battle?”

Lily had been braced for a heavy response, but that skip straight to the point was still as shocking as a sudden plunge into ice-water. But it was the truth she had been trying to provoke, and now she had to bear the conversation she had opened. “Always. And never.”

The sword of her soul was currently a spear, resting against the wall. If she closed her eyes - she could feel the cold stone wall against her back, and ‘see’ the runes glowing up her arms. And when she fought - she could taste, as if with her own tongue, every drop of blood that her steel fangs drew fourth.

“Part of me is still there, even now. I am a sword of the Scourge - and I will never not be. And-”

If there was one lesson she remembered, it was the power of the word ‘And’. The idea that two things could exist in opposition and both be true.

There was power in the shadows and a single candle was all it took to hold the dark at bay. An undead can never truly be the person they were before and no matter the form they take, a person is still a person. Lily would never be free of the Scourge and the Scourge had no power to control her anymore.

“-And I am a woman with the freedom to make her own choices, and I have always been.” Starker choices - the other roads hidden, or leading to dead ends, even the choice itself lost in the culture of the Scourge, but she had always had the capability to say no.

If Voranku had the same personality as the other dragon Lily was trying to help, he might have laughed in her face, and called that statement ‘bullshit’. Instead it was a false level tone saying, “You lie.”

“The Lich King’s will is a heavy one - and he certainly clipped my wings - but if I had wanted to, I could have found freedom at the bottom of that metaphorical cliff. Or snuck deliberate subversion beneath his gaze. Not kind choices, nor easy, but I did have them.”

A pause, for weight, and to see if he would hold, “As did you.”

“Oh yes, tell me how I had a choice - I chose to be their beast of burden - not even a slave to whip, but a mount to break to harness.”

He was looming in her personal space- having an external push to anger might not be the most healthy catharsis, but now the hurt was spoken, it could heal. Lily resisted the urge to jump in with an answer, and simply let the drake speak his hurt, “Do you think I choose to be nothing but the tool of my riders - do you think I secretly crave to be treated like a beast? That my continuing willingness to carry riders even after being freed is proof that I cannot be content without a master's hand?!”

Not to damn up the pain pouring out, but to build a healthier channel, Lily offered, “I think you learned that being useful would keep you safe.”

“There must be a thousand ways I could be useful - why is this- why do I keep coming back to obedience?”

Lily let the silence stretch, the smallest unit of void to pull out his answer. This wasn’t something she could answer for him. She could guess, make some very good guesses - and she could attack the question for it’s flaws - but in this moment, he had to answer for himself.

“It’s the symbol of why they enslaved us - I hate being treated as just another steed in my rider’s stable - so why can’t I stop volunteering for it - why didn’t you cast aside the sword he tried to weld to you?”

And that was still a question, but Lily could hear under it the answer. “Because we were great. Not just acceptable, not just cheap swords and horses, to wage our masters’ wars - a richer prize than the best trained war-horse, a sword that even the best smith might never create again - we were good at it. And choosing our own battles, our own riders, or hands wielding that sword-” The words of a broken prophet, in her self imposed exile - not even Omneia herself as Lily’s new master - but rather that warning of war to come. “We get to be great again - do something only we can do.”

“There are other drakes, even flying carpets now -”

“And you are the only drake I know who has a clue how to fight alongside your rider - maybe it’s frustratingly easy to you - but it’s still a skill most of your peers haven’t learned, and never will.”

He snarled, “This still does not set me free from the problem of leashing myself back into these chains, and handing over my reins. I cannot give any less than my best, and yet …”

Lily had an idea, from the conversation earlier about them both having been weapons - about how she didn’t mind as much, being a weapon, as he did, being a mount. “Then change how you approach it - Don’t hand over your reins - learn how to take back the control for yourself - not carrying a rider, but arming yourself. After All, I am but a sword.”

There was the physical weapon, leaning against the wall. The metaphorical weapon, wielded in Arthas’s hand to commit slaughter. The sword that was neither, both, resting in her soul - sleeping for now, but so terribly thirsty for blood when it woke.

“Set aside that you’ve never learned to wield a sword - you know how to wield a rider as a weapon - wield me as your sword, if a fight breaks out. Let me be your tool, carried to battle, instead of the other way around.”

Voranku turned in his angry pacing, mouth open to growl out another protest, before he paused, “..., you know, I’ve never thought about it like that before - I doubt I will manage it tonight - but something to work towards…”

-

The drake was still yielding control far too easily to her, when the time came to fly, but even if Lily couldn’t adjust that, she did her best to minimize the amount of non-verbal cues she was sending her reluctant mount.

After they had flown out of sight from shore, Omenia broke the silence with questions for the new mage that had been folded into their party. She appeared to be compensating for her fear of heights with increased volume, but at least out above the open strait Lily wasn’t worried about their stealth. A few more questions, and then Lily would remind the shaman to be quiet.

As the discussion moved to Omenia being interesting, Lily was about to suggest that maybe the dragon should try to be less so, when a ripple of power had Lily scanning the sky for the source.

Valerie shouted incoming, just as the sky cracked open. Lily saw a path into forever, blue sparks and black sand swirling with panels of some true otherness, a box of mirrors reflecting themselves, and in the moment it took her to blink away the disorientation, Omenia had drawn attention to herself by starting conversation in typical form.

Her habit of, in her words 'referencing the reference without the reference’ was irritating, as Lily had minimal context to sort out why ‘giving Noz a headache’ might please the trio of drakes that had ambushed them, beyond Omenia clearly recognizing their possible attackers.

A moment’s consideration, and Lily stayed her hand on attacking the lighting speckled dragons until they had given their response.

The laughter was a good sign - the lead drake blinking to behind Omenia was the exact opposite. His words were also not encouraging, “Good try - but we can’t have them learning from you.”

Omenia is the primary target. Any secondary objectives?

I need to regain control. With a flick of her hand, Lily sent a howling blast at the pair still clumped, and leaned with Voranku as he banked to get a better sight line on the one that had lunged for her friend.

She got a moment of clear sight-line as the drake surveyed his next target as Omenia fell, and Lily sent her dark magic clawing at the unknown drake.

And missed. He dropped to chase Omenia, and Lily’s supernatural grip closed on only air.

Light take it. Omenia can tank one drake, until I have deathgrip recharged.

Leveling out from the sweeping turn, Lily confirmed that at least one of the two drakes she had hit was following her, and sent a second surge of frost their way.

Voranku had seen a different problem, as evidenced by a mid-air lung towards the other of the chilled pair - which was hovering, dazed from a paladin hammer.

Lily leaned into the charge, her spear wrapped in the black magic of a plague-strike, as much for the reinforcement as for the sickness it would leave. Under her will the swishy wood became unyielding. (A neat trick, if you had your soul-sword bound to a spear - slice like a ribbon-spear, and brace like a pike.)

Impact. Spearbutt against shoulder-plate, lines of sensation where the armor straps dug into flesh. Spearpoint cracking through scale, tasting blood.

Even as it strained at the limits of what its wood could endure, the runeblade bit eagerly into its victim.

It wasn’t a vital hit - the blood on her point didn’t carry a stolen life, only the usual taste of copper-rust.

In the background, Omenia was snarking at her assailant. “I can fly, Jackass!”

Voranku kicked their current foe away, and Lily yanked her spear free of flesh with a squelch. Crimson spattered, lost into the sea below.

Dragon’s breath splashed against anti-magic, as Lily surveyed the battle.

Underneath her, Voranku tucked his wings into a sudden short dive, and the second opponent's claws grazed against Lily’s invisible helmet as they fell out of the way.

Good, both drakes I plagued are paying attention to me. Lily addressed her own mount, “Can we get the third one?”

She couldn’t see his expression, but she imagined there was a smirk as he answered, “Of course we can,” and threw his momentum into a diving turn, giving Lily a clear line of sight onto the pair of falling dragons, twisting around each other in the air. One, of the four wings, was broken - a dark shape fluttering haphazardly around the melee - but it was impossible to tell which shade of black, in the night.

It would be impossible to pick out which target was which to attack - Lily sent her gripping hand of shadows into the fray.

(Another trick: Deathgrip, Leap of Faith: the same spell, save for how kind the handling of the target, which magic you drew on. Omenia could endure a rough escape- or the last attacker would be brought to spear range. Either outcome was acceptable.)

As her grip reached the end of its tether, the two drakes split apart. Her clawing will grabbed the tail of the near drake, dragging it close.

Ice blue flecks on the scales.

Intact wings.

Damn.

Lily reached, not with easy magic, but the Light. The dragon she had been hoping to save, slipped through metaphorical fingers. Her outstretched spirit reached the edge of her ability to touch, and fell short.

Falling like a leaf in autumn, the unbalanced drake caught the air for one fleeting moment, floating back towards Lily, a taunting presence as her fingers burned, and her runeblade thirsted for enough power to give one more chance.

And her friend fell back out of reach.

Lily leaned out, ready to give one more try. Ready to fall herself, to levitate the last stretch to the water, if a pencil dive let her catch up in the last falling seconds…

Voranku dipped with her, and then caught himself, and yanked them back to level as the infinite drake she had snagged tried to rip apart his wings, and send him plummeting into the dark as well.

“Lily, Focus!”

A few seconds distraction on a battlefield and someone dies. Spear ready, Lily stayed to fix what she had started.

Below her, a dark silhouette fell into the night black sea.

Her spear drew blood, and she tasted nothing. Her fingers twitched from the Light she had channelled, and she felt nothing.

Against her, the drake she had stayed to fight, was nothing. Inevitable, inexorable, and so terribly slow was her victory.

A second black shape fell towards the waves.

The death flowed back into her grip, one more chance to fish Omenia out of the deep. One more chance to fail - in humans, at least, cold water kills. Impact into ice water - you cannot save yourself. How long before they finish drowning, winded from the fall and their panic? (A lesson, deferred until the end of the war, until a day that never came, taunted her with her ignorance). How many more bones had Omenia broken from impact? Triage assessment: already too late.

No one surfaced from the waves, as Vornaku danced between the remaining two assailants, and Lily drew blood and healed nothing with it because she wasn’t the one who needed to be healed.

In the back of her awareness, the timer of time to drowning was ticking over into time until most souls pass on.

The fight continued.

Gouge an eye, let blood spray. One left. Frost chill mixed with the night’s cold, and the last unknown dragon failed to dodge the mages’ volley. With a hole ripped straight through the drake’s wing, there were none.

No enemies left, only consequences.

The night was dark, and while Lily was good at spotting things, she could have missed a black dragon against the navy waves, so even if it was a foolish hope she had to ask, “Anyone got a clear sight line on where Omenia fell? Did she surface?”

The answer to that was a round of ‘not that I saw’, in various flavors of wording.

“Then, our next question - are we willing to try to save her.”

John’s return question was an offended, “Of course we are, why would you even ask that?”

However, it wasn’t John that Lily was directing that question towards. She knew his answer already. A nod from Valerie, a “Sure” from the Toli, and under her, Voranku rumbled, “Do what thou must.”

John would figure out the reason for the question, once they fished the body out of the water. Or once Lily failed, and the six minutes were spent. “You lot figure out how to get two soaked people to shore without getting anyone else wet - I’ll try to find her.”

As Lily unstrapped herself from her riding harness, Valerie turned to address Toli, “We need to borrow your carpet.”

The gnome grumbled, “Do you have any idea how hard it is to dry out? It will take weeks I tell you, weeks.”

“So you’ll have it done by next afternoon?”

“Weeks!” The gnome glared, miming out strangling thin air, before putting her hands down, “Also, yes.”

Lily said, “I’ll have to ask you about that later.” When there was time, when they all got rest after the fighting, and people actually had a moment to breathe (and not think about breathing in water.)

Her last harness strap was unbuckled, and she readied to jump clear of Voranku, who was shifting below her to make it easier to jump off. “Wish me luck.”

She was in the air before she finished speaking, the wind snatching away ‘luck’. A bad omen, perhaps - or given that they were trying to rescue a shaman, perhaps a good one. Light knows Omenia could use some borrowed luck.

She waited, falling quickly, for one moment, maybe two, before calling on the Light to slow her fall. There was risk to it: not that the Light wouldn’t answer her call - from the first soap bubble shield she had called in the backwash of recovered memories, Lily had known that the Light had not forsaken her. No, the risk was that it would answer her.

That the Light would billow around her legs, and tug at her arms to lift against her fall, an upwelling of holy air, just for her, enveloping her. That the power tingling in golden sparks across her skin would be soft and gentle as it burned across her skin, and left her aching - melting the coating of ice that left her so terribly numb, and make her feel wonderfully, painfully, alive.

Leave her desperately wanting more.

And that as her fall slowed, and the power grew less intense, it was so tempting to reach for an excuse to call more Light - to imagine flying in incandescent warmth.

Normal humans cannot call enough power from the Light to maim themselves - because even when their will is strong, the Light wouldn’t permit them to keep hurting themselves. However, it cared significantly less about the shells of flesh a spirit had been bound in unwillingly, and would permit an undead to burn themselves free if they so desired.

That right there was Lily’s problem - something had broken in undeath, and certain types of pain became pleasure instead - she would desire - even as her rational mind remembered the consequences. And, unlike many of her counterparts, Lily genuinely did enjoy her continued existence. Making the masochism all the more frustrating.

Even with how much the light had slowed her fall in the last several meters, the water still hit her boots with enough force to break her levitation spell. And the cold water sweeping quickly up her frame served to extinguish the metaphorical flame just as thoroughly as it would have smothered a literal one.

Fully submerged in the water, but with a full breath of air, Lily prepared to dive deeper to recover a body that might still be sinking, depending on the buoyancy of recently drowned dragons, only for one of her hands to brush against flesh.

As her hand slipped along, Lily was able to determine: that she was sinking faster than her friend’s body, and that Omenia was in her human form. Lily hugged her as close as she could, without risking metal armor biting into cooling skin. Somehow, despite all the horrors she had long grown numb to, Lily knew that this scene would be joining her nightmares. Omenia’s head lolling against her shoulder, and a terrible parody of hug, without even the active malice of the Scourge to redirect the strike of grief.

Levitate wasn’t strong enough to carry a second person under normal circumstances, but it was enough to make her buoyant.

As Lily’s head breached the surface, the head of a water elemental became visible on the other side, helping to hold Omenia. That would explain why she wasn’t sinking. It does however raise a different question.

Through the armor, with skin deadened by the cold, it was impossible to tell if Omenia was breathing. And yet, there was the help of friendly water elemental, that was almost certainly acting along with the shaman’s requests. And why ask for that help, and not breath?

And even if Omenia wasn’t breathing, the timer they were racing against followed mind-death, not time since last breath. So Lily reached out with the light to feel for the spark of life. After one terrible moment of panic, she found the clear signs of life - chronic mana depletion, half drowned, and with many other less pressing problems, but clearly alive. And, through what could only be magic, not a trace of water in her lungs.

This was good - resurrections could not be trusted to work. This was a problem - a living person in arctic water was an invitation for death, for reasons beyond what cold and drowning could account for. Every bit of warmth would have to be preserved, where Lily had been planning on using cold to keep the spirit uncertain on its own time of death. Complicating factor: dragon biology, and its slew of unknowns. Even in mortal form, could Omenia be treated as a human?

Another complicating factor - the shaman was currently not drowning despite being under water but was that a temporary spell about to wear off and leave the dragon to drown while unconscious, or a deal that would last until she got to shore - and if they properly surfaced, would the water spirit still honor the deal?

The amount Lily didn’t know about the situation was enough to fill two whole librams, and have spare uncertainty left over.

Also: what sea creatures might be lurking in the inky black depths, swimming under her feet right this very moment, and how many seconds warning would she have, to try to dodge while carrying an unconscious person while ‘swimming’?

The sound of wings at least indicated possible solutions to some of those problems. And while Val had hidden her halo to improve their stealth, Lily was able to make out the particular shape of two descending magic carpets in the descending black shadows- the expected allies, not more enemies.

