A/N: Many thanks to Vistragosa for being my beta. Now on with the show!
Vengeance is a complicated thing. If you were to ask a human barely out of childhood on what they thought of it, the answer would most assuredly be that it was a horrible, heinous thing. But they are naïve. The world has been kind to them.
Revenge is a complicated moral act, but it is not heinous or evil. It simply is. It is a powerful thing, capable of changing lives permanently. It is also a vicious, nigh-unending cycle. And the first act is never the worst; instead, it is but the catalyst for a chain of bloodshed and misery. Sometimes, people would speak of a quest for revenge leading them to the one who would become their best of friends, or their partner. These events are the only silver linings of revenge. The satisfaction of finally claiming revenge isn't as sweet as it seems like it would've been, after all.
If you are as foolish as to seek revenge, heed my warning, and know that the abyss will gaze back into you, so clear your conscience and ask yourself if it really is worth it…
The reopening of the Dark Portal had happened, if Avrisia's whispers were to be believed.
Considering that strange creatures Atrocia had never seen before, including creatures that held a resemblance to the elves at the Netherstorm but were taller, more muscular, and had skin in shade of purple and blue and hair in colors she'd never seen on the elves in the Netherstorm had appeared in Blade's Edge, she felt that Avrisia's whispers were true.
And they had the gall to build a settlement in the heart of the primary hunting grounds. They'd been met with angry dragonkin, of course, but they flung strange spells that were green and gold and sent shocks through the bodies of the hit, and bursts of silvery white light often burned the scales and hides of the whelps that had tried to defend the area. Most of the defenders fell onto the ground in a strange, deep sleep induced by a hazy bolt of green energy.
The animals that hadn't run into the shelter of the numerous boltholes in the scarcely vegetated area had sought shelter by the strange elves, Kamil'onza—or Purple-Elf in draconic—as Atrocia decided to call them.
In addition to the Kamil'onza, other strange creatures had appeared. She'd never seen dwarf before but the short, stout creature with skin colors that varied between pinkish beige, to beige, to grayish and several other variations thereof with long, thick beards on the males (and one or two females) matched the descriptions of what Zelion had called dwarves. Atrocia presumed the small, frail creatures that held a resemblance and often followed them were some sort of dwarven whelplings.
In the second largest number came things that looked like dwarves but were taller and not as stout, humans as she'd heard them called. They were a common and preferred form for Black dragonkin seeking to take a humanoid shape.
Orcs with green skin also showed up in number, followed by stout, tall things covered in fur coming in browns, creams, white, black, and gray with several different patterns such as mottling and patches. They also had impressively-sized hooves for feet and horns on their head, along with a wide snout.
Below the crag she rested on, a caravan of the creatures moved. A few kamil'onza led the strange hoofed beings that dragged the supply and mortal filled wagons with strange orange things on sticks while a few of the dwarves aimed their weapons at her – strange metallic and wood things that let out a loud bang followed by a plume of foul-smelling smoke and a small, metallic object. Atrocia found the weapons rather intriguing, like a child would find a closed box with a sliding panel intriguing.
She lashed her tail at the caravan in warning. The stupid creatures either didn't understand the warning or were arrogant enough to ignore it. They continued on through the dry canyon, much to the mutual displeasure of the drakes in the area.
Envorian's head quickly went back to licking the wound he'd taken from one of the blast-sticks on his paw as soon as they'd passed, while Valdithus and Scaldrius flew in a wide circle over the caravan, just out of reach of the blast-sticks. Avrisia had dozed off on one of the crags, and was dangerously close to slipping off the side of it, but to Atrocia's displeasure, her clutchmate didn't slip and die.
It was a shame. That was one more mouth they had to feed in the barren mountains. The wildlife had taken a steep decline since the mortals showed up, with several of them slaying the animals then, rather curiously, taking out small pieces of sharpened metal slightly smaller than a drake-fledgling's claw and removing the animal's skin, taking the meat afterwards but leaving scrap-laden bones in the open. Mortal hunting parties weren't only strange, they were also stupid.
But food was food, and in the Blade's Edge, you either ate or starved, even if it meant scavenging or eating plantlife. It was better than a slow, painful starvation by far.
The one good thing the mortals had done was leave a clear trail through the spider infested mountain passes that led to the horribly wet, muddy area known as Zangarmarsh; the headwinds that came from Nagrand made it dangerous for anything but a wyrm to try and fly over the mountain, laden with many of the knifelike crags that could impale a wyrm. Several of the spikes held the bodies of drakes that had tried to make the flight and failed.
