Her room was dark. A single candle was burning on a table, a blue-white flame, flickering and dancing, a single light in the still blackness. The dragon raised her hand, and the flame twisted, rose, then settled again. It was magic, bending to her every whim, as it should. She lifted her hand again, and forced the flame into the shape of a dragon in flight. She took a moment to admire her work, then let it return to its original shape. Her magic. She clenched her fingers, and forced the flame to vanish, disappear into nothing. It obeyed, because it had no choice, and left her in darkness.
Virigosa slouched back in her chair, unsure of what had possessed her to do such a thing. She was exhausted, but she didn't want to sleep. She let light return to her room, not just a single candle, but everywhere. She stood up and shed her elf form in favor of her true one, and stood in the middle of the room. Maybe she'd get something to eat. Earlier, she'd-
"Virigosa, are you awake?"
The voice startled her, and as she turned towards the door, she knocked over the room's single chair with her tail. It took a moment for her to collect herself, and then moved towards the door. Why did he want to see her? "Korialstrasz?" she asked.
"Yes. Can I come in?"
"Of course," Virigosa said. The door slid open, and the consort to the Dragonqueen, in his elf form, stepped in. His eyes fell for a moment on the fallen chair, clearly making the connection between it and the sound of something falling before he'd walked in. "I'm sorry, I didn't expect anyone," Virigosa added hastily.
"I'm happy we can meet under more casual circumstances," Korialstrasz said. "How've you been?"
"I'm glad to be back at Wyrmrest Temple," Virigosa said. "The conclave is... different. I'm a fighter. There's a reason they leave the talking to the wyrms."
Korialstrasz chuckled. "Believe me, not all us like it much either," he said. "You did just fine."
"I appreciate it. We didn't speak on the best of terms," Virigosa said. "But that wasn't what you came to talk about, is it?" There was maybe a bit of hope there, maybe a bit of a threat.
"I wanted to take you to the Azure Sanctum," Korialstrasz said. "So you can see how many eggs are left, and to take a look at what the Blue Dragonflight has stored here. We've already been taking care of the eggs, but it would be wrong to just go through the records and artifacts."
"We probably took most of our secrets during the Nexus War," Virigosa said. "I'm sure you don't have to take me."
"It's a matter of principle," Korialstrasz said. "It would be wrong."
"Then let's go," Virigosa said. "I don't have any other plans tonight."
Even though it was night, Wyrmrest Temple was still busy. A few drakes, mostly members of the Red Dragonflight, were flying through the halls, while several adult dragons were standing in groups and talking to each other. To avoid attracting attention, Virigosa and Korialstrasz walked through the temple in their humanoid forms. Virigosa's room was on one of the upper floors, and it was a long walk down to the chamber where the sanctum entrances were located.
"I've never been to the Azure Sanctum before," Virigosa said. They were almost there now.
"Malygos designed it in the days before the fall of the dragonflights," Korialstrasz said.
The azure drakonids guarding the entrance parted to allow the two dragons through. It wasn't a gateway so much as a portal- every dragonflight's sanctum was a pocket dimension, much like the Eye of Eternity, and couldn't be accessed by ordinary means. For a moment, Virigosa's vision flashed white as the teleportation spell took hold, and then she found herself standing on a dark gray platform. The sanctum was covered in snow, and statues made of ice decorated the walls. Virigosa took a deep breath of the cold air, and stepped off to the side to shapeshift into her dragon form.
Korialstrasz did the same, his crimson scales a stark contrast to the white and blue of the Azure Sanctum. Virigosa shook out her wings and took flight, circling up to get a better idea her surroundings. Korialstrasz looked to make sure she was there, then gestured for her to follow with a sweep of his tail.
"We've put the eggs in shelters off to the side," Korialstrasz explained, leading Virigosa over to one side of the sanctum. "Ensuring the safety of the eggs was one of our first priorities once we saw what was happening. We counted twenty-three."
"Twenty three eggs?" Virigosa echoed. "That's hardly a single clutch."