“Val! Change of plans - I need your insights -” two years - no, more like a decade, a lifetime ago - when she was still an untested healer studying under old Ben, the idea of a priest consulting a paladin for medical advice would have been laughable - but now, it was not only a second opinion, but consulting the (hopefully) correct specialist, “Omenia is Alive, but hurt from partial drowning. I can fix the obvious damage, but what else do we need to make sure she survives till landfall?” In a lesser situation, Lily would wait on the magic to let them save her, but the killing cold wouldn’t wait for an actual healer to be physically close enough for long enough.

Valerie pushed for clarification. “Heartbeat, breathing, and mostly intact mind?”

“Yes.” And working quickly, Lily would be able to fix that last point without any lasting harm - though looking again it looked minor - more like a concussion than anything else.

While Val took a moment to think, John jumped into the silence to ask, “Why do you both sound so surprised that she’s still alive - it hasn’t been long, and surely she wouldn’t have drowned already?”

“She would have been winded from impact - chilling slowness makes it hard to swim. Panic spends air.” Valerie didn’t finish spelling out the point, addressing instead, “For healing, check her lungs for degree of water damage - if it’s severe, fix that first.”

“And how do we stop hypothermia?”

Lily got the distinct impression from the words shouted back in the night that Valerie was shrugging while she spoke. “Heal her?”

“If I was any good at healing hypothermia, I wouldn’t be a deathknight.” The bane of her lineage of priests - some critical, basic skill, that they should be able to do, that they couldn’t do to save their lives (Old Ben and disease cleansing - Lily and cold. At least it would stop with her.) “And it’s not like I have spare body heat to share with her.” … Only that wasn’t true, not quite - not body heat, but warmth from the way death knights shouldn’t be priests. “Nevermind, I have a solution.” Burning herself to save Omenia a second time- only hopefully this time, no actual burns. It would only be a test of her discipline. Using only a necessary amount of Light might be harder than the Void due to her own … perverted desires, but it was the same skill fundamentally. Just Say ‘Enough’ to cosmic powers, evil kings, and whatever the chains of domination were made out of.

“How worried should we be about that solution?”

“Yes!”

Chapter Text

I woke in fragments, being pushed back down into sleep by a gentle hand and an impression of flickering purple and gold.

When I woke up for real it was to the rising sun, solid ground, and the feeling of someone else's lap as my pillow. John, who might have been dozing - but had at least woke up faster.

Once I had decided that I was in fact willing to be awake despite, or perhaps because of, the warm hands petting my hair, and the growing feeling of general bruising, I finished prying my eyelids open and commented, "You know for someone who last remembers falling into cold sea water with a murderous water elemental, I'm feeling remarkably warm right now."

"I can't take all the credit for being your personal heat pack - Lily did most of it, but can I take cre- Hang on, murderous water elemental?" His eyes had snapped back up, and was actively searching for something with his gaze.

"It's fine, I talked it around to the idea of not drowning me."

"I'm suddenly regretting not having singed the damn thing when I had chance for it trying to drown you at all."

I put a hand on his knee, since his shoulder was out of reach. "It didn't really like -" I had been about to say the old god influence, but noticed that we were, in fact, in a public space with mages actively maintaining a violet ward scheme, "it thought I was affiliated with the previous water elemental we dealt with. I'm guessing I managed to convince it otherwise, since I feel remarkably not drowned." I forced myself to wake up faster and take in my surroundings properly. Upon examining the area we were in I recognized the towering spire of violet energy, surrounded by floating platforms of blue stone. "Transitus Shield, I take it? Anything else I need to be brought up to speed on - besides us having made it?"

"Okay, since apparently you missed the implication - Lily is likely to be tossing around a lot more holy magic in the future, having used the soak in arctic water to work out the spontaneous death knight combustion problem. You know, as one does. Also, apparently Toli is actually a bronze dragon -"
My hearing went to static as I froze with the spike of instinctive panic. Bronze dragon - oh crap, time police. I'm not supposed to be here, messing with their timeline. She's going to kill me for messing with the One True Timeline - and it's literally too late to run because bronze fucking dragon flight -

The rational part of my mind tapped on my metaphorical shoulder with, Um, infinite flight trying to stop you remember? Why would they want to protect the timeline?

Only it wasn't protecting it, was it? … "John, did you by any chance hear and remember what the Infinite dragon said in response to me suggesting I would give Noz a headache?'

"Something about not wanting the bronze to learn from you."

So the bronze don't know why I'm like this (why am I like this?), and might still do horrible time-police things once they know what's going on… and I can't have that Sword of Damocles hanging over me, if I can resolve things. I stood, and scanned the area for the dragon I was about to take a risk talking to. "Well we have a bronze right here: do you know what it is y'all need to learn from me, and what's going to -"

Toli interrupted me with, "Do you mind if we make this a private conversation? We've got a lot of curious listeners" A wave towards the Kirin-tor mages and 'man' in red robes who were continuing their business, but visibly paying attention.

One of the listening Kirin-tor mages chimed in with, "If this is about her being an undisclosed dragon, our wards do alert us about draconic presences."

Toli called back to them, "It's about spoilers." She then turned back to me, "So?"

On the one hand, being stuck with a bronze and no possibility of rescue. On the other oops all secrets, "Privacy might be a good idea, actually."

"Mm, one moment." She waved her hands and bronze sands flowed between us and the outside world, leaving it grey and static - "Eavesdropper free, 87% guaranteed."

"Eighty - nevermind, thank you. So, uh", my hand flapped as I failed to get a good way of asking, "am I real - you know is my existence part of the timeline, or just some weird branch of time?"

"All signs point to yes." She was grinning, clearly amused by my reaction to the confidence percentage she'd chosen.

"And is my using future knowledge that I got in my past life from our visions of a different world to meddle with the fate of time an existential threat?"

She looked a little surprised, "Where would you have gotten that idea?"

"One true timeline. Me straying from the fate laid down by -" Blizzard, "The original makers."

The bronze started laughing. "Well you've certainly got the draconic arrogance down - I don't think even the original makers knew where our fate was going, and it keeps blindsiding us often enough. Also, did you forget about prophet Velen? Visions are fair game - even if they are inexplicable out of context problems in need of more study."

"For a prophet, he does a lousy job of predicting things. Might be him only having entirely explicable visions, tsk tsk."

My response did not help the gnome shaped dragon's giggling fit, and I found myself infected with shared laughter for a few moments, curing much of my fear. But not all of it.

"So, how much of an anomaly am I, and how much do I have to worry about being tested to destruction or 'you have outlived your usefulness'?"

"Don't worry, we won't be messing with you, especially not until we're a safe temporal distance away from the Outland Campaign. We really can't afford for that time compression to get any worse, and while knowing how your personal timeline managed to anchor that mess would be great, it's not worth, you know, breaking time."

"Time compression?" The bronze dragon winced, but didn't answer, so I kept going, "Did we what, lose a … year. We lost a year, didn't we - the outland campaign should have lasted two years."

"Yep." She shrugged, "It could have been worse - we only had to fill in for two missing adventurers from the grand assaults being back to back. The Hand of A'dal is terrifyingly resilient to ordinary grand assault hazards like being stabbed by Illidan."

"As one does. But thank you for distracting me from my fear of retroactively dis-existing because my existence breaks time, or time police cracking down on my contraband visions."

"Don't smuggle in any new illegal visions, and we'll be fine. Now, you ready to go back to pretending we're just normal adventurers doing normal adventuring things?" She held out a hand, and despite me being more than twice her gnomish height, it felt like she was pulling me up when I met her in the middle of our little timeless bubble and the world resumed around us.

And with that return to motion came Lily addressing me with, "So since everyone knows that you're a dragon, I can pass on the healer's discussion's suggestion that you refrain from re-entering your true form until the last round of healing has worn off, so that your wings stay in stasis and we don't have to re-break them. "

I turned to the pink-haired bronze dragon. "Normal adventures doing normal adventuring things my foot - you planned that."

"Mmmaybe."

The caster in red robes glared at us. "This is a war, and we are the tip of the spear. I thought it would be the mortals I would have to be impressing in the need to take this seriously, not my fellow dragons messing around like unruly whelps. We are but few here, and we fly against many. Our deaths are all but a certainty, and our ultimate success lies in merely delaying our enemy, and here you are laughing at a time like this?"

"Situation normal, all fucked up. When better to remember how to laugh?" I do too much wallowing in my inevitable doom already to want to remove one of my few antidotes to despair. Sorry red dragon, but you're going to have to put up with me trying to undercut the horrors.

The sneer of disgust showed how little the red dragon approved of my attitude. "Feel free to busy yourself helping the mages, while I try to figure a way to make you fools be of use." He turned on heel and pointedly went off to talk to a different member of the encampment.

Which one of us is the black dragon here again?

While I was left staring at the red dragon's back trying to push back the looming dread of social incompetence in the form of my fellow dragons sneering at me for being just a foolish child meddling in the affairs of her betters, I noticed one of the Kirin Tor mages not maintaining the shield extending a hand, which turned into a warm handshake when I extended mine to meet him. "It's good to see you up, and welcome to Coldarra. Sorry about the welcome from Raelorasz, but when we lie hidden just stone's throw away from the Nexus, it can be rather hard for any of us to relax."

"I can understand that." And I could, Realorasz having stolen away the brief moment of good spirits from heady relief and Toli's good humour. Being awake and aware made the lingering ache all the worse, and being in the shadow of Malygos's stronghold wasn't helping. "So, do I need to cull my stress relief to avoid stepping on toes."

He shrugged, "Most of us are used to working with mercenaries, and the particular brand of hysteric gallows humor you lot like to cultivate, but it seems your fellow dragon isn't, so it would help if you are more formal around him."

"Very well. Anything else I need to know with regards to this base, mission orders, or interpersonal issues?"

"I've already covered your mission with your field commander, Knight Spellsinger; but …"

The ensuing instructions went on for way too long for something that boiled down to: be sneaky, and don't lead the blue flight directly to the protective shield; opportunistic harassment of the blue flight; don't waste supplies because we're only getting more with more adventurers sneaking in; and we need research samples, and to check some meters. Oh and that the pair of red dragonflight siblings representing the red flight here were not going to be anywhere as nice as the mild grump we had back at the previous base camp.

-

Lily took the rear as we snuck out from under the wards, her personal snow storm effect obscuring our footprints with fresh snow and new snow drifts. (Was that howling - no, howling blast was the dramatic wave of a sword that sent a gust of frost-fever plagued cool air - ah remorseless winter.) Val meanwhile was taking point, leading us through the pine forest, and doing her best to hide us from the spire and the overhead patrolling shadows. My air elemental pulled a lock of hair around my ear and whispered 'You know we could do that better. Same blowing of snow, less waiting for runes.'

As the shadows shortened, I took over hiding our tracks, and Lily took point to hunt the ents, only remember please to call them ancients, that we needed for research on what Malygos was doing to the ambient nature.

Whatever it was he done did, was annoying both me, the tree-people, and the snow covered earth beneath my feet something fierce. As we continued to move, walking over the twisted earth, even I was able to figure out that what I was feeling wasn't my bruises, but sympathetic pain from the land. Mostly, I'll admit, from the groans only I could hear as we walked.

By noon we had our last of the samples, and a few days worth of scavenged berries packed into our hammer space bags, and were readying to ambush one of the patrols of dragonkin. The ground swayed under me, accompanied by a pain like something under my skin trying to burst outwards. After a moment, the swaying stopped, but on regaining my balance, I saw everyone else doing the same.

Lily directed a questioning glance at me, "Do you know what caused that earthquake?"

"Not directly, but the ground has been in pain all day - and my sympathetic connection feels like a blister."

Voranku, to my right, had his gaze fixed on the spire of the nexus and was moving a claw through the air as if feeling for something. "The arcane has gotten heavier again. If I were home, I'd recommend looking for shelter from a mana-storm blowing in from the twisting nether."

I looked back at the spire, the swirl of clouds around the beacon of power. "I don't think there will be anywhere left to hide if this storm finishes."

Lily pointed her spear at the patrol moving on around the edge of the treeline. "Then we have work to do."

I looked along her spear towards the pair of dragonkin, "How do we want to handle this?"

Lily shrugged, "I drag one to us with deathgrip, and you all volley into the other one? I'm not exactly a stealth expert."

I peeked around the trees back at the pair who were on patrol, around their home, and when the old gods whispered: Destroy them. All of them, I pulled back at our degree of brutality. "Val, what is our actual mission here?"

"To interfere with the blue dragonflight, aid the kirin tor and red dragons in fighting them, and to get at Malygos." She looked at me, "What are you considering?"

"If we raise the general alert level, will they find Transitus Shield?"

At my right hand John answered, "That's what this whole mission is gambling on isn't it? That Lady Evanor's new ward array will stand up to scrutiny. As long as we don't leave an obvious track in, they should be fine."

"Then, since none of us are actually assassins, and we've currently not got a good assassination target, can we try instead to spook them and break their resolve? Make the Nexus into their own personal nightmare instead of just a slaughterhouse. And I get that this going to be an absolute bitch to try to make work with stealth harassment by a non sneaky team, but trying to take prisoners instead of kills."

"We don't have the resources to take prisoners here. Especially not dragon mages."

"Then can we make them run? Because we don't need them dead, we just need them out of the way."

Lily set her spear against the tree she was hiding behind, and with arms crossed offered, "If we want them to live, but to be unable to fight - I'm sure we could find ways to cripple them. Then it will be up to them if living is a fate worse than death."

"I don't think they have healers - and even if they do - something that will heal, but will take a while and will require help would work to strain more resources than just a dead ally."

Val looked like she was about to raise an objection, considered it again, and said nothing.

Lily sighed, "Right, let's start stealing quarterstaves, because I feel like I'll break more than a few trying to break their bones. You do realize this is a terrible idea?"

I shrugged, "More or less terrible than us trying to kill patrols without setting off alarms?"

"Depends- do you have any bright ideas for the disappearing act that somehow gets us and our enemies out of the fight alive?"

I grinned, my fingers steepled in excitement, "Do I have any ideas? Lily, I have so many ideas for how to do our horror movie magic trick. And I intend to test every single one on our unsuspecting audience. The question is, how much are you willing to go along with?"

-

As the next patrol came around Coldarra, they found the strong driving winds blowing snow between the trees, and blocking sight.

The cold wind didn't bother them, and the shards of ice blowing with the wind bounced harmlessly against their scales. With a hand raised to shield their eyes, their easy lope through the snow continued.

The winds yielded for a moment, and they looked up to check for intruders. Out of the snow walked a woman with hair as blue as their flight, and armor black with their death. Her feet made no sound, and as they pelted her with arcane missiles, she made not the slightest sign of notice.
Snowflakes hung in the air, as if the world itself was holding its breath.

"Mortal intruders!"

In slow motion, seemingly ignoring their words, she drew her spear point around, snow being pulled in its wake, an arc of missing snow cut into the white carpet. "Death comes for the nexus." And the death knight, inhumanly slowly, took another step forward, spear pointing towards the sky, fully vertical in front of her. "Your master's days are numbered."

"Are you ignoring-"

The dragonkin's words were cut off as the deathknight moved, suddenly fast. The spear point fell forwards, to point between them at the spire of the nexus, and with it fell the waiting storm. Snow and blinding sleet and jagged shards of ice hurled in one rush of white.

And despite being blue dragonkin, they shivered with the cold.

When they had brushed the snow from their faces, any trace of the death knight had vanished.

All that remained was jagged splinters of ice in the snow around them, and a single patch of grass clear of Coldrarra's magical snow, where she had been standing.

"What just happened?" The dragonkin blinked in confusion at the strange sight before whirling, "A distraction, after … her?" There was no sign she had snuck past him, just snow mixed with ice, undisturbed from the howling winds.

-

Upslope, behind a tree blocking line of sight from the patrol searching frantically in vain, Lily's invisibility pot wore off, and the no longer levitating death knight looked back at the patrol. With one hand, she held our silence until both dragonkin were thoroughly out of range.

