Notes1: Aside from void elves, the tidbits of lore found in BfA's mission table, and the (ridiculous) high elf/blood elf thread on MMO-Champ that's still uploading fan content despite the back-and-forth going on, I found the revelations of what became of the Mag'har Orcs and the draenei in AU!Draenor to be very interesting. The idea of exploring the Light as a concept that isn't necessarily pure good (as much as the Void isn't pure evil) is something that Blizzard's hinted at for a while, and although this has only really been seen in the Rejection of the Gift cutscene and in the Mag'har Orc recruitment scenario, this is part of a Light/Void plotline I can see be gradually built over time and unfold in the years to come, and though people may bicker and claim it makes the lore a clown fiesta even more (although from a narrative perspective, the whole plot of WoD was a case of All For Nothing, but that's not necessarily a bad thing) it's something I welcome and look forward to seeing.

I came up with the idea shortly after the scenario was datamined, and jotted four story titles down on a scrap of paper I used as a bookmark for my history textbook while I was in class last week. One of them was this (three of them for WoW, the last for Naruto).

Notes2: As an FYI: Despite the way this story ends, I'm considering continuing it in a separate one-shot depending on the Mag'har Orcs development post-8.1. Consider this more an Ambiguous Ending than a Downer Ending.

A very minor note: This was also an exercise in 'show, not tell', but I'm pretty sure I failed in that regard. Oh well :P

They had finally caught up to him, and when they had rounded the corner they found him backed up against the wall where Blackrock Foundry churned foul smoke and the Grimrail Depot once delivered troops and munitions all throughout Gorgrond (before the heroes climbed aboard the train and sent it crashing into the canyon, where it remains today overgrown with ivy and lichen). He looked to his left, then to his right—anywhere but at them. His hands were groping for a piece of wall that would give in; his fingers probed no such thing, and it showed on his face.

They frowned and lowered their weapons, adjusted their postures so the tension eased from their bodies. One of the orcs, his name being Dralohn, tucked the gold-plated mace onto the hooks on his belt and slowly approached Gorak, splaying upturned palms. "It doesn't have to be this way, my friend," he said. "We just want to help, you know?"

Gorak laughed bitterly. "If you really wanted to help, you wouldn't have chased me halfway across Gorgrond. You could've asked me, polite as can be, and I'd still refuse."

"We mean the best for you," said Tramm, the leaner of the two, and stepped up next to Dralohn. The marks on his face shone like liquid wine, shaped like claws reaching for his eyes. "We're not trying to startle you. We're trying to do what's right for this world. We don't want a repeat of the Iron Horde again. The land's ruined enough as it is. That's why we joined, remember?"

"I do remember," said Gorak. "I was the one that suggested we should hear what the draenei had to say."

"You were also the one who told us to give them a little more time when Tramm and I were having second thoughts about them," said Dralohn. "If it hadn't been for you, we would have walked away." He frowned sadly. "We would have gone back to the old ways."

"We're better than that," said Tramm. "You can, too, Gorak. Just come back with us, okay? Lord Orelis and the High Exarch don't have to know all this. We'll tell them you had a crisis of faith and we helped you reestablish it. You're in good hands now. They'll understand."

"And drink from the same cup the draenei have been filling up the past thirty years?" Gorak scoffed, his lips twisting in a snarl. "You crossed the line as soon as they started converting people against their wills."

"We gave them a choice," Dralohn sighed. "We tried to tell them when they pushed the draenei away. They didn't have to get violent and fight. We're only trying to help-"

"Help?" Gorak said aloud. "Help? You call that help? I wanted to help, too! I know what the Shadowmoon went through! I wanted to see the Light for myself and find the best way to fix the world after everything we've done!"

"And that's what we're doing!"

"By pushing your dogma onto people that don't want to follow the naaru? By saying our relationship with the elements and salvaging the old technology for good intent is a return to barbarism?" Gorak pounded a fist against the wall and bared his teeth at them. "This is their fault, and yours too for not doing or saying anything about it! You have minds of your own, goddammit! You have eyes! Can't you see what they're trying to do to us? To the draenei? This is brainwashing! Complete and total brainwashing!"

