Author's Note: Takes place near the end of the Twilight Highlands questline. AU. Deathwing's victory ultimately ends in his defeat. Dragoncest mentioned. That is, Deathwing wants to fuck Alexstrasza.
Needle Through a Bug
The fight was vicious, swift, and deadly, as were most battles between dragons. Deathwing swiped a claw at Alexstrasza, shot a jet of black and red flame at her. She retaliated similarly. Her flames spread around the metallic plates covering Deathwing's body and dissipated, causing him no harm whatsoever. Her claws raked the plates, pulling one off, causing Deathwing to scream in agony.
The Dragonqueen took advantage of her former brother's pain and attacked the open wound, digging her claws in, eyes narrowing in pain as the Death Aspect's own body fought against her and burned her talons and forelegs. Eventually, she let go and they resumed their fight.
The Dragonqueen was weakening. Deathwing could feel it. He himself was weakening too. The loss of some of his armor had ultimately caused him much pain and weakness. But he wasn't about to let this pitiful excuse for an Aspect win. She wasn't his sister. She was nothing.
Deathwing launched a massive attack against his sister, knocking aside the several mortals riding her children. He wanted to deal the killing blow without interference. To savor her defeat.
The Destroyer dug his own claws, fortified by metallic armor, into Alexstrasza's chest. The soft, unscaled flesh tore away easily. The Queen of Life's cry of pain caused Deathwing himself pain. Neltharion. He was attacking the walls the Old Gods had built to keep him from breaking free and defeating Deathwing.
For the moment, Deathwing ignored Neltharion. His victory over his sister was too much to let that sap ruin.
Deathwing swung his tail around, impaling the Dragonqueen on the metallic plates. His tail tore through her, easily breaking through her scaled back, coming out the other side, bloody with gore from the Dragonqueen's insides. Deathwing ripped his tail back out, causing further damage. The mortals flying the drakes that were her children cried out in shock and horror as Alexstrasza's eyes closed and she started to fall from the sky, almost in slow motion.
The Destroyer felt glorious shivers trail down his wicked spine. His worst enemy, defeated by his own claws. Azeroth and her people didn't stand a chance without their greatest protector to save them all the time.
Deathwing wasn't about the let them give her a proper burial. He wanted her corpse for himself...to reanimate the way he had reanimated his former mate, Sintharia, and his son, Nefarian. Alexstrasza's reanimation and subsequent attacks on the mortals Deathwing would set her up against, would be sure to dishearten anyone from trying to kill him.
Flying around the smoldering, blackened landscape, he finally found her corpse, bloody and broken, beneath a large, dead tree. In her last moments, it seemed, she had taken on her elf form. The form of her beloved mortals. Members of his own black flight were surrounding the corpse, obviously eager to tear into the flesh of the one who had caused them so much trouble, and so much death. The backed away when they saw Deathwing approaching. The blacks, dragonkin and drakes, and even full grown dragons, were cowed by the presence of the World Breaker.
Deathwing assumed his human form as he approached the dead Dragonqueen. One of the blacks offered to heal his wounds. Apparently it was a priest when in human form. Deathwing just shot it a nasty glare and knelt next to his elder sister's broken body. He threw back his head and laughed, hysterical, almost insane laughter. The priest-black dragon threw his master a confused look, but said nothing. He was thinking perhaps he should have healed Deathwing's wounds anyway. Perhaps he was wounded in the head as well.
Lifting her limp body up off the ground, Deathwing grinned, that sickening smile of serrated blades for teeth, bloody and terrifying.
"This is the end of you, sister. I'm going to kill your children next. And the mortals. This world will be mine. I told you I was death incarnate. None can defeat death." He reached out and slid a sharp metal talon down her unmoving face, drawing blood. Blood that still flowed. She wasn't dead. Deathwing's heart was pumping now. She would hopefully be able to hear everything he'd just said. And would say.
"As soon as the last breath leaves your body, I'm going to reanimate you. I'm going to make you my slave, just like Sintharia and Nefarian. You'll be mine, sister...as you should have been long ago. I asked you to be my mate, but you were disgusted. We could have ruled this world. Now you'll be nothing but an undead broken husk." Deathwing stroked her face again.