Atrocia watched as the wagons finally began to ascend up a path that the mortals had smoothed out, snorting out of ring of smoke. Valdithus and Scaldrius still circled high above it like carrion birds.
Zelion peered around the workers that were constructing an elven town in the Ruuan Weald. Mostly consisting of night elves, they worked diligently to make a small, ring-shaped pool in the center of the town and create buildings with architecture he'd never before seen. A shallow well was on land in the center of the pool, with an elegant but simple purplish archway and stone steps leading up the side of the unfilled well.
It was funny how he was back in the Blade's Edge Mountains barely even two months after he'd left.
As soon as one of the drake-scouts that had embarked on the dangerous journey to the Hellfire Peninsula by flying over the Nether returned with news of the Dark Portal's reopening, Zelion had been quick to snatch up an opportunity to investigate it himself. So far, he managed to get himself into a small caravan of mortals who were rather amusing in their complaining and simplistic ways.
Guns and bows were an ingenious way that the mortals made up for their lack of claws and decent fangs, but ultimately a flawed weapon.
The dwarf had looked at him proudly when he asked about guns and requested to inspect one. Fangules probably had no idea that he was a member of the Black dragonflight, and looking at mortals' tendency to slay dragonkind, it was best for it to stay that way.
A few elves gave him strange looks, but they had given similar looks to the other mages, and he held little worry about it.
The druidic siblings, Acala and Fenteth, were babbling to some of the other druids about the Black dragonkin in the area, theorizing about why they were there and how they were so at home in the food-depleted range, and somewhere in the area their youngest sister, Naliri, lurked, probably talking with one of the expedition's alchemists.
Sefton Coppersmith, one of the mages and the leader of the particular caravan that Zelion had come on approached him from behind. "Greetings, Sefton," Zelion said, turning around to face the dark-haired mage. "Hello, we'll be heading out to Sylvanaar soon. You want to come or you staying here?"
He barely gave it a thought before he replied. "I will come; they seem to have everything under control here." And it was better to get away from his rather angry kin. As much as he wanted the town to be destroyed and hunting to return to normal, he did not feel like getting caught in any crossfire when he could simply up and leave to places with more food with minimal injury to himself. To most, such an option was an unobtainable luxury.
Sefton grinned, showing off not-too-bad teeth. The hairs on Zelion's neck bristled a bit, but he shook it off with a roll of his shoulders. "When shall we be leaving?"
"Soon as the wagon's loaded and the horses have rested."
"Very well then, I suppose I shall find something to do. Perhaps Naliri has found some interesting herbs; I have picked up a few recipes for some of the flora of the Outlands," Sefton's eyebrow raised slightly as Zelion called Outland 'the Outlands', "and I am sure she would be delighted to make some of them."
"Have fun with that." Sefton lazily waved goodbye, turning around to pose the question to Acala and Fenteth.
It wasn't hard to find the elf in question. Naliri's silver and white robes stood out against the muted colors of the forest like a sore thumb, and she was babbling to the expedition's alchemist as expected. Her hand clasped a small vial filled with a purple liquid, slipping it into a plain brown satchel at her side.
"Dreaming Glories are useful for burn ointments, as I've found out. They seem to help particularly well with dragonfire burns, or at least the burns of whelps and drakes." Kayaliran gestured to a small box with the flowers, imported from elsewhere, that was by the small, ringlike pond. The elf continued to babble about the properties of the golden flowers, expressing his hope that the flora could survive on the forested plateaus of the mountains.
They'd grown there naturally once, but they'd quickly been turned on when the food dwindled to where starvation was a bigger threat than dehydration and eventually were all eaten up.
Finally, after several minutes, Naliri turned to Zelion. "Yes?"
He shrugged. "Not much to do. Another caravan is leaving for Sylvanaar soon, but until it leaves, I
figured we would talk about some alchemy recipes."
The elf nodded. "What kind of recipes?"
He tried to not yawn from a combination of boredom and desire to sunbathe in one of the
canyons. "Oh, whatever kind you want to talk about."
"Well. They've started to import more plants here, so I think there will be a lot of new recipes to try. I suppose you'll try and make some of the ones that they send to paper for its usefulness?"
Talking to Naliri about alchemy probably wasn't the best idea.
