Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects

14

Kirygosa had been asleep, curled up tightly, her dreams erratic and alarming. When she heard her brother’s voice, for a moment she thought she was in the grip of another nightmare. This time, and not for the first time, she discovered that reality was worse than her dreams.

She propped herself up as far as the chain tied to her neck and driven into the floor would permit, lifted her head, and stared as her brother Arygos made obeisance to the bastard who had attacked them all. Her fists clenched.

He lifted his head and his gaze fell upon her. “Kirygosa,” he said. “How pleasant … and surprising … to find you still alive.”

“If I could take my true form, I would rake your eyes out,” she snarled.

“Now, now,” interrupted the Twilight Father, amusement in his voice, “I do so hate to see bickering between siblings.”

Kiry gritted her teeth. It had been Arygos who had betrayed her into the hands of this … this …

How could she have been so naive? She had known her brother all their lives. She knew he had idolized their father. And yet, when he had come to her privately one night, telling her of his change of heart and asking for her aid, she had willingly given it.

“Come with me,” he had said. “You and I … surely we can form some sort of plan. I love Father, Kiry. Whatever he’s done. We can find a way to end this war without killing him.”

So many had died by that point already, including their mother, Saragosa, who had chosen to side with Malygos. Her death had hurt all of them, but Kiry had been adamant that Malygos needed to be stopped.

“Do you really think so?” Kiry had asked. She had so wanted to believe her brother.

“I do. I see now that you were right. Let’s go and see what we can come up with. Maybe if we have a sound enough plan, the Life-Binder will listen to us.”

So she had gone, willingly and trustingly with hope and love in her heart, with the future in her body. And he had delivered her and her unborn children, like prized beasts, to the Twilight Father.

Words boiled in her throat, crowding each other out so that she couldn’t even speak. What sort of power did he grant you? What sort of lies did he promise? Did you know what he would do to me? Did you have a moment’s hesitation?

But she would not give him the satisfaction, and so swallowed her bitter words.

Having addressed her and assured himself that the Twilight Father was still happy with his prisoner, Arygos turned his attention fully upon his master.

“How go the discussions?” the Twilight Father inquired. “The sooner you can determine what is required, the better for us all.”

“It is … awkward,” confessed Arygos. “We are, none of us, certain of how to proceed. This has never been done before.”

He sounded unsure of himself—something Kirygosa had never heard in his voice before. He wants reassurance, she realized. He wants to know he has done well, that he has pleased this monster. The thought made her sick, but she kept her silence. What she learned could be valuable to Kalecgos—if she could ever figure out how to free herself.

“You assured me that you would find a way—and that the flight would select you as the new Aspect,” the Twilight Father reminded him. “How else will you be able to deliver them to me as you promised?”

“I am certain that I will be chosen, however it turns out to work,” Arygos said quickly.

Of course, Kirygosa thought. With their father dead, the blues alone among the dragonflights were without an Aspect. But choosing another? How was such a thing possible? The titans had charged the Aspects. Could lesser beings even do such a thing?

“We have need of you. Our champion must be awakened, and he must have an army if the flights are to be defeated.”

“They will, I swear it!” Arygos’s voice was rapt with desire. “We will defeat them, and destroy this world. All will perish as the Twilight’s Hammer falls!”

An army. An army comprising her own dragonflight …

Kirygosa closed her eyes, fighting back tears. Arygos was as lost as his father had been.

“They shall be delivered to you. Chromatus shall live.” His eyes gleamed in the darkness, his body taut with anticipation.

The Twilight Father smiled.

“You shall have their energy and my own devoted to this task, Twilight Father. But … I need them to be mine before I can give them unto you.”

“But …?”

The Twilight Father had picked up on the uncertainty, as had Kiry. Hope blossomed painfully in her heart. Things were not going smoothly.

“The orc you warned me about. He has come, as you feared he might.”

Thrall! In the shadows, keeping her head turned away, Kirygosa found she could not suppress a smile.

The Twilight Father swore. “This will not make our master happy,” he said. “I was told that Blackmoore would stop Thrall. Tell me what harm he has done so far … and why you have not slain him yourself.”

Arygos bridled. “I attempted to do so, but Kalecgos would not let me, and the scene was public.”