Alexstrasza stirred at this. Her closed eyes opened, they were the same beautiful silver-gold he remembered. "No." That was all she said. Pain shot through Deathwing. His sister's eyes were glowing with some unknown power. Deathwing felt a nauseating sensation, black swam before his eyes,
Water. Voices. You failed us. Failure. Weakling. To be defeated by a dying red dragon, pathetic, you are. You have outlived your usefulness. A night elf face, beautiful and terrifying, swam in his vision. She had snakes for hair and her eyes, once a silver-white, now were a deep red. You failed the Masters, Deathwing. Goodbye. Next time, its my turn to deal with these pathetic mortals! Queen Azshara, mistress of Zin Ashari, goddess of the Naga's face faded from his mind and Deathwing knew nothing more.
Neltharion felt as if he were awakening from a long, long nightmare, free at last. Pain. He was in so much pain. The pain was all that occupied his senses for some time, before he noticed the limp body he held in his arms. Silver-gold eyes, ruby-red hair...no. No.
"Alexstrasza! Wake up! Wake up! Someone! Help me! Heal her! Heal her!" Neltharion knew she was beyond healing, but it didn't stop him from screaming for someone to help his sister.
A black dragon in human form stepped forward, warily, confusion etched in his features. He was wearing a long, red and black robe and carrying a staff. A mage or a priest? Neltharion didn't care.
He held out Alexstrasza's body to the priest-dragon. "Heal her. Please heal her!"
"Master...what...I'm confused. What happened...I feel as if I'm waking from a long, long nightmare...as if I've done horrible things but I can't remember..." The priest was speaking the words Neltharion felt as he ran his hands over Alex's body, white light glowing over her. For a fleeting moment, Neltharion felt hope arise within him that the priest had healed her and he was about to reunite with his sister.
The white light stopped and the priest stepped back, shaking his head. "Master, forgive me...I...I cannot revive the dead, master. She's gone. Please do not punish me, master. I tried." The priest was bowing and scraping the floor with his head now, kissing Neltharion's feet.
Neltharion pushed him away. "Go away. Just...go away. All of you!" He snarled at the confused black dragons milling around him and Alexstrasza's body. They mumbled random words, unheard by the Earth Warder as he just stared at his sister's body.
A strange, ruby light began to glow within the hole in Alexstrasza's chest cavity. Neltharion looked at it in confusion. Something that looked like a large, red, scintillating egg floated from the cavity. From past experience, he knew what this was. The Heart of Life...it meant Alexstrasza was truly gone. The Life Binder was no more. Neltharion reached out a tentative hand for the ruby egg-like object. As soon as his hands were beneath her last gift to the world, the ruby light faded and the object fell into Neltharion's plated hands.
Neltharion realized he was crying. He clutched the ruby egg to his chest with one hand and used the other arm to pick up Alexstrasza's cold, lifeless body. If anything, he would return her to her flight. He assumed dragon form, ignoring the scathing pain from where Alexstrasza had ripped the metal plate off his chest, and flew toward Vermillion Redoubt.
Three mortals, an elf, an orc, and a human ran forward, alongside a large red dragon he recognized as Alexstrasza's son, Calen. The priest seemed to be preparing a shadow spell, when Calen assumed elven form and stopped him, pointing at Neltharion and mouthing something he couldn't hear to the mortals. He must have noticed her...body.
Calen ran forward and Neltharion landed and once again assumed human form.
"Monster! Release my mother!" Calen's blue eye's flashed angrily. Neltharion almost laughed at this. Were he still Deathwing, killing this little red would be as easy as swatting a bug. He did not laugh. There was no room in his heart for laughter anymore. Nor would there ever be...
Neltharion dropped to his knees, laying his sister's body gently on the soft grass of the Vermillion Redoubt.
Shock and horror ripped through Calen. He ran to his mother's side, shaking her, begging her to awaken. He even called the human priest over, begging him to heal his mother's wounds. The priest told Calen exactly what Neltharion's priest had told him. He couldn't heal the dead. Calen sobbed over her, he was seemingly stunned by her death and unable to do anything else.
Neltharion turned to the mortals, who raised their weapons. "Please. I mean none of you any harm! I...I wanted to bring her body back here. So she could be given a proper burial...a proper send off, like the red flight would have wanted, like she would have wanted. I know you don't believe me, likely never will, but I would never hurt my sister. Deathwing killed her, not I. I am Neltharion the Earth Warder."
