Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.
Massive, massive thanks to my beta dharak! Cheers for everything.
Chapter published 9/4/13
I'll admit, I teared up writing this. I hope you enjoy.
Amanthe
We were all stunned. Mariel smiled, and looked like he might have started dancing any second. The dwarf, still up top with his bow on his back, looked down at us. His eyes strayed over all of us, and fixed on Selriona. Mariel's grin was absolutely massive. How did his face not split in two?
We all asked at the same time, "How are you alive?"
He laughed and took out a little palm-sized orb filled with smoke and shadows. "Come on, you honestly don't think I keep my soul inside my body, do you? Ha!" He put the soulstone back and cracked his arms, groaning as he did.
Droga stammered. "H-how did you catch up with us? Aviana herself sent us down the mountain with tornadoes."
Mariel shrugged, and put his hands together. The stone beneath him rose up to form a demonic horse, an exact copy of the ones I'd seen on Xoroth.
Droga nodded. "Ah, so that's how."
Mariel's smile grew even bigger. "Yup! The thing doesn't need sleep, food, anything really, and it never, ever gets tired. I took a nap while it rode down here. Jumped down a cliff, I died again, but hey." His smile became a smirk. "That's what my soulstone's for." He flicked his hand, and the horse disintegrated back into the earth. "Pretty neat, huh?"
Ellemayne approached him. After a few moments she raised her right hand and thwacked him across the head, before repeating the action with her other hand. "Why in the name of Elune didn't you come to us the moment you revived? And how many times have you died?"
Mariel held up his hands. "Hey, I tried, I tried! But I couldn't see your tracks. As for how many times I've died..." Mariel counted on his fingers for a moment. "About thirty seven, give or take. But thirty of those were bets, so I wouldn't count them -" Slap.
"How could you not see our tracks?" she asked.
He shrugged, holding his hands up. "So I never learned to track, sue me." I quirked an eyebrow. Really, that old goblin saying?
Ellemayne's face went from her normal shade of violet to a darker, red-violet, and she slapped him again. "And why did you bring Rom here?"
Mariel and 'Rom' waved at each other. "Well you see," said Mariel. "I sort of ran into him on the way down. Um, literally. Sorry about that Rom."
"Eh, no problem!"
"Anyway, he asked who I was, if I was in any guild, I told him, one thing led to another, and presto! He's helping!"
Rom nodded. "Aye, I am. Mariel here explained tha whole situation to me!" His eyes settled on Ellemayne's bow. " 'ey, Ellemayne, what are you doing with Thori'dal? I thought I have it!"
Ellemayne rubbed the back of her head. "Well, you see, you sort of give it to me in the future."
"Why would I do that?"
"You'll see!" Ellemayne snapped. "So, now what? I'm guessing we aren't going to just, you know, run into Sulfuron Keep's vicinity, find Aeonus and beat him up, are we?"
Droga shook his head. "No, don't you remember? We need to plant the beacon to summon Chromie. Only problem is, she told us to plant it near the keep, and you can bet that Ragnaros won't be too happy about that."
I sighed through my nose. "No, he won't. But we don't have a choice, unless you feel like taking on Chromie's future self and Aeonus..." Chromie? Chronormu?
Katalyn nodded. "Yes, we don't have a choice. We'll also need to find Aeonus' time pocket. Rom, do you know how?"
He shook his head. "Not a clue. Ellemayne here was the only one of us who ever so much as went ta Andorhal. She's the only one who knows what ta look for." Rom turned his head to Ellemayne. "What exactly do we have ta look for? It would be better if more than one o' us knew," he said, jumping down next to us.
"There'll be a location lacking the environment of the area. When I approached Chromie's time pocket, the miasma of the plaguelands faded away. When we get close to Aeonus' location, the heat should diminish."
Katalyn frowned. "If we find it. Selriona, at what time of day did you attempt to save Verthelion?"
"Around the middle of the day," she said with a mild tremor in her voice.
The worgen snarled. "Then we don't have the time to simply comb through the area. We need an idea as to where Aeonus will be." Mariel raised his hand, and she sighed. "Yes, Mariel?"