“Thrall is but an orc!” snapped the Twilight Father. “You could have easily killed him before anyone protested!”

“Two Aspects sent him to us! I could not dispatch him without either arousing suspicion or alienating many of my flight—and I need every one of them if I am to become the Aspect!”

“Must I walk you through this like an infant, Arygos?” The mighty dragon actually cringed at the criticism. “Arrange an accident!”

“You are safe here, with no prying eyes watching you for weakness,” spat Arygos angrily. “It is easy for you to talk of accidents when you are not in the heart of the situation! If anything happens, suspicion will fall upon me!”

“Do you think I know nothing of concealing one’s true nature?” The Twilight Father threw back his head and laughed. “I move among my kind as you move among yours, and no one is the wiser as to my true plans. It is a skill you need to master, young blue.”

“There are enough whom Kalec is swaying that I cannot afford anyone wondering why I was so insistent that a simple orc meet his death!”

“He is no simple orc!” the Twilight Father shot back. “Do you not understand? Thrall will destroy you if you do not destroy him first! This is what I will, and what Lord Deathwing wills! Will you defy our master simply because you are afraid of being accused? I think you choose the wrong fear to feed!”

“Kalec has taken him under his wing,” muttered Arygos, but his head was lowering. “I cannot do anything. But at least we know where he is. We can watch him. And perhaps there will be a chance. Soon none of this will matter, because I will become the new Aspect. Then I will be able to do as I please.”

“Did you see him?”

The Twilight Father’s question and apparent change of topic confused both blue dragons, the one to whom it was addressed and the one who was eavesdropping.

“See whom?” Arygos asked.

“Take flight again,” the Twilight Father said, his voice suddenly calm. “Fly to the northwest. Look upon him and return to me. Go.”

Arygos nodded and flew off again into the night. The Twilight Father strode to the edge of the floor and watched, the cold turning his breath to small puffs of air.

Kirygosa swallowed hard. She now knew whom Arygos was being sent to observe.

Chromatus. He of the multiple heads, he who should never draw breath. This was the sort of grotesquery that her blood brother had allied himself with. She felt a prickling as the Twilight Father’s gaze fell upon her.

“He will die,” he said conversationally. “I know you must know that.”

“Arygos? Certainly,” she retorted.

“I do not feel like crossing the floor to torment you,” he said.

“Kalec will die, and so will you. No one can stand against both Chromatus and Deathwing. Even the world cries out in pain from his torture of it.”

“Kalec might indeed die,” Kirygosa agreed. “And so might I. But someone will stand against Deathwing and this thing his son created.”

Kiry was fiercely proud of Kalec. She did not know if he yet suspected that Arygos had betrayed them, or if he simply wanted to make sure Thrall was safe from any who might wish him harm for any reason. Surely there were enough of those in the blue dragonflight to warrant caution.

One hand went to the deceptively simple chain that kept her a prisoner. The other went to her abdomen. A wave of remembered torment and sorrow rose inside her. She permitted it to wash over and through her, breathing out quietly. She had not broken under their treatment of her yet. She would not falter now, no matter how terrifying the thought of fighting both Chromatus and his multiple heads and Deathwing himself. Not when there seemed to actually be hope again.

There was the song of wings beating in the still night air, and a greatly subdued Arygos returned. The Twilight Father regarded the dragon steadily.

“You will do as you promised,” the Twilight Father said very, very softly.

And the great blue dragon in front of him trembled.

“Tell me more about this celestial event,” Thrall said.

“Azeroth, of course, has two moons,” Kalec said. “Various cultures may have different names for them, but usually they play on a mother-and-child theme, as the white moon is much larger than the blue one.”

Thrall nodded. “My people call them the White Lady and the Blue Child,” he said.

“Exactly. The event is when the two come into perfect alignment with one another. It is often referred to as the Embrace, as it appears that the white moon, the Mother, is holding the blue Child. It’s an extremely rare occurrence—once in approximately four hundred and thirty years. I myself have never witnessed it. Would that I were doing so when all that is involved is the simple appreciation of the phenomenon.”

“So you agree with those who think this is the way to do it?” Thrall asked. “That this event is going to invoke the power of the Aspect?”