Calen looked up finally, from his mother's body. "You lie. Monster. If you are truly Neltharion, you would have died with her. You wouldn't have just brought her here for us."
Neltharion's hands shook as he held out the ruby egg to Calen. The little red looked at it in confusion, before it dawned on him what this was. Calen took the ruby egg from Neltharion, a bit harshly.
"The...Heart of Life...my mother's..." Calen trailed off as sobs once again wracked his body.
"I wanted to give that to one who loved her as much as I did. Before I do what you said. Die with her. She dealt me an almost killing blow before Deathwing killed her." Neltharion gestured to his chest, where there was a gaping hole from where the plate had been ripped aside. "I come to die with her. Cal...Calen...whatever your true dragon name is...please...remember me not with hate. Deathwing did this, and Deathwing is gone. In her dying moments, she sent him back to wherever he came from."
Cal had a hard time believing this, but eventually nodded shakily, standing up, clutching the ruby egg protectively to his chest. "What do you intend to do, Neltharion?"
Neltharion plunged a plated hand into the open wound in his chest. He grasped something hard, pulsating...The Heart of Earth...
"This." Neltharion ripped out his own heart, and fell to the ground, as dead as his sister. His bloody hands held an object that pulsed with strange light. Black and copper light. The Heart of Earth. Two Aspects had died here today. Calen didn't know what to do. What would the flights do without their queen? What would the black flight do without its master? Calen picked up the Heart of Earth gently, as if he expected it to bite him.
The human priest stepped forward warily. "Cal...what...what the hell? Did...Deathwing just do himself in?"
Cal glared at the priest, affronted by his abrasive manner. "Neltharion died a hero's death. He gave his life to save the world, just as my mother did. These objects...the ruby one is my mother's Heart of Life, that which made her the Queen of Life..the other is the Heart of Earth, that which made Neltharion the Earth Warder."
The priest nodded, not really understanding, but knowing that what had happened here was a sad, devastating thing. "Cal...what now? Deathwing is dead...what do we do?"
"Nothing, human. Go back to Stormwind. The same goes for you, orc, elf. Go back to Orgrimmar and Silvermoon. There is nothing more for you here." Calen was now kneeling on the ground, in front of Alex and Neltharion's bodies, clutching the Hearts to him, barely paying the mortals any heed whatsoever.
The orc and elf looked at one another and shrugged. The orc summoned a goblin made rocket. The elf hopped in the backseat and they vanished quickly from sight. The human priest still stood there, hesitant to leave, but another glare from Cal convinced him. As if called by unheard words, a brilliant white drake descended. She was shocked when she saw the Life Mother's corpse next to the corpse of Deathwing.
"Calen! What happened here! Is the Mother of Life...?" She trailed off as she noticed the objects Calen was holding and his tears. "No! It cannot be! The Dragonqueen!"
Calen waved a hand dismissively at the white dragon. "Please, begone, little white one. I...need some time alone with my mother. I'm sorry." He sounded truly sorry to ask the white dragon to leave. In a way, Alexstrasza had been her mother too. She was the Dragonqueen. Mother to all dragonlife.
The white dragon seemed to understand though and turned back to the human priest, who leapt on her back. They flew off into the distance. Calen watched them until they were nothing more than a spec of silver light in the Highlands.
Calen sat with his mother and her younger brother for awhile longer. Eventually, there came a swooshing noise. A great, green female landed before him, alongside a blue and bronze. The other Aspects. Kalecgos, Ysera, Nozdormu...
Ysera assumed night elf form and approached Calen. "No. I felt...but I hoped it wasn't true." Tears streamed down the Dreamer's violet cheeks. Her eyes were fully open, fully awakened. No longer did part of her live within the Emerald Dream. The Awakened Dreamer. Ysera ran forward on wobbly legs and fell to her knees in front of Calen and Alexstrasza's body. The Dreamer let out a screeching sob and wrapped her arms around her elder sister's body.
Kalecgos managed to stumble forward as well, followed by Nozdormu. Kalec was staring at the Life-Binder's corpse in disbelief. He'd loved her. Always loved her. Now, nothing would come of it...he would never even be able to see her again. His beloved Alexstrasza...