In the silence my new water spirit whispered to me, 'I was not expecting that we would be causing torment to your fellow dragons when you recruited me to save your flight from the voices in the deep.'

I projected back, 'Three ways to end a fight: none of your enemies have the ability to fight anymore, enemy morale goes to hell, and you offer them a compromise that means they don't want to fight. With Hythagos dead, Senagos out of reach, and Kalecgos who knows where, I don't have a way to open negotiations with individual blues who might listen.' I took a moment to slowly consciously exhale to avoid expressing any frustration out loud. 'So instead, I have to hope that fear and self preservation is capable of prying a flight from its aspect - since that is my strongest argument against my own flight.'

'You cannot hope to be scarier than an old god, little dragon.'

'I don't have to be. All I have to do is cast a light on where this dark road leads: Nowhere, and to Nothing. There is no victory - no version of this where Deathwing even survives.' My lips drew back in smirk or snarl, 'Loyalty is not a virtue easily taught alongside kinslaying. If we are to throw our sibling under our talons for survival as a matter of course - then let us cast down an aspect for it as well.'

Water was silent for a moment, 'I think you underestimate the fear your flight's masters can create - death in service is far easier than betraying them, for many of your kind.'

My attention was pulled back to the 'real' world by Lily addressing me, and there was some whiplash from trying to change lines of conversation, "That was slow, and a lot of magic for not much effect. Still, I did tag them with frost fever, so even if it doesn't harm them much, they'll be sick for a day or two."

I shrugged. "And maybe this won't work, and we'll have to carve a bloody swath into the nexus - but if a few more groups carry the message back it might get them on edge - and while being on guard might make it easier for them to catch us, it also is draining. The longer you have to wait, with a monster just around the next tree, in the next snow storm … as long as we can ensure that they can't lower their guard to rest-"

"We didn't kill any of them-"

"Not this time, but you have before. Blue drakes run from you - at least one, in point of fact, already has. So you can kill them - have killed before - and now, you can appear from nowhere, and vanish into nothing- and we want fear, not anger - confusion helps, the unknown, the trailing question of why you didn't seem to even notice them. And perhaps, some lingering doubt and fear from the fact that they were attacking you, and as far as they can tell, you didn't even notice." I smiled, "Good work."

Lily waved off the compliment, "It's not my usual style, but Aurora and I did study together - the more I draw on frost, the easier it is to copy her. Cute trick with the patch of clear grass to hide the footprints after my levitate broke. "

"So are you willing to do this again, slowly escalating?"

Behind her tree, further up slope, Val interjected, "I only have another four invisibility pots."

"Not a problem. We've proved the blizzard works"

John shrugged, "I still refuse to be a frost mage, but that might be the most fun I've ever had casting a blizzard. Just for how weird it was."

-

A different patrol, in a different quarter of the long dormant caldera, were chatting as they walked. "Do you think we'll see any action this war?"

The spear wielding dragonspawn scoffed "Not likely - I hear the mortals had to abandon Amberwing Point - what with the reds pulling out to defend their home."

Slowed a bit by the snow piling up, the smaller caster was slightly out of breath as he pushed through the snow to catch up with their partner. "But what about the war bands?"

"You mean their 'adventurers'? Those mercenaries are easily distracted - and their leaders only care about the scourge - they know better than to support the magi."

With a glance at the falling snow and the ridge of the upper crater like they might be hiding an adventurer, he hissed, "That doesn't help us if one of them gets the bright idea to attack us here."

"They don't have portal permissions, and much like us 'kin, they don't fly. Relax, but keep watching - we could get a determined Red flying in any minute."

"Do you expect me to fight a dragon???"

With a scoff and an eye roll, his companion set a harsher walking pace and called back "I expect you to do your duty."

The smaller dragonkin surged to catch up, and found a crevice in the ground with his forepaws, sinking up to his hips in the light and airy freshly fallen snow. He struggled to get his paws unstuck, with one of them wedged at an awkward angle from the stumble. "Ezralann, wait!

With a groan Ezralann turned, just visible through the falling snow "What is it this -" his last word was stolen by Silence. He had a single moment to look around before dark clawing magic dragged him away into the storm.

Thus the spellcasting dragonkin was left all alone, a single speck of blue in the white snow.

Nothing else remained.

-

After she had finished pushing the dreamless-sleep drugged dragonkin through the portal we'd opened to non-lethally remove him from the game, Lily turned back to me with a cheerful, "So aren't you glad I made you rethink your first three plans? Because I do think that was a perfect success."

With folded arms I grumbled, "Fine then, if you're such an expert, maybe you should just take over planning."

Lily grimaced at my foolish whining, "Sorry about stepping on your toes, but you did seem to agree with my corrections?"

"Oh I get that I was making a mistake," That I always make mistakes - shut up old gods, "And, yes, I do get how my previous ideas were failing rule one for being far too fightable. And setting up to affirm their faith rather than break it - but since clearly you understand …" I pinched the bridge of my nose, and then stopped when it felt like I was about to break skin with my finger nails. "I'm being an idiot, getting unreasonably angry, so if you'll excuse me, I'm leaving."

John looked around at the dragons flying overhead, "It's not a good idea to leave right now - would a hug help?"

He didn't actually try to wrap his arms around me, just asked the question, so I didn't angrily grab his arms to force them away for being patronizing and invading my space the way I would have with my previous partner, instead stopping for a moment to take a few deep breaths. "No. Not right now -" I could acknowledge rationally the intended kindness, and that I was being unreasonable. But that didn't make me become reasonable. "Team, am I clear to spirit walk?"

-

None of the blue dragonkin were shaman - my projected form swam through dirt straight under patrols that saw nothing amiss.

Their dogs however … the dragon-touched beasts trained to hunt magic smelled me when I brushed near the surface, as evidenced by them lunging after me, and leading their trainers to hunt for an invisible threat.

With this discovery aiding me, I danced under patrols, leading them in random directions, sometimes into a different patrol that had just lost my scent.

Watching another set of two patrols come together to try to figure out what their dogs were tracking, I laughed and settled back against the pressure pushing up from the leylines to watch them try to sort out the confusion. The fear would grow, given time and more awareness of a threat on the island with them.

One of the dragonkin tilted her head. "Did you hear that?"

I stopped laughing.

The others stopped to listen, but with me no longer laughing, they couldn't hear me.

The dragonkin who had heard me scanned the area for terrain features I could be using to hide, "The invisible intruder must not have left - they've just confused the dogs…" And then without any warning, she pulsed an arcane explosion that, while it technically missed, pushed the ground above into my stony face, and I had to kick downwards to have the clear space to move. When I didn't become visible, or make more noise, she growled, "They must have fled on being heard. But if the dogs aren't tracking where they went…"

And it was a failure of subtlety on my part, but I couldn't resist my cue - I reached out with my connection to the earth - not to the local earth spirits, or my earth elemental escorting me on the spirit walk, but the technique I had managed once to just move the earth - because I was of the earth.

And this time instead of using that similarity to metaphysically punch myself in the face, I lifted, roiling under the ground beneath the dragonkin.

Jagged spikes of stone shot upwards from the earth in a wave, propagating from where I 'shook the metaphorical carpet'. None of the dragonkin were killed immediately, the way their dogs were, but there were paws impaled through by the spikes, and legs were left bleeding from long tears where a spike had hit - in one case, I felt more than saw the shudder of it glancing off bone.

There was no coordination in what came next - no screams of 'enemy shaman!'; they just screamed. There was no glory in it, the blood on my stone just ran red.

One of them, panicked, blasted arcane explosions forcing me back, but it wasn't a coherent attack on an invisible enemy, just a dragonkin with multiple stuck limbs trying to break themselves free.

I did nothing else, just watched.

My goal wasn't to kill them, just to scare them and drain resources from their war effort. This had already gone far enough.

And above, one of the circling drakes came down to check on the distressed dragonkin. They landed, as the one dragonkin who was still free to walk went through to free the others.

"What happened here?" When no one answered the drake, he turned to the most coherent seeming of the quartet, and demanded, "Report, dragonspawn."

"Glory to the blue flight! I mean yes sir - I mean-"

"Your report, soldier?"

"Yessir. Invisible enemy that left some trail, but we couldn't find or force out - might still be here - and killed our mage slayers, so we've lost the trail if they've run. Also Junalaz needs medical attention as soon as possible. Sir."

"I see." The blue dragon then addressed me as best he could while looking in only the wrong directions, "Intruder, if you are still here - you cannot hope to fight me and win. Do not force me to scorch the earth just to find you." He waited a moment for me to act - and I was strongly tempted, because I didn't want the drake to get uppity ideas of being safe just because he wasn't ground-bound dragonkin.

But I waited, because pulling any further stunts would have to be followed by getting the heck out of dodge to avoid another arcane explosion to the face. And knowing how they would react was half the battle.

And because if I spent my hand now, there was nowhere to escalate, and while I had continued doing this out of petty frustration, Lily hadn't been wrong about my plans having needed workshopping. Leaving a dragonkin half alive with a question about whether his loyalty was worth it - could easily firm up his loyalty on being rescued, and firm up his hatred of us - whereas our actual maneuver of a quick strike to disappear into the snow with his partner established us as being capable of winning in a single strike (that we actually hadn't been able to manage. A'dal might not approve of us outsourcing the problem to his guards, but I'm pretty sure that Shattrath can in fact non-lethally hold a mage, dragon, or dragon mage.)

The blue drake then began to cast, without shifting to mortal form, so I was at loss to what was being cast until with an exhalation of power, a familiar web of blue lines emerged - the same spell John had used to find the lingering fel on the boat, only much more refined.

I began carefully, but pointedly, swimming away under the surface of frozen dirt I was hiding in.

I missed the next step the drake did, but it cleared the arcane from the spell trace, leaving only one visible spell trace above the ground - a brown deep enough to be called black, drawn along the line of my attack like a metre wide sharpie.

The drake jumped back three steps in shock, stabilizing with paws hovering off the ground. He fired more arcane mist that found more blue-violet spell traces, but none found me. After a few minutes, the dragon hesitantly landed, and answered the unasked question from the waiting dragonkin, "The black dragonflight - none save a black dragon would leave such a trace on my detection. A ghost, if I had to make my guess from the fact that we can't find it. A weak ghost perhaps - but if the shifting leylines are bringing their ghosts with them, we have bigger problems." He paused to consider, before finishing with, "I hope you broke its power with the arcane explosion, but I fear we may all be in grave danger if other dead from dragonblight have come to haunt us. I will alert the flight - you should seek medical attention."

I let the blue dragon go, because the stress of being on high alert was exactly what we wanted. I flipped in the ground my spirit was swimming through, to 'swim' more quickly back to my team instead of the slow backstroke I had been using to get into position while tracking people on the surface.

Only - I wasn't quite ready to return yet, and the dark depths that I could half see through had been inviting my curiosity to look a little deeper at the roots of deep stone under the arcane saturated topsoil.

Focusing on looking deeper, the dirt that was already like water to be swum through, became the shallows of a great ocean spreading out beneath me. Striations of dirt and loose stones faded from my vision, peeling back to see the black stone that in places reached up to the surface.

I paused, floating above the fragments of stone of the collapse that formed the caldera- only a few metres deep here in soil above the volcanic stone, but still an awe inspiring view. The broken pieces of bedrock were like a pile of boulders, but boulders that could dwarf houses. Boulders like entire city districts, and jagged and broken still after all these years. Tiny little caves like ant tunnels - dragon sized but so profoundly insignificant in comparison to the geology - pockmarked the rocks closest to the nexus.

I saw something faintly blue glittering between the boulders, and I swam down, trying to see - I had ideas for working with the leylines, if I could locate exactly where they traced.

For one bright moment the bedrock itself became translucent and I saw.

I saw a star - something so bright, and so large, that I could see nothing else.

That I could not even see it, blinded by its enormity and radiance.

Opalescent blue and gold, marred by dark spatters of an awful seagreen floating like clouds near the horizon.

My hand reached out towards the warmth, as if this god was an equal to reach back towards me.

Azeroth, yourself, in all your radiance?

And then, She was gone, and all I saw was dark half frozen dirt.

-

We made it back to camp without further incident, and my regularly scheduled nightmare was something of a surprise - not bronze-infinite flight hunting me down, not a rehash of almost drowning, not the faces of the blues we had killed before asking why their lives mattered less than these ones I now saved (there was no difference in worth, only in our ability to not kill), but just yet another dream of Wrathion. Hey old gods, are you trying to bore me to death now with Wration spam? I got the memo already- I'm going to die pointlessly in a few years, and disrespectfully, I do not agree.

Wrathion and I, sitting on opposite sides of a chess board, but all the pieces were painted black. And of course, in this game, as in life, black moved first. I moved first, and opposing me Wrathion moved first, and somehow that made perfect sense.

I cannot remember all the moves nor what all we said, but, in the middle game, I found myself at the choice for how to spend my turn. I could take the black queen, but if I did I would end up in check. Or I could do nothing, and let my pieces be swept away. Across the table my enemy smirked. 'I see the choice you're making - don't you know, either way I win?'

As I moved a knight, the paint cracked, and extra eyes began to blink, the chess pieces staring back up at me. With a wiggle of a tentacle, a pawn began to move across the board on its own.

'Sometimes the pawns imagine they are players." The dream faded, leaving nothing but a smug voice asking, 'Are you any less deluded?'

Chapter Text

We didn't officially 'wake up for the day' until the noon earthquake, so that we could stay out well past nightfall - we hadn't the night before, using the time instead to brainstorm ideas.

And for Val and I to write a pair of letters together for the next mail drop. We wouldn't be receiving spell-mail until we left the island, due to complications with mail wards - but the next courier run would be as soon as another team of mercenaries was read in on the location and sent to run courier. Sending mail however was done during the ley-line surge at noon to hide the magical pulse.

One of the letters was an apology to A'dal for my creative solution to blue dragonkin banishment, and more details about what to expect from us going forwards, along with my hope that maybe the Naruu, or his paladin guards, could help de-escalate hostility instead of just locking the blue-dragonkin in cells to make them angrier. I mean it was a longshot because World of Warcraft, with violence all the way down; but I could hope.

The other letter was one that was fairly simple to write but involved a debate about logistics, secrecy, and ended up being directed to a specific contact in the Kirin-tor rather than the actual pair of druids involved; and was a request that the pair of Valhall druids be invited to come join us out here - because people who can turn into birds, hide seamlessly in minor shadows, and put dragons harmlessly to sleep were my best bet for actually getting our disruption of the blue flight into the Nexus spire itself, rather than the patrols around the Caldera.

Despite our official ready time, all of us were awake and done with breakfast several hours ahead of the noon surge. While packing up our kit, we went over our plans for incrementing up our gremlinry. It was mostly just a repeat of what we decided on the night before, but my old god nightmares did manage to give me one piece of inspiration that I intended to tag on to the end of the recap, "-And, I had an idea overnight: taking a leaf from the -"

A glance up from my bedroll to check for close attention revealed that the annoying red dragon (who's name I had forgotten) was marching over to our slightly separate camp "-Actually, let's hold that thought." Turning away from the group to face him, I put on a customer service smile, "Anything we can help with?"

"Since you" A sweep of his hand to indicate the collective, "now have had a chance to become familiar with the enemy, it's time to give you some actual work to do."

We weren't lazing around doing nothing, but if there was something specific for us to target that would be great. "Yes?"

"Our goals here are simple. We are to remain hidden from Malygos, observe his brood, and thwart his efforts wherever possible. To that end, I have a task for you."

I didn't roll my eyes or sigh, but having him open with stuff we already knew had me wishing I could tell him to hurry up without worrying about him losing his temper back at us.

"The blues are laying their eggs at the base of the Nexus. Exposure to so much arcane energy will surely make them hatch sooner, and there's no telling what effect it will have on their spawn." He took a deep breath, before saying heavily, "I don't intend to find out. Slay the local wyrmkin and use their frozen axes to break the eggs."

