Title: The Lie That is Truth
Description: "Medivh tells Sylvanas the dream she has had but never wants to be realized, and the warning she must abide by."
Notes1: This was ready to go yesterday, but by the time I did have it finished and prepared to upload on the Doc Manager I had to leave for work.
Notes2: Spoilers abound for anyone not in the know about World of Warcraft: Legion, especially in regards to Turalyon and Alleria's fate and apparent involvement. I would figure that Medivh, given his status that he is "among legends", would have considerable knowledge of what goes on throughout all time streams both past, present, and future. This piece was originally just going to be about Medivh talking to Sylvanas about Alleria, but not even a couple days later, when I set out to write this, his trailer was released and outright confirmed Gul'dan's eventual appearance in the game.
Notes3: Yes, I'm still working on that other chapter. It's a bit of long one, and given that I'll be busy with work this Wednesday and Thursday (we're opening up a new store not five minutes from where I live), I won't have too much time on it.
Notes4: Yes, I have seen that HeroStorm episode...and I hated it. It made Sylvanas look like a little bitch, and Sylvanas, in my eyes, is far from that. I much prefer this portrayal of her.
Notes5: Also, I have completely forgotten that it's been a year since this story debuted! Although it's hinted in this chapter that, like all games that run and depend on a central server, it will end someday, I should like to hope that I will continue working on this until that time comes.
"I can see into the future…and regardless of what you may think, she is in it."
She ceased her ministrations, the only movement to be made coming from the ramrod straightening of her ears. When her thoughts finally caught up with her, her body moved of its own accord, dragging down the hand poking at the scar slashing diagonally through one bushy eyebrow and across her forehead to its side. She whirled around, tattered cape flying behind her making a sound like unfurled canvas, and stared at the Guardian. His back was turned to her, his face turned to the town sprawled far and below the cliff they were on. Shire-by the-Rocks, the townsfolk called it, sometimes Hubtown, or even The Hub, home of heroes and villains and the occasional temporal rift. "What?" Sylvanas parroted. She had wanted to say more, plenty more in regards to those words, ask him how he could possibly know, if he could read minds because she wasn't even thinking about her but rather the fact that she gained another such 'trophy' courtesy of that damn Crusader's shield, but this…this was all she could manage: a stupid, shell-shocked, one-worded reply.
"She is in it," Medivh repeated calmly. "When you thought her gone, she was out there, fighting. Far, far away, removed from the chaos of the Burning Legion and its undead swarm. Removed from the bedlam of war, despair, and the shattering of the world. She knows not your fate…but still she thinks. She thinks of you. Your family. Your…home."
"You know nothing, Guardian," Sylvanas ground out in a snarl. "I don't know what brought this on, but if you think for a second that you believe you know me—"
"I see what there is to see," he said, "having taken my place among the legends. But Sylvanas, you must know that where I go, where they are, time flows differently. What has passed for nigh on thirty years on Azeroth…it is nothing compared to what they have been through. The traumas they've endured, the people that have fallen, the worlds that have succumbed to destruction. And yet…hope remains, for the brighter the light shines the darker the shadow grows. She is among that light, her and the High Exarch who was once High General of the Sons of Lothar. They do what they must, what they can to preserve the last remaining world in the Great Dark Beyond."
"You lie." Now she sounded strained, furious, shaken, and it took all her willpower not to outwardly show the fear and impossible hope that suddenly surged within her. "My sister is dead. Her and Turalyon…they're gone. They're gone!"
"So you say," said Medivh, and she could hear the frown in his voice.
"Of course I'm right! The only person who knows me is me! Not you!"
"Are you so certain that is the case?" Finally, he faced her, one shoulder to the backdrop of the town, the wooden raven figurehead that comprised the staff Atiesh staring pointedly in that direction. "If anything, based on what little interaction we've had together and the gossip I hear among the townsfolk, I would say they know more about you than you do yourself." He gave a tight, small smile at the stunned look. "Don't try to hide it. The Nexus changes people—for better or worse, I cannot say; that is strictly up to the individual. I can see well and clear it has affected you; that is why, on many occasions, you, well, indiscriminately murder people when things don't go your way. You don't want things to be that way, so you lash out. But they come back; they always do. It is either the Way of the Nexus, or the Will of the Powers That Be. Even though you are bereft of your people, without the noise and accompaniment of your friends, you would be lost without them. The role of a monarch, even one as self-proclaimed as you, is harsh and lonely. Am I not right?"
By that point, Sylvanas was holding the shadow dagger in her hands. However, the dagger itself remained in its sheath. Her grip on both the sheath and the hilt were hard, unrelenting, anchored. Her frown was deep and severe, the glare in her eyes sharp and challenging, daring the Guardian to speak out of turn so she could refute him, shout him down, have him on his knees and admit he was wrong, wrong, wrong.
And so in turn, the Guardian stared back, stone-faced, yet there was something else she saw. It was the same look she gave Alleria so many years ago, a lifetime ago, when the Second War was in full swing and the Old Horde had scorched the forests of Quel'Thalas. The same look Alleria said for her to wipe clean and buck up, they were Windrunners, the orcs had no remorse for fallen trees or dead little brothers, why should the Quel'dorei be expected to show the same?
It was the face of pity, and it was the very same one Medivh was giving to her right now.
She hated it.
She wanted nothing more than to draw the dagger out and drive it home, right between those damned, hawkish eyes.
And as if he read her mind, Medivh said, "I have already died once, Sylvanas. Killing me a second, third, and fourth time won't do you any favors…and I'm not just saying that because we are in the Nexus. Hard as it may be, given your condition, you should be happy with what you have. Cherish them, if you will. One day the Nexus will have no more need of us and we shall all be returned to whence we came. The memories we have made and will make here…even I cannot say what will become of them. All that may remain of them…might be mere echoes." He turned away from her then, resuming his vigil over the Shire-by-the-Rocks, the feathered cloak hiding the knobby slump of his shoulders. "For now, I would ask for you, for everyone, to be on the alert in the coming days. You have seen the storms on the horizon, have you not? These are not the fractal crashes you are familiar with."
"Anyone with a brain in this hellhole should know what they are," groused Sylvanas. "Even as stupid as they are, they sense that something is off about them. This is demonic, isn't it?"
"Indeed. It is a storm you will not see on this scale for quite a while in your sector, but for me it is one that is all too familiar, a storm made by the presence of a single entity. You will know him, in time. If there is one person you must direct your anger at, let it be him."
"Oh? And what concern is he to me, that I must unleash that anger out on him instead of you?" His words reminded her of the mistake named Varimathras, the foolish idea of accepting him into the Forsaken fold during a time when she was newly raised and not so wise, thinking him easy to manipulate to perform everything at her bidding. Who else could it be in her life that had earned her ire so?
"Because he is the one who made the Old Horde what they were. Through him, they set flame to your home and sowed in the seeds of the destruction that has torn not only your family apart but also your entire race." Medivh peered over his shoulder and, through the fringes of his dark hair and the hood that covered it, stared down at Sylvanas with one dark eye. To Sylvanas, it was like gazing, and falling, into a black, yawning chasm as ancient and terrible as the day of its formation that continued to stretch into eternity. "His name is Gul'dan. Remember it well."