Lowering his hand, he said, "Well, I was just thinking. Chromie's a bronze dragon, right? If we call her, wouldn't she be able to help us find the time pocket?"
We pondered this for a moment. "That's... actually pretty smart," I said slowly.
Mariel rolled his eyes. "Well of course it is!" he said indignantly. "Now - hey, you guys all right? You've got some pretty bad cuts." I glanced around and sighed. Oh, right. I put my palms together and concentrated, praying to the Light for a large burst of healing. Before too long, a flash of golden light radiated out from me, healing them. I sank to the ground, taking deep breaths. Titans, that was...
Mariel clapped. "Well, anyway, let's get going! Sulfuron Keep awaits!" Mariel ran up the peak and stepped closer to the Keep, and instantly staggered back. "Ah, heat wave, heat wave!" I snickered. Selriona turned to her human form and stepped closer to the peak, the rest of us following her. With a pant, Selriona returned to being a drake.
I'd never seen Sulfuron Keep before. It was a looming tower of red and orange, pools of lava surrounding it like a moat, with red volcanic clouds seeping from its top to add to the acrid atmosphere. A ring of light formed on the bottom and rose up, leaving greasy flames licking along the outside of the hold where it went, until it reached the top and the entire building was on fire. Then, like a vacuum, the flames were drawn in to form a thick ring in the middle of Sulfuron Keep, which then fell. Upon contact with the ground, everything within a kilometer was engulfed in a fire nova.
I approached, desiring to inspect it more, but backed away from a furnace blast of heat. I almost swore in the name of the Titans. "Light! How are we supposed to go down there, much less to the keep itself?"
Droga took his armor off and placed it in a neat heap on the ground. "We walk down, and tough it out. No other choice. Unless..." He looked at Selriona.
She shuffled her forelegs, claws digging into the ground. "What?"
"Unless Amanthe puts a levitation enchantment on all of us and you fly us over. The air will help cool us off, and we'll be exposed for far less time." We were silent for a moment.
Ellemayne placed a hand on her chin. "That does make the most sense. With the levitation enchantment, we'll all be much lighter."
It was clear Selriona wasn't approving of the idea, but she didn't make any complaints. "Alright, let's get going then." Without further ado, I placed the enchantments on everyone. "Ellemayne, where's your pet?"
She chuckled. "It's complicated. It's sort of like the spell Mariel uses to banish things, but it's more involved. I'm keeping Fluffy out of the heat until it's time, then I'm going to remove the spell from him."
I grumbled to myself. "Wish you could do that to us. Damn heat."
Not hearing me, the drake nodded. "Alright, let's get going." I got onto her neck, going rigid at the thought of all of us riding her at once. Even with the enchantments, could she stand the weight? I knew she was a fighter, but I had no idea how far her abilities as a drake extended. Ellemayne and Katalyn got on behind me. She took off, and grabbed Mariel and Droga in her claws, leaving Rom to grab onto her tail. Then she began to fly, and I wilted.
The heat was unbearable. Even with Selriona's flight causing a breeze, I felt like Sargeras was roasting me over a pit. I thought I heard Selriona and Rom talking, but with the shriveling heat all around me, sweat dripping from every centimeter of my body, I paid it no mind.
Before I knew it, but after far too long, Selriona set down and we got off.
roga took out the beacon and placed it on the ground. He turned around, seemingly making a protective circle around it. Only, it's hard to create a protective circle with just one person, so the others took to surrounding it, in case anyone tried to destroy it.
After three minutes that were probably scalding to them, Katalyn spoke. "Alright," She wheezed. "Something's wrong with the beacon." We all turned around to look at the beacon. It hummed lightly, a thin beam of light shining from its core into the sky.
Ellemayne stared at it intensely, as if she were trying to pull Chronormu out of the beacon through force of will. "Maybe it's not in the right spot?" She reached down and touched it, moving it to the left a couple meters. The light diminished, as did the humming. She moved it farther the other way, and the glow intensified, the humming transforming to vibration. She nodded, satisfied. "Alright. So we need to put it in a specific spot, and the closer we get the brighter the light and more intense the vibration." She began to walk around with the beacon in her hands as the light steadily increased in brightness.