I blinked. I had a faint memory about war crimes somewhere in the Borean Tundra quests, but ordering infanticide as his first quest!? Did I hear that correctly? "Could you repeat that order, I don't think I heard -"

"It pains me to order the destruction of dragon eggs, enemy or no, but this is war and we do what we must."

Please, can this be me having old god hallucinations. Please. I turned to the rest of my party, "Okay, did I go crazy, or did I hear him order us to go smash dragon eggs?"

"No, he did order that."

I steepled my hands in front of my face, index fingers pressing into the bridge of my nose, and inhaled. When that did nothing for my anger, I abandoned my fake smile. "What the flying fuck? No." My hand slashed through the air, "I have had it up to here with the amount of war crimes in this war."

The red dragon glared back at me, "I do not assign this lightly, but it is necessary."

I crossed my arms and snarled back, "How could smashing their eggs ever be necessary?" With a roll of my eyes I continued with a ridiculous hypothetical, "What, are freshly hatched whelps secretly the scariest thing in the world? Ah yes a clutch of super soldiers waiting to hatch - because they're clearly a bigger threat that the adult dragons who actively chose -"

His hand cut through the air, as his words cut across mine, "You speak in jest, but those whelps will know nothing but their aspect's call, feral beasts of war instead of people to argue back to the side of patience and reason. No - they will follow their orders far better than the adult dragons who have been infected by irresponsibility and disloyalty." And that was accompanied by a very pointed glare at myself and Toli, "I had thought that seeing this war for yourselves would impress on you the serious nature, but I am done trying to teach you how to think - I am only concerned with how you act. You have your orders, mercenaries, now follow them." With those words spoken, he turned away, and stormed back towards the center of the bubble.

I waited until he was out of what I thought was earshot range, and then another minute, before asking, "So, can we just refuse to take the mission? Because I categorically refuse those orders."

Lily rolled her eyes, and huffed, "Technically yes, but refusing to follow orders is grounds for punishment - I'm not sure what sort of disciplinary action -"

Val cut in, "Strictly, speaking, we can. As mercenaries, not conscripts, our involvement in the war is voluntary.-"

Lily turned with crossed arms to glare at Val, "And I volunteered for my term of service in the Lordaeron army. But the importance of discipline in war, and the ensuing punishment for soldiers refusing to follow orders - that isn't just an evil army thing."

Valerie crossed her own arms, and took a pointed step towards Lily, "I can't quote the exact chapter and page, but current Alliance law makes it clear that, outside of committing to involvement in a specific battleground or ongoing operation, a mercenary is allowed to refuse to take any mission request, as long as such disagreement is made clear immediately."

" And this, " Lily swept a hand through the air to encompass the soap bubble shielding us from blue flight detection, and the swirling nexus beyond, " Isn't a specific ongoing operation? "

"It is, but the contract is specifically between us and the Kirin Tor - the red dragonflight, while allied is not in the Alliance chain of command. Nor in the Kirin Tor chain of command for that matter."

The death knight face palmed, "Right, oops. Forgot about the whole 'working with allies' bit."

I tapped my hoof on the frozen soil. "So, We are in agreement about not committing this particular war crime?"

Toli, in the tone of someone specifically trying to stir up trouble chimed in with, "Well… we might not be obliged to follow dragonflight orders, but are you sure you want to be arguing with the dragon in charge?"

I laughed, "Toli, do you have any idea how tempting it is to go argue with the dragon that's actually in charge? At this rate, the thing that will get me to finally talk to Alexstraza is going to be one of her subordinates pissing me off so much I kick in the doors to Wyrmrest temple demanding to speak with the manager."

Voranku pinched the brow of his nose, "Why are you like this?" After a deep breath to center himself, he continued with, "Still, despite your attitude, I agree that the idea of smashing eggs is abhorrent."

"I don't think any of us are arguing in favor of infanticide, but I will bring up one other complication - if we leave the eggs unresolved, it is entirely possible that Raelorasz will convince our actual superiors to require it, or find a different agent to follow orders." Val gave me a pointed look, "So, 'Polly', since you've apparently decided to take charge of this little squad, how do you propose to proceed?"

"Sorry about speaking unilaterally for the group."

Val shrugged, "I dislike field command, and you have been leading this project. That said, do not make a habit of it."

"Anyway… is there a way to store the eggs in stasis, or time travel them directly forward to next year or something?" I let my gaze pan around my teammates, hands spread in invitation for ideas.

A certain mage took on an exaggerated thinking pose "... Hm. I can't speak to the time travel, but…"

"What idea are you dancing around?"

"Weeellll," He teased, drawing out the point, and the word 'well' well past the reasonable limit, "I can't promise it would work -"

"The point, John?"

"You've got a bag specifically designed to keep things in storage for extended periods of time without changing. … Whether or not shoving dragon eggs into a magically active bag would immediately cause them to hatch is a different question …"

Voranku snorted, "Given the level of ambiance in the air right now, a sealed magical field might be relaxing by comparison."

John flashed a relieved smile towards the netherwing drake, "Okay, so that part would work - and I think I can alter the enchantments to preserve a living creature, and dragon eggs are notoriously stable during transport … or if you find one that's been buried for at least a decade that you unearth trying to garden in Theramore … a certain smith still has burn scars from that egg hatching on him …"

I snorted with laughter - "Serves him right for messing with strange eggs, that certainly is a mental image -" My laughter abruptly cut off, as my mind filled in the actual mental image - a new born black dragon hatchling, lashing out as would be expected of a corrupted member of my flight, and being crushed in a fight that the poor thing never stood a chance of winning. Of terror just as strong as bloodlust, for the whelp alone and far from home. The warrior from my previous party, finding a strange stone in his yard, when he was younger and softer, with an innocent excitement bringing it inside, only for it to split open and disgorge a murder attempt in the form of a dragon hatchling. "-Fuck. It was a mess wasn't it - almost the same mess we'll have if trying to stash these eggs set's them off, distressed hatchlings doing their best to kill us, with no good way for us to escape the situation without fighting back."

John sighed, "Yeah it was, and it's all too likely this will be messy too." He then squared up his shoulders and tossed a smile, "Still, if we do succeed, this will be an eggcellent opportunity to get some blue dragons out of this alive."

"That is the most classic overused pun, I know you can do better than that."

"Ah, my lady is so demanding, but alas we must put this conversation in stasis to give me some time to think up more eggstraordinary puns. In the meantime, let's go save some poor innocent blue dragons from the clutches of our superior officers."

"John, have I told you recently enough that I love you?"

-

The blue dragonflight patrols were out in force today, clearly spooked by our efforts on the previous day's venture. We were still able to circle around, darting between the trees, looking for one of the leyline paths that we could use to sneak into the depression around the central spire.

"Before we go for this, Omenia I want you to spirit walk to confirm that eggs are down there, and get details on how thoroughly they're being guarded."

I sat down in the snow, back to one of the trees, and saluted. "On it. Air, would you help me spirit walk?"

My air spirit swirled around me as answer, lifting my spirit up so that I could glide unseen down the seam of broken stone, violet motes of power falling towards the sky like tears from the abused earth.

The patrols I saw stayed above the ridge, but they regularly came to look over the edge - so we would need to create cover, and not try to rely solely on the geometry of the area to shield us.

Around the base of the spire the space opened up, and I paused to take in the area. This crack didn't line up with any of the entrances into the nexus, but it was only about 30 degrees around the circle from the closer entrance, so we would have problems trying to move unseen - and the was presuming I could even locate the eggs that were supposedly in this -

"Don't move."

I nearly jumped from being talked to while spirit walking by someone other than my elementals, but the cold feeling of metal against my incorporeal throat made me freeze.

The familiar voice continued, "Now as much as I would like to simply kill you, I have the sinking feeling that doing so wouldn't actually fix anything. So, while it might still be underestimating you, I'm going to give you a chance to turn around, walk back to your body, and convince your friends to leave this place."

Underestimating - "Hythagos? But didn't you die?"

The night-elf shaped dragon growled "Why do you think I'm threatening you, Shaman? By now I have learned my lesson about giving you time."

The problem with being able to touch spirits is that spirits can touch you. "Right, … I'll consider it very strongly. Very strong case, being held at claw point." In spirit form, I was human - and I had the feeling dropping form to break a grapple wasn't going to work anywhere near as well for me this time.

While I slowly turned back towards my real hiding spot, playing along without his demand, I took the opportunity to talk. "I did look at the report you gave us, you know?" I had, in fact - a quick glance at it in the cage, followed by a full read through of a copy that was mailed to us during the most recent recovery period. "And while I accept that your data looks accurate, and the graphs look compelling, a) the report seems to have made a critically wrong assumption, and b) is it worth trying to fix a thousand year time scale problem by killing the planet today?"

I couldn't tell whether the growl in his voice was about me going off topic, me questioning his research, or just an extension of me being actively threatened, as he asked, "What false assumption?"

"You assume in the report that the total available magic on Azeroth is constant, which is unsupported by your own data in table 5-2. Factoring in the increase since the war of the ancients, the point of depletion is significantly later than the predicted hundred years."

Hythagos snorted, "So you did read it after all, a shame it came too late for either of us."

"A real shame indeed, because I feel like you were the blue dragon I could find most likely to be willing to just talk, and the increased freedom in my team's orders could have made for some room to negotiate."

I had to stop to avoid a cut as the dagger was pressed tight against my throat and his voice hissed into my ear, "I heard your last set of orders. There can be no compromise with that."

It took me two tries to force any words past my lips, but I growled back - "If you mean the red's order to go smash eggs, did you not also hear me telling him to take those orders and go choke on them?"

"In point of fact no - I couldn't hear anything over my incandescent rage." The ghost took a moment to breath after snarling at me, "However, even if I had, I also know that you in particular say many things that you don't actually mean. Like mouthing off to a superior officer, only to recant on him to remind you of your duty. Or trying to tell the enemy soldier with a knife to your throat what he wants to hear."

"Look, the red dragon might be allied with the kirin-tor, but he doesn't actually command me."

"Does he not, Dragon?"

I spun to face the ghost, "How did you -"

With the hand not still threatening me, Hythagos waved at my spiritual appearance. "How many Draenei appear human while spirit walking. Especially since you still have your horns. Tell me, which flight are you from, to ignore orders from a proxy of the Dragonqueen on how to fight her war?" He then chuckled darkly, "And do not even try to claim to be a storm drake, that will not work on me as easily as it did those foolish mortals."

"Oh for - have you known I was a dragon the entire time?"

"No. But with that context …"

"Also, not actually claiming I am one, but how do you know I'm not a Thoringar?"

He raised an eyebrow, "For starters, they are called Thorignir."

"Okay fine, I'm from the token evil dragonflight."

"Given the conversation I overheard, that would make you a … red dragon?"

I wasn't drinking anything, but the burst of laughter that left me wheezing still felt like a spit-take. "Ha-Ouch. I'm not even a red dragon and I think I felt that attack to their reputation." Another wheeze of whiplash disguised as humor, and I managed, "No the real evil dragonflight - I'm a black dragon dingus."

He sighed. "I had seen that potential, yes … but I had hoped … no matter - the gulf of war between us was insurmountable even before the sins of your kin against mine."

I looked him in the eye - spirit to spirit - person to person - dragon to dragon (living to dead, killer to victim). "And yet, here we are, still talking. If death is not insurmountable, why should war be? On behalf of a war I never chose, I apologize for the crimes of my flight. On behalf of a war you never chose, I forgive you for harming me and mine."

"Pretty words. But you are still trespassing on my flight's home, and threatening our children."

I waved a hand at the spire of swirling power, blanketing the entire area in an oppressive weight of the arcane laden air, "I am no blue dragon, and I can feel the weight of Malygos's folly bearing down on us. Surely you cannot deny it?"

I paused for breath, because even in spirit form I still was bound by certain humanities, before continuing strong with, "I am not the reason that your flight's children are in danger - the moment the nexus became this beacon of death, it pulled everyone on it into the line of fire." I bore my gaze into his, as if I could force him to see reason reflected in my eyes. "Yes, my plan could be called kidnapping, but tell me Hythagos - is there someone from your flight who would care for these hatchlings somewhere safe? Somewhere that isn't marred by the world itself screaming out in pain?"

Hythagos gave me a long look, a slow forming grimace becoming just as pronounced as his silence.

I should have let it sit, given him space, but silence always unnerved me. "And besides, even if you drive us off, do you think that red dragon will refrain from finding others to do his bidding - not every group is going to have a shaman you can threaten."

He growled, and with his free hand shoved me back towards the way I had entered from, "Leave. I will consider your words, but if you trespass here again I will kill you and deal with the consequences."

-

As I settled back into my body, and blinked to focus back on the real world, I was immediately greeted with, " Omenia, what happened? Any active dangers?"

"Angry spirit, should be fine if we don't move- but how did you tell?"

Lily pointed at my throat, "Sympathetic spiritual injury." As my hand crept up to feel the small trickle of blood from Hythagos having threatened me a bit more dearly than I had credited, Lily continued in thoughtful tone, "Actually, given that - your case of unsettled spirit must be getting better - there's no way you could have that injury carry over with the degree of dissonance you had when I first healed you."

"How bad was it?" Val asked, pausing for a long moment of silence to cast a flash of Light to heal the graze, before continuing, "I had only seen a mild case when I healed her last - noticeable, but not much worse than one of my regulars."

"To quote the paladin who cleaned up after my rough handling ripping out a critical scourge infection, 'actively bleeding soul wounds', with no physical mirroring. And the only mirroring in that near turning was not being able to stand up." Lily looked at me thoughtfully, "Actually, how did you manage to have a coherent conversation while critically plagued? Poor connection with your body should have made you pass out from soul wounds, not just completely ignore them."

I shrugged, "What makes you think I know?"

"... oh, that is a mystery. And I wonder whether it was primarily something weird in your soul, or is the effects of the scourge plague less straightforwardly spiritual damage than I thought? And then there's confounding factors like your tendency towards extroversion and masking your true feelings with -" Lily abruptly cut off in speech, her lips still moving without sound.

Before I had managed to snap back to combat awareness, a twist of order came through and tried to force my mortal form into a new shape - for half a heart beat my hands were cloven hooves and I was distanced from my awareness by the artificial instincts of the false sheep cast over me, before my mortal form snapped, and my quadruped forelimbs where back to being the familiar paws of my true form, and I was back in control.

With a growl, I scanned the snowy wood for our attackers - and found them, as a stream of arcane missiles thudding into Val's shoulder revealed the position of the enemy caster.

Pyroblast took point, but Lily and I were not far behind, spear and claws sharp to stop the blue dragonkin from being able to fight. There were two in the patrol - I took the one still burning, and took advantage of the distraction to be able to rake my claws down his side, and bite at that hand holding his wand.

On one side of my mouth, the wood wand crunched under my teeth, sending a jolt of force into my jaw. On the other side, bone crunched easily beneath my teeth, and all I could taste was the metallic tang of blood.

I hastily let go of the bite, as the dragonkin's other arm clawed at my face, threatening my eyes.

Released from my bite, my foe staggered back, clutching their mangled arm to their chest with frantic breathing hissing between their teeth.

I spat the broken splinters, blood, and torn flesh only loosely caught on my teeth, as I prepared to strike again.

As I was eying up my angle of attack, the dragonkin took one step towards me, swayed, and collapsed to the snow.

I checked quickly to make sure the rest of the fight was under control, and got to see the other dragonkin buckle with a spray of blood as Val yanked her sword out from where it had been buried in our foe's back.

My frustrated exhale hissed between my teeth, "Aren't we trying to take most of them alive?"

Val shrugged, "Most. We need to leave now, before more come. And this pair knew too much."

I opened my mouth to argue, but was cut off by Lily barking out, "Silence," with one gauntleted hand raised in a signal for us to hold our actions.

We stood in the snowy forest for a few moments, as Lily listened for something, and the desperate breathing of my opponent faded to silence, alongside a growing patch of red on the snow.

In response to something only she could hear, or some internal measure of time of quiet, Lily lowered her hand. "We should have at least a few moments - I want everyone ready to exit under snowfall."

