The world turned.
On one continent, in one forest, at the foot of one mountain, a battle was being fought. Men and demons, mortals and immortals, fought and died alike. Destiny was shaped by every moment, the course of history altered by every sword that joined the fray, every arrow that left a bow. Every minute's clash held a thousand possibilities, every bead of sweat and drop of blood and grain of dirt a mathematician's headache: the inescapable paradox that the probability of any one outcome was infinitesimal, and yet the probability of some outcome was assured.
Steel clashed. Bolts of wood and magic found flesh targets. Warriors died, and their grim replacements roared defiantly into the fields of carnage.
The world turned on.
***
High above the lines of latitude which bound the regions any sane creature would venture, the great still throne of Ner'zhul the Lich King stood, seemingly eternal, lording over the vast, unmapped wastelands at the roof of the world. A layer of frost hung over the whole place, forbidding and foreboding. Nothing moved.
Unchanging the Icecrown glacier seemed, and undying the near-to-immortal lord which sat, entombed, within it. The being called Ner'zhul had lived many lives, and died many deaths, more than any mortal knew. Those who guessed at a sum never neared the truth, for even those who knew him best (and they were few) doubted more than a small handful of incarnations. He had been orc, demon, undead; shaman, warlock, lich; rogue, chieftain, emperor; and a hundred others besides. After so long an existence and so many defeats, even the longest-lived mortal who learned the truth would surely call him ancient.
Time was as meaningless as war fought by men and demons, so far away below him. The Lich King measured his life not in minutes, but in moments, and a moment could be a few seconds or a few centuries. The world turned, and so did Ner'zhul.
***
Far away in a place that resembled a nightmare, the great behemoth Kil'jaeden watched his mirrors with interest. Even the sum of the lifetimes of the many-times-killed Ner'zhul was but a heartbeat in the span of the demon's long existence, and yet, for a moment, his attention was drawn to something. On a tiny, young world, on a slab of green earth amid waves of paltry blue, in a single, minute clearing, something important was about to happen.
***
The Lich King blinked suddenly. It was a small motion, undetectable even if there had been another living being on the other side of his icy prison walls. Yet he had lived so many moments still, frozen, that it seemed as massive and earth-shattering as if all the grim, cold boundaries of his tomb had fallen down around him. His mind was an orgasm of feeling sudden movement, and all he had done was blink one of his unseeing eyes, concealed behind sheets of ice and dark clouds of energy.
Far away, to the south, something important was about to happen, far more so than the paltry war the men and demons fought. In his mind's eye, the blind Lich King looked at a clearing, and saw for the first time the pair of dynamic forces poised to collide – poised to collide because he, blind, had set them on their wretched course.
For the first time since he could remember, Ner'zhul felt apprehension. It was not fear, for it could not harm him. Nor was it lament, for he did not regret its occurring. It was merely an enthralled attention, as if no force in this world or another could stop him from seeing this event through.
***
The world turned on, but Ner'zhul did not notice.
***
Illidan shuddered. Something terrible was coming, something as demonic as he, and as mortal as he as well. He could not explain what it was he felt, only that it was filled with dread. He had to break free of his bonds, had to escape before the terrible something could reach him…
Snap, snap. Ropes broke from his wrists, frayed by the sheer force of his body and his will. He stood, searching with his mind's eye for an escape, any escape…
***
Kokoro stepped cautiously into the clearing, his sword a beacon before him, lighting his feet. The traitor, Arthas, was nowhere to be seen, yet a new creature stood now in the clearing, a being Kokoro had never seen. It appeared to be almost an elf, in the same way Kokoro himself was almost an orc. He stared into the creature's face, which was obscured partly by a blindfold.
"What are you, creature?"
"I am Illidan," the being said simply.
***
Illidan felt, rather than saw, the half-demon he dreaded step into the clearing a few yards from him, and he felt, rather than heard, its words and his own. It would be pointless to run, he realized. He turned to face the creature, his expression grim and resolved. On the ground, Arthas' discarded Runeblade lay, abandoned or forgotten. Illidan picked it up.
"Illidan," the orc-being said. "I am Kokoro. I am here to kill you."
"Come then," Illidan said. This being, he saw, was not his superior but his equal. This duel would be an epic one, a battle royale. To die in this way was honorable, and though it would not absolve his sins, perhaps it would at least earn him peace from the pain he had endured so long.
"Come then," he repeated, smiling slightly as he recalled a similar twilight not long before when another being had uttered the same phrase. "You'll find we're evenly matched."
***
Archimonde howled with triumph, his mighty form illuminated by the flames of the burning human castle. The last smoldering parapet collapsed beside him as he posed majestically atop a grassy hilltop. There was a girl there, a human girl, and she muttered something. Archimonde chuckled at her, and she shouted something in defiance. There was a flash of magic, and she vanished, leaving the great demon to laugh towards the sky.
Far away in the place like a nightmare, and above, at the roof of the world, others knew it was a fool's laughter that insulted the evening sky with its sound. Kil'jaeden and Ner'zhul watched, and with them the great tree itself stared ever down at the howling, snickering Archimonde, and beyond him, to the dynamic forces which clashed in the forest at the mountain's feet.
***
Kokoro lunged forward, his blade singing a symphony of flame and death. Illidan lunged as well, the blade he wielded shrieking in defiance. The weapons clashed, ringing out through the evening air, which crackled with energy.
The orc swung; the elf parried. Illidan lunged again; Kokoro dodged. They circled, struck and retreated, then circled again. In the distance, an owl hooted. Steel blades peeled like bells, and unnatural roars sang in tune. The dance began.