Author: I kinda want to turn this into a longer story, but I can only see it becoming ridiculous and time-consuming, and I'm not sure where I'd go with it.

Disclaimer: Blizz has the copyright.

~Heir~

Medivh turned the astroglobe over in his hands as the stars above him wheeled about in their sacred cosmic dance. He was more pensive than usual, and had dismissed Khadgar and Morose and forgone dinner in favor of his thoughts, the future unduly bothering him.

I will have a son, he thought as he put the instrument down. His name will be Med'an. I hadn't thought Garona would include a part of my name in his, but I am unfamiliar with orcish naming customs.

The knowledge meant little to Medivh. Med'an was simply a means to an end, a child created to fulfill prophecy and necessity. Medivh would never know the boy, and harbored neither remorse nor affection for the child he had helped create.

Like mother like son, I suppose, he thought distantly as he watched the stars whirl around his head without care for the mortals far below.

Still, the world would need Med'an, and the vows of a Guardian still struggled to live within Medivh, so he would do something to help the humans he perversely wanted to see eliminated.

But when we finally meet, nothing but an echo of me will exist, Medivh thought, brow furrowing. So much will be lost to time! So much of my knowledge, my research, my discoveries, will fade into the void. I can't let that happen. There must be a way…

Medivh began to pace the circumference of his observatory. Books can get lost, relics can be broken, I can't trust anything physical, but then what…?

The answer, when it came to him, should have been obvious.

Of course, he thought with mild satisfaction. Khadgar has been apprenticed to me so I may pass on my knowledge. It's only fair that he receives it.

Medivh gestured and reappeared standing in a balcony over the library proper. He smiled faintly, the expression slightly mad as he walked leisurely, carefully down the ramp. He found, to his amusement, his apprentice deep asleep, hunched and sprawled over a book, papers scattered around him.

Medivh smiled quietly and lightly rested his hand on Khadgar's head.

"When you pierce my heart with steel, all my knowledge will be passed on to you," he murmured in less than a whisper. "It will live in you, grow in you so slowly that it would seem simply like natural progress. However, when you meet A'dal, my knowledge will go into hibernation. It wouldn't be good for you to be remembering darker magicks in the presence of a being of such Light."

Medivh ran his fingers carefully through Khadgar's hair. "But you will eventually be called back to here, back from the Outland, to be an advisor and to help guide the disparate races of the Alliance...of this world. You will begin to remember again, slowly, slowly…and eventually you will have the whole of my knowledge and spells."

He rested a hand softly on Khadgar's shoulder. "My echo will give Med'an what remains, both in power and in knowledge, but you are the legacy to my magic, Khadgar, not my son."

Khadgar stirred slightly and muttered something incomprehensible before he returned to deep slumber.

Medivh smiled, and was surprised by the gentle nature of the gesture and the quiet affection he felt for the boy he had taken under his wing.

"The day that you kill me is the day that you become my heir," Medivh murmured and a word settled magic into Khadgar's skin, magic, soul, and tied him to Medivh in a way that was unnoticeable, too subtle and insidious.

Certainly with more finesse than my mother, he thought dryly.

Medivh paused as he removed his hand, looked at the book, looked at the peacefully slumbering boy, and grinned maliciously.

He carefully set his Greatstaff to the ground, rubbed his hands, then held them right beside Khadgar's ear.

He murmured a word before he clapped his hands.

The sound rang through the library like a gun-shot, and Khadgar was immediately up and tripping over himself. The youth fell gracelessly to the floor, and a few books flopped onto him from the violence of the motion.

When Khadgar finally moved a rather hefty volume off of his head to give Medivh a dazed look, Medivh gave his apprentice a toothy smile and said, "You were drooling on my books."