“Legend has it that the moons were in this conjunction when the titans created the first Aspects,” Kalecgos said. “If there is any time that would be favorable for our flight to bestow the title of an Aspect upon an ordinary dragon, it would be now.”

“Title? You do not think that anything particularly exciting will happen?”

Kalec sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “There is so much left unknown. We will have to have an Aspect, Thrall, and if it is best done by counting votes and calling someone an Aspect, then that will have to do.”

Thrall nodded. “It seems … like a quiet ending to a great piece of music,” he said, groping for words. “An Aspect is such a powerful being … and you, the blues, are the keepers of magic, of so much that is dazzling and imaginative. And if it is up to the flight to simply vote …” He did not finish his thought. He did not have to.

Kalec said quietly, “I do not particularly have ambitions to leadership, Thrall, but I tell you this: I fear for my flight, and for this world, if Arygos becomes the blue Aspect.”

Thrall smiled. “Not all who become leaders crave the power that goes with it,” he said. “I did not. But I did burn to help my people. To free them. To find them a home where they could belong. To protect them so that our culture could flourish.”

Kalec looked at him speculatively. “By all accounts, you have done so. Even some members of the Alliance speak well of you. It could be said that they need you now more than ever, with the world in such a state. And yet here you are, as a humble shaman.”

“I had another calling,” Thrall said. “As you say … the world was in need, even more than my people. I went to help my world. And by a very, very strange twist of fate and events, I am helping my world by being here. In the company of blue dragons about to determine which one of them becomes an Aspect. It is a vast responsibility, Kalec, but from the little I have seen, I at least believe you to be the best choice. I only hope the rest of your flight agrees.”

“I would not do it if I did not have to,” said Kalec. “In a way, I am not sure what to hope for: an Aspect in name only, or an Aspect with all the powers that one ought to have. For me, it would be hard to surrender to being something so different. It is something I never imagined having to consider. Something no one ever did. It … is a great burden.”

Thrall watched Kalec carefully as he spoke, and he thought he understood.

Kalec was … afraid.

“You think it will change you, if it truly happens,” Thrall said, and the words were not a question.

Silently, Kalec nodded. “I am already, by the reckoning of most of those in this old world, a very powerful being. It is all I have ever known, and so it is easy to bear that responsibility. But … an Aspect?”

He looked off to the side for a moment, his gaze unfocused. “Thrall … an Aspect is not just a dragon with extra powers. It is something else again. Something …” He floundered for words. “It will change me. It has to. But … two of the five of them went mad. Alexstrasza may be walking that line herself, and Nozdormu nearly lost himself forever in his own realm of time. What will becoming an Aspect do to me?”

He was right to be afraid. Thrall had faced something similar the day that Orgrim Doomhammer had fallen and named Thrall his successor. He had not asked for the weight of the mantle, but he had taken it on. He had become something more than himself, more than simply Thrall, son of Durotan and Draka. He had become warchief. And for years he had borne the responsibility. He had, as Aggra had said in her annoying and beloved, honest fashion, become a “thrall” to the Horde.

Kalec would never be able to lay aside the title of Aspect. And he would live much, much longer than a mere orc.

It would change him, and he would never be able to change back. He might be Kalecgos, the blue Dragon Aspect, but he would never again be just Kalec. What would it do to him?

“That is a very important question, my friend,” Thrall said quietly. “You don’t know what it will do to you. But there will always be things that even a dragon cannot anticipate. You can only act on what you do know. What your heart and your head and your gut tell you is right. The question of what will it do to you is not the one you need to ask. You have already asked the right question.”

“What will it do to my people if Arygos becomes Aspect?” Kalec said.

Thrall nodded. “See? You already know what to ask. And you do not know the answer to that question specifically, either. But you know enough so that you will choose to open yourself to the responsibility rather than subjecting them to Arygos’s rule.”

Kalec was silent. “Arygos makes much of his bloodline,” he said at last. “But what he doesn’t understand is our entire flight, our entire race, should be a family. Be united. Arygos’s way of thinking will no longer help us—if it ever did. And if the flight follows him, yes, they will be independent blues, separate unto themselves. But they will also be dead, or worse.” He smiled gently. “My head, heart, and gut tell me that.”

“Then your choice is already made.”

