AN: I'm sorry this is a really short chapter T.T BUT we're so far, so good on schedule *fingers crossed*

Reaching his chambers, Varian closed his eyes and lingered in the hall right outside of the bedroom. He steeled his nerves and woodened his resolve, preparing himself for whatever lay inside the room waiting for him. Sylvanas said they had at most two days; two days to find a fix to this, two days to pull Anduin away from a premature death that no child his age should have to face. For years, Varian had shepherded as much as he could of Anduin's days, longing only to keep the boy out of harm's way and ensure his safety. It was stupid to bring him. He should've just dealt with the teenage tantrum and told Anduin he was done allowing him to step into caustic affairs. Garrosh's trial was bad enough, and he still berated himself for failing as a parent by allowing the prince to be there.

Clearly that had been as bad of a decision as this.

Taking in a shaky breath, he opened the door without knocking and stepped inside.

A sigh of relief that nearly made him fall to his knees swept out of his lungs as he saw Anduin sitting up in bed talking to Velen seated beside him. Though the boy looked beyond spent, exhaustion pulling at his features and making him look unnaturally flaxen with dark circles under his eyes, to see him awake and breathing gave Varian a renewed sense of fight. He'd find an antidote. And if not, he'd personally level each of the Horde capitals in his wrath, sparing no expense on military measures and showing no mercy even if they begged.

From the forced smile that filled Anduin's face at seeing the High King, he knew Velen had told him everything.

"How do you-"

"I feel fine," the prince hastily replied, though they both grinned grimly, seeing it for the lie that it was. "I.. I'm tired and breathing is difficult. But Velen's helped much with that and… and I think maybe once my body is willing to take more of the Light in, I'll be able to fight this."

Trying not to show his doubt in front of his son out of fear of shattering his spirits - spirits that'd need to stay elated as he faced an uphill battle - Varian shot a glance at Velen, trying to read the reality of the situation from the venerable Draenei's features. But that was hopeless; the aged priest was meticulous with his emotions, keeping them impossibly in check and tucked inward.

"He'll need much rest," Velen began as he gracefully pressed himself up from the small chair, rearranging his robes as he rose to his full, towering height. "But Anduin is strong and the Light adores him so. I will not lead you in disillusions, though, neither of you. It is a strong disease and I cannot tell you the chances for outcomes. That lies with his body now. But I will be back on the hour to check on him and attempt to give him more healing." He turned more pointedly at the boy. "And no healing yourself. Or even attempting it, Anduin. You must retain your strength."

The prince lowered his head in a bowed gesture. "Thank you, Velen. I don't know how I shall ever repay yo-"

"And nor should you ever," the Draenei sharply cut him off with a warm smile before turning to the High King. "It is unwise to move him in his state, so if it would be more comfortable, I can request different accommodations for you so that I do not disturb you throughout the night."

Varian sharply shook his head. "I'm not leaving my son." His voice and expression softened as the priest moved towards the door. "Thank you for your help in this. I've given the Horde until sunrise to give me an antidote. Whether they do or not, that's to be seen. The ultimatum may encourage Vol'jin to take a more commanding stance."

Velen didn't question what the ultimatum was, nor did he have to. Seeing the sheer determination of a worried father told him all he needed to know. "No matter the outcome, King Varian, I shall support you."

Words dried up in the High King's throat at the implications in the Draenei's comment. It was a loaded oath of fealty, touching on the dreary, anguished potential for his son's far to soon demise. No, he wouldn't even consider it. It wasn't going to happen.

"I will see you in the hour."

Nodding once as the priest left, Varian paused with his back to his son, feeling his stare on him. He didn't know what to say, didn't know what he could say. All he knew was a harsh mixing of rage and concern bathing together, the potency so high he was tempted to slaughter as many Forsaken as he could. The guards would stop him, maybe even kill him. But if his son was already gone, he'd have no care anymore or drive to live on. Where the word was dark and dreary, Anduin was the light that he always found illuminating in the darkest of corners. His benevolence flirted with his naive traits, but that benevolence was refreshing and innocent, reminding Varian that there was still good in a world tainted with hatred and constant warfare. Out of everyone on Azeroth, for the teen to be struggling for his life was unfair and cruel. He didn't deserve it, just as he didn't deserve suffering all of his bones being shattered by a bell, just as he didn't deserve being kidnapped by a dragon and nearly killed by her.

"Father… I'm sorry."

Varian closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths.