"I know I will. If you dip felweed in a mixture of dreaming glory oil, some dream foil powder and add some purified water you can undo most of the effects of the minor fel taint. But if it has more than a minor taint it will just taint what you used. The purified felweed has a lot of uses in elixirs and flasks and can even hold healing properties when mixed with ragveil blossoms and terocone extract."
Definitely not the best idea.
"So, if you mix that potion with some ragveil oil and some dreaming glory blossoms and a dash of worgbane it becomes orange and has a hallucinogenic effect."
This woman is insane.
Kayaliran seemed amused by the one-sided talk, though, and turned back to the table covered with herbs, powders and vials of oils.
"If you take that elixir and add some Moonberry juice, it foams up, spills everywhere and makes people dizzy. I'm never making that again." Finally, Naliri finished her long-winded, utterly pointless tale of how to make something she made that pissed off Sefton because his robe got wet. And by the time it was almost dry, they had been going up a steep incline and, because he didn't properly latch the pull-down back, when he fell off his seat and slammed into the back, it fell open and he barely managed to not tumble across sharp stones with a well-placed spell. Luckily, it was a soldier wagon and it was only filled with people and their carryon.
Zelion had found it very amusing to hear the mage swear colorfully enough to make a dwarven sailor blush. Even if he didn't understand over half the words.
Naliri looked at him expectantly. "I'm sure that Sefton won't really kill you over his robe getting wet," Zelion commented plainly. She snickered a bit.
"I hope so. If he does, he's going to regret it next time he eats a bad piece of meat and is sick." There was a playful tone in her voice.
He rolled his shoulders, brushing shoulder length black hair behind his ears. A stormcrow flew circles around the town—Evergrove—letting out a caw every now and then. A small, idol-like wooden figurine was attached to one of the legs, marking it as a druid.
"Caravan's ready." Zelion turned around to look at Sefton, nodding before following the mage.
Sefton was rather plain looking, with messy black hair that went just past his ears, blue eyes, and enough stubble on his face to make it obvious he hadn't shaven for a bit. His robes were "elegant" in a way, with reddish purple, light purple, and blue for the main colorations, bright purple runic markings around the shoulders, and silver detailing. It made the man look a tad bit feminine, and if he grew his hair out (mortals had the strangest need to cut their hair) someone might've mistaken him for a girl if they only saw his back.
Within minutes the caravan had filled with all who were going and the bumpy ride had begun. Being one of the last to get on, Zelion got the pleasure of sitting in-between Fangules and his cat Whitefang and the gnomish engineer Tolina.
As soon as the topic fell to guns, he knew it was going to be an annoying ride. Perhaps his kin that circled above the caravan would decide to take advantage of only two wagons and launch an attack from the sky.
Atrocia had allowed herself the luxury of a nap on one of her favorite perches, a small, flat, close to the ground crag. The only risk in the area would be the mortals or if Sabellian decided to inject her with anything because of her proximity to his little alchemy bench. The latter was far more real of a threat.
She'd seen the unfortunate ones that had had that happen to them. Some of them turned out okay, some of them died painful deaths, and some of them had a plethora of other effects happen to it rarely turned out well. So as soon as she woke and smelled some alchemetical concoction beingmade, she casually roused herself from the warm stones and flew in whatever direction looked the best.
She made sure to fly plenty high over the orcish town that the Horde had recently taken up in, though she still heard the bangs of guns as the aerial guards shot at her, and in turn she spat out a jet of flames towards the trees and town.
The dry leaves quickly caught on fire and one of the troll magi rushed to put out the flames.
She banked to the right, gazing down at an outpost of those despicable ogres that really needed to die in a fire. It was tempting, but one look at all the magi out told her she would be killed very quickly.
Instead, she flew straight ahead, to one of the sparsely vegetated and populated glades.
More trees than she remembered grew there, some with strangely colored leaves. The whole area seemed to have flourished in the past weeks. Strange.
A strange noise that reminded her of an offended whelp split the air, and she looked to where it came from. A very strange, very brightly colored creature with diaphanous wings, webbed paws, a strange head with a large pink crest and a feathery pink and purple striped antennae along with a bright, curling tail that was slightly larger than Atrocia's head.
She blinked at it, and it let out another harassed noise, spitting a faintly glowing blue bolt at her. She snarled as it hit her chest, sending a jolt of pain through her body. She blew a stream of fire at it. Or more precisely, where it was.