"Uh … Lily, our snowfall trick is only rated against you? None of the rest of us have the cold resistance?"

Lily had started to raise her runespear to do something, but turned back to me to say, "Not my resistance, no - but a trick that might buy you a few minutes? I think you have the tools, so figure it out while I work."

So saying, she began to sweep her now glowing spear around in a move that reminded me of water-bending, a similarity all the more pronounced as the blood lifted up from the snow to flow upwards into the red aura around the runeblade.

I looked at John "Do you have any ideas …?"

"Well, if Voranku knows frost-ward, that's three of us taken care of for one or two blizzard castings worth of cold…"

Val steepled her hands for a moment, concentrating on something that wasn't us, before the cold faded back like the warmth of a still sunny day, even with the still howling storm affixed permanently to the arcane beacon casting the caldera in shadow and cold violet light. "I will endure. Omenia, if you would use your totem as well?"

I shifted back to human and fished in my bag for my water totem, "Oh right, now that I have a water spirit -"

Toli shot a curious look in my direction. "Why would a water spirit matter to your frost protection?"

"Well, I'd imagine that I need a spirit of cold to do a cold related blessing," I looked back at the gnome shaped dragon, "but with you asking in that tone of voice, I'd guess I've got that all wrong?"

"Well… you are the shaman here, not me, but everyone else uses fire to ward against cold."

I felt the weight of my fire spirit leaning on my shoulders as it perked up in excitement, 'A chance to safely share warmth? Come on, speaker' and with an impish grin only visible in my spirit sight, she waved a claw imperiously at my pack, 'fetch your totem like a helpful medium.'

Lips curving upwards into a half smile, I fished out my totem saying, "Well, my fire spirit seems to agree with you. Quite enthusiastically."

I didn't even have to place it, my fire spirit diving into the clay lantern, and sending warmth radiating out from the light held in the palm of my hands.

Around us, snow began to fall, and I sent a trickle of power to my air and water spirits to encourage the storm.

It was a subtle power, but I felt stronger in that moment, than any one sided fight could ever hope to reach. With the rising winds blowing my cape out behind me and shrinking the world to just the white snow enveloping us, without a single shred of discomfort as I walked barefoot through the snow.

Safe now, from what had mere months before settled like shadows in my bones, pervading everything with its own flavor of gloom.

My fire still couldn't heal - but in that moment, storm and fire coming together to keep us safe, I imagined that this could be enough. But I will never be satisfied, will I? A good first step, but I can- no will - do better.

-

(It took hours before the fallen patrol was found, gently covered under pristine snow - cold and bloodless, and with a feeling of rising dread, the patrol found no trace of the blood spatters that should have accompanied the deed. Nor could they be certain of when the patrol went missing, the cold slowing decay.

The wounds they found might have matched the human rabble coming north to fight them, but the only tracks the fight had made that were deep enough to be visible in the dirt after they brushed away the snow, besides the victims, were the paw prints of a drake.

And while no drake had been seen - the dragonkin guard on the crater rim south of where the pair was found, upon being questioned, said he might have heard ghostly voices, an hour after the leylines shifted - a drake's voice perhaps, asking if there was anyone left who would guard the flight's children, anywhere safe with world itself crying out in pain.

And though he did not say so to his superiors, Ankarias wondered darkly if it had been the ghost of one of their own this time, rebelling against the Aspect. He had heard one more snatch of words from the wind, before the angry declaration - 'I can feel the weight of Malygos's folly bearing down on us'. Did loyalty matter to the dead? Or would a drake even think of the flight's dragonkin as her people, instead of merely her Aspect's weapons?)

Chapter Text

With the angry ghost guarding the blue flight eggs from us, we instead continued trying to terrify the blue flight out of fighting.

And it only took me another four hours to remember my bright idea for another relatively harmless way to attack morale - taking a leaf out of the old god playbook, by using whispers to mimic intrusive thoughts.

Upon presenting the idea to the rest of the team, Lily responded with, "That could work - I doubt any of them will mistake your whispers for their own thoughts, but a voice suggesting an idea can be all it takes if you were already considering it - even if you recognize that voice as an enemy. That said - I don't think you should be aiming to cause fear with it."

"Oh?" I spread a palm in invitation for her to provide details, "And what should I be aiming to induce then?"

"Well, if my observations on the prelude to Light's Hope are worth anything - appeal to their virtues, to the ideals that they grew up on that this war is trampling into the ground. It won't have an effect immediate enough to say, save your own life if you're trying to appeal to the morality of a death knight about to stab you, but if it worked even on Aurora kin-hater Dawnspell herself, I doubt that the blue flight is immune to the lure of empathy and kindness."

John snorted, "No, I doubt they would be. The trick, of course, is finding what the blue dragons consider to be virtues, since last I checked none of us are blue dragons, and we're running out of people in this party who could be secret dragons." He then looked at me and winked, "Especially since my secret dragon girlfriend is already accounted for."

I saw that that might have been supposed to be a joke, but it didn't even rate a sarcastic 'har har', so I just paced as I tried to remember my general dragon lore. "Drat, I can't remember the exact words for the charge of the blue flight - guarding magic is the obvious bit, but wasn't there something about needing to have balance…?"

"You know the words of another flight's charge?" Voranku directed a curious gaze in my direction.

I turned back the way I had walked, and continued to pace, "My illegal visions, obviously. But really, the blue flight had one of the easiest charges to remember the words for - not much dithering, and exactly one extra clause to add to the basic details of 'magic'. And I can't remember what the other facet that had to be balanced with control was. Other than the fact that Malygos has obviously tossed it out the metaphorical window at mach 10."

"Joy." Upon turning to look at the speaker, Toli offered me a half smile, "Magic was supposed to be enjoyed. It's a shame the blue flight's forgotten how to have fun these days."

"Well my horror tactics certainly won't help them remember that." I paused in my pacing, "But I suppose I can work with that - Malygos's depression might be justified, but it's also an exploitable existential hazard."

Val didn't so much laugh as cough with surprise, "... That certainly was a combination of words I wasn't expecting to be combined in that manner." She recovered most of her decorum and continued with, "I think you should get one of us to draft your whispers - especially if you want to be subtle about not being their own thoughts."

I shrugged, "Fair enough."

Into the silence that followed, Voranku spoke a tentative question, "... What 'illegal visions' are you speaking of? How would your past life as a human civilian help you know the dragonflight's oaths?"

"Fuck." Apply both palms to forehead to keep any more stupidity from dripping out my mouth. "I forgot who I'd read in on that.."

Val's voice was sharp - I couldn't tell if it was hard with worry, or anger, "Have you been receiving visions from the Old Gods?"

"If you count chronic nightmares plaguing me as 'visions' than yes, but the 'illegal visions' that I used to get the words of the blue flight oaths were not an old god scheme - not unless my fucked up reincarnation, and rebellious spirit was always their plan - in my other life, on a world without magic or gods or demons save the ones mankind made of ourselves - many of us dreamed" Played the game, wrote stories, cast themselves in their avatars, wrote ourselves into the story - How many other dreamers woke into their personalized nightmares in timelines of their own? "of Azeroth. And that gives me an approximate knowledge of many things, like an idea of the maps or the dragonflight charges, but not enough to, say, avoid nearly dying to the scourge plague incident that provoked us to come to Northrend."

Her green eyes fixed onto mine, and held my gaze for a long moment, before I flinched, and Valerie ended the discussion with, "Very well."

She doesn't trust you.

Unlike most of the old god whispers, this one I couldn't refute - I knew her just well enough to know that this wasn't over. I couldn't tell whether this was a willingness to take a leap of faith, or waiting for me to more thoroughly condemn myself with the information I knew and did not speak.

It didn't matter though, since I had broken that faith - while the words I said might have been true, the implication was a lie. I did know far too much really, for someone who kept doing a lousy job of predicting things.

(Wrathgate. Guilt by deliberate inaction.)

-

Another two days of stalemate, which included more than a few 'hauntings', passed before the situation changed - with a pair of druids flying into Coldarra close to our midnight end of shift, that brought with them an answer from Shattrath regarding our plan for safe-ish blue dragonkin containment.

Val didn't actually share the contents of the letter, just read it in silence, before offering a cryptic, "I see. Well, I might need to be more careful in the coming months, but we do have permission from A'dal to continue outsourcing prisoner containment." She then turned back to the druids, " I do hope you fine gentleman brought more portal runes in our supplies."

"Portal runes, mana potions, and as much food and enriched water as we could carry. We won't be forced out of Coldarra by lack of supplies." The pair unslung entire belts of enchanted bags, apparently having stockpiled for as much as they could afford. The more willowy of the two men continued, "Now, I hear you had an idea for putting us to work?"

Val gestured towards me, "She did."

Taking up the discussion I said, "So, we're trying to break blue dragonflight morale, and waste their manpower. I wanted help from some stealth experts to break into the nexus-"

He nodded, night elven eyebrows bouncing with the motion, "Plenty doable, I think. If the blue flight has about the same senses as the green flight, we should be able to sneak past their guard." He then shot me a wary look, "If you are about to suggest that the two of us should sneak in to assassinate Malygos alone…"

"No, no," I waved my hands quickly to dispel that idea, "Leave the Aspect for the inevitable raid - I just want you two helping to spook them and exhaust them - supplies going missing, furniture inexplicably moved two inches to the left to make a place that should have been safe uncanny instead."

The other night elf raised one eyebrow at my suggestion, "Moving furniture, really?"

"I want them to be afraid - not necessarily dead. And when retreat to a safe spot is marred - not by explicable fighting, but by the subtle persistent awareness that something is wrong, and you cannot place why … paranoia is exhausting, and I want them too exhausted to help their side. I want your help to make this caldera a living nightmare"

A smirk from the purple haired night elf I felt like I should have recognized, as he spoke for the duo again, "Nightmare is a dangerous word to be throwing around with druids around. Of course we can." The dangerous smirk faded to a thoughtful look - "But wouldn't thinning the herd help to sow fear?"

I sighed, "It would. And I would be a hypocrite to say no killing now, when I've got enough blue flight blood on my hands - but every blue dragon that lives to recant Malygos is a victory, is a stronger Azeroth for the future, and I believe we are strong enough to be merciful."

The other druid spoke, "An interesting take. Hopefully, not a wrong one. And certainly, a good challenge for Nalian to practice on."

Nalian rolled his eyes, "I haven't been an apprentice for decades, Shan'do."

The older druid placed a hand on Nalian's shoulder, "And yet, you will always be my favorite student."

A huff of amusement mixed with annoyance, before Nalian voiced his agreement, "It would be a good challenge - provided that we still manage to stop that" He pointed sharply towards the swirling pillar of arcane.

I rubbed my hands together, "Good good - I'll try to stay on top of Azeroth crying out in agony problems if we do need to escalate things - oh and try to stay away from the piles of dragon eggs around the nexus while terrifying the blue flight if you can - there might be a little problem with a ghost threatening to stab me if anyone touches them, and while I can fight him, I'd prefer to have that possible diplomacy route stay open."

Hythagos, demonstrating that being dead made it easier to pull rogue nonsense, whispered in my ear, 'Fortunately for you, I chose not to take offense at the implication that you could beat me in a fight - nor at the added body count you have accumulated since our last conversation.'

"One moment, ghost dragon looking to talk." I then turned to Hythagos, and focused my vision to see his transparent form clearly. "So are you about to take offense about something else, or are you here with an answer to the lingering questions from last time?"

'I still believe the mortal magi are dangerous and I will not yet concede this war to you. But…'

"But?" I prompted, intending to draw out the reluctant concession.

'Between my own flight's neglect, the rising mana storm here, and the threat of Raelorasz deciding to take matters into his own talons … I will permit you to hide away the eggs. Harm any, and I will strike you down.'

"Thank you, Hythagos. I will do my best to cause no harm, in trying to protect them from this war."

'I will hold you to that.' A gust of cold air, and then the feeling of presence behind me disappeared.

I shook myself to escape the lingering anxiety from the diplomacy, and the ominous haunting feeling, before directing my attention back to the living. "So, as you might have heard from my end of the conversation, we now have permission from the ghostly blue guardian to retrieve the blue flight eggs, so let's go before Raelorasz notices we haven't done it yet."

I then instinctively flinched in genre savviness, that my saying that would cause him to have been walking behind me at that exact moment, but despite WoW having been a video game, this Azeroth didn't run on those tropes.

(It is all too real, now.)

The only response was a general acknowledgment from the rest of the group, before we returned to briefing the druids on the situation.

-

In the fading light of dusk the next day, after more 'hauntings', 'mysterious disappearances', and seditious whispers on the wind through the afternoon, we slipped into the Nexus under cover of a mild snowstorm, that for once wasn't man-made. "Right - I see one of the egg piles over -"

Voranku raised a hand to stop us, and in a soft voice said, "Quiet, any louder, or any closer, and you risk disturbing the eggs." His gaze flicked from the pile of eggs, to the entrances into the nexus caves where an unexpected patrol could turn up if we stayed here. "Give the bag to …" A glance among our faces, and Voranku trailed off into confused silence as he considered which of us would be the sneakiest.

Lily held out a hand silently to me, as her feet lifted off the stone into levitation. With a shrug I decided to trust her to do the job correctly, and passed over the modified storage bag we were gambling on being good enough.

Without walking, she was able to move disconcertingly quietly, none of the usual clicking of knee joints and boots. And while she still breathed, despite being undead, it wasn't enough noise to disturb the eggs into hatching. I noticed her pause a few meters from the eggs, a moment when I couldn't tell what she was doing, before carefully reaching out to grab the eggs and hide them away in stasis.

One by one, she lifted eggs from the stack. One by one, they were removed peacefully from the war, still perhaps a kidnapping, but far less harm than allowing the eggs to be shattered, or allowing the freshly hatched whelps to throw themselves into Malygos's war.

One by one, they were removed from the pile - and that might have been a mistake.

With the presence, or pressure, of the other eggs removed, the bottom egg began to wobble from the whelp inside trying to hatch.

For one moment we all froze, until a crack from the shell breaking also shattered our stillness. Lily waved us to move, sharply pointing towards one of the chasms splintering out from the nexus, even as she floated in our direction.

We bolted, hooves and feet painfully loud after the quiet from before.

Ducking around the corner into the evening shadows, as soon as I was out of line of sight from the hatching, I spirit-walked back, to watch and try to help.

Lily was about halfway, floating painfully slowly - a brisk walk instead of the desperate sprint needed to avoid bloodshed. In spirit walk, I couldn't drag her along faster, nor yell at her to move faster, only growl in helpless frustration to an audience of my elementals and any wandering spirits choosing to listen in.

Lily was not out of line of sight, by the time the whelp's claws broke through the shell, and it came tumbling out with a threatening hiss.

Without slowing down, Lily spun to be levitating backwards, and made a gesture like directing a quick cast spell at the whelp.

I looked away for that one moment, not wanting to see the whelp hurt for our mistake. His voice meeping out a confused noise had me looking back to see the whelp slowly looking around, as if unsure whether he was even looking for anything.

A few moments later, the whelp shook off the look of confusion and began scanning the area for anyone, but it was too late for him to find Lily, the death knight having finally caught up to the rest of us.

I dropped back into my body to return to escaping, even as the whelp's wordless voice sounded a questioning trill that managed to cut across my instincts like a saw blade as I refused to answer. A child crying out for anyone, neglected and separated from their siblings.

I couldn't tell what portion was being reborn as a dragon, or if it was just my human soul's response to abandoning a child. It didn't matter, because either way I felt awful as I slunk away.

As the trill faded out into silence, the whelp then began to cry, and it hurt to walk away and leave him crying there alone, even with the knowledge he should be noticed by his own flight soon. They had to notice one of their own, even this corrupt - they were not as far gone as my flight.

Never mind that we still had to make our escape and the noise was ratcheting up my anxious glances for an attack, the blue flight guards could not come soon enough to soothe my aching heartstrings.

As we crept along the base of the ley-line chasm, the shadow of wings above made me freeze with panic for a moment, before the crying behind us hiccuped to a stop and provided an implicit answer to where the drake had swooped down to. Good, he wasn't abandoned for long.

