p class="MsoNormal"A blinding light obscured my vision when I exited the portal. When I came to the howling winds of Northrend were blowing once more. I stood upon a platform in the heavens, and for a moment believed myself free. br / "Ahh," a breathy sigh reverberated off the helm of the Lich King. "You've finally arrived, dragon." Perched upon the shattered Frozen Throne, the fully plated and seemingly recovered Jailor of the Damned stared out at me with nothing but fearsome blue eyes. His gauntleted hand rested on Frostmourne's hilt, the tip of the blade standing vigilant in the ice. With a clatter of frosted armour, Arthas stood and beckoned me forth with his free hand. As I approached the steps of the throne, I heard another deathly sound. Raising my head, I immediately found its source. Attached to two ginormous pillars of ice, bound by chains of spiked steel, was the flame-ridden body of Bolvar Fordragon. He moaned again, low in the back of his throat, a desperate, haunting plea. Where armour had protected him before there was nothing. His light skin was now blackened and charred, the inner mechanisms of him now glowing with dragon-fire. Whether he was falling apart from the fire inside of him or from the torture he was enduring was unknown, but his undead corpse was torn across the chest, legs and shoulders nonetheless. When he opened his eyes to see to whom Arthas was speaking, he locked gazes with me with orbs of pure flame. The sight of him in its entirety was unsettling at / "Pay no heed to him," Arthas hissed, spinning around and jutting Frostmourne to the paladin's throat. "He is nothing to you." He tipped Bolvar's head back a little with the dull end of the blade. Bolvar sneered in response, still fighting the Lich King in his weakened state. With a whirl of his cape, Arthas began to tread down the stairs of the throne until he stood before me. Empowered by necromancer magic unlike any I had ever seen, Arthas was a monstrous height for a human. Most humanoids, even the tallest races, barely reached the shoulder of a dragon, but Arthas stood at a height that made it almost possible for him to look me in the eyes. br / "I have a great use of you in my ranks, dragon," he started, admiring me at this close distance. "You, along with the other wyrms I have raised over the years, would make a stellar army against the living. You would be reborn into an immortal form not unlike the one you were born into. I will return to you your powers of transformation and give you many more if you swear fealty to my cause. You, sweet Deridovely, would become a death knight like no other. What say you?" A shiver ran up my spine as he said my name. I let the silence talk for me, hesitant to even consider the offer. From below the platform, I heard the calls of my own, twisted by the Lich King's will. From the fog came the beating of giant wings. Huge talons gripped onto the edge, dragging up a leviathan of pure bone. From its jaws breathed an azure fog, so thick was it that even Bolvar choked on it from his vantage. The frost wyrm grasped to the platform, obviously unable to land on it for fear of disintegrating it under its weight. The split second before it spoke to me, I had something in the back of my mind that recognised the dragon before me. emSindragosa./em There had been rumours of her recent resurrection; the wild mistress of Malygos had found another, equally insane counterpart it seemed. br / "A child of Ysera," she murmured, her whispers swirling around me like mist. "Whatever would you be doing with a dragon of the Emerald Dream, Arthas?" The great dragon turned her bony face to her master, her sinews replaced with cerulean necromancy that kept her together. br / "This one came to us," the Lich King replied. "And the Undead of Lordaeron provided me with the means to take her for myself." The teeth of that skull cracked open into a massive grin as she laughed. So maniacal was her fit that even Arthas seemed taken aback. br / "And yet the Life-binder saves the human. A piteous paladin!" she cackled, her beady eyes darting to me. "I always knew Alexstrasza was more for these wretched creatures than her own! She sent her brood to murder my mate in the humans' defence! What emdragon,/em" she strained the word, "chooses tiny bipeds over her own?" Slowly she turned her head to me, as if expecting me to answer her. I couldn't. "I may have sided with Arthas," she continued now, beginning to defend herself, "but he has given me a second chance, and a second flight to lord over. I am again a mother, and my children shall be immortal, young one. I would take care of you, because I feel quite sorry that your mother has abandoned you." A massive claw came towards me, and frozen in fear I allowed this crazed monstrosity to stroke me with it. Almost seductively, she breathed, "what have you got to lose?"br / emMy honour and integrity, /emI thought, coming to my senses for a moment, drinking in the situation with a clear head. But I could not deny she had a point; unlike any of my green dragon counterparts, I had been left to suffer the horrors of the Lich King's spiritual domain. The Dream was not to be my eternal resting place; had Ysera truly forsaken me? The Life-binder herself had even forgotten me. emVerias/em had left me. After all the effort I'd made in their stead, why would they leave me here to rot? It was then I felt the same twinge I had felt awakening in the Forge of Souls – Frostmourne sparked hungrily with purple energy. Arthas raised the weapon to me. br / "Should you choose to decline, I could just as easily do to you as I did to Sylvanas." The Banshee Queen had been risen by the Lich King upon his desecration of Quel'Thalas, the elven stronghold. A very capable warrior, Sylvanas had regained at least some of her humanity from Arthas and escaped to rule the undead of Lordaeron… the very same who were responsible for my death, and countless others, in the first place. It felt like I had no choice; willingly or not I was to be used by a soulless murderer for his own gain. I only hoped that my decision would at least allow me to keep some of my sentience. br / "You've convinced me, Menethil," I lied, as convincingly as my sneering jaws would allow. "In return for what you have offered me I shall join your cause." Frostmourne was lowered from my face and I felt like I could breathe again, even despite being a spirit. Sindragosa smiled again, this time a more twisted grin of accomplishment. Her bony wings spread once more as she pushed off the ledge with a screech, diving into the hordes of dragons below who chorused with her. br / "Don't think I will trust you so explicitly from now on dragon. You have not yet lost your mind, like Sindragosa has," Arthas murmured. He raised his free hand again, beckoning a flurry of bones from the ground far below the platform. I watched with great awe as the necromancy was set to work, a new body being built from scratch. From horn to tail the bony drake was almost identical to my form in life, minus the skin of course. With a landscape wave of his hand Arthas puppeteered the skeleton, filling it with animation as it roared and spread its wings. br / "This is the weapon I promised you," he muttered. "Use it well… and wisely." Like a vortex, I felt my very essence being absorbed by my new host. Darkness enveloped me as my soul settled in this new form. When I awoke I felt heavy and weighted again. I could barely stand, my legs faltering under me as if I was a new born calf. Digging new claws, as black as pitch, into the ice for the first time to steady myself, I remembered what it was like to be a dragon. Through these eyes, the world was tinted blue, and without skin I could not feel the elements. As I regained my posture and tested out my limbs, unrestricted by ligaments, vessels and muscles, I felt the power fill me. Never had I once felt so unstoppable, so unkillable… so numb. I had a life back; numbness was a small price to pay. But power was not the only feeling rising in / "I crave… flesh," I observed, turning to Arthas once more. "Human flesh. Is this your method of control on me?"br / "On all of my frost wyrms, they do my bidding out of hunger. You are no different." You could almost hear the grin behind his feature-darkening helm. "I could show you how to sate that hunger. RISE!" The sky darkened at his beckoning, a thunderous applaud of wings filling the air. Once more, Sindragosa brought her brood from the depths, and wyrms of all shapes and sizes soared above the platform. My wings instinctively drove me into the pack, the broodmother crowing her delight with a draconian roar of unnatural proportions. Her children welcomed me with mirrored calls, jostling me almost playfully with bumps and scratches. The Lich King swept his hand back and forth, as if dusting off a great table, and as he did so the clouds and mist below parted to reveal Icecrown from where I could only assume was the very peak of the Citadel. The Citadel's grounds stretched farther than I could have imagined; forges of reanimation filling the gaps between huge walkways that stretched into the distance. Each walkway was guarded by various abominations, from plague hounds to colossal bone giants to liches conducting chanting choirs. The ice past that was swarming with undead, and in the very centre of Icecrown, Alliance and Horde were again waging war together against the Scourge. With my new eyes, I could see all this and more. The screeches and howls stopped as Arthas plunged Frostmourne into the glassy frost and raised his hands to the / "FLY! Lay waste to the living!" And with their orders given, a storm of dragons descended on the battlefields below, and I along with them./p