Another of the blue bolts hit her from behind, and she turned around at a breakneck speed, letting out an arcing stream of fire. The strange creature let out a blue bolt at the arc of fire that trailed along the ground, letting out a shriek as the flames burned it. The diaphanous wings smoked and burned, sending the creature to the ground with a thud.
An angry caw split the air, but Atrocia paid it no mind, pouncing on the strange creature and sending her claws through its body. Purple blood spilled out onto her paws, and she licked it absentmindedly.
An unnatural gust of wind blew the fires out as Atrocia began ripping the scales from the body, finally beginning to devour the strange creature. It was juicy and tender, nothing like the typical dry and stringy prey she ate. It was also decently plump, and the drake devoured it ravenously.
By the time she'd finished, nothing more than some scales and cracked bones were left. Not even the small amount of marrow had been left. Atrocia licked her maw, stretching out before flexing her wings and kicking off into the sky.
She flew above the trees for a bit, noticing a few strange and large birds flying around, and a town that appeared similar to the one the mortals had built in what the Arakkoa called Ruuan Weald. Finally, another flash of a large, brightly colored creature brought her eyes to it, and she quickly descended upon it with a jet of flame as her first attack. The being shrieked and teleported away from where she'd landed, but Atrocia spun around and spat more flames at it, and a blue bolt hitting her face did not help her mood at all. Within seconds, she'd killed it and began her feast.
One of the large birds took offense to it, cawing loudly to call more of the birds to it. A gust of the unnatural wind rustled the bushes and Atrocia looked up at the gathering of the large birds. There were a dozen of them, and none of them seemed happy. The idols on their legs swayed in the wind, drawing her eyes to the ever-so-slight thrum of power in the idols, but she ignored it and returned to her feast.
"Leave." She understood the Common word and she hissed. Her grasp of the language was decent enough to formulate a very terse reply, though most of the more complicated words would confuse her, but she knew what it meant. "Why?" she spat it out with a venom-laced tone, taking another bite from her meal.
"This is our land." She looked up once more, and under where one of the birds had been stood one of the kamil'onza. He was dressed in what seemed to be leather with many bird feathers attached to it.
"Dragon lands," she corrected, letting out a lick of flame and a warning hiss.
"This is your last chance. Leave here now."
She dug her claws into the ground, the orange crest on her forehead that went down her neck bristling.
She spat out a bit of fire, hefting herself to her feet with a growl. Nearby, a small caravan of mortals had come to a complete stop.
She heard a clicking noise, then the blasting sound. A furious roar left her maw as the bullet hit her shoulder and her head spun to the dwarf responsible. He ran to stand behind her. She turned to face him, buffeting her wings out with a gust of air that knocked the dwarf down. She took a deep breath.
Something heavy dropped onto her back, followed quickly by lighter things. She felt them scraping at her scales, and when the heavy thing did, pain shot through her body. Flames bathed the ground and she took another breath, turning her head to spit it on the creatures that were now on her back. Most of them jumped off, but they all got singed or burnt, and the heavy thing didn't move.
She snarled, arching her back and letting out a stream of flame at the ground between her and the strange things that attacked her.
Claws raked along her shoulders, and she reared up. The claws dug in but remained put. She spat fire, then she places her front paws on the ground, tensing up. Another bang sounded, and she felt it slam into her hind leg. She kicked off the ground, the beast still on her back, and flew high.
She rolled in the air, and the creature finally came off. She dived through the air, snatching it up in her paws and sinking her talons into it, warm blood spilling onto her paws once more. A bolt of green energy sent shocks through her body, and she flew a semi-circle to face it.
Eleven birds flew in the sky, mouths lit green with the strange bolts. She brought the creature to her mouth, sinking her fangs into its arm with a satisfyingly sickening crack. And then she dropped it. Watching it fall to the ground below.
The birds had rushed to try and capture the unconscious thing, but it was far larger than them, and blood rushed through the air. It impacted with the ground, turning into the feather-wearing kamil'onza. She cackled, diving down towards the dead male.
A flurry of bangs shot through the air, but none of them hit her. The crowd that had gathered around the corpse cleared away as she landed, and she wasted no time in letting out a hellish roar and taking the body into her maw before kicking off once more to find a better spot to eat her meal.
A few more bangs shot through the air and a spell or two slammed into her, but she simply chuckled
through a filled mouth and outflew the very angry kamil'onza that chased her, finally coming to a rest on one of the crags and began to devour her meal after ripping off the leather and cloth that covered its body.