… Now all we have is the unmitigated cruelty of a child being drafted into war.

-

Back at camp, Raelorasz was waiting with a raised eyebrow and a shoulder tilted towards the nexus spire. "I see you came around eventually…"

A growl built in my throat, but I said nothing - not a lie, and certainly not the truth.

To my side Lily took a step forward, but Val saved us both by speaking, "Some dark deeds must be done. Do not insult us by expecting us to enjoy them."

"Enjoy? No. Have discipline? … Yes, that I do expect." He shook his head, "Still what's done is done. And now I have another use for you - The blues have begun to cover their drakes in mysterious runes. I must discover their significance." He tossed a spear to Lily, the tip glinting darkly red. "Take this and use it on one of them. Wait for it to become subdued, then bring it here to me before it expires. Their hatchlings feed around the northwest edge of the valley."

I twitched at his suggestion of hatchlings, but decided to put that one battle back. Just this once. Maybe.

-

We worked our way around the spire after the daily noon-quake, splitting patrols here and spreading seditious whispers there (from a list of suggestions the rest of the team, and several of the kirin-tor mages, written during our rest break). In the end, instead of grabbing any of the smaller hatchlings, the only runed drake we saw was an adult, a full hand taller than Voranku.

So instead of killing the cluster of whelps and small drakes, we only traumatized them by kidnapping their guardian and jabbing him with the provided spear until the poison or spell on it rendered the drake mute and docile - it was terrifying to watch the moment when the focus faded from his eyes, and he settled to the ground to dazedly follow us.

Fortunately, blue drakes are notoriously cold resistant, so our blizzard disappearing act still allowed us to smuggle him back to transitus shield. Though we did end up splitting up after a near miss with a patrol - or rather, I spirit walked with the storm to cause 'ghost' chaos along the curving path of the storm, while my mortal form got carried on Voranku's back.

After one of the blue dragonkin managed a lucky magic missiles into my airy form, I beat a hasty retreat, the effects of arcane injury so much more unpleasant in that disembodied state.

Can air elementals puke? No.

Did I desperately want to, as chunks of my spirit were splattered by the arcane missiles going straight through intangible flesh? Yes.

Lucky for me, the dissipation wasn't a permanent hole in my spirit, or its good odds that I wouldn't have made it back to my body at all - one of the missiles having hit my center of mass. My will was strong enough to pull myself back together as I fled, but it was a very quick crash course in why shamans don't fight while spirit walking or 'far seeing'.

That and the risk that you might get trapped miles below the earth in an elementium box by the black aspect looking to fight you on his terms, but that wasn't a common risk even if your name was Thrall.

-

Day by day, we watched the blues grow more stressed - none of the dragonkin moved alone, the drakes were reluctant to land, they began to startle and flinch from even small noises - the number of arcane explosions my whispers provoked was amusing. The way the dragonkin began to watch the sky for a hint of a storm, and pulled their patrols inwards and tighter anytime the clouds began to look like snow, or the hours pulled towards evening and the shadow of the caldera rim threw them into early darkness.

Of course, we couldn't leave the drakes free from the campaign of fear - with help from the angry earth, any time I was paying attention and a drake landed - to eat, to check in with a patrol, to rest for a moment - the ground under their paws heaved in torment, or collapsed from borrowed stress from the deeper earth. Pitfalls, landslips, and jagged spikes of earth - If I couldn't fight with my spirit projected in the air, none of them could catch me hiding in the earth, and the arcane irradiated dirt made a decent shield from any other arcane effect.

According to Val, the symptoms of repeated arcane poisoning, multiplied through my connection to the bleeding earth made for an interesting case study on the nature of the Arcane. Personally I was willing to trade bouts of inner-ear-not-working and skin calcifying for the ability to sleep overnight without old god dreams. It might have been the arcane putting the titan-forging back to rights, or a lot of Light based healing driving back the Dark, but either way, waking up feeling well rested on the third day was a ray of light through the gathering clouds.

None of the others were prepared for me to wake up with a grin and enough energy to be enthusiastically chatting with my elementals before breakfast. John blinked, and then asked with a grin, "So has Poly been replaced with an imposter, or are you just really excited to torment blue dragons?"

"Neither.. Today you get to see what I'm like when I'm well rested and full of energy." I grinned brightly, "Time to show off why the universe had to nerf me with chronic nightmares." I rubbed my fingers excitedly, "So do you have any ideas for today's chaos? Because I thought we could …"

-

The planning meeting came through with another decent supply of whispers to send Air out delivering, as well as a few more variations on 'mysteriously disappearing patrols' to add to our rotation.

We continued to escalate; my earth based harassment running in parallel to the rest of the group stealing patrol members (or whole patrols) away into blizzards. By this point, our trio of magi could handle storm duty without my help; the practice and ambient mana making it viable to spoof a 'natural' storm.

Leaving me to mediate back at base camp did have some disadvantages: namely that I couldn't call on Air, even to send whispers, without returning from an earth aligned spirit walk, at which point I had to fly back out to the people I wanted to whisper, but it did have the upside of them not having to manage an unconscious party member while I was doing other things.

Which meant that when the rest of the party found an obviously cursed magic artifact (a shard of metal that once picked up couldn't be put back down, only handed on to another person) I didn't find out about it until after they had handed it over to Raelorasz.

I'd been listening to the general gist of events in summary while cooking our 'evening' meal and caught on that detail, and formed my hands into the T shape I still went to for 'time out', "Hold up - can we go over what you just said?" Taking a shrug as permission, I continued, "So, you guys found an obviously cursed magical artifact-"

"It was just a shimmering shard of magic. No curses, and besides, as a mage I'm good at removing curses."

"One that you said you couldn't put down - and not because it was glued to your hand, but because of mind control effects."

John flicked a gaze back towards Raelorasz and the shard, before offering me a sheepish smile, "I wouldn't call it mind control…"

"Look, magic artifacts that prey on your emotions to seem irrationally compelling or too special to put down are bad news, and I'd rather not have to find the correct volcano to destroy it." I huffed a sigh, "But okay, it probably isn't that bad. It's probably not worse than, say, twice saronite armor levels of sanity drain." Actually maybe an order of magnitude more, since we have two plate wearers in the party, and the old god whispers aren't worse than usual. "Still - you found a suspicious item, and handed it over to him?" I pointed at the red dragon, "He does not need any magical corruption to go with the corrupting effects of getting to give orders."

Val shut the alchemy text she was studying, and said "And now we have an excuse to refuse any further suspicious orders, a chance at getting useful information, and the shard is not being carried around near us." She said that last word with an odd emphasis and the wave that was supposed to include the general collective was pointed a bit towards me. "You're welcome."

I sighed. "Thanks, I guess. This still feels like a bad idea, but …" I shook my head, "I guess it doesn't matter now. What's done is done."

-

The next 'morning', Raelorasz interrupted our breakfast with a new mission - assassinate a few blue dragonflight commanders and steal some items so that we could free a high security prisoner. Compared to general genocide, or targeted infanticide, I had no objections to our new objectives.

Yes, we could just steal the keys without murder (or get caught trying), but unlike the rank and file, one does not make commander without commitment to the job - either true loyalty, or commitment to the bit, but either way it didn't bother me to hunt the commanders in particular.

"So how do we want to handle this - trying to sneak into the middle of the blue dragonkin command area with a storm? I don't like our odds of not running into someone or being heard. I could try doing something with the earth, but I think our targets are in the rune circles that I can't get too close to while earth walking?"

Lily began to pace, clearly thinking about the situation. I caught Val's gaze as she looked to the others to speak up, and she shrugged minutely. Toli didn't bother to be restrained with her shrug, and Voranku looked away when I looked to him for suggestions.

After a minute or two of silence, marked by the rhythmic sound of boots crunching snow, and fingers tapping on a staff, John stretched before offering, "Time for me to earn my fire mage certification by suggesting the 'fuck subtlety, go bold or go home' approach?" With a sheepish grin he added, "I don't think it's a good idea, mind, but it's a simple solution."

Lily snorted, "Okay, so we're getting the bad ideas out of the way first - a straight line charge does work sometimes, but it would also ruin our fear campaign to just be seen."

"Well, in terms of bad solutions: killing everyone who sees you is a valid approach to stealth."

I shot a look at the bronze dragon, who shrugged. Unfortunately her suggestion was still bouncing around my skull, mutating into something one step to the left, "… do you think we could sneak to pyroblast range?"

"That would still involve trying to get past two rings of patrols, and bring us within hearing distance of the main camps. But stranger things have happened." Val paused for a moment, before smirking, "Some even caused by us."

"Because while it might lack stealth, if we can kill our marks as the opener to a fight - it still has some potential for fear - it's one thing to have an enemy you can fight - but one that wins, before you can act? That brings back some of what we lose from being a confirmed foe in the area. And well - it's not like it's mutually exclusive with continuing to do 'hauntings', 'mysterious disappearances', and 'the world itself trying to hurt you' routines." I looked at the group, "Or am I way off base?"

"... Seems fine, I guess."

-

We got the initiative hard against the centaur-morph dragonkin commander, who had been distracted discussing battle plans with some of his support staff - one visibly dragonkin, the other probably a dragon as evidenced by the characteristic squishy mortal form issue. Actual humans here in Azeroth tend to invest in armor or wards. Or both. Dragons have their true form for that … if you don't instantly incapacitate them with pyroblast.

The commander, at least, survived our first volley. Which instead allowed him to be stabbed by a deathknight for his troubles, bringing the key we had attacked him to steal directly to us. Not the battle plans though, which we added to our list of things that looked vulnerable to the sticky fingers of an Azerothian adventurer, and thus we followed up with actually going down there to steal the items.

We did retrieve the battle plans, but staring down the other commander's guard on high alert, it was starting to look more and more like that might, just maybe, have been a bad call.

The defenses: a guard squad of five armored dragonkin around the rune platform, a few drakes circling the skies above, four more patrols, each at double strength compared to before, all in line of sight of each other patrolling the snowy ground, and signs of active warding on the rune platform.

"This is going to be fun." Lily sighed. "Okay, no. Even I have to acknowledge that there are too many enemies. We can probably take one patrol out with our opener - that still leaves us with the other three, the general, his guards, and three drakes. And they're all too close to split into little bite sized fights."

I caught a flash of something in Val's eyes as her gaze snapped from surveying the scene to look at Lily. After a few moments of hesitation, the paladin asked, "So are we going to retreat from this fight…?"

"Well it's either that or die trying. Unless anyone has some genius idea for making the fight easier?" After several moments of silence, Lily turned to focus specifically on Valerie, "Look, unless I've seriously misjudged you, you do understand that there's a difference between cowardice and common sense. And I don't think anyone's going to be accusing me of cowardice anytime soon."

-

"So, have you discovered any other pieces of the prison?"

Lily shrugged, "One of the two. The other was too difficult to be worth the risk of trying to do today."

Despite being in mortal form, Raelorasz's growl of frustration sounded thoroughly draconic. "Must you fools keep failing to do your jobs? Waiting gives them an opportunity to reinforce the other commander, and it will be even harder to retrieve the key thanks to your damned cowardice."

Val took over the answer here, her voice not raised but with a firm undercurrent nonetheless. "They were already aware of the first commander's fall by the time we reached the other. Would you rather that we failed to no avail? It was possible that we could have won, but it is my professional opinion that none of us would have been fighting fit afterwards." A tilt of her head to the dozens of drakes flitting about the spire, "Do you believe the blue flight would permit us to retreat with the key we had stolen, after a long and loud battle?"

With a grimace, the red dragon's shoulders slumped. "No. … No, the blue flight might be mad, but they aren't blind. And yet, if we don't keep up the pressure, how will we ever turn this war around in time?" He sighed, "No, it is unreasonable to expect you to win this fight for us. I suppose my sister's plan … never mind, I'll talk with her about it."

That was an excuse for us to move back to our section of camp, and escape the persistent annoyance for another day and another mutual disappointment.

-

It took a week of us preying on other targets around the caldera for the guard on the commander to dissipate down to a manageable level - which is to say, one patrol, the personal guard, and a single armored drake circling above.

Unlike our previous attempt, I wasn't trying to synchronize a lava-burst to the cast of pyroblast and whatever the arcane mages were doing, instead everyone else was trying to match to my very rough guess of how long it was going to take to drop the patrol once they had moved close enough to the forming faultline that was itching at my scales like a pus filled blister stretching with every motion and ready to break. Not that painful, but refusing to be forgotten about until it had torn loose - and even then it would hurt for days or months. (At least this time, there would be no slime covered hands as I continued using crutches to 'sprint' across campus, blisters within blisters, blood oozing alongside the pus. Even in the metaphorical sense, this would be resolved soon, one way or the other.)

After about half an hour of waiting in our little dip in the landscape, hidden by a snow drift I had carefully blown into place, the patrol finally returned to the section of their path I was waiting for. One last glance at the brightening sky, checking that dawn was still some time from breaking over the caldera rim, before I decided to commit to our plan.

I dropped my hand as the signal for our casters to begin, and closed my eyes to avoid the restraint of my perception of the 'real' world. This wasn't the little shaking earth we spirit callers like to call an earthquake - no, Malygos had handed me the perfect storm ready to unleash a true earthquake - I didn't have the power to call one ex-nihlo, but when the earth was begging for relief … "Spirits of the pained earth, I offer my strength to tear free of the last restraint holding you back." I held out a hand, in a gesture that would mean nothing in a purely physical space, but meant everything here.

'Little one, you know not what you ask.'

"I am asking for a true earthquake, for you to let loose the potential twisting this ground, to break and allow yourself to slide to a more comfortable position. Is there more I have not understood?"

'... You know, Speaker, that this will harm those who have dwelt above us for centuries, who have shaped the stone here into a home, laid foundations upon us?'

Sympathy stole the easy yes from out my lips, but it didn't change my answer. "I know. They have betrayed you, are the ones causing your pain now - but I know that that might not change your answer. And yet, the day grows near that it will not be a choice - I am offering to absolve you from the shame of failure by making it your choice."

'It is rare for a mortal to ask in such a way. Rarer still for one of your kind.' A pause, filled with the sound of John's incantation in the background of my awareness, like soothing music. 'Very well.' The spirit took my hand, allowing me to reach out and pull.

With a crack like thunder, the ground heaved. This close to the epicenter, in such a supernatural quake, there was no pre-shock as warning, no attenuation from the distance and the earth between us.

Only a snap, and a new crevice, a meter wide opening in the stone - along with the land to the left of the rift jumping up by about the same height.

The volley of spells was in the air as we were knocked off our feet, and the snow drift we were hiding behind was dropped atop us, a protective bubble as the continuing echoes rocked the caldera, the ground bouncing up and down and sideways. The earth spirit's ongoing scream of pain and rage, as it let go over its torment.

With a muttered curse, Lily did not so much stand, as pry herself up our little ridge with the heft of her spear. The continued shaking of the displaced earth flung her the rest of the way up with the motion, and sent her skidding across the frozen ground and out of my line of sight

As I unburied myself from the snow, I heard the sound of her using her rune-spear to fight - a certain muted thump of the point being driven into flesh. There was no follow up squelch of the spear being pulled loose.

Crawling to the top of our hiding space, I saw that she had dragged the commander to her using death-grip, and had used that forced movement to impale him on the spear up to about half its length, braced against her prone form. As I watched, she slapped the ground, and the familiar red light of death & decay flared.

The dragonkin guards were still scattered where they had been knocked off their feet, and a circle of blood was forming around one that had landed poorly on his neighbor's glaive. Another was still on fire. One of the ones that was recovering faster had his attention stolen by the chasm that had formed under the patrol, and the air was filled with screams of fear as the aftershocks drove the fragments of stone back towards each other, before splitting them apart again.

The commander opened his mouth to scream for his guards, and was silenced first by a stunning hammer, and then by the metal clad hands of our deathknight wrapping themselves around his throat.