Panting for breath, Rom had us wait. "Hold up! I have an idea to cool down." He took out a trap and set it on the ground, a blue crystal spinning in its middle. He stomped it, shattering it like glass. A coat of frost surged out, engulfing the basalt around us in a thick layer of ice. We collapsed onto it, eager to absorb the chill while we still could. Far too soon, the ice vaporized, and we got up.
"Alrighty, let's keep moving."
Ellemayne nodded. "Indeed, time is of the essence." And so we continued on.
She kept following its path, right next to a lava pool. The beam of light from the beacon cut up into the heavens, vibrating so loud I feared it would alert the fire elementals to us.
"It has to be here. I can feel it." Ellemayne tossed the beacon into the molten rock, and we all watched as it submerged below the lava, unchanged. For a moment the beam vanished, but then it exploded out in a torrent of bronze light. We all flew back as a shockwave smashed into us, and the light continued to pour up. The air was sucked up with it, as was the lava, revealing the beacon.
It was impossible to see the beacon itself though, sheathed in glowing light as it was. After maybe ten seconds the light vanished, before the beacon began to glow again, this time radiating light from the nine triangles on it. The light twisted around like a thread, forming an apex some fifty meters off the ground. The apex began to radiate light that took a shape, the shape of a wyrm. Light exploded from the central hemisphere on the beacon, red and black and bronze and all sorts of other bodily colors, and flowed into the light-wyrm, giving it substance before the light gave out, taking the beacon with it.
Chronormu landed in front of us. "Oh good, you got here, and..." She raised her snout to the air for a moment. "With five hours to spare? My my, cutting it rather close, are we?" Droga looked about ready to explode at the 'accusation', but Chronormu laughed. "Oh relax, I'm teasing you. It must've been hard to get here. Anyway, let's get to business."
She turned back to her gnomish form, and hopped out of the crater. In one smooth motion, she spun around and held up a hand, freezing the lava that had been in the crater, then blasted up, then falling back down, in time.
"Whew! That could have been a disaster, couldn't it? Well, let's get out of here. It will still splash when I release it, and I plan on being far away when that happens." She looked at the parched people around her. "Oh, that's right. You don't have the air-slowing around you. Just, give me a second..."
She fiddled her hands in the air, and after a moment a bubble of cool air washed over me. I didn't register her words, closing my eyes, sighing, and swayed in the gentle breeze. It felt so... wonderful. After the blazing heat of the Firelands, this chill just washed all the worries right out of me, more than Rom's ice trap ever could.
I opened my eyes back up.
Chronormu nodded. "Alright then. Have you found Aeonus' time pocket?"
Katalyn shook her head. "No, we haven't. The place is too large, and we don't have enough time to search it. We were hoping you could help us find it."
She considered that.
"Well... it won't be easy. Every time pocket is different from another. But, yes. I can." She scratched her head. "Didn't exactly plan for this," she mumbled.
Suddenly, Chronormu clapped her hands together. "Right, I've got it! Follow me, follow me. I know where it is! Of course, why didn't I understand this sooner?" She looked back at our confused faces. "Oh, um, right. You see, one of my future selves told me that the answer would be in the Ascendant Rise. At the time it made no sense, I mean, Ragnaros hadn't started this yet. This clears it all up." Chromie spun on her heels and started walking towards a seemingly random spot. She was ten paces away when she looked back at us. "Come on, come on!" We obeyed her, like we had a choice.
I found myself next to Selriona, who shifted into a human form. I bit my lips. I had to tell her. We were almost there, and then, as much as it killed me (Har de har) to think about, I was running out of time to tell her how I felt. I couldn't even remember how I was supposed to die; for all I knew, a meteor falls on top of me right this second. "Selriona, I want to talk to you."
She looked at me. "Finally going to tell me what you're worried about?"