Slowly turning around, he said nothing at first as he approached, his eyes unable to meet the glassiness of his child's. Moving to sit on the edge of his bed, facing the boy, he slowly unclasped the buckles on his plate gloves and slid them off. His hands were scarred and calloused from fights and warfare, of battles won. "It's me that should be apologizing," he began in a quiet voice. "I can lead campaigns to kill the Lich King, overcome Garrosh, fight in Outlands. But I can't save my own son."

A smaller hand reached forward, grabbing onto one of his. Varian looked up and almost lost himself at the tearful gaze resting on him. "I'm going to be fine, father. I promise you."

He smiled ruefully and fought back the emotion clawing up his throat. "You were always a horrible liar. But in this instance, I wish you weren't."

Anduin said nothing for a few moments, only relishing the feel of the larger, warmer hand holding his. "If… If something does happen…. You have to promise me that you won't do-"

"Anduin…"

"Please. For me. Promise me that. Promise me that you won't… you won't… go to war for this. We've had enough fighting and killing, and making more of it won't be the answer."

Pressing his lips into a tight line, Varian looked down at the smaller hand so much different from his own. But that's how Anduin was; where the High King hungered for peace through conquest and war, the prince sought it through diplomatic ways. A pacifist and selfless even in the end, the King shook his head. "I can't make that promise, Anduin."

The fingers curled around the scarred ones. "Then I'll be sure to live."

"We cannot let this continue. There is no honor in this! He is a child, Vol'jin! A boy!"

"A boy that happens to be the crown prince and on the eve of inheriting the throne, I'll point out. I should be thanked, I should be rewarded. I shouldn't have to answer to the orc that ran from the Horde and put a tyrant in his stead!"

"Enough!"

The room full of Horde leaders and advisors turned silent at the troll's booming voice. It was far into the night, the moon long past having reached its zenith and the hour ticking past midnight. The emergency meeting had been called immediately following the eventful dinner, bringing the different leaders to conjoin in a private room tucked on the main level of the lodge. Irony at its best, it was one of the rooms purposed to encourage the fostering of peace between the factions over the course of the week. Now it was repurposed to attempt to stave off a war.

Vol'jin leaned back in a chair and looked around the room quietly. Sylvanas and Thrall were nearly at each other's necks, no longer able to sit quietly in their seats and just barely holding their wits from reaching for their weapons. In hindsight, he should've had them leave them at the door with the guards. Her chief ranger, Nathanos, sat stiffly in the chair as he watched with intense scarlet eyes, reading his body language and waiting for the threat to heighten before he pounced. Baine sat far away from both of them, his face cast in concern and bother; it'd become well-known during the trial that the Tauren chieftain thought fondly of Anduin, something that would need to be addressed at some point. Further from him sat Lor'themar and Brightwing, both of them favoring a couch tucked against the window and mostly offset from the rest of the group. The two elves had said next to nothing during the meeting with the disconcerting exception of their whispered Thalassian words to each other. Gallywix didn't seem to care, giving a few noncommittal grunts and kept a close vigil on the clock as the meeting churned into the night.

"If we be doin' nothin' and di boy dies, di Horde is forced back inna war. A war we aren't prepared tuh fight. Nuh so close afta Garrosh," Vol'jin's voice came out neutral. In truth, he didn't care at all whether the human boy lived or died. But he did care about the integrity of their faction, and he saw a vicious firestorm from a mile away.

"Afraid of a little war, Warchief?" Sylvanas mocked with a lopsided grin. "This will be the best opportunity we have then. Wrynn's whelp will be turned on our side, Stormwind will have no heir, and Varian will be devastated, hardly fit to run a kingdom, let alone a war."

"You think Varian is going to roll over in depression when you kill his only son?" Thrall snarled back. "You're going to bring an end to an already wartorn people who are just beginning to recover!"

Taking a breath, Lor'themar pressed himself to his feet, followed by Brightwing. "I've heard quite enough," he began in an accented Orcish, his tongue always having preferred the human's Common to their people's relatively new allies. "Should you choose this route, Warchief, it is your decision to do so. But the Sin'dorei will not stand with you in that war. We were near forced to follow one tyrant with ill-conceived thoughts, and I'll not damn my people to follow another."

"Traitor," Sylvanas hissed, turning on the twin blood elves. "Not that it should surprise us much. Is this all just a convenient time for you, Lor'themar? Missing your human companions?"

"It's sanity and sound logic that I miss, Sylvanas," he replied back in a deadpanned tone. "One bloodcrazed royal laying ruin to our city was enough. I'm not eager to find myself in Wrynn's path."

Lingering his gaze on the Sin'dorei for a beat or two, Vol'jin looked down at the table, praying to find some kind of answers hidden there. With a sigh, he looked up at Thrall. "And yuh? Where duh yuh allegiances lie?"