Another moment, and she rolled the larger but wounded dragonkin towards the cliff, the two still locked in their grapple, as they bounced down our little ravine and out of sight from ground-bound reinforcements.

Despite not being able to talk, the dragonkin commander still apparently could use magic, and a surge of arcane flung Lily off him, and all the way up the other side of our ravine.

I would have liked to drop form to my true form, but even if I had failed to notice my wing injuries in the rush of combat the last time I was forced out of form, the limb still remained unhealed.

Instead I rolled with another ripple of the stone, letting gravity and the force of the earthquake build momentum for me, and thrust my dagger towards the commander's center of mass. I just managed to breach his magical shielding, drawing a line across his chest as my motion sent me rolling past.

I was just far enough away that instead of being blasted mostly up, the arcane punt flung me up the far ridge, to roll slipping and sliding down slope to collide with where Lily was making her way back up.

The impact knocked her sprawling, but stopped me accumulating more scrapes as she halted my tumble.

Looking back at the fight, the dragonkin made a valiant effort to stand and fight us with both melee threats blasted away temporarily, and got John's instant pyroblast to the back.

This had the effect of sending the commander thudding face first into the far wall, and driving the partially impaling spear still stuck in his flesh the rest of the way through. The commander slid down the wall, and didn't rise.

We slipped away in the confusion, with one flare of light to signal to the airborne fight between Voranaku and the blue drake that we were done.

-

"It is done." The collected pieces glowed too brightly for me to continue looking at, and I averted my gaze from Raelorasz's hands. "I sense a strong presence within this prison. Let us hope it proves to be an ally."

Wait a moment, we don't even know who we were rescuing???

The light expanded, and then faded away to nothing. Upon turning back, there was now a red haired 'woman' in the same style of red robes as our resident grumpy red dragon. She looked out at the clouds with a terrible reverence, like they would disappear if she blinked. "I am... free?"

She took a deep breath of the fresh air, and her eyes shone as she took a single moment to bask in the dawning light of early morning. "I was destined to spend an eternity roaming an empty abyss, and now am saved? You cannot fathom my gratitude, mortals."

She gave us a half bow that spoke of lingering stiffness or pain and genuine gratitude, "When I refused to bend to his will Malygos bound me to that prison, then shattered it and scattered the pieces. Should I live one hundred of your lifetimes, I shall not forget this kindness."

"Perhaps, in time, I will find ways to repay you." She took another look to the skies, and this time her gaze grew shadowed as she took in the pillar of magic blasting into the sky, and the growing storm that never left these skies anymore. "For now, though, we must focus our attention on Malygos. I am weak, and there is much to be done." She turned to Raelorasz "Kinsman, what has transpired in my absence?"

---

Chapter Text

Even with the rescue to buoy our spirits, not getting to sleep until after daybreak meant that we were all tired when we awoke with our regular noon doom counter shaped alarm clock. All of us except Lily, who looked at the rest of us and declared, "Today is a rest day. No galavanting or scheming - just take the day to relax."

"What about maintaining pressure on -"

Lily cut me off, "The pair of druids can keep going, but I am unilaterally dictating that our team is taking a rest day."

I considered arguing for a moment, since I still had enough energy to do things, but one glance at John's bleary gaze as he poked at his breakfast had me reconsidering. We ate in silence, and I was done and up first, only to find myself at a loss for what to do.

I could pull out a sketchbook, and work on making a new, less compromising, glyph design. I should, even. Obviously, I didn't. There wasn't much else to do in camp, besides the war effort, certain dragons I was avoiding, or talking magecraft with the mages. However, we had just gotten a new arrival who might be a bit more friendly.

I found her sitting in the snow just outside of the main camp, hands idly shaping lumps of snow. She looked up at my approach, and offered a smile half turning moving to stand, before settling back as I moved to sit beside her.

We sat together in silence for a long moment, and I joined her in the simple joy of shaping snow. With a sigh she leaned back into the snow, before speaking, "I know I should not lie like this - the cold agrees poorly with my weakened health - but this was one of the things I missed. I feel more warm, in the contrast with the cold, and more alive as my shoulders ache, than I did in that timeless, bland and 'harmless'" She spat the word, full of disgust and lingering horror, "Prison."

She lapsed into silence again, for a long moment, long enough that my urge to banish silence almost had me speaking up, before she turned to properly face me. "Epolomono, was it?"

It felt weird to hear that 'full' name instead of 'Polly', but I nodded, "Yep."

"I am Keristraza," She then paused for a moment before continuing in a cautious tone, as if walking lightly through the words would stop me from spooking, "Please tell me to stop if you do not wish to discuss this, but I have heard from the others that you are a fellow dragon." She waited for a moment, the not quite a question receiving not quite an answer in a wave to continue, "And that you have been reluctant to disclose the flight you hail from." She sat back up to focus fully on me rather than the blue sky, a searching gaze looking for something in my expression. "And, from some gossip from elsewhere you have fought in this war, you are young and unfamiliar with what is normal for a dragon?"

"Yep." I accompanied the word with a shrug, "At least I'm getting good at fighting in mortal form."

"Would you like a mentor, an invitation back into the culture you walked away from?" She saw something in my face, and added, "I will tell none of which flight you refuse to claim, if you would like to learn more about that heritage."

"Uh huh. Sure you wouldn't. At least like this you have plausible deniability for me being a monster. Save us both a fight, and pretend I'm only the mortal I seem to be"

A very wry smile crossed her face, "The only 'monstrous' flight that is both accursed enough to warrant being fought simply for their nature, and still sane enough to have such a conversation, is the shadow that haunts my own flight. And if you are one of the twilight children, so wounded from what was done to our flight … It would not be hard, right now, to talk me into my own fall if you so desired."

"Look, you are not going to bait me into confirming which flight I am by denying which flights I am not. And I will not return to my flight - not now, not … " Ever. Except how can I expect there to be a future for us, unless I reach out to others of the flight … "until a certain aspect is dead, and maybe not even then."

She shot a very sharp glance at me for that before letting the tension out alongside a long slow breath, "Blue or Black then, if I were to lay a guess. Were you a Red, now or ever, you would not have been so blunt to me about wishing Her dead."

I sighed, dragging a palm down my face, "The trick to keeping secrets is to just say fucking nothing isn't it?"

That got me a grin from her, "It is, yes." The levity faded, but her expression was still warm as she continued, "And thank you for the confirmation that you are from one of those two flights. As I promised, I will keep that secret as long as you are still unwilling to show your colour openly."

The small star of snow I had been shaping crushed under my fingers as she spoke, "And what if I never am?" Rationally, I planned to - for my goals I had to - but in this moment, as she stole the truth from my previous mistakes, and lied about being willing to keep my secrets, the prospect of willingly telling anyone felt impossible, "What if I'm a coward as well as a monster, and nothing ever gets better?"

My water spirit traced frost up my fingers in warning, 'Do not forsake the dream you promised, lest you forsake our bond as well, speaker.'

Her laugh was a bitter thing, "'What if it never gets better? What if I continue to uphold a status quo that never improves?' - child, I am a red dragon. In a certain sense, that is all I have ever done." A jagged inhale, and her words when she spoke were rough with the edges of grief, "Preservation - desperately holding onto a world that slips, disaster by disaster, year by year, ever further towards wrath and ruin. An entire flight, doing our best to heal - and yet, for every step we carry forward, we slide another three steps back."

We sat in silence for a long moment, both needing to calm ourselves.

Think calm thoughts… "Fuck it, fine. I'm the least subtle person I've ever met, and almost everyone who knows I'm a dragon finds out why I hide that fact in about 15 minutes or less. So, now that you've got my scale colour close enough to confirmed that you could turn me in if you wanted to, what are you going to do to me?"

"Nothing." She let that declaration sit in the air for a moment, reading my reaction, before continuing, "My offer of mentorship is still available, but that is not something I can 'do to you', being your choice to accept, or not. Beyond that …" She shrugged, "You are here, fighting this war, having saved my life - What more could I ask of you? Keep your secrets, child, I can see I have already pried too much."

"You didn't pry, I'm just useless at keeping secrets." I stood, still upset - more at myself than her, since I could recognize the old god's hand on the anxiety churning in my guts. I opened my mouth to add some final addendum about not turning in my friends with me, but the pointlessness of that request stole my words. When everyone at camp knew that I was a dragon, and they would rightly assume my friends knew which flight I hailed from, any revelation of my nature would make them accomplices by default.

I walked away in silence, back to the main camp.

-

I should have warned my team. I know that, it would have been the smart thing to do, and the right thing to do, considering it was my fault, twice over, that we were even in this mess.

Instead, my pencil carved indents into the page as my sketches of new glyph ideas were drawn with a heavy hand.
Keristraza returned to the main camp maybe a half hour after me, her path wandering, and with no particular urgency driving her steps, but I couldn't help but track her more than the lines on my page.

When she did settle on her next port of call, I didn't quite break the pencil tip with my flinch as she approached Ra … or… something, I forgot his name but War-crimes Mc Red Dragon. And yet, he had almost as little subtlety as I did. So when he didn't shout, or look sharply in my direction, I was forced to conclude she hadn't shared her suspicions or he hadn't believed them.

The minutes ticked by of her return to camp, as she continued to talk and strategize, and I continued to pretend to be practicing my inscription. Slowly they turned to peaceful, stressful, hours, in which I continued to not be arrested, or interrogated, or otherwise accused of being a blue or black dragon by anyone.

My sleep was haunted by visions of arrests and executions, but without the old god's 'fix' to my normal dreaming's poor fidelity, they were left mere minor nightmares. And in the end, I woke up to another noon earthquake counting us down another day towards the possible end of the world if the heroes failed. No knife in my sleep, no team waiting to arrest me, just another completely normal day in Transitus Shield, where I was an unidentified but friendly dragon associated here with the mercenary teams.

… Apparently Keristraza really was willing to keep my secrets?

Lily pulled my attention back to discussing our plans for the day, so I allowed myself the extra time to think - allowed Keristraza the extra time to betray me or not.

-

After a day's adventuring was a poor time to talk, since Keristrasza apparently had a sensible sleep schedule. As a result, I gave myself another night to sleep on it. I ended up having more petty nightmares of disappointed figures from my past life bemoaning my lack of honesty.

It was still weird being one of the 'morning people' on the team, but with the old god nightmares relatively firmly banished by arcane and light overexposure, I had enough extra energy in the morning to get up a few hours before our noon alarm and go talk again about the fine art of being an actual dragon instead of a human with extra scales.

As we moved away from eavesdroppers, Keristraza cocked her head and asked, "I thought you were avoiding me, have you decided that more knowledge is worth the risk of sharing your secrets?"

I shrugged, "It's been two days. Nothing's happened, so I'm trusting you not to betray me."

She blinked, before a snort of surprised laughter snuck out ahead of her words, "One would think that for beings as long lived as us, a few days would be nothing to a dragon planning betrayal, but now that I think about it, very few dragons are patient. Comfortable with routines, and holding patterns lasting for many a long year, but actually patient, no. Give us something we care to do, and it's hard to hold ourselves back from just doing it."

"..." I face palmed, "I hadn't actually made that realization, I just wasn't thinking about it. I mean, what would be the point of stringing me along for a few extra days if you already had the information you'd need to arrest me?" It was one of the least subtle of the old god influenced thoughts, but the pessimistic bent they'd added proceeded to generate an answer to my question. To have a capable fighter serving on the field of battle until I outlive my usefulness.

She, not hearing my old god whispers, responded with "Indeed there would be no point to that." With a bright half-smile she asked, "So, if you do want me to act as a mentor, was there a specific part of dragon culture that you wanted insight on, or would you like to tell me more about what you do know so I can expand on it?"

"Uh…" I'd had a specific idea but trying to figure out how to say it was turning it into so much word spaghetti, and after a moment I gave up, and hoped the question would make enough sense, "Suspicious dragon flights, not reporting, why? And what's the normal protocol for token evil dragons sneaking in?"

She huffed a half-laugh, "You don't ask easy questions do you?" After a moment to think, she answered, "While there isn't a 'normal protocol' as you phrased it, there are certain … understandings. The closest to official protocol, would be, I think, at-war status. The blue flight, while uncorrupted, is currently at war with the Accord, for instance - and thus members of that flight will be assumed to be enemies should they attempt to enter any other flight's territories, and a blue dragon attempting to pass unnoticed would be assumed to be a spy or saboteur, though considering a case like yours, if you are indeed a blue dragon, your lack of subtlety, position as a mercenary, and active participation on our side of the war would all justify the ranking dragon in the field, myself in this case, to offer tentative trust." Her tone of voice was apologetic as she continued, "Without a change to the status quo, you will never be trusted with strategic command or sensitive information the way your adventuring peers might after proving themselves, I'm sorry."

"It's fine, needing to pass background checks makes sense as a requirement for getting promoted, and I doubt it will be secret forever. If I were to confirm my scale colour …?"

"... And if you are from a flight we are at war with? It would depend on how you approached doing it, but presuming a lack of dramatics …" She paused, squinting, "... I have no idea how that would be handled, actually? We have had diplomatic envoys from hostile flights before but none … as thoroughly independent as you, nor as willing to openly oppose their former flight. Were I not willing to be flexible with your case, I might have already sent messages to Wyrmrest asking for guidance on dealing with a benevolent renegade."

"Very helpful," I grumbled sarcastically.

"Unfortunately, I cannot give you answers I do not have. While we might spend years in isolation comfortably, no dragon I have ever met is as … removed from their community as you. Considering that, were you to openly confirm your nature, you might be treated as another mercenary, independent but still able to build trust." She wavered a moment, "On the other hand, there are some who would demand you leave, with force, as your lack of affiliation would not be believed."

That was actually better than I was thinking - one of the options she identified was basically 'pretend to be human draenei even harder' … but that wouldn't be enough for the second camp, and my looming problem would not let me get away with staying 'just another merc'. Nor would he be content to merely drive me away to neutral territories either. Even if the Red flight right now was willing to ignore an enemy flight member that stayed away, the rest of the world - and their future selves - would not be.

"I know that I know nothing about dragon culture, but I've got an idea I'd like an actual dragon to weigh in on: would it be possible to …" The idea fell apart as I tried to get the words for it, so when in doubt, say it stupid, "renounce my flight and swear my allegiance to Alexstraza instead?"

Keristraza flinched in instinctive dismay, before her expression settled into a grimace overcast with stormy thoughts.

"... I'll take that as a no."

She held up a hand, "Did I say that? Your wording, 'renouncing your flight', will be taken poorly by every loyal dragon you might encounter. But a version of the idea … swearing your loyalty to the Dragon Queen directly instead of following your Aspect's orders …"

"I can't promise to be particularly good at fitting in or following orders, ever, but I would far rather give her my allegiance than most of Azeroth's other faction leaders."

"It might be immediately apparent the moment you open your mouth that you were raised by adventurers, but that would not make you the most feral dragon we have tried to welcome back into the fold." She gave me a worried glance, "You know that if you reject your loyalty to them that openly, you may never be welcomed back into your flight afterwards?"

I shrugged, "Not a problem for me - I'm fine being a dragon allied with the dragonflights, but the approval of the black dragonflight can go die in a fire for all I care about fitting in."

"I see." She smirked at me, "Another thing you didn't intend to say, hrm?"

"Argh, Light dammit." I flopped dramatically into the snow. "Why do I never learn my lesson about talking to you?"

Even through the snow, her chuckles were still plainly audible as she sat down next to me. "Whatever other qualities your mortal adoptive parents instilled, your open honest spirit is clearly both a blessing and a curse. Hold fast to it if you can - though it might be annoying and inconvenient now, it is also the reason that you are still easy to trust despite your flight's nature."

I was suddenly glad to be hiding in the snow for a completely different reason, as my cheeks flushed with the compliment I wasn't prepared for. "I've only known you for two days, you can't just say things like that."

"I do believe I just did, child. Either you are a far more open and trustworthy drake than I have ever met from your flight before, or you are better liar than any I have met, and better still than the Aspect I have not met, in all his success in bringing betrayal and ruin. … Of the two possibilities, I will, for once, be hopeful."