I laughed. "No, not that. It's just..." I darkened my tone. "We're going to have to fight Aeonus. From what I understand, he is incredibly powerful. Even if these five are going to help me, I still might not make it out. So I just want to talk to you now." To be honest I had no idea what to expect from Aeonus. He was a dragon, sure, but twilight fire adheres to the scales of non-twilight dragons. But then again, time magic...
"Go ahead."
Breathe in... and breathe out. "I just want to say, thank you. Thank you for everything you've done for me, well, I guess I should say everything you're going to do for me, not to mention everything you've already done. You're a great friend, and I'm honestly lucky to have met you, and I'm -" I caught myself before I could say 'I'm going to miss you'.
She smiled, oblivious. "The feeling's mutual, Amanthe. Hey, listen. You will get through this. You can control twilight fire. Aeonus is a dragon, he'll fall to it easily. You. Will. Live. Through. This." Ha.
I suppressed a shiver. "There's always the chance I won't, though. I want to tell you now." I decided to take a leap. She'd find out soon anyway. I put my arm around her shoulders. "I'm going to miss you."
She pulled away. "What do you mean you're going to miss me?"
I grimaced. "I - You'll find out soon enough"
We soon arrived at the base of the Ascendant Rise. A cliff rose up out of the molten rock, the outlines of cultist buildings barely visible on the top. Chronormu stopped just short of the lava. "Alright, I'm going to remove my air-slowing. That should reveal the true temperature of the area. Here I go." She closed her eyes for a second, and opened them. For a moment the scalding heat of the volcanic landscape buffeted me, but in a second it faded into a dull heat.
Chronormu actually squealed in excitement. "Oh perfect, perfect." She thrust her hands towards the cliff and released a wave of sand. Most of it fell into the lava and melted, but some of it stuck in a spherical shape, outlining a portal. She shook her head in disbelief. "I knew Aeonus was good, but to make a time pocket this complicated?" She whistled. "Alright, come on. They'll be in there."
She launched herself at the portal, and vanished. Mariel followed after her, shouting 'Cannonball!'. Droga simply hopped in, the two hunters leaped an impossible distance into it, and Katalyn pounced like a wolf. With a flick of magic, I solidified the air under me and levitated in, Selriona's wingbeats filling the air behind me.
Darkness blinded me, and then sharpened into a labyrinth around me. It was a wide, circular tunnel that branched out in a dozen black tunnels. The ceiling was quite low, but not so low that any of us had to crouch. Some magical source of light illuminated the others.
"Alright, here we are," Chronormu said as Selriona appeared, still as a drake. "Now before you ask, no, we're not in the middle. You six, group up." Our group, minus one drake, clustered up, and pulling sand out of oblivion, the bronze dragon tossed it over us. "Good, you should be able to see a line on the floor, yes?"
Sure enough, there it was, a golden trail of sand leading into one of the corridors. Mariel gave a thumbs up. "Check!"
She nodded tersely. "Good. Follow that line, it will bring you to Aeonus. Remember, you can not kill him. You can just make him retreat." When we didn't move, Chronormu made a shoo-ing movement. "Go on! Run! Mush, whatever!"
"Sheesh," Droga whispered as we turned around and headed off, following the trail.
Ellemayne groaned. "You okay?" I asked.
"Ah, nothing. I was just so tired back then. You know, past and present selves existing together." She shrugged. "I pushed past it, but damn it feels good to be better."
"Really? I didn't feel anything."
"Hmm. You must've gotten some of the Bronze's magic on you."
"Maybe the sand in the Caverns?"
"Maybe."
Shadows and mist bubbled around us, forming faces and names, whispering around us as we passed through the corridors. I didn't want to imagine what was coming for me.
No aircraft, no personal, no survivors, said a hooded man with a curved sword in place of his right arm.
The ground runs red with your blood! shouted an orc.
Roar! shouted a misty, blocky dragon as it crashed through the walls as if they were immaterial.
You idiots just made the biggest mistake of your lives, growled another man with sparks of electricity on his hands.
