The human heart is the strongest muscle in the body. It consists of four chambers: the left and right ventricle, and the left and right atrium. The heart pumps blood throughout the body, an organ no bigger than a man's fist contracting almost three billion times in a person's life. Blood enters the heart from the superior vena cava, flowing through the right atrium into the right ventricle. The right ventricle pumps blood through to the lungs, where it is oxygenated and travels back to the heart, through the left atrium and left ventricle to the rest of the body. Without the heart, without a near perfect three billion contractions, human life stops. Blood flow to the brain ceases, causing unconsciousness, organ failure, and death.
In the years of his higher education, Anduin Wrynn had memorized one textbook's opening description of the heart as something of a mantra to calm his mind. The simple science of the text wove elegantly in Anduin's mind with what he knew of the Light, philosophies about a more metaphysical heart. Soldiers and kings were said to be lionhearted when they were brave, rabbit-hearted when they were the opposite. A good man had a great heart; a bad man had a hard heart.
His father, many had said, had the heart of a wolf; in the arenas, he had been known as Lo'Gosh, the Ghost Wolf. Anduin recalled hearing years before how even one not well-acquainted with the Alliance could see the wolf's heart in Varian Wrynn, the heart of a powerful leader who guarded the interests of his allies. He had been younger then, but he still felt a swelling of pride at hearing his father described in that way, at how the king had grown in the eyes of his people and the world.
No one doubted that Varian Wrynn had the heart of a wolf-a heart that had stilled not two days before.
Anduin-a week away from his coronation, he recalled-would never get over the irony of the situation. Not a month before, his father had conducted a remarkably moving memorial for those lost in the final war against the Burning Legion. The Horde and Alliance had finally come into a lasting peace, and for once, the citizens of Azeroth could sleep without fear. In this peace and quiet, the Ghost Wolf had fallen, grunting and falling during dinner. Anduin had caught his father and, with the grace of the Light, had immediately known what was wrong. He called for help, the Light's familiar warmth coursing through him as he strained to undo the damage to Varian's heart, but whether he was too late or the damage was too great, Varian breathed his last in Anduin's arms.
Anduin didn't want to remember that night. He screwed his eyes shut, his fingers curling against the stone windowsill before him in an effort to keep him upright. He hadn't slept since that night, some stupid fear keeping his eyes wide whenever he tried, some baseless panic that if he let himself sleep, he would never wake, and the Alliance would be leaderless. More frightening, when he let himself relax, when he tried to sleep, he couldn't dismiss the memories as easily. He heard the clattering of plates and crashing of glass against the dining hall's stone floor. He felt the echo of an unbelievable pain in his father's chest, Varian's hand heavy against his cheek and trying to brush away the tears, trying to meet his eyes one last time.
Right atrium, right ventricle, lungs. Left atrium, left ventricle, body. A steady beat that grew weaker and weaker and stopped altogether.
Anduin found himself gasping and opened his eyes again, swallowing a thick sob that he was certain would have been heard throughout the palace. An ache had started in his own chest, and for the thousandth time in the last several days, he wondered if his heart plotted quietly to betray him the way his father's had. Would he pass in the same way? Had he survived the very fires of hell only to fall at his own dinner table?
"You're thinking too much."
Anduin whipped around at the sound of the new voice, drawing the dagger he always kept on his person, and relaxed as he saw the tall and dark form of Wrathion, the leader of the Black Dragonflight. Wrathion wore his mortal guise, his arms held away from his body in a placating gesture as he bowed. "You've enough on your mind without adding your mind's own lies to the pile," he continued smoothly and rose. "Take it from someone who knows."
"How did you get in here?" Anduin tried to hide the shaking of his hands by making a show of resheathing his dagger. "How do you always get in here?"
Wrathion waved the question away with a clawed hand and eased himself onto the nearest seat, which happened to be the bed. It was always the bed. "I would have come sooner, but you were constantly surrounded," he said.
Anduin laughed mirthlessly and leaned back against the wall. "Aren't I always?" he pointed out. "And don't you always find a way to sneak in anyway?"
Wrathion clicked his tongue. "I hope I'm not that predictable," he sighed and sobered. "He was a good man, Anduin. He was a credit to the Alliance and to all mortals. I'm sorry that he was taken from the world and from you so suddenly."