"One clutch, yes," Korialstrasz said. "A mother left her eggs here before she went to Coldarra. Your... ally, I suppose, Nethandris, had a few of her agents bring seven more. I don't know where she got them."
They'd arrived at the part of the sanctum where the eggs had been moved. Virigosa leaned down to take a better look, but didn't get close enough to touch them. "We found the seven blue eggs at a twilight camp," she said. "Thirty here at Wyrmrest Temple, then. Just thirty."
"Just thirty," Korialstrasz confirmed. "I'm sorry."
"So this is it, then," Virigosa turned away from the eggs, holding out her wings. "We always knew it was a possibility, but I never thought I'd live to see it. We're the last of our kind."
"You don't have to lose hope," Korialstrasz said. "We don't know how many blue dragons are out there. There are ways-"
"I'm only a few years old, Korialstrasz," Virigosa interrupted. "I fight. I take orders. I listen. War is almost all I've ever known. I was- I am- another warm body to throw at the Blue Dragonflight's cause. That's how it's supposed to be. That's how it was always supposed to be."
"Nobody is just a tool of their Aspect or their flight," Korialstrasz said. "Every wyrm, every drake, every whelp- we all fulfill our flights' duty, but we're more than that. What we think, what we believe, that matters no matter who we are."
Virigosa dug her talons in the snow, refusing to turn around to face the red wyrm. "I know that," she said. "I wouldn't bother believing anything if I didn't think I had the right. But this was never supposed to happen. Fighting drakes were never meant to be what remained of the Blue Dragonflight."
"How many wyrms do you think were once fighting drakes, Virigosa?" Korialstrasz moved to stand beside her. "It's a sad fact that most drakes don't live to adulthood. Most adult dragons, most wyrms- they're the drakes who survived. The strong, the clever, the-"
"They're all the lucky ones," Virigosa said. "Because that's what it really comes down to. The dragons at Coldarra were the best my flight had to offer, the wisest, the most powerful, the eldest. And now they're dead."
"Luck is a prerequisite, yes," Korialstrasz agreed. "But you need more than luck. Every wyrm, every adult dragon, has lost someone dear to them. Friends, lovers, sometimes everyone they knew and loved. Adult dragons, I've found, maintain a delicate balance between the willingness to persevere and the willingness to give everything for the greater good."
"That won't bring back to the Blue Dragonflight," Virigosa said.
Korialstrasz hesitated for a moment. "No, it won't," he said. There was a long, indecisive pause, and the red wyrm sat down in the snow. "After she was freed from Grim Batol, my queen agreed to help Malygos revitalize the Blue Dragonflight. Then the Nexus War broke out, and that never happened... She agreed to do the same for Kalecgos or Arygos, whichever became Aspect. But now Arygos is a traitor and Kalecgos is dead."
"'Revitalize' the Blue Dragonflight?" Virigosa asked.
"She was planning to create eggs. No parents, completely unique dragons, unrelated to any others," Korialstrasz explained. "But there needed to be an Aspect to imbue them with magic, the flight bond, what would make them blue dragons. We were planning to, at least, try with an elder wyrm if an Aspect was unavailable. But now... after Coldarra..."
"They're all dead," Virigosa said. "So why are you telling me this?"
"She can't create blue dragon eggs, not unless we find another wyrm somewhere out there, but maybe we can do something else," Korialstrasz said. "We can find the remaining blue dragons, see about increasing the number of eggs in a clutch... There are options."
"I don't want to sit here taking about birth rates and clutch sizes when Deathwing is out there trying to kill us all," Virigosa said. "You said you wanted to go through the Blue Dragonflight's artifacts and records? Then let's take a look at them."
Most of the items left in the Azure Sanctum were locked away in a frozen room. Korialstrasz shapeshifted into a human form in order to fit inside. He pushed open the door, and Virigosa followed him inside. Most of the shelves were bare, but there were odd alcoves in the ice. Virigosa moved her head to get a better look at them, and Korialstrasz stopped to pause and wait for her.