After what seemed like an eternity of winding through the twisting tunnels, we emerged into a larger chamber, the trail of sand fading into nothing.
This one was a hemisphere, with two dragons in the middle. There were five entryways, one of them being our route. Inside were two hulking Infinite dragons, with plenty of room to spare. I could smell the arcane energy from their cracks all the way from our location.
"You're certain?" asked one in a rumbling, echoing male's voice.
"Positive," said the other, a female with Chronormu's echoing, rasping voice. "This is something I have to do on my own."
"You killed your future self before," the one who had to be Aeonus said. "What makes you think you'll fare any better?"
"I don't know, but I have to try, don't I?" She slammed her tail club onto the black ground. "The whole purpose of our Flight is to fight against the doom fate has bestowed upon us. Against entropy, against dying light, all of it! I have to change this fate, or die trying."
"Alright. Be careful, Chronormu."
"Of course." She padded to a hallway, which spontaneously grew large enough for her. Once inside, she craned her neck back, silvery horns sparking with power. "Oh, by the way, behind you." Then the wall grew in like water, making Chromie's Infinite self vanish.
Aeonus spun around, cracked open his jaw, and then there was a sound like rustling leaves from within him.
"Scatter!" I shouted, diving out of the way. As the one who shouted, Aeonus aimed at me, exhaling a thick stream of sand at me. I quickly overcharged a levitation on myself, throwing me into the air, before normally floating back down. While in the air, I sunk into the shadows and looked down. As fast as a bolt of lightning, Droga charged the towering dragon and swung at him with his sword, only to be blocked my claws. The dragon swung his other paw at him, but Droga bashed it aside with his shield. Ellemayne fired an arrow at him, but it slowed down mid-flight, letting Aeonus easily burn it up with arcane energies; the same went for Mariel's shadow bolts.
Katalyn roared, and sunk her daggers into Aeonus's left hind leg. He roared and kicked her with it. She tried to back away from it, but Aeonus had to have used his magic to accelerate himself. The only indication I saw of him moving was that one moment Katalyn was stabbing him, and the next moment she was slumped against a dark wall, fur sliding into her skin.
A flash of silver light. Droga froze, his sword raised and ready to slice into Aeonus's distracted foreleg. The dragon in questioned turned to me, baring his fangs, opening his mouth for another sand breath.
Not so fast, I thought smugly to myself, calling on my magic and sending a fireball after him.
Bullseye. The fireball hit him right in the throat, choking off his sand and forcing him to fall back, coughing and hacking. Droga was freed from the time lock, and his sword cut a gash through Aeonus's right flank. A blazing arrow pierced his wing joint, and a shadow bolt splashed against him, the scales sizzling where it hit. In his moment of rage and pain, I released an explosion of twilight flame along his back, the fire greedily sticking to his scales wherever it touched. I didn't care if we 'couldn't kill him'. Let him figure out how to remove it from him.
"You're finished," I said menacingly, nailing him in the tail with another fireball, blue washing out black.
Aeonus panted. "The... the barrier..." He shook his head. "No, not- argh!" Nailed you again. "Not worth it." And then he was gone, likely having frozen time to escape. Or perhaps he just teleported?
Ellemayne laughed. "HA! That was... actually pretty easy. He must've gotten soft." She tapped the side of her jaw. "No, wait. That's not right. He didn't get soft; he toughens up after this to fight us."
"Huh," Mariel said. "That was... anticlimactic. Sooooo. Anyone got an idea how we get out of here?"
"I got you!" said a new voice. We whipped around to see Chronormu in her gnomish form walking up to us. "Hold still, portals back to your time coming right up!" One after another, golden portals swirled around the Liberality Confederacy, banishing them, presumably, back to the future.
Chromie and I locked eyes, and she sighed. "This must seem so unfair to you."
"I'm still going to die, aren't I?"
"Selriona is still in danger. An Infinite dragonsworn heads to her and an unconscious Verthelion. You need to save him."
"Why can't you?"
"Aeonus's wards are still in effect. They would still keep me and mine out. You, though. The wards won't expect to have to repel twilight energy."
