"You have asked for a meeting, and so we came, Thrall. You seek an alliance against a shared enemy, as we do; let us speak of the terms."
At those words, the world hung silent, and the tension rose to new heights. I feasted upon it, my instincts sharpened to fine edges as I scrutinized our opposition.
There was a barely contained anger in Cairne hidden by a veil of serenity. It was surprising when it shouldn't have been given the tension between the two elderly tauren, even if one looked in her early thirties and was as spry as one, and some more.
It was almost mandatory that Representatives be near the epitome of their races, capable of fending for themselves and fighting competently. Being intelligent was self-evident, and educated, but that can come after the fact.
This world was infinitely dangerous; you needed tangible power, be it by magic or fangs, to matter. Money and popularity were merely facsimiles of might. A dead or, worse, cowardly ruler served no purpose.
We weren't faceless politicians. There weren't any politicians relating to leading the Wild outside of us.
Representatives were more than figureheads. We fought and bled for the Wild as any of our people did.
We were symbols and examples that had an equal vote to the Wild Gods in the Council.
We couldn't be weaklings.
And I was one of the enforcers of that rule; artificial improvements were a real alternative, but they were far from freely given. Magatha earned them, subtle as they may be.
It was pretty evident to the one facing us, not that they weren't the same. Rulership was beholden to the strongest as a rule of thumb.
The fidgeting of Vol'jin with his hand toward his dagger while his gaze was almost entirely on the Dark Troll Representative was amusing.
There was no denying the parallel between the Wild and the Horde. We foresaw confusion in the future with the Alliance, and this wouldn't be limited to that.
It was even more amusing when there was a short freeze in his facial expression as he took full notice of me behind Zak'ji. I tilted my head at him, and he kept eye contact.
'Good.' I internally rumbled, but my focus shifted to the one that was most likely to blow up. He was the calmest, however, literally.
Monte Gazzlow wasn't fearful in any way, shape, or form that actually mattered. It was impressive, no matter whether it was madness or sheer conviction in his creations. And in many ways, it wasn't that wrong of an assumption.
He was the most dangerous person here, depending on what he had brought with him. Our craft may fundamentally differ, but I would be foolish not to see his skills. For all my knowledge, I couldn't survive a nuke.
"Glad we are of the same mind then, even if we may differ in vision, some small and some… not. " Thrall breathed out, his eyes sharp as ever and his voice unwavering.
"Ya don' say mon when de Wild and Horde be, for all intents and purposes, at war with only our armies missing." Zak'ji snarked dryly, and I snorted in amusement. Trolls were always something.
No truer words were spoken. It was a miracle we weren't in an all-out war.
"We be agreeing on dat front." Vol'jin answered, "But today be not be the time for dat bloodbath unless de be dose freaky bugs."
"Preferably." I hummed, and at once, every eye within the Horde cohort locked on me. I didn't waste that attention. "Now, before anything else, I would lay the groundwork even in case we fail to agree on working together."
It wasn't kindness; this was basic rationality. The Wild may win the vast majority of direct confrontations, but that was for now, and when conditions were essentially optimal.
A Wild God would fall to duress, perhaps an extreme amount, but the silithid alone gave that, and they were merely a part of a whole. We were uncertain about achieving victory, and even if we did, it wouldn't last.
"This is the Kingdom of Ahn'Qiraj, you probably know of the magical barrier under Silithus. That was what was supposed to keep it sealed." I rumbled, not addressing how or why this happened.
This wasn't the point of the discussion, and it was something the Horde would lose badly if a debate were to happen over it.
Night elves as a species could be blamed for the most horrid of things, but the opposite was also true. And the one who woke this arthropod empire up was eaten and shat.
Not that Fandral was the only reason the War of the Shifting Sands happened. He only quickened when they were going to emerge. Ahn'Qiraj would have woken up regardless; it was a blessing in disguise from a certain angle.
"It very clearly failed." Gazlowe snapped, the comment more offhanded than blaming, still my eyes bore into his for cutting me off. There was a slight widening, but the goblin held his ground for the most part.
He was wrong, however. Well, that depends on the point of view.
The magical barrier didn't fail, but the height it added should have been put in depth. Even if both are extreme, the tunnels went incredibly deep, magma level deep in some cases.
Not that it was necessary to be unaffected by most things. The unfortunate problem was that the qiraji and silithids could terraform and adapt, even if the former were far less extravagant in their approach. They were entirely caste based.
They were as close to one species as one could get, but given that everything about them was artificial, it was to be expected. And that was unnecessary information here.
"Yes, and no, it didn't go deep enough. The qiraji, the sapient ones, and silithids, the ones that adapted fast and dug under during the past millennia and continued onward." I said concisely, