Title: Another Nightmare Comes Walking
Description: "Sylvanas and her living counterpart try to make sense of Zul'jin's appearance in the Nexus."
Notes1: I had just started writing this around the time the teaser GIFs for Zul'jin showed up on HotS' Facebook page, but I was very surprised that he came so soon into the game without being tested on the PTR. I bought him earlier today and broke him in on a couple matches (and, as usual and per tradition, I lost all three as of this post). Someone told me I sucked with him, and I laughed because I thought to myself 'This guy hasn't even been out a couple hours and you're already judging me based on my first match?' Ah, the stupidity of some people. (In all seriousness, Zul'jin is like a ranged Illidan, and Illidan is one of my assassin mains; I'll get the hang of him.)
Notes2: I've only read The Golden Compass years ago out of the His Dark Materials trilogy, and while I can't say it has massive mind screws and philosophical jargon as Ranger-General Sylvanas makes it out to be, I hope it'd make for an interesting yarn to read when I actually get around to it on my reading backlog someday. However, I do have a fascination with philosophy and used to go about different websites looking up the variety of conspiracy theories and world and universe-ending scenarios, which would kind of explain my love for post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction. (I really don't like zombie stories too much, though; they're about as generic as battle school/harem anime.)
Notes3: This is just one of those drabbles that really shows just how much my mind wanders and just goes with the flow sometimes. I used to take Paxil in my teens to treat my depression, so when I look back on it now I can't be sure whether or not some of my more outlandish ideas came from a burgeoning imagination or the meds doing their thing.
Notes4: I wasn't going to bring back Ataraxas for this chapter at first, mainly because I don't want to instill it with a sense of fatigue as I did with dragging out the previous chapter, but I liken the idea of bringing that OC and the others back into the fold eventually when the chapter calls for it. Let's face it, Doodle's got everyone beat by a mile because he's an Undertale OC and a dog. Not many people can resist the cuteness of a time-warping, possibly ageless puppy dog.
Notes5: And, as far as work goes: my hours have been cut back slightly with the holidays now out of the way, but I'll still be pulling eight-nine hour shifts with the recent firings I've heard talk about in the past week. I might be able to focus on and squeeze in another drabble by this coming Monday when I have another day off, but that's counting on it not being ridiculously long like some of the others have turned out to be.

"God hates me," said the Banshee Queen Sylvanas.

"No, God hates me," the Ranger-General Sylvanas corrected her. "God gave you Arthas and four other variants to stare in the face for every day you spend your life here in the Nexus."

"No, you're wrong. God gave me everyone and resurrective immortality to rage about."

"Hey, God gave me that, too, you know. God gave everyone that. Well, except, you know—"

"Yes, those people." The Banshee Queen nodded. "I used to think being immortal would be great. It wasn't until I entered the Nexus and had Uther make the standard introductions did I learn it is not the greatest thing in the universe when everyone, their dog, and their ancestor has it!" She spat this last sentence out as though it tasted vile.

The Ranger-General shrugged. "I can't say the same, because I never had to deal with Arthas. You see, while God gave you him, his variants, and everything under the sun to inflict crimes of vehicular and physical description and vitriolic abuse to vent your frustrations, I was given this." She gestured at the steel-forged axe embedded into the base of the tree. There was a caricature of the Lich King Arthas on a sheet of paper that had been split in two from where the axe had been thrown. As much as the Banshee Queen loathed him, she had come to find it very tiring (and boring) that anyone, and any Hero, who didn't have a beef with him suddenly declared him Target Number One of the Highest Priority. If they were looking to get a laugh out of her, it didn't work; not anymore. "I wonder what sector the Powers will pull Zul'jin from. Hopefully not during his imprisonment."

Sylvanas shrugged. "Where I come from he lived a few more years. He had heard about the Fall, about the high elves renaming themselves Sin'dorei and joining Thrall's Horde, and decided it was as good a time as any to try again." She sniffed. "He failed. Big time." Yet some trolls, especially those among the Revantusk tribe, fervently believed he was not dead but missing, he would return and bring the Amani the glory and power that was their birthright at their peak so very long ago. They were such utter morons. "If you're lucky, maybe They'll yank him from a point in time where he lost the ability to regenerate his eye and arm. Disabled targets are much easier to put down."

The other Sylvanas frowned. "Not even a leg? Bah. Just my luck. The Powers truly hate me. Us. I don't know. They hate us with equal measure, maybe more than God."

"I suppose so." The Banshee Queen's ears flicked. "Wait, which god are we talking about? We keep talking about god in the singular, Christian sense."

The Ranger-General lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "I guess. You kind of started it. I just went along with it."

"Who did you think I was talking about? One of the Powers?"

"At first."

"Well, who exactly would hate us more than—"

"Ra," they echoed at the same time, the Ranger-General tacking it on with a roll of her eyes.

"I don't know. The Gravekeeper and the Raven Lord, maybe? They always seem to be snide whenever we fight for one or the other at the Towers."

"Eh, the Gravekeeper sees me more a little more favorably, given what I did to all those ravens a few months back."

"This was before Medivh, right? Or was that after?"

"Before."

"That still feels so wrong. What you did to the birds, I mean. And Morales' ship."

"Doodle ate well that day."

"I guess he burned all that weight off with all that warping he does. Anyway, the Raven Lord can't hate us both equally because you've already earned his ire. What about…what were their names again…Ilarian and Beleth?"

"If Ilarian is anything to go by, then he doesn't have a stick up his ass for fighting under a demon lord like Tyrael said Imperius would have if he were ever to be summoned here. On the other hand, Beleth doesn't care; he just wants a good fight."

"If you call an eternal stalemate a 'good fight', then by all means." Both default and variant cracked a smile and a snicker.

"Does it really matter who hates us?" the undead Sylvanas postulated. "Half the Powers have been at war with each other for millennia and the other half either fights on our behalf, against the Realm of Shadows, or anyone and anything that follows the Riftwalkers through the Greater Rifts."

"Maybe the universe is not a person but an idea," said the living Sylvanas. "An omnipresent, omniscient quantum equation that has little to no regard for the morality and emotional wellbeing of its seeded applicants that traverse the land, the seas, the skies, and the stars across the space-time continuum. An equation that is right and wrong and just does."

The Banshee Queen stared at her with a blank expression slowly breaking into curiosity and exasperation. "You've been reading His Dark Materials again, haven't you?"

"Of a sort," the other answered, matter-of-factly. "Metaphysics really knows how to wrap and strangle the mind. You should try reading the textbooks sometimes. Some of them are outdated, but they're very interesting. You know: Descartes, Heidegger, Confucius. Not as run of the mill as your beloved post-apocalyptic fiction. There's only so much you can tell in a zombie story before it starts getting redundant."

"Sometimes I just want to see the world burn. At least in my imagination," said the Banshee Queen. "Ragnaros would do well to do the same. Have you heard he's already on probation?"

"You mean other than turning Kael'thas into a Roman candle again? No, I didn't. What happened?"

"Evening, ladies," said a rough, masculine voice, and the two Sylvanases turned to see Rexxar approaching. Misha lumbered behind him, black nose snuffling. One look at the undead elf and the bear's eyes narrowed distastefully. "Heard there was quite the crowd here earlier. Something about an axe."

"No, it's your death warrant," said the Banshee Queen. "It says here that if you chant Salt 'n' Peppa's 'Whatta Man' under this tree three times when the blue hour strikes, a lesser rift will open and drag you into the Spaces In Between, where the Cow King will rock your world so hard your soul will be blasted from your body and will hurdle through dimensions for all eternity."

The living Sylvanas tried not to gawk incredulously at her, so the expression came off as a sour grimace. "Why does that sound familiar?"

Rexxar snorted. "Go look up Stephen King next time you're at the Grand Nexus Library. It's…a bit more creative than what you usually come up with, but much too bodacious. Not even horrific. Get good, girl." The undead Sylvanas responded with a severe scowl. Rexxar moved forward and both women stepped aside to allow the half-orc and his beast closer for a better look. He nodded knowingly and ran his fingers along the axe's handle. "Pretty heavy. Strong. Don't think it's ironwood; probably something similar to it." His nostrils flared once, twice. "Smells pretty rank, too. I think a bear pissed on it."

Both Sylvanases yelped and recoiled away in horror, wiping their hands on their leggings. Misha huffed and looked at her master with hooded eyes. Really? she seemed to ask him.

Rexxar grinned. "I'm kidding. It's just troll sweat. Still pretty nasty, though, so that means he was here a while ago. Wonder if he'll find his way to the Board."

"Well he can stay lost for all I care," said the Banshee Queen. "Or be at home. Why shack up in a crowded dorm when you can climb up a tree and call it home? Forest trolls are basically your domestic cats on two legs. With moss instead of skin. And mumbo-jumbo voodoo regeneration." She scowled. "Cats are dicks enough as it is. We don't need them transitioning and becoming immortal like he probably is right now."

"Thanks for reminding me," the Ranger-General grumbled. "Goddammit." She glared at the grass carpeting the base of the tree and scuffed with a foot.

"Maybe this is his home," Rexxar grunted. "Could've put his axe here to let people know. That it's claimed. Although that doesn't explain what a doodle of Arthas is doing here, of all places. Did you do that, Sylvanas?"

"Hell no," the undead elf responded right away, when he looked her way. "I'd have put a bull's-eye on it if I did. Devil horns, too. Oh, and one of those swirly mustaches you see villains sporting from the really old cartoons from the 1940's. Maybe even a tongue—"

"Yeah, that's great. Thing is, he might come back for the axe later, and how do you think he'll react when he sees you on his turf, eh?"

"What do you mean 'us'? You're on his turf, too!" said the Ranger-General.

"I don't have much to worry about," he said, shrugging. "I'm part orc, part ogre. Both of you are elves. Forest trolls can't stand your kind, right? Makes more sense for Vol'jin—"

"Zul'jin," the Banshee Queen corrected him, forcing the word out between her teeth.

"One'jin, Two'jin, Super Saiya-jin, whatever his name is. He's going to be angry at you. Maybe he'll rally all the trolls that are from some off-shoot universe of Azeroth or another universe that has trolls and wage war against the Azeroth elves and the not-elves." He paused. "Huh. Now that I mention it, it makes me wonder how the hell the Nexus isn't fundamentally bankrupt from all the wars going on for so long. Like, how has Jeetilopolis not been nuked with their constant power struggles and fluctuating stock markets?"

"Tourism. Celebrity names competing in the League. Sponsorships and charities. Potluck dinners. Discovery of lost, ancient technologies and resources the mainstream media and self-professed experts claim are 'new' and 'unnatural'." The living Sylvanas ticked off on one hand, then dropped it to her side and gave Rexxar an unamused stare. "The freaking lotteries."

"Oh, I hate those things," said the undead Sylvanas, upper lip curling. "It's like Black Friday, Blacker Saturday, and Blackest Sunday all rolled up in one."

"Money is one helluva drug."

"Well, anyway," said Rexxar, "he'll come back when he realizes he's a weapon short. Unless he's got a hold of some of that Hammer-Space at one of those gas stations or podunks out in the boonies. I mean, how do you think I throw all those axes when I carry just two?"

"That's if he even knows what a gas station is," the Banshee Queen scoffed with a roll of her eyes. The warm-blooded Sylvanas snorted and folded her arms over her chest, grinning wolfishly.

Rexxar looked miffed. "Okay, so let's say he does get lost. He might wind up going all the way to Galadhos or hit up an Anchor Gate and, uh, accidentally transport himself to one of those pre-Luxorian ruins. You never know!"

"The mainland ruins are nowhere near as steeped in shadowtaint than the ruins here," she said. "Even when the masses are at their most idiotic, they're usually under lock and key by the regional sultanates. And what interest would he have in Galadhos? After what happened the last time we were there, Fardon got the whole Association to revise their entire hiring process and double down on the background checks."

"If you had just let me keep everything, it wouldn't have come to that," Rexxar said in a low, dangerous rumble.

"I couldn't give a damn about the rest of those artifacts, but that was Thas'dorah, dammit! Thas'dorah. And it's because of you the thing got sucked into a Rift!"

"Well I hope it went to Mexico so that little girl with the talking map can actually stop talking and whoop some ass for once in her life!"

"Even though I don't care who started it, it was still wrong of you to deny my counterpart her heirloom," the Ranger-General calmly put forward. "Why didn't you take that one weapon instead? What was it again, Sylvanas? A talking axe?"

"Ataraxas, I think."

"Yeah, that. Why didn't you take that instead, Rexxar?"

"Uh…look at me?" he said, patting down the twin axes—and the cans of Hammer-Space—strapped to his massive belt. "I dual wield. Ataraxas was a large, double-headed two-hander. What use would I have for it? I'd lose sleep over listening to it rambling about its true form or how it might try to possess me or Misha and go around the Shire slaughtering people and harvesting souls from the Gravekeeper for whatever nefarious, New Wave fiction-styled purpose it has in store. Some drivel like that."

"Whatever happened to those artifacts, anyway?" asked the living Sylvanas.

"Last I heard, almost all of them were corrupted when they sent the Realm Knights and a bunch of suits in to clear the area and bring them back to decontaminate and purify," said the undead Sylvanas. She made a twirling motion in the air with her hand, scowling, as though she was attempting to dispel the aforementioned image from memory. "It's…going to be a while before we're allowed to traverse Galadhos unimpeded—and unsupervised—again."

"Didn't the NIB, the Hubland Border Patrol, and the Realm Knights slap you with an arrest on sight warrant if you step one thousand feet within Galadhos when they took you into custody? On top of charging you with first-degree murder outside of a sanctioned League match before you got out on bail?"

The Banshee Queen stared blankly back at her. "Has a piece of paper or an email ever stopped me before?" Her counterpart only balked and shook her head. Misha made a soft, knowing groan and licked her lips.

Rexxar put a hand to his chin and looked past the two high elves, in the direction where he thought Galadhos lay. "Huh…Wonder if they managed to get that thing outta that cabinet."

Somewhere far away from Galadhos, locked away in a thrice-reinforced antechamber in the Starless Depths, Ataraxas howled and made another dent in the systems. It rattled in its bonds and raged, cursing the Powers, the Knights that tore it from its high and harried it away through the Anchor Gate, and the Hero that had to be hauled off the heathen beastman's broken form when they tore through the spatial fabricks at the onset of the bursting corruption. It made the nearby monks keeping watch over it jump and bend over their clasped hands and smoldering unguents, mumbling hasty prayers and suppressant incantations in geometric shapes comprised from magicka obscura. The anti-tampering protocols contained therein kicked in and went to work.