"So teleport onto Azeroth far away, far in the past, and fly there manually!"
"You don't understand, Amanthe. It's already happened. If you don't do this, paradox - "
" - occurs and we all die. Fine." I threw my hands up. "You're going to send me regardless of what I think, so just get it over with."
She dipped her head. "As you wish." She sighed. "For what little it's worth... I'm sorry." Then the world was gold, and -
- in the mountains.
In a little neck of the mountains, with the blazing heat of Sulfuron on my back. There was a narrow pass in the mountains, like a sideways L. I saw three figures inside. One was a twilight drake splayed bonelessly on the ground, and another was a very familiar drake hovering over him, frozen in place. The last was a mortal in black robes with gold trimmings, and shifting dagger in their right hand. They kept shapeshifting; a male worgen, a female orc.
"It is destiny," I heard them whisper. "Nobody can fight fate."
Watch me, I growled, sprinting with all my might. They turned into a human man, ready to stab Verthelion, when I tackled him from behind. I wrapped my arms around his neck and let gravity do the rest, pulling us to the ground. Before he could react, I spun us around so I was on top, grabbed one of my daggers, and stabbed the dirt he'd been a moment before.
He tsked at me from the other side of the canyon, turning into a draenic woman. "You shouldn't have done that, you know." A flickering Infinite portal appeared over her head, pulling her up into it. "At any rate, goodbye."
I placed my dagger back into its spot at my waist and sprinted, my left hand engulfed in darkness and my right in shadowy flame. "Oh no you don't!" I shouted, leaping after him. We both vanished into the portal.
My magic instantly vanished. The entire world around me was a seething, writhing mass of gold and black, twisting around each other in violent rivers, snakes, whirlwinds, eddies. Tendrils of amber and obsidian whacked me in the head, in the back, on my legs, but I didn't let go.
"Let go!" my hostage shouted. Something purple and gold - my overactive mind registered it as an Orb of Deception - and vanished into the whirlwind. "You're pulling us off course! There's no telling where we'll end up!"
"Where you'll end up!" I countered, leaning back with all my might and pulling the Dragonsworn - now a man of my own species with blonde hair, green eyes and a black little goatee that contrasted sharply with his hair - around. The storm of color and energy around us flickered, shivered, froze, and then shattered around us like glass, an explosion of force throwing us away from each other.
I landed on my back and gasped like a fish out of water. All the air was pushed out of my lungs, and my eyes burned. My bones creaked and groaned, threatening to snap under the unbearable pressure of wherever-we-were. Thinking on reflex, I poured my magic into a shield, probably far more than needed, strengthening it as best I could.
Now that there wasn't a weight like a dragon sitting on me, I could take in my surroundings, panting to get the breath back in me.
Everything was engulfed in a heavy fog. It was very humid, more humid than anything I'd ever experienced, and so hot. I'd never experienced a heat like this just in passing. What sort of hellish place was this?
The ground beneath my feet was gray stone, with pebbles and boulders scattered around me as far as I could see. Surprisingly, despite the choking gray fog that had swallowed up the sky, I could see quite far. The ground was smooth and flat with the exceptions of the small rocks. Looking around...
... nothing. That's all there was. Outside of the enemy Dragonsworn and myself, the only thing to see was a scorching, humid fog with no wind, and gray stone as far as the eye can see.
"Where are we?" I whispered.
"You mean when," the man said in a strained voice. I saw that he had his own shield activated, a cocoon of transparent shadow magic around him. But unlike most barriers, his was squashed, forcing him to bend down. I realized my own power word was similar; the shell of Light was bent down in a way I didn't even know it could bend.
"When are we then?" I snarled, forced to kneel by my shield's lack of height.
A crack appeared in my opponent's shield, which he quickly patched up with a flare of time magic. I noticed, with no small amount of horror, a similar golden crack on my own shield. I pressed a touch more of my reserves into it, sealing the crack.
"Welcome to Azeroth, circa a billion years in the future. Give or take a few million. Probably give."
"Where on Azeroth?"