"It's not brainwashing if we offer them a chance at redemption," said Tramm. "Draenor can still be saved. We can still save the land and revive it to what it once was years ago: before the industrialization, before the botani, before Gul'dan and the Burning Legion threatened to destroy it all." He clenched the fist of his free hand...as well as the fist around the handle of the crystalline mace. "This is our atonement, Gorak. What's so wrong with that? Why do you reject it?"

"This isn't the Light I heard so much about," said Gorak. He pounded his fist again and grimaced. "I thought the draenei would help us accept responsibility for what we've done and be absolved of guilt. I thought for sure that by working together we could understand each other-"

"We have!"

"-but if I had known this was how far they would go to ensure we followed them, how willing the Light is to corrupt others for its own gain, I would have never agreed to have become bound to them! I would have still learned from the priests! I would have still been friends with the Warchief's son! Now he's lost, my people on the run, and my two best friends can't see past their noses if their lives depended on it!" He smashed his fist one last time on the wall, putting all his weight behind it, and clenched his teeth to grinding. Watery pinpricks touched his eyes, and he glared at their disbelieving faces. "The Light I know is a lie. It's no different than the Void!"

Drahlon's expression grew hard. "Those are bold words you speak. You know you are bound to the Light no more than we are, right? Some choices are irreversible. You can't just decide you can't walk away from it all. The Light honors commitment."

"I'm no more bound to it than I was before the Iron Horde was destroyed," Gorak scoffed and shook his head. "I'm not doing this anymore, you two. I'm done."

"You don't mean that!" said Tramm.

"I do! I mean every single word of it!"

"And do you really feel that way?" Drahlon asked.

"I do! Truly and honestly!"

Drahlon and Tramm exchanged questioning glances. Then Tramm sighed, shoulders slumping. "Remember what the High Exarch said," he told his partner. "Everyone or no one at all."

Drahlon nodded somberly. "Yes. The Light wills it." He turned back to Gorak, drawing forth his own weapon. "I'm sorry, Gorak. It must be done."

"So am I," Gorak growled, pushing off the wall. "Get lost!" He raised his other hand into the air, calling on the Light to come to him. He searched deep within himself, within the Twisting Nether and the Great Dark Beyond where all the stars and the cosmos lay, within the lifeline of the world that the people that were not Lightbound did not forget.

It did not come. He was left grasping for air. "Wh-What? No." Gorak shook his head—slowly, then frantically. "No! No! I don't want to go back! I don't want to go back-"

"Let's make it quick," Tramm said to Drahlon.

"As always," said Drahlon, and swung his mace into Gorak's stomach. He doubled over, wheezing with all the air rushing out of him, and stumbled back. His head cracked against the wall, to which Drahlon winced. "We'll fix that up," he said tightly. "We'll make you better."

"Leave me alone!" Gorak said, shaking as he coughed and hacked. "Just l-leave me a-alone!"

"I can't do that, Gorak. Tramm, call down a beacon. Let the Exarch know we're on our way back."

"On it." Tramm took a square, metal block off his belt, pressed a few buttons, and brought it up to his mouth to speak. A few seconds later, something white and clear, like the first star in eventide, winked in the sky. The closer it got, the brighter it came.

"Why?" Gorak asked, clutching his belly. "Why won't it listen to me?"

"Because you lack faith," said Drahlon querulously. "You refuse to see. But we'll help you, Gorak; I will help you. We're your friends. We want the best for you. For all of Draenor." He brought the mace around again, flicked his hand, and caught it by the butt of its handle. "I wish we had known better and listened to the draenei, instead of that so-called prophet," he added quietly. "Maybe it's not too late."

He approached Gorak.

"Stay back...Stay back!" Gorak shook his head back and forth, back and forth. His chest heaved quickly. His eyes were wide and shining white, his brown face paling. He looked to his left, to his right, and back again, never looking at Drahlon and Tramm. All he saw was open land, mired in a haze of heat. "Help...Help! HELP! SOMEONE! PLEASE-!"

The mace fell.