Virigosa was soon able to rise from her bed, soon able to walk and fly and live again. The muscle soreness lasted a few more days, but faded quickly. She applied runes to her hide, giving her new scales the classic blue dragon patterns. She had gotten a chance to look at herself in a pool of water, and she didn't look like the same dragon at all. Everything was off- her horns were prominent now, her scales a different shade of blue, her wings were the wrong shape, the wrong color, everything.

At least she was alive.

It was hard to adjust to the changes. She was larger than she had been before, and that was hell for her balance. It took a while to adjust to the completely new wing structure; she now had to worry about the fragile membrane all the way down to her tail, rather than just her shoulders. Still, there were benefits to Virigosa's new form; already, she could feel how much stronger she was and how much tougher her scales were.

She realized now what had happened; while Virigosa had been hatched in Coldarra, her family was from Kalimdor; this was a fairly common situation as dragons moved to Coldarra in the decades before the Nexus War. Alexstrasza was undoubtedly more familiar with the traditional features of Coldarra natives: the deep blue scales, attached wings, and prominent horns, found in dragons such as Kalecgos, Tarecgosa, and ultimately in Malygos himself, the progenitor of the line. The Blue Dragonflight had several such regional "lines" with identifying traits, even more than other flights which were not nearly as spread out: the Coldarra line, the Kalimdor line, the Broken Isles line, and the now-extinct Zin-Azshari line, to name a few.

With that in mind, Virigosa couldn't really blame the Life-Binder for her misstep in healing her body. Hardly anybody, not even most blue dragons, could tell the differences between some lines, how was she supposed to expect Alexstrasza to identify which Virigosa belonged to?

Coldarra line dragons had always been considered some of the most physically attractive, and now as Virigosa walked through the halls of Wyrmrest Temple, she found herself turning heads of other drakes. She couldn't blame them, really- she'd done the same to a few other dragonesses of her age back in Coldarra- but it was odd and almost uncomfortable. Luckily, most of the other drakes at the temple were red, and they wouldn't dare flirt with a dragon from another flight.

After she felt more comfortable with her new body, Virigosa knew that she should test herself in combat. Heristrasza suggested attending a regular sparring event taking place in one of the upper floors of the temple, and while Virigosa wasn't too keen on practicing combat with a group of mostly red drakes, it did sound like a good idea.

She arrived to the event later than most, and several drakes had already gathered. It was just as she expected: the vast majority were red, with a few greens and even fewer bronzes. Virigosa, as per usual, was the only blue. She slinked into a corner of the room, away from all the others, and waited for it to begin. A nearby green drake turned and smiled, and Virigosa looked back blankly, wishing to fade into the wall.

The group's leader, surprisingly enough, was a bronze wyrm instead of a red. He looked around the room with a warm expression, and began reading off a list. "Alright then," the wyrm began, "Most of you all are regulars here by now, so let's get right down to business, shall we?"

He pulled out a list, and Virigosa recognized the paper as the sheet she'd used to sign up for the sparring event. "Alright, let's get started with the first starting pairs. Haresra and Norfstrasz, Beyristrasz and Tirestrasz, Deristrasz and... Virigosa..." He looked up and around wildly, finally resting his eyes on the blue drake, his expression one of recognition. "Oh! Virigosa! It's, uh, so nice to, uhm, see you!" His body language was odd, as if he wasn't sure whether to stay still or move.

"I don't believe we've ever met," Virigosa said coldly.

The wyrm ducked his head, embarrassed. "Oh, right, forgive me please," His voice almost had a bit of pleading in it. "The Bronze Dragonflight, you know, time magic... Always getting the chronological order, you know, the, uh, flow of time mixed up... Third time I've done that today, silly me..."

By now, most eyes were on Virigosa, and she shifted uncomfortably, moving back even further into the wall. She nodded, and the wyrm nervously went back to reading off the list. Virigosa was curious about the implications of the wyrm knowing her from another time- and being so nervous, to boot- but she wouldn't dare ask. She knew that she wouldn't get an answer, and she wasn't quite sure if she wanted one.

"Hey, Virigosa."

There was a rustling of wings and feathers, and Virigosa instinctively snapped her head around to observe the newcomer. It was a small drake, a male, and he was clearly quite anxious. His most noticeable features were his scars. He was covered in pale red-orange skin where his scales had been ripped out, and in some places, his hide had healed in an ugly way, his scales overlapping. His wing membranes were torn, with large holes around the edges. After a moment more of looking, Virigosa realized that on the side opposite her, he had no eye, just skin where it once was. Clearly, this dragon had been horribly maimed.

"Hello," she said, her voice distant and disinterested.

"Hi," he said. "I'm Deristrasz. I believe we were assigned to be sparring partners, yeah?"