He laughed. "Does it matter? The entire planet's like this."
My stomach dropped. The entire planet? Lifeless, hot, and - somehow - heavy? "This is your goal, isn't it? This is what your Flight intends to bring about."
"Ha! We don't need to do anything for this to happen. Hells, we'd stop it if we could. Not even the Dragonqueen knows this, but the sun ages too. And as it ages, it slowly, slowly, gets hotter. If you could see it now, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference, but rest assured it's warmed up."
"How much?" I asked. We both repaired another crack in our shields.
"Enough to boil off the oceans. Enough to end all life larger than a germ. Welcome to the end of the world, twilight. A world where there isn't enough carbon dioxide in the air for plants, so no food chain. A world where the weight of the oceans bears down on you no matter where you go. A world where all that you've known has been ground into dust, and the dust into dust, and melted into lava, and recycled into stone, repeat ad nauseum. This... is deep time." He clapped sarcastically. "Nice job bringing us here, hero." Another crack, but only in his shield. He fixed it quick.
"Well," I said. "At least it seems you're having as much difficulty as I am." My shield bent downwards even more, cracking like an eggshell before I could pour more mana into it. "And most importantly... you're here with me."
Twilight flame rippled along my skin as I sunk into the twilight realm... but nothing happened.
He laughed, forced to lower himself again as his shield continued to deflate. "What's the matter? Trying to enter the twilight realm? Sorry to break it to you, but the twilight realm is tied to the existence of the Twilight Flight. And guess what?! The last Twilight dragon died... let's see... about one hundred eighty-two million years ago."
"You're still here." Another breach. Repair it. Disperse into mist to replenish your mana. Reform. "You're having just as much difficulty with your shield as I am. It falls, and you're crushed by the pressure."
"The same fate awaits you," he countered, wiping sweat from his brow and fixing his shield again. "Even if it didn't, there exists nothing to eat here, and the only water you need to have condense in order to drink. You're doomed to die."
"You first," I countered.
"Ah, but here's the thing," he said with a smirk, fingering the cat's eye brooch around his neck. "I can leave." Golden light began to spark around him, but it seemed to accelerate his shield's weakening. Noticing this, he placed one hand on the shield, actively fixing it as he charged up a spell to time travel away from this barren wasteland. Back to the present, back to kill Verthelion and Selriona.
Like hells.
I got to my feet, but when I tried to rise up even higher, the weight of the fog above me - the oceans of Azeroth if what he said was to be believed - kept me down, as solid as a brick wall.
I frowned, but continued to crawl towards him, my shield cracking rapidly in multiple places.
His depressed shield's interior was filled with golden light, though I could still make out his outline as I approached, bumping my knee on his shield and cracking it. I smiled, and cast one spell, my arm lashing out, whispering its name as I did.
"Dispel."
The air fled from his lungs as his shield vanished, letting the vaporized oceans slam down onto him again. But his spell was complete enough to engulf us both. This time it wasn't us floating in a sea of gold and black, but falling through a tunnel of stretched lights, as if the entire history of Azeroth was flying by past us. There was far too much gray in it.
My shield faded, but I didn't care. All that mattered was reaching for one of my daggers, pulling it out. A purple orb slammed into him, transforming him into a dwarven female before it vanished into the time stream. He still gasped for breath, which the wind didn't help with, even as I readied my daggers and aimed...
Swoosh. Squelch. Red. Fire.
I barely had time to register that I'd sunk my daggers into his throat before rolling off him. We were back in the canyon.
I gasped in pain. My entire gut seemed to clench around some wound. I barely noticed Selriona bounding over to me, her eyes wide and panicked. I waved a glowing hand over my wound, but the pain didn't even slow down as it started to spread from the stab wound throughout my body, chokingly painful. I grimaced. "Wound poison. Something else too." Deadly poison, perhaps? Or maybe something to further inhibit me. Was there poison that could weaken magic?
"Amanthe! Are you... are you going to make it?" she asked.