“I am still afraid. And I cannot shake the feeling that this makes me a coward.”

“No,” Thrall said. “It simply makes you wise.”

It was time.

Thrall pulled the heavy furred cloak more tightly around him. He was at the very uppermost of the levitating platforms of the Nexus, where he had a perfect view of the open sky. Some dragons in humanoid forms stood beside him, while others simply hovered in the air to wait. The night was bitterer than usual because it was so clear, the stars glittering against their ebony background. Thrall was glad of the clarity, although it meant for a colder experience. He wanted to be able to witness this remarkable, rare occurrence, although the blues assured him that the power of the event would not be mitigated if there was cloud cover.

They were already very close, the White Lady and the Blue Child, and soon the Embrace would happen. The blues were silent and still, which Thrall did not ever recall seeing before. For all their affinity with the cold, they struck him as a very vibrant, alive flight. The bronzes were more thoughtful in speaking and action; doubtless, on some level, the import of every word or deed on the timeway weighed upon them. The greens, too, seemed calmer, after millennia spent dreaming. But the blues seemed as alive to him as the crackle and spark of the magic that was such an inherent part of them. Their wit was razor-sharp and swift; their moods mercurial; their movements quick and lively. To see them all either standing still or simply hovering, their eyes raptly fastened on the sky—it was unnerving.

Even Kalecgos was unusually somber. He, like all the others, was in his dragon form now. While Thrall had initially found him easier to approach and converse with when Kalec opted for his half-elven form, he had grown comfortable enough with the young blue so that Kalec was now simply Kalec to him, whatever form he chose to assume. Thrall stepped closer and put a reassuring hand on the mighty dragon’s lower foreleg, which was as high as he could reach. It was the equivalent of a squeeze on the shoulder, and Kalec glanced down at him, his eyes crinkling in a smile of appreciation before he again lifted his mighty blue head to regard the celestial phenomenon.

Thrall thought about what he was seeing, and the metaphor of it all. The Embrace. A mother’s love for her child. He thought about Malygos. From all he had observed and heard, before the madness had descended upon him, Malygos had been as cheerful and greathearted as Kalec. What Deathwing had done to him—to the blues, to all the dragonflights, to the very world … Thrall shook his head sadly at the grim fortune that made this event a dire necessity.

The Child was moving toward the Mother now. Thrall smiled a little, even as he shivered in the brutal yet clean cold. An embrace. A moment to pause and think about love, and magic, and how the two were not so very different.

It was too late to sway any individual’s opinion, to come up with a reasoned argument regarding why Arygos was dangerous and Kalec was the better choice. All that could be said had been said. Each dragon was an individual. Each would choose as he or she would. Thrall thought about Nozdormu, and the nature of time, and how this decision had already been made. There was no point in hoping or fearing any longer.

There was only this moment. Standing in the cold, in the company of dragons, watching something beautiful and rare transpiring before his eyes. The moment would turn, and become another moment, and this moment would be the past and forever gone save in memory. But, for now, it was.

Slowly the Blue Child moved—and then there it was: after so long waiting and watching what had seemed so slow, it was happening. The larger white moon “held” the smaller. And Thrall felt a swelling of quiet joy and utter peace, and simply watched.

The icy, cold tranquillity of the moment was suddenly shattered as Arygos leaped upward into the sky. His powerful wings beat hard, keeping him hovering in position. He lifted his head and cried, “Let me lead my people! Give to me the blessing of the Aspect! I am my father’s son, and this should be mine!”

Beside Thrall, Kalec gasped. “No,” he whispered. “He will destroy us all. …”

Arygos’s bold move had certainly attracted attention. The dragons turned, almost startled by the outburst, to regard him instead of the event unfolding in the skies.

Heartened, Arygos continued to attempt to rally his flight. “Yes! I stand for what we truly are: the real masters of magic. The ones who should be directing the forces of the arcane! You know my skills: I am not an Aspect yet, but I am my father’s true son. I believe in what he fought for; I believe in the control of our own destinies! Of using arcane magic as the tool that it is for our ends, our benefit! For the blues! That is what magic is made for!”