A silence consumed the room, all eyes expectantly waiting on shaman that helped save their world and their faction countless times, led their people into conquest and out of slavery, and find flourishment in a desolate lands where there shouldn't have been any. "When I first demanded an audience with Grommash Hellscream, I was presented with a human child. A boy, the son of farmers. I was told to kill him to show my devotion to the Orcs and that I wasn't a human sympathizer after a lifetime with them. But I refused, for while he was a human and could very well take up arms against us in the heat of battle, I would not kill him outside of it. Let him grow and step foot in that battle, if that is his destiny, was my response, and I would kill him then. But killing a defenseless child has no honor, and I refuse as much today as I did then."

Nodding slowly, Vol'jin tapped his finger a few times on the table. "Sylvanas, I order yuh tuh deliver di antidote tuh his father by di mornin'. Di Horde will not follow dis warpath for yuh personal pleasures."

Snarling as Nathanos rose, Sylvanas slowly shook her head. "I refuse. And when he dies and you realize how foolish you all were, I'll be accepting your apologies and rewards. Until then..." With a sharp flick of her wrist, gesturing for the ranger to fall into step with her, the banshee swept from the room in an angered rush.

"If I may," Lor'themar stepped forward, his fel-tainted eyes lingering on the opened doorway of where the forsaken retreated from and hesitated, waiting to see if she'd come storming. After a few moments, the Regent Lord took a deep breath and squared his regal shoulders, his stance always seeming to permeate his pristine mannerisms. "The Scar in Quel'thalas has allowed our alchemists and scholars the rare opportunity to study the blight rather intimately. There have been some successful cases of medicines being fermented to fight off early onset of the disease. It's not always perfect and requires the overseeing of a trained healer but it is close to an antidote."

Thrall spoke before Vol'jin could address him, already reading the situation and seeing the glimmer of hope. "If you can get the items and bring them here, I can do the rest. We'll need it by sunrise, however."

The Sin'dorei leader didn't look the least bit perplexed at the timeframe. "A portal can be made to Silvermoon immediately. I'll have it to you by dawn."

After hours of preparing for the potential onset of a war when they should've been entertaining notions of an accord and peace, the meeting was adjourned and Thrall began his trek back to his own chambers to prepare for the morning. It would be exhausting, to say the least, his own experience with the disease profoundly limited and mostly only having heard of its ill effects. To fight it with his harnessing of the elements would be asking his deity for new strengths, but he wasn't intimidated by the task.

Crossing the lodge's main foyer that now lay empty and barren, all of the diplomats and advisors having retreated to the comfortable confines of their rooms and waiting to see what the next day would bring, Thrall didn't expect to see anyone. A comfortable silence would've suited him just fine, allowing him the luxury to fight with his thoughts and bolster his confidence when it began to wane. It wasn't the elements that he doubted but his own prowess in funneling their strengths.

About to take a turn down a corridor, a familiar streak of chestnut hair caught his attention, making the Orc pause. Drawing slightly closer, Thrall felt his hammering heart still in his chest at the sight before him, a sight that shattered his own military mind in seeing some advantages of what Sylvanas said, and making his own personal narrative come to the forefront of his thoughts.

Sitting in a far alcove in the barren lobby, dressed without the normal imposing armor that suited him like a second skin, was King Varian Wrynn. And if it wasn't for the telltale long ponytail of messy brown hair and his notoriously broad shoulders, the Orc might've just passed him off as another human. It wasn't the fact that he was there that made Thrall pause; it was the defeated sight that told him he wasn't looking at a King fretting for the continued bloodline of his House and people, but a father worrying about the delicate life of his child.

The king didn't see him. His face was covered by his hands that he slumped forward into, fingers curled angrily into the strands of renegade hair that fell around his face. Those broad shoulders that were strong enough to carry the weight of plate pauldrons quaked as silent sobs wracked his body. And in that moment, Thrall's mind immediately went to Aggra and his own toddler son. To his family that he swore to protect beyond anything in the world or the next. His offspring was a mere child and innocent to the ways of war, and if Thrall could help it, he'd keep it that way. But he wasn't a pawn to be moved across board or exploited for leverage. And at least in Thrall's case, he was given the peace of mind that he could keep his son safe by keeping his presence and whereabouts out of the public eye.

Varian wasn't given that luxury. Anduin's very existence and life was watched from the moment he took his first breath.

Nodding slowly to himself, Thrall turned quietly away from the scene, granting the father back his privacy and dignity, and hurried in the direction of his rooms.