Author: So, yeah. Finished my personal statement and writing sample. So, now Medivh!
Disclaimer: Medivh belongs to Medivh, but the copyright is Blizzard's.
~Dark Visions~
"Well, that's interesting," Medivh said aloud as he kicked a pebble—which actually responded to the physical stimulus. Medivh had always had a more physical presence in memories and visions, which he supposed was an effect of the Dark One who owned most of his soul.
"Master?"
Medivh looked over to his composed and curious apprentice, the boy obviously intrigued by Medivh's physicality in the vision.
"We shouldn't be able to influence things if this is a vision—unless we've been transported somewhere to another physical place in the world," Khadgar said.
Medivh shrugged and carefully breathed in the air. It smelled of magic, dark power, death, and decay. "Many rules don't bother to apply to me."
"Where are we?" Khadgar asked with a mixture of horror and wonder in his voice as he looked around.
It was odd, the juxtaposition in their surroundings.
He and Khadgar stood in the middle of a wide swath of utter corruption, any thing that may have been living broken down and destroyed; however, to their sides was a healthy, verdant forest of golds and greens and life. Medivh wasn't sure which was natural or unnatural, though, since one was sustained by the arcane, the other by…something else. Something that was intriguing and seductive, which Medivh wanted to take in his hands and mold until he understood it.
Even though he knew he never would, as such power would eternally be out of his grasp.
Medivh looked ahead of them, paused, then said, "Come."
He didn't wait to see if Khadgar followed him, but knew from the quick and hesitant footfalls said that his apprentice had. The ground was still warm with magic and Medivh felt death pulling at his heels, seeking to sap the life from him. However, Khadgar was safe, being a ghost in the vision, which was good. Khadgar didn't have an eons-old demon sharing his body, afterall, and Medivh needed the boy alive.
"This is incredibly dark magic," he heard Khadgar murmur as they passed a corpse twisted beyond anything nature could dream.
Medivh nodded. "It's a necromancy unlike any other I've seen or done. This is the work of a true master of the art."
"Wait, you've—nevermind, of course you have."
Medivh knelt and picked up a piece of cloth, a banner that covered a skeleton that was blackened from arcane fire. It looked like that of Azeroth, of Lordaeron, but modified to be a desecration of the symbol.
Interesting.
Medivh heard Khadgar cry out in horror and looked up to see creatures like he had never come across before barreling towards a distant gold and red city.
Giant bundles flesh sewn together and given some form of minimal consciousness lumbered across the ground as ghouls, skeletons, and zombies staggered forward, all following a figure with deep black armor and bone white hair who rode a skeletal horse.
"Closer."
He could feel his apprentice's disbelief, but the youth fell in behind him regardless.
Each step of the undead left the ground tainted and defiled, and Medivh knew that nothing good would ever come from it again, which sent a small trill of amusement flutter through him.
I would love to see how much the people of this land will try to cleanse this. But this wound will never heal, only scar. How tragic…
Medivh turned his head to see elven rangers and soldiers strive to keep the inexorable tide of darkness from the city that sat not too far away. Their actions were desperate, and the orders that flew between them spoke of panic and despair.
"They're losing!"
Medivh nodded, impressed.
Who could this be that leaves such casual desecration in his wake?
"Closer," Medivh said and picked up his pace.
Medivh saw that many corpses were those of Quel'dorei, the High Elves, whose tongue had given him his name, and he had to suppress a smile at how they were being raised and turned against friends and family.
How disheartening, to have to kill a mother or sister, he thought with satisfaction. Whoever this is knows how to inflict suffering.
He and Khadgar walked through the throngs of slavering undead, Khadgar keeping close to Medivh. Even though he obviously knew that the undead couldn't hurt him, aware that he was a distant memory in the future he was observing, it didn't make it any less terrifying.
Eventually, he and Khadgar made their way to the figure on horseback—who Medivh immediately recognized, though he had never met him before, and never would in his current form.
"Arthas Menethil," he whispered and the man's head whipped around. Their eyes caught and the death knight gave him a skeletal smile, eyes mad with power and zeal.
"I will scourge the living from this land!"
With that grim, gleeful proclamation, Medivh found himself back in the library, a trembling Khadgar clinging to his sleeve.
He didn't blame the youth, really. It took a trained necromancer to see the beauty in all that death.
A noble goal, Medivh thought as he pondered the vision. Perhaps he will succeed where I will fail.
"Master?"
"Yes?" Medivh replied, and was surprised at how gentle his voice was.
"Is that…will that…?"
Medivh looked at the youth who was pale with fright and disgust, but who had also looked the darkness of undeath in the eye and hadn't flinched from it.
"That vision is true," Medivh said with certainty. "It will happen."
"Nothing is certain! Someone must be able to stop it, maybe—"
"Khadgar," Medivh said harshly, and the youth immediately quieted. "That vision is many years in the future. Neither you nor I will be able to influence it, either in the present or in time to come."
"Who was he?"
"He was a death knight," Medivh replied, tasting the title. It was a good title, befitting a harbinger of doom, misery, and undeath. "And as to why he would seek to scourge the world…perhaps the world needs cleansing. Perhaps the clockwork needs to be broken."
"Master, you can't be—"
Medivh shook his head, and Khadgar quieted once more, obviously troubled. "What will be will be. It is better to attend to the present than to get lost in the future. A present which, I believe, includes you demonstrating your mastery of the spells you claim to understand."