The moons, the Mother and Child, did not care what was transpiring at the Nexus. They continued to glow softly, their blue-white radiance reflected back to them by the gleam of snow, the smooth surface of blue scales. It was beautiful, and haunting, and Thrall found his eyes held not by the shouting dragon, wings beating in the wind, but by the still quietude of the moment.

And slowly other heads turned as well. Turned away from Arygos and his promise of magic as a tool. Turned toward the breathtaking sight of celestial bodies in perfect alignment, in the wonder of their breaths freezing on the cold air.

And Thrall realized that in the choice between two ways of being—between Arygos and his invocation of the glory of the past and promise of the future, and simply beholding the Embrace—the blue dragonflight had chosen the stillness … the magic … of the moment.

Arygos kept shouting, bragging, begging. And yet the blues did not seem to want to listen. Like statues, which they looked like under the blue and white light of the two moons, they continued to focus their attention on the Embrace. They seemed … surprised by how beautiful it was.

Thrall thought that the combined blue-white radiance seemed to cast a magical illusion of its own on the still leviathans themselves. They seemed to glow with an exquisite illumination, and so compelling was that illusion that Thrall turned from observing the two moons to watching the dragons.

And then the light shifted. It seemed to diminish, passing from Arygos to the entirety of the assembled dragonflight. Even Thrall knew he was included in the generous radiance. And then, slowly, it faded from them as well.

It did not fade from Kalecgos.

And then Thrall understood.

This ritual was not an intellectual exercise. Nor was it about a vote among the blues for who they thought would be the best candidate. It was not about the “title” of Aspect, given to one who would use it as a tool only for himself and his flight.

The celestial phenomenon was called the Embrace. This was about the heart of the blue dragonflight, not its brain. The new Aspect could never be granted powers by thought alone. The titans had done what they felt was right. And so now, in this moment, had the blue dragonflight.

They had listened not just with their minds but with their hearts, when Thrall and Kalec had spoken. They had watched Thrall watch them, and noticed his reactions. It would seem they had heard him, about living in the moment, about the wonder with which they should regard their own lives, their own abilities, their own selves. Even more, when something truly beautiful and magical—with a strength that came only from its grace and rarity, and that offered no dominance or power—had come their way, they had turned toward it as a flower turns its face to the sun. And their hearts had been moved from fear to hope, from shutting out to letting in.

The glow around Kalecgos increased, even as the glow faded from the other dragons and then from the sky as the Blue Child moved out of its mother’s loving embrace.

Kalec’s breath was coming quickly, his eyes wide with wonder. Suddenly he leaped into the sky. Thrall lifted a hand to shield himself from the brilliance emanating from the newly born Aspect. Kalecgos was almost unbearable to look upon now, so bright was he, like a star—no, a sun—radiant and beautiful and terrible. His was now the ultimate mastery of arcane magic, given willingly, with hope and love and trust, by his flight, by the Mother and Child, by the echo of what the titans had willed, long ago.

And then suddenly, as his wings seemed to almost tear the sky as they beat, something unexpected happened.

Kalecgos laughed.

The joyous sound tumbled from him, bright and crystalline as the snow, light as a feather, pure as a mother’s love. It was not the sneering sound of a victor laughing in triumph. It was delight that could not be contained, something so strong and alive and truly magical that it must be shared.

Thrall realized that he, too, was laughing in delight. He could not tear his gaze from the figure of a blue-white dragon dancing in the night sky. Dragon laughter, bell-like and oddly sweet, rose around him. Thrall’s heart was unspeakably full, and as he looked around, feeling a kinship with the great dragons in this enchanted moment, he saw tears of joy glistening in their eyes as well. His heart felt light and settled at the same time, and he thought if he jumped up, he, too, might be able to fly.

“You fools!”

The fury and affront and shock in Arygos’s voice shattered the moment into a thousand pieces. “You stupid fools! You are the ones who have betrayed the flight, not I!”

Before Thrall had the wherewithal to even digest the words, Arygos threw back his head and let out a terrible cry. Thrall felt it buffet him almost physically. There was more than air and voice to the cry; there was magic to it as well, and it thrummed along Thrall’s blood and bones and brought him to his knees.