I rolled to be facing her instead of face down in the snow, "That's the trick isn't it, choosing to be hopeful? Such a hard task, and yet inescapably necessary to make things better." Good ol' prisoner's dilemma, where the best outcome for the collective required both people to choose to be nice, despite the rational choice for each being betrayal. At least when dealing with the same people repeatedly 'nice and fair' took a strategic advantage over malice, or kindness would have been playing the game of life at a permanent disadvantage. "I'm glad we chose to trust each other, even if that was slightly more me not being able to delicately avoid topics and spilling my secrets instead." I waved a hand lazily in the air, "Trust, not remembering to shut up, same difference."

"You have … quite a way of speaking, young one."

Sitting up, I rubbed the back of my neck sheepishly, "Yeah, I've heard that before. I can use formal language perfectly well, but as soon as I stop paying attention to my word choice, it goes all over the place."

"I am unsure whether to recommend you use suitable formality when talking with Lady Alexstraza, or to encourage your odd brand of forthright brashness. It will not endear you to many of our kind, acting so much like the vagabond adventurers - even if you are one; but that very same nature makes you someone your kinsmen would be unlikely to even consider pretending to be."

"Some of the spontaneous charm is going to have to be filled off though - I'm too nervous to just go talk to Alexstraza without a script - without a plan for what I want to say, a practiced speech - I need help."

"And you shall have it, young one." She then started to stand, "But it looks like your companions have finally made themselves ready, so let us go plan for war first - and then, when this is over, we can plan for peace."

She turned and walked with purposeful strides over to where John was securing his belt over his full robes, and Val was running Vornaku through a set of stretches. The team all turned to pay attention as she began to lay out our mission for the day.

Unlike the gentle amused warmth I had seen mere minutes before, when Keristraza addressed our team with her plans, her eyes were cold and merciless, and her voice was iron. "During my captivity I was able to learn much about Malygos. Fate now allows us to use this knowledge against him." It wasn't a smile on her face, something more bitter and broken than that as she reveled in her power over her enemy.

"There is a great blue dragon, Saragosa, who circles high above the Nexus. She serves both as the aspect's guardian and as his consort. If any serious threats arise, she alerts her master of the danger." Her hands flexed like she was trying to dig talons she didn't have in mortal form into an enemy that wasn't there. "I suffered greatly at the hand of Saragosa during my captivity, and now her time to die has come. First, however, we must fashion the perfect bait...."

-

One quick fetch quest later, we were tricking the blue dragoness into eating poisoned magic crystals, or something - okay, we were leaving the trap right in plain sight atop one of the floating platforms that we quickly left, but I maintained a far sight watch on so Keristraza could teleport us back the moment the blue dragon was trapped in mortal form.

I returned to my body to catch the tail end of Lily considering battle plans, "... and if a large number of reinforcements show up, we jump and use the walls here to guard our backs in the ensuing melee."

"She's here, it's time."

Keristraza nodded, immediately moving into the teleport spell to send us up there."

"Polly, you missed most of the plan, but try to focus on physical attacks for this fight, since the blue dragons are good at wards -" The teleport finished, and she was lunging across the platform, "Follow!"

I did, daggers ready to pounce as my hooves rung out against the stone platform. Not that it was necessary, both of us stopped in our tracks as a pyroblast flew past, went straight through the damaged wards, and struck the high elven mortal form in her face just as she turned to look at us. When the smoke cleared, the blue dragon was a smouldering pile on the floor, an expression of confusion etched onto the intact portion of the corpse's face.

"You know, I wasn't expecting that to actually work." John dusted off his hands, "But snap-casting pyroblast is occasionally worth all the months of study."

"Little brothers live to mess up all of their older sister's plans don't they?" Lily snickered, even as she put one hand up to shield against the early afternoon glare and scanned the sky for incoming dragons. "Start moving folks - I'm not sure whether we've been seen, but that drake's noticed something."

A quick leap over the side, with me in John's arms for slow fall, brought us down to where Keristraza had just teleported us up from. "Done already?"

Without dismounting from Voranku, Val said. "The trap worked better than expected. We were able to end the fight immediately and have attempted to disengage ahead of the security."

"Good." Keristraza drew out the word, savoring her satisfaction. "Did you also retrieve Saragosa's corpse?"

Lily nodded, "They might only be adequate bags for the most part, but deathweave bags are good at some things. And I was paying attention to your suggestion of having a use for her body."

"I do, yes. The time has come to strike at Malygos himself!" The red dragon paced with poorly contained energy, "Malygos is certainly aware that something is amiss. I know him. His focus is fragmented. I am confident that I can lure him from the safety of his realm when he learns what has become of his precious Saragosa." The pacing turned into a directed walk, and she called back to us, "Come, we must talk to Raelorasz at once. It is time to muster the red dragons stationed here to end this war in a single blow!"

Lily shot her a sour look, "We're going back to Transitus Shield alright, but you are going to discuss that plan in considerably more detail before we do any army mustering."

Keristraza turned back quickly, "If you have doubts about being able to lure Malygos out from behind his wards, have no fear - he is still a person prone to irrational anger. Now hurry."

"This discussion isn't over, but we cannot stay here. Run first, talk later." Valerie, by virtue of being on a mount, didn't need to conserve breath to run, and so was able to actually give orders for once.

We ran for it.

-

Inside the wards-bubble we immediately re-opened that line of discussion regarding terrible plans for dragon-aspect-slaying.

"So, you wished to discuss my plans further, before we lure Malygos out to be vanquished - what details do you require?"

It had been Lily's question the first time, but I jumped on the quick reply, "The details of how you plan to actually kill Malygos, for starters."

"How …? Once he has been lured out from behind his wards, it should be a simple matter of overwhelming him with dragonfire - Corastrasza should have a well trained group of drakes ready for exactly that fight, and with the rest of the red dragons in the area readied, we should be able to defeat him."

"No. Nope, not a fucking chance." I crossed my arms. "Maylgos can't be that much weaker than Deathwing - and if Deathwing can burn full grown black dragons to death, I would expect Malygos can kill at least one unprepared drake every second of combat. Maybe more, if they cluster too close together."

"They would not be 'unprepared'. Corastrasza is good at preparing drakes for combat, from what I understand, and what they lack in direct power they should make up for in being able to avoid his strikes, and continue their volleys longer."

Valerie cut in with, "And when the rest of the blue flight around the nexus spire all comes to reinforce him, other drakes just agile as your trained fighters will come pouring out to fight us, and other dragons as well. Do you think we can kill Malygos before his flight notices, the way we just assassinated his consort? Or are you sure that we can fight and win against every dragon, dragonkin and dragonsworn that can be called or summoned to fight before this ends?" She took in a breath, steeple-ing her fingers in front of her face to focus, "Planning a grand assault is not my area of expertise, but I have listened to my sister enough to do some rough estimates. Would you say that Malygos is at least as strong as Vaelastrasz, or Nefarian was?"

Keristrasza seemed confused and unsure of the sudden change in Val's approach, "... Yes? He is an aspect, and while both of those dragons were capable fighters, they weren't of unprecedented strength."

"And are any of your trained drakes of 'unprecedented strength', or do they have experience in taking on fights that would be thought to be impossible?"
Keri's eyes narrowed, having gotten the point and not agreeing with it. "No, but neither is this an impossible fight. Malygos is highly powerful, but he is still only an ancient dragon and can still be killed like one."

"Yes he can." Val nodded, conceding the point. "Not all grand assault enemies are created equal, and he would only be among the strongest dragons we've ever fought. Speaking of which, how much experience does the red flight have in assessing and preparing to fight enemies of overwhelming strength? And are all of those drakes prepared to resist the magic Malygos will be throwing at them - pushing the limit of what resistance is possible?"

"... No." Keristraza folded her arms in front of her chest, "But you are assuming mortal weaknesses - it took forty of your best fighters to take down Nefarian, didn't it?"

"And I can beat a combat trained drake in a fight solo, eight times out of ten. Are the red flight notably stronger than the blues, infinites, netherwing, and nightmare corrupted green drakes we've fought before?"

"..."

"If you had a good choke point to wedge between Malygos and his reinforcements - like, say, the door to his warded chambers- it might be possible to get by with some forty or so trained drakes - most of them giving everything they have in the attempt to kill Maylgos, and a small portion helping the five of us hold the doorway for the five to seven minutes that fight might last for." She shrugged, "Or a miracle could happen - they've happened before, and with enough hope and faith, they'll happen again. It's possible I'm being overly pessimistic, and you are actually prepared."

With a sigh, some trace of smoke or steam fogging with the exhale, Keristraza's shoulders sagged. "No, you are right. Coristraza's drakes are prepared to fight Malygos, but not Malygos and his entire flight. There are still too many credible threats like Eregos flying around the nexus." She then straightened, a new fire in her eyes. "So we simply have to break them first. His generals, his consorts, his best fighters - we need to slay them so that the path is open. Is that good enough for you, or are you going to find some other complaint with my plan?"

"It's about 15% of a plan, but I'm in."

She smiled at me with a toothy grin that felt more like bared fangs and growled, "Give me five minutes, and you will have specific plans. Maylgos is not the only one of his flight who deserves to die for what they've done, and I will see it happen!"

-

True to her word, we had specific hunts prepared before sunset, though it ended up being closer to an hour to get everything sorted out - and to Keristraza's annoyance, we skipped over Eregos to go after a few of the weaker consorts instead. That said, the annoyance faded to a triumphant smirk, as we worked out a way to lure out and handle an entire quartet - an arrogant consort of Malygos (separate from her guard), then her pair of guard drakes, and then a variant of Keri's calling out plan to lure out her oldest son - who had been one of the blue dragons that had tried to get information out of Keristrasza before they'd given up and tossed her in a box and broke the key.

There was an actual fight this time, instead of getting our first target to take a mana trap and become useless, but we still got the drop on her, and her fighting skill turned into pained flailing after I managed to catch her wing while racking my blades across her side.

It was an uncomfortably familiar incompetence, and I made a mental note to ask Keristraza some pointed questions about civilians in the blue dragonflight once the gauntlet of fights was over.

The pair of drakes managed to be much more difficult on the grounds of their being two of them - one of them always having clear focus to cast spells at us while our deathknight distracted the other one. And they had apparently decided I was the second biggest threat - and an easier mark to get rid of than Lily.

By the end of the fight, even with Val doing her best to keep me functional, the arcane injuries had just about broken my inner ear, given me a massive headache, and the skin of my left arm cracking apart in stone flakes everytime I tried to move it to block the next attack.

And we still had one more target left to go. "Can we stop? Please?"

Keristraza shook her head. "The longer we wait, the less likely Jorigos is to respond thoughtlessly to the provocation." She looked me over, her expression softening as she read my weary expression. "I am not back to my full strength yet, but I should be able to cover for your absence from the fight, as long as Lily continues to be an effective distraction."

She smirked in response, "You'd be surprised at just how effective blood boil can be at distracting people. I've even had work on undead that don't need their blood. I really doubt I'll have any problems keeping one dragon under control."

I put my good hand over my face to block out the last dagger like rays of sunlight, and slid down the nearby wall to sit on the cold stone. "Fine, but I'm not getting up to help unless I absolutely have to."

"We'll handle this, you just sit there and rest." Lily turned to the rest of the team. "Everyone else ready?"

A general chorus of agreement accompanied them mostly moving away towards the nexus. Their voices stayed close enough to hurt due to my headache - close enough they could still defend me in a pinch, but far enough away that I might not be noticed.

"Jorigos! Come, you wretched tormentor, and recover your mother …" The sound of fire crackling accompanied the pause in Keristraza's speech, "What remains of her!"

Silence fell, marked only by the crackling flame, and the sound of our breathing.

The pounding feeling of jackhammers going off in my skull appreciated the relative calm, even knowing it wasn't going to last.

To further alleviate my headache, a helpful cloud moved into place to block the remaining rays of light making it past my hand.

So of course a hand shaking my shoulder had to break the calm. I opened my eyes to John, with panic in his gaze, whispering "We need to move -"
The explanation of why was provided rather readily by the loud voice that cut across the sounds of the nexus, and which pulled my gaze upwards towards its source. "My son is otherwise occupied at the moment, so it falls to me to collect my consort."

The blue wings seemed to cover the entire sky, and as Malygos hovered near the top of the nexus spire, I still felt the downdraft of his wings pushing me down into the stone. He looked down at us, teeth bared in a snarl, "Did you think I would not notice my lovers being murdered, little red?"

And compared to him, Keristraza's dragon form - at least twice my size in our true forms at my best guess, was just a tiny fly darting up and away from us on the ground.

She danced around a lazy paw swing, firing fire towards him. I spotted Voranku, with a rider, though I couldn't tell who, darting in close towards Malygos's hind legs, trying to harass the Aspect's blind spots.

I rose to stand, so that it would be easier to roll forwards into my true form. "Sorry about moving so slow," I stretched, ignoring the drops of blood the motion provoked from cracks in my left arm, "I'll get up and join the fight -"

John slapped me. It was a light slap, barely with enough force in it for me to feel it, but the action still pulled all my focus back to the man in front of me. "Absolutely not." He let his hands fall away to avoid annoying me further, staring into my eyes and hissing, "For starters, isn't your wing still broken?"

I actually had to take a moment to think about that, given how much time I was spending in mortal form, and the fight we'd recently had where I had reverted to my true form without feeling crippled - but I hadn't done anything in that fight that need my wings functional, and my pain tolerance was high enough for the jostling not to have been noticed in the middle of a fight where I had other things to focus on.

"No. I can guess where your thoughts are going, and No, Do Not Transform to check." John shot a glance back over his shoulder at the pair of dragons flying around, half ignored by the aspect lazily swatting at Keristrasza; before resuming trying to nudge us away from the centre of the caldera. "I might not be a dragon expert yet, but I do listen - isn't the black dragonflight his traditional enemy? Do you think he'll let you run if you show your true form now?"

"What do you mean 'run', the others are still busy fighting?" I waved a hand back to where the rest of the team was doing their best, even if they fought in vain.

"Weren't you watching -" Face met palm, as John's mind caught up to the statement his mouth was making, "No, of course you missed it - Keristraza used the standard alliance sign for retreat, and the three of them are just doing their best to distract Maylgos while we escape. As you and Val laid out so eloquently earlier, this isn't the kind of fight we win."

As if hearing those words, Malygos chose that moment to finally get tired of indulging us in the pretense of a fight. With a deliberate exhale, dragonbreath blanketed the air Keristraza was flying through, giving her no option to avoid it.

The extra power spreading out hit us a moment later in a rush of blinding blue.

I managed to blink the spots from my eyes, leaning on John so I didn't fall over, the ground feeling like it was an ocean rocking violently under me. Looking back up at the fight, I could barely focus on the red blob, which was engulfed in a burst of violet light.

Losing altitude alarmingly quickly, the red blob coalesced back into the shape of a dragon, only barely gliding under her own power.

Her paws touched down hard into the snow up-cliff from us, and she staggered another few steps away, shaking and dizzy. Keristraza saw my gaze as she cast about for directions after the arcane bombardment left her disoriented.

I started to climb towards her, and she shook her head. "Live, Epolmono. Finish what we started…"

Leisurely, the ancient blue wyrm landed in front of her, his great form shrinking enough that he could physically fit without having his wings catch on the nexus spire.

I caught a flash of bitter resignation before Keristraza turned away from us to face him. Malygos looked at her for a moment, an expression I couldn't read covering his face. When he spoke, his tone of voice was spiteful, deliberately nasty. "Keristraza …" He drew out her name, the syllables hanging in the air with intent, "You have bested my constorts … And now you shall take their place."

A hiss of breath, and Keristrazsa started to lunge towards him "Never!" Ice engulfed her, and she was frozen, claws raised in a strike that would never reach the dragon she had intended it to hurt.

Without even acknowledging our presence, or Voranku and Lily circling back for another attack, Malygos disappeared in a shower of teleportation sparks, taking Keristrazsa with him as he left.