The lightness Anduin had felt when he saw Wrathion faded almost immediately, and he turned back around, watching the moons' light play off the ripples around the Eastern Earthshrine. "When we were finally at peace, too," he added, shaking his head. "Everyone's sorry. Everyone's concerned themselves with what will happen next. It's nothing at all like last time."
Though he didn't turn to look at the dragon, Anduin could imagine Wrathion's face just the same, one thick brow quirked upwards, taloned gauntlets tapping against the bedclothes. "Last time?" Wrathion prompted, and Anduin nodded.
"When I was just a kid-you know the story." Anduin heard Wrathion's hum of assent and continued. "It was different then. Nobody had an ounce of certainty about anything, and I was still too young to rule on my own, so there was this- power vacuum that everyone tried to fill. Including your sister."
He smelled the smoke and heard Wrathion snort derisively at the mention of Onyxia. "You needn't fear such machinations from me, O Prince-or is it O King now?"
"My coronation isn't until next week."
"O Prince, then. Your rule is exactly what I want for the Alliance."
Anduin's stomach knotted, and he fought the urge to turn and face Wrathion, instead directing his glare at the water. "I'm no pawn, Wrathion," he said. "I never have been, and I never will be. If that's why you're here, you can go back the way you came. I'm not interested in your schemes."
Infuriatingly, Wrathion laughed. "Didn't I just say that you needn't fear such machinations from me?" he asked. "You're headstrong, stubborn, and clever. You're one of the few people on Azeroth, Horde or Alliance, whose strings I cannot pull, no matter how I've tried. That doesn't mean that your rule displeases me any."
It was Anduin's turn to snort and shake his head. "Even though you still think me soft and weak, not willing to do what needs to be done to keep the Alliance under control? I know your preference, that I rule with the iron fist of a dictator, not an open hand and kind heart for my people."
He imagined Wrathion rolling his eyes. "A foolish strategy," he agreed, "but one that's suited you well thus far. You're not the childish idiot you once were. I've no doubt that, should the Alliance need a further hand, you'll do what's necessary. There is some shadow in you yet."
Anduin winced. Wrathion was one of the few who knew the depths to which the prince of the Alliance had explored the Shadow, and the dragon saw fit to bring up this fact whenever he had the chance. "Why are you here, Wrathion?" Anduin asked, turning back around once he'd forced his face into what he hoped was an impassive stare.
Wrathion smirked and shrugged a shoulder. "I thought you'd like to know what your nobles are discussing in your absence, O Prince. It seems that your father's sudden passing has reminded them of one royal duty you have yet to fulfill."
"And what's that?"
"You are still without an heir."
. . .
The question of marriage and an heir was one Anduin had managed to avoid for years. When it first came up, he was ten years old and far too young-even in the eyes of the grasping house of nobles-to consider his prospects. It was a discussion held mostly away from where he could hear, though he caught snippets of suggestions that this daughter or that daughter would suit him well, when the time was right.
Anduin paid little attention to these discussions, less interested in his own future and more interested whenever he heard the slightest hint that his father might be alive and well somewhere. Even when Varian had returned, the world seemed too full of other matters to consider romance, marriage, and whatever came after.
Despite this, Anduin wasn't completely inexperienced. His first awkward kiss had come at a party Onyxia-known to him then as Lady Prestor-had thrown for his twelfth birthday. Lady Prestor had hand-picked the girl, the sweetly pretty thirteen-year-old daughter of a silver tongued lord from Redridge. She was nice enough and made Anduin laugh many times throughout the night, but when she'd cornered him at the end of the night and leaned in close, he'd frozen and eventually, catching Lady Prestor's encouraging glance, offered her a light and tight-lipped kiss. Though the girl had been thrilled, Anduin had not contacted her again, distracted by the events of the weeks that followed and, when he was honest with himself, disinterested.
He remained disinterested in the years that followed, skirting the topic whenever possible and answering evasively when he had no other choice. Fortunately, those situations were rare, overshadowed instead by wars, by attacks, by invasions. The threat of Azeroth's destruction provided a justified distraction from the more mundane aspects of ruling and allowed Anduin to keep his focus primarily on more important matters.
Not, of course, that he hadn't developed interests and experiences over the years; those interests and experiences remained his own. He never had cause nor desire to share the truth of them with anyone else, save for a few trusted friends, Wrathion among them.
Anduin had planned all along to eventually talk to his father about these secrets, but he wanted to wait for the right moment, when the world wasn't in a state of chaos and when he and Varian could have talked plainly, but that moment never came.