You are the ones who have betrayed the flight, not I. …

He glanced upward to where Kalecgos, the new blue Dragon Aspect, still bright with arcane magic, hovered. Kalecgos was now visibly larger than his former rival, who looked less like a magnificent being and more like an ugly smudge against the night sky. Still radiant, still glorious, Kalecgos was no longer a joyful thing but an avenging god. He folded his wings and dove toward Arygos.

“No, Arygos! I will not let you destroy us!”

At that moment the air was full of a dreadful sound: the sound of dozens of powerfully beating wings. Thrall’s eyes widened at the approach of the twilight dragons—for although Thrall had never seen one, he knew it must be they. They were like dark ghosts, living shadows in the shape of dragons, bearing down upon the blues’ stronghold.

The blues exploded into action with startling speed for such gargantuan creatures. Before Thrall even realized it, they were leaping skyward and rushing to meet the enemy, and the night sky was brightening with white and pale blue tendrils and eruptions of arcane energy. Thrall glanced up to where Kalec and Arygos were engaged in combat.

“Kalec!” Thrall cried, thinking that it was impossible for the new Aspect to hear him over the sounds of battle but knowing he had to try anyway. “Look out!”

For a terrible moment, it did not appear as if Kalecgos had heard. Then, at the last minute, he released Arygos and hurled himself to the left. Three of the twilight dragons headed straight for Arygos. At the last instant, to Thrall’s shock, all three turned incorporeal, passing harmlessly through their blue ally, then wheeled to join the fray.

Thrall felt rather than heard the dragon behind him. He whirled, pulling out the Doomhammer and gripping it with both hands, his teeth clenched. He would swing with his whole heart, protecting the dragonflight he had come to like and respect. Had come to help heal.

He would defend it with his life.

The twilight dragon was beautiful, and terrifying. She opened her mouth, revealing teeth almost as large as Thrall’s entire body. Her forelegs were extended, claws open, to capture and rend and tear, if the gaping maw did not do the job first.

Thrall’s battle cry of For the Horde! came to his lips, but he did not utter it. He did not fight only for the Horde, not anymore. He fought for so much more: for the Alliance, and the Earthen Ring, and the Cenarion Circle, and the broken and scattered dragonflights.

He fought for Azeroth.

He raised his hammer. The twilight dragon was almost upon him.

And then suddenly Thrall was fifty feet up in the air, something strong and implacable and secure folding around his torso. He glanced down to see talons encircling him. Kalec’s voice came to him: “On my back, quickly! You will be safer there!”

And Thrall knew he would be. As Kalec moved the orc to his massive winged shoulders, he opened his claw. Thrall leaped, flying through the air for a few seconds before landing on Kalec’s broad back.

Despite the blue dragons’ affinity with cold magic, Kalecgos felt warm to Thrall. Warmer than either Desharin or Tick had felt when he had ridden atop them. If what Thrall had experienced flying atop the other two dragons had been a whisper, sitting on the back of the blue Aspect was a joyful shout. Energy, the crackle of magic, flowed through Thrall, and he held on as Kalecgos darted and dove. Kalec swooped down on a pair of twilight dragons, breathing a deadly, icy breath. They bellowed in pain and turned translucent—everywhere save where Kalec’s breath had touched them, freezing the flesh solid. Kalec turned and struck one with his tail, shattering her frozen foreleg. The other’s wing had been frozen, and now the twilight dragon fell frantically, her useless wing unable to bear her.

The orc and the Aspect were in beautiful synchronicity. Thrall stayed atop Kalec as if he were welded on, feeling no fear as the great being dove and banked and swerved. Kalec attacked with magic, illusions that lured one twilight dragon one way while Kalec dove toward another, moving almost close enough to touch a third so that Thrall could make his own attack.

“The back of the skull!” shouted Kalecgos.

Thrall sprang, in such perfect sync with Kalecgos that he did not give it a second thought. He landed on the neck of one of the twilight dragons and brought the Doomhammer crashing down where Kalec had told him to strike. So surprised was the beast that she didn’t even have a chance to shift, instead dying instantly and plummeting toward the earth. And there was Kalec, swooping in smoothly, and again Thrall leaped from the back of one dragon to another. The Aspect’s wings beat, and up they climbed, ready to continue the battle. The orc glanced about, barely winded, senses at peak alert, and permitted himself a small smile.

The blues were winning.