Suddenly I realized. This was it. This was my fate, my predetermined death. "No. I'm not going to. Damn it, and I was just starting to think I've been worrying about nothing," I said, almost laughing at how naive I'd been. Thinking I could dodge fate.
"Amanthe, what do you mean?"
I winced. The pain was everywhere now, and something else too. My lungs burned. I felt faint, like I wasn't getting enough air. It was getting harder to talk. I had to tell her. I had to, I had to hadtohadtohadto. "I was called to the Caverns of Time. They told me - they told me that I wouldn't survive the journey, that it was a death sentence for me. That's what's been troubling me the last three days."
Her pupils narrowed, and her voice took on the undertone of a roar. "Why didn't you tell me? I could've done something, we could've had Chronormu here to help - "
I winced in the face of her anger. I was getting so dizzy. My tongue felt too big, my limbs and chest too light, everything was just wrong.
"You promised..."
Selriona backed down, whining faintly. Did she even notice?
"Please, we can find a way. There has to be a way..." she begged.
Harder to talk now. Harder to move. It was... rather blurry. Was I going delusional? Had to. Bleeding out, don't get enough air. Or... something. "You'll know me much longer. My past self isn't dead, remember?" I tried to force my lips upwards into a smile.
"But you're still dying..." Her voice cracked on the last word. Something glistened in her eyes. Something wet and cold on my neck. My breaths were coming in short pants now, but no matter how much air I took in it wasn't enough, primal panic building in me.
I forced it down. For her sake. "I'm alright with that, Selriona." My voice dropped again. It didn't even hurt anymore. It was just so exhausting, so blurred. "I've lived for three centuries. I've, I've had a good, long life. I'm ready to see what's next. That's part of the reason why I came here, to die. The other reasons were to help you. Take care, you big sack of scales."
"Y-You too, you squishy human." I was so tired. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to rest. Wake up maybe, feel so much better. But that wouldn't happen, though, would it?
Realization. The final rights for fallen members of our Flight. I didn't expect the words, but I needed to... I needed to...
"I want, I want you to promise me another thing." I winced. My vision wasn't blacking out. It was getting brighter. I felt like I was falling. Falling so fast. There wasn't anything in my veins. Not enough. Never enough. "Place my body in the twilight realm and cremate me. Please."
She nodded hastily, but her head blurred and left behind images of itself as she did. "I will. I promise." A faint crack of sound. She nudged me with her snout - I couldn't even feel it - and then everything turned purple. She was still with me.
It was so bright. The light cut through the haze of the twilight realm, coming from a point high above in the sky. I took one last shuddering breath, looking over towards Selriona. I gave her the strongest smile I could manage, and then looked back up.
I felt... warm as the light engulfed me. I still felt like I was falling, but at least it wasn't hard to breathe anymore. At least I didn't feel faint. So I have that.
It got brighter. Muffled words, but I couldn't make out who said them. I felt like I should've recognized that voice. Blue flames licked at the corners of my vision. How silly. Fire can't burn blue.
It was so yellow. The sound of burning fire transformed into a melody. I was still falling... no. I was rising. The mountains around me falling back. What was I doing in the mountains? Didn't I live in Lordaeron?
It was so peaceful. Clouds around me, wispy things with chandeliers of radiant energy on them. The sky was a myriad of sound and light and warmth, filled with faces both familiar and unfamiliar. My mother has the best smile.
It was so warm. I kept rising, rising eternally for the rest of time, feeling all my stress accumulated from the past something years and something events fade away. It didn't matter, did it? Not when it was so warm.
Welcome, child, said a soundless voice all around me. You have earned this. The Light does not abandon its champions.
Yes, I thought. The Light does not abandon its champions.
The song was so pure. The warmth was so filling. The light was so bright, and yet I felt I could stare at it for the rest of eternity and never loose a speck of happiness.
It was so... heavenly.
So ends Amanthe's story. But it's not over, not quite yet.
There's one more chapter I need to publish to wrap it up. It's sort of... closure for myself. I hope you didn't mind the 50-80 year time jumps, because what comes next blows them out of the water...
Review, let me know what you think!