Virigosa nodded, looking to her feet. The wyrm finished reading off of the list, and the drakes dispersed to different parts of the room. Deristrasz was twitching, occasionally casting glances at Virigosa. He finally took a deep breath and said, "Did you fight in the Nexus War?"

"Yes," Virigosa was taken aback, her voice sharp.

Deristrasz looked equally surprised, his eyes wide. With fear? Virigosa wondered. "I know you," he said.

Virigosa tilted her head, puzzled, and suddenly the red launched into a long monologue. "I met you before, in battle, over Coldarra," he blurted out. "Only briefly. But I remember you. You were good in battle, you know, very good. You changed my life."

He continued on, in what was obviously very well thought out, perhaps even rehearsed. "You did this to me. My eye, the scars, the wings, you can see," The words just spilled out of his mouth, but they somehow weren't hostile. "But I don't blame you. I don't hate you at all, nothing like that. You know, I know what it's like to be in a war like that. I'm a son of Alexstrasza, born when she was imprisoned in Grim Batol. I know what it's like to be compelled into fighting, I know the way it works, the way it is. So I don't blame you. I don't hate you."

Virigosa sat back, her tail curled close around her front feet, a completely blank expression on her face. There was no external response from her. He's thought about this for a long time, he's wanted to say this for a long time, she realized. He never thought he'd say it to my face. And he's not saying it to me, he's saying it to himself. To the idea he has of me, maybe.

"Do you still want to practice, then?" Virigosa asked, backing away, glancing around anxious.

Delristrasz didn't hesitate, and somehow Virigosa realized that she had asked the question for herself. "Yes," he said.

Virigosa felt trapped, she realized. She didn't want to be there anymore, she didn't want to fight, or even pretend to fight, this small drake who had been so badly scarred. She didn't want to be in this room with the walls closing in around her and red scales everywhere she could see. She was the minority here, trapped with a bunch of dragons who were once her sworn enemies. What was stopping them from turning on her? What was stopping her from turning on them?

"Excuse me," she said.

Then, to any observer she was gone, a flash of blue particles, then nothing. Her invisibility spell took effect almost immediately, and she pushed off, flying above the other drakes chatting or practicing on the ground. She made her way to the exit, only dissipating her invisibility spell once she was well away from the exit. She returned to the room that had been loaned to her by the temple, and curled up in the corner.

She couldn't keep doing this, she told herself. She couldn't just run off whenever she got upset, she couldn't just sit there and mope whenever someone mentioned the Nexus War. She couldn't just get angry, couldn't just keep thinking about herself.

It's not about me.

No, there was a whole new war out there to fight. Deathwing was out there trying to destroy the entire world, so many members of the Blue Dragonflight were risking or sacrificing their lives to stop the Twilight's Hammer, and Mount Hyjal was burning. And what was Virigosa doing? She was sequestered away in Wyrmrest Temple, away from the fighting, lost in her own thoughts and her own feelings.

War is what I'm good at. Fighting is what I'm good at, she thought. So why am I not out there?

She thudded her tail against the floor, rising to her feet and moving her body to the bed a little ways away. She laid down, head in the bedding, and pulled her bright blue wings up close to her body. Remember what Alexstrasza said about me? And that was such a strange thought, to think that an Aspect said something to her- the red aspect, out of all of them. It was flattery. Virigosa was sure of it; Alexstrasza was undoubtedly a wonderful statesperson after so many millennia as the Dragonqueen. She had mastered the art of flattery, she had to.

In the Nexus War, Virigosa had been one of many. She was another set of blue scales among countless, a single being helpless to change or at least alter the tide of war. She was talented, sure, but really nothing special. Really nothing different. So why should this war be any different? How could she possibly hope to fend against the thousands of twilight dragons and tens of thousands of cultists, a single young dragon against so many?

At the same time, it felt different now. She no longer had the scars from the Nexus War, and one of her worst victims of the war- one of her worst who survived, anyways- had just about forgiven her. She was a blank slate. There was nothing holding her back anymore. The Dragonqueen herself had come to heal Virigosa's wounds, to wipe away the scars of the past and leave her with a clean future. It was so bright, so promising, provided they could win this war.

No amount of their forgiveness, however, seemed to help Virigosa any. A realization dawned upon her, and she sat up, looking down at her talons. She imagined them stained with blood, as they'd been so many times before. She pictured herself, her new self with the deep blue scales and the attached wings, engaging a red dragon in combat; she shook her head, and the red was replaced by a twilight drake, a true monster incapable of thought or speech or love.

Perhaps this is what I was always meant to be, she thought, and it was comforting. She laid her head down and closed her eyes, clearing her thoughts and drifting into sweet oblivion.