Nozdormu glanced at Deathwing's nearby corpse, a hint of fury creeping into his mind. Deathwing had failed! Failed the Infinite Flight! Nozdormu snarled and kicked Deathwing's body. The others just assumed he was pissed about Alexstrasza's death and paid him no heed. Deathwing had been a great ally to the infinite flight. Now he was gone.
He was weaker than Nozdormu predicted. He hadn't seen this coming, in all his time travel. The secret leader of the Infinite Dragonflight snarled again, fury creeping once again into his bronze-black eyes. He realized Ysera was speaking. With Alexstrasza gone, this made her the Dragonqueen.
"Calen...what now? Did...did Neltharion say anything to you before he...killed himself?" Ysera was trembling over her words, it was hard for her to speak.
The red dragon shook his head. "He just...gave me these. The Heart of Life and the Heart of Earth. I don't...know what to do anymore. With mother dead, that makes you...Dragonqueen. What would you have us do now, Dragonqueen?"
Ysera sobbed. "Alexstrasza was our queen. I am no queen compared to her!"
Calen, though still unsteady himself, placed a hand on the new Dragonqueen's shoulder. Ysera leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his waist to steady herself. "Ysera...Dreamer...Alexstrasza would want you to be Dragonqueen in her place. The least you can do is try. She would want that." He hugged the green Dreamer close, letting his own sobs mingle with her own.
Ysera let out a steadying breath. "Calen...you're right. Our Life Binder would be happier than any to know that her death wasn't in vain. Her death ended Deathwing, saved millions. The Heart of Life and the Heart of Earth...it isn't in my power to choose. The flights must choose for themselves a new Aspect, as the blue flight did with Kalec."
Calen nodded numbly. No matter who the reds chose as the new Life Binder, he or she wouldn't be his mother.
Ysera stood in the center of the circle of Aspects. "We must gather the flights. Green, red, black, bronze, and blue. They must all choose a new Aspect. Together, we will continue doing as Alexstrasza would have wanted us to do. We will protect Azeroth."
The other Aspects nodded, Nozdormu grudgingly, but only to avoid suspicion.
The Dreamer hesitated before speaking next. "Calen...let us take their bodies to Wyrmrest. If all of what you say is true, they both died as heroes and deserve the dignity of the Wyrmrest. If I am to be Dragonqueen, let this be my first order. Take Neltharion and Alexstrasza to their Sanctums. Bury them with honor, then gather your flights."
The Dreamer reassumed dragon form and flew off, presumably to head to Wyrmrest. The other Aspects followed suit.
Calen was left alone with his mother and his uncle's body. For the first time, he could appreciate Neltharion as family.
"Son of the Life Binder? If I may...Neltharion was my leader. The leader of my flight. I...heard what the new Dragonqueen said. Gather our flights. I..I can take my master's body to Wyrmrest. I mean no one any harm. When...Deathwing was ripped from my master's body, it was as if I woke from a long nightmare."
A black dragon in human form, wearing robes, stepped into Calen's view. He appeared harmless, and from what Calen could sense from him, truly meant no harm. He only wanted his own master to have a proper send off, just like Calen did with his mother.
"My name is Sedarian. I...I'm a healer, of sorts. In human form, I'm a priest. I don't know why, but even when Deathwing was Deathwing, the Light answered me. Now, its as if the Light answers even greater prayers."
Calen nodded at Sedarian and beckoned him over. "Take your master's body. And...as Ysera said...if you can...gather others of your flight. You all, we all, must choose someone to take the place of one we loved or served..."
Sedarian transformed into a dragon, gently picked up Neltharion's human body, and flew away, also heading to Wyrmrest, most likely.
Calen glanced once more at his mother's lifeless body, at the objects meant for an Aspect that rested near her, then looked skyward. The sun was streaming in over the horizon, as brilliant and beautiful as never before. A sunrise in a place as wicked and daunting as the Twilight Highlands...Alexstrasza's sacrifice brought life, even in death. He transformed into a dragon and picked up his mother's body, and gently used his tongue to gather the Hearts into his mouth, where he held them gently.
Glancing once more at the brilliant sunrise, Calen flew into the distance, toward Wyrmrest, where they would have the daunting task of choosing a new Aspect for both flights.