"I think they used to keep phylacteries here," Virigosa said.
"Phylacteries?" Korialstrasz asked. "Like the...?"
"Phylacteries were our idea first, before the Scourge," Virigosa explained, turning back to look at Korialstrasz. "Some of the Blue Dragonflight used to bind spirits and speak to the dead, in the days before the fall of the dragonflights. Sometimes, when an older wyrm would die, a spiritbinder would take their essence and store it in an object, a phylactery. An Aspect's power would be required to make it permanent, so only a willing soul could be kept. The idea was taken and repurposed by the first liches."
"I've never heard of that before," Korialstrasz said.
"Not even you would have," Virigosa said. "My flight kept its secrets well. But they don't matter now." She took a few steps forward, looking at the shelves. "In the past ten thousand years, most of our magic relating to spirits has been forgotten. Sometimes we'd snatch a soul from the jaws of death for interrogation, but almost never for a phylactery. It was pointless, without Malygos. Kalecgos was much better at it than most dragons. He was one of our last real spiritbinders."
"I suppose the Blue Dragonflight would've taken them before the Nexus War, then," Korialstrasz said.
"They were probably all destroyed when the Nexus collapsed," Virigosa agreed. "Along with other priceless artifacts. I hope the green dragons have been able to recover some of them."
Apart from a few staves, there wasn't really anything of note. Virigosa and Korialstrasz left empty-handed and moved to another vault just a short distance away. The walls of this room were lined with half-empty bookshelves, and papers were scattered all over the floor. A few books had fallen off of their shelves, and nobody had bothered to pick them up. Whoever had last been in the room had left in a hurry.
Korialstrasz picked up a book near the doorway, and began to flip through a few pages. Virigosa looked through one of the bookshelves, reading the titles along the books' spines. Most of them were in Draconic.
"I doubt this room has been touched since the Nexus War," Virigosa remarked. "I see Malygos's Guide to Basic Spellcasting. That's one of the first textbooks they give the whelps."
"They must've only left anything that they were willing to let us find," Korialstrasz said. "This is a book on the history of the Kaldorei empire."
"A lot of these books are from that period. I see some Highborne genealogy records," Virigosa said. She shapeshifted into her humanoid form to pull a book out from one of the shelves. "This is a Blue Dragonflight census record from before the War of the Ancients. I don't think we've had anything even close to a complete census since Deathwing's betrayal."
"See anything interesting?" Korialstrasz asked.
"I recognize a few of these names. Ancient Kalimdor was full of living legends," Virigosa said, flipping through the pages. "Some of these dragons only just died during the Embrace."
"We keep some similar records," Korialstrasz said, moving to a bookshelf on the opposite side of the room. "We used to take a census every twenty-five years." Virigosa flipped another page of the census record, and studied it for a moment.
"I forgot about Senegos," Virigosa turned to Korialstrasz, dropping the book off to the side. "Senegos was at Coldarra, but he left most of his brood in the Broken Isles. They must not know what happened."
"Senegos..." Korialstrasz echoed. "I remember him. His brood is alive?"
"That's what I've heard," Virigosa said, nodding. "I need to tell them. They deserve to know, and if we leave them there, the Twilight Dragonflight could try to finish the job."
"You don't have to go," Korialstrasz said. "We can send a few drakes south to escort them to Wyrmrest Temple."
"It has to be me. They should hear it from one of their own," Virigosa said. "And I belong out there. I can do more good on the front lines than I ever could at the conclave."
"Then I can find a few of my dragons to go with you whenever you're ready," Korialstrasz said. "I don't want you going alone. We don't know where the Twilight Dragonflight is now, and we don't want to lose you."
"I'll leave in the morning," Virigosa said. "I'm going to go as soon as possible."
A/N: I'd like to apologize for the delay. I had to send my laptop in to be repaired, and of course a simple fix turns into a 40 day thing due to confusion about contracts and the warranty, who's authorized to repair the computer... etc. Hopefully regular updates will resume shortly!