. . .
Anduin tried to brush off Wrathion's question. "They've been discussing that since I was ten years old," he pointed out, allowing himself to sink into a chair beside the window. "It's nothing but an excuse for nobles to grasp at power again, to see if they can place their daughters in the Keep and rise themselves. Just as it always has been."
Wrathion shook his head, rising from his lounging position to sit with his forearms resting against his knees. "Not this time, I fear, O Prince," he said. "Even the humblest of noblemen have agreed that they fear for the future of Stormwind, should you pass away as young as your father and with no apparent heir. Stormwind is the last human stronghold in the Eastern Kingdoms, and they feel you have a responsibility to ensure the security of her future."
Anduin sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "Because being instrumental in defeating the Burning Legion wasn't enough. Because peace with the Horde, the silence from the Scourge, the obliteration of the Twilight's Hammer and Black Dragonflight-no offense..."
"None taken."
"...none of that was enough. The kingdom won't really be secure until there's a wife and baby in place." He sank down in his chair, feeling every bit the petulant teenager he'd never allowed himself to be.
Wrathion, however, was having none of it. "You're smart enough to know why that's the case," he pointed out. "People are grateful and at peace now, and they will likely remain so for some years to come. They're licking their wounds and rebuilding their lives, but humanity is a powderkeg. All it will take is one spark and all the work you've done to create a peaceful world will be undone."
"And you think a wife and child would prevent that spark?" Anduin grumbled.
"Not just a child. An heir." Wrathion stood and began pacing, hands folded behind his back and eyes remaining focused on Anduin. "In the wake of my father's death, there might have been war, had I not acted quickly. Uncorrupt though I may be, I recognize that my flight has been decimated and that one thing we all share and shared is a need to be in power. Imagine how things would have gone, had I not worked as fast as I did to secure my own lineage. You know. You were there for Sabellian's fall."
"Humans aren't black dragons."
"No," Wrathion agreed. "They're worse." He held up a hand to halt Anduin's protest. "The closer they are to power, the more hungrily they grasp at it. Suppose what happened to your father happens to you. Suppose you're alive and well one day and gone the next. And suppose you've no one to replace you, no Anduin waiting in the wings to take up the crown when it falls from your head. What do you think will happen?
I'll tell you what will happen, Anduin: your nobles will start vying for the throne. They'll fight amongst themselves, each of them arguing that he has a closer claim than the next. Your people will support different candidates. Your Alliance will support different candidates. And in the worst case, it will turn to civil war, all because you didn't have an heir."
"You exaggerate," Anduin snapped, but he knew it was true. He'd heard enough arguments in the Keep during his father's absence years before. He knew that not all of those disputes had been egged on by Lady Prestor. He couldn't leave Stormwind to such a fate again.
After a few moments of silence, of being watched by the still pacing Wrathion, Anduin sighed and asked, "What am I supposed to do, then?"
"I'd say you have two choices, O Prince. You could do as they say, marry a noble girl, and be father to scores of princes and princesses."
"Or?"
Wrathion's smile was unsettlingly wide. "Or you tell everyone the truth-that you've always found men far more attractive than women-allowing yourself to love freely but leaving Stormwind without a blood heir and her gates wide open for questions as to the legitimacy of whatever heir you do choose."
Anduin felt himself deflate, sagging in the chair once more. He and Wrathion disagreed often, his own optimistic viewpoint at odds with the dragon's cynical ideas, but sometimes, Anduin needed Wrathion's perspective more than he wanted to admit. "When my father is buried," he found himself saying, in a voice that sounded older than he expected. "When the funeral is through, when the last prayers and hymns have been said and sung, when I wear the crown... I can't worry about this before then."
Wrathion relented, and though Anduin had long since stopped watching the dragon pace, he felt the air shift around him as Wrathion approached his chair and flinched at the coolness of Wrathion's taloned gauntlet against his cheek. "No," Wrathion agreed, "you can't. Get some sleep, O Prince. Tomorrow will be long, and it's only the beginning."
Anduin was suddenly too tired to protest the way he wanted to, allowing Wrathion to ease him to the bed and vaguely registering that the dragon had disappeared again before a heavy sleep finally took him. He dreamed of his father, alive and well, and telling him to follow his heart, and when the sun's rays woke him the early morning, Anduin knew what he had to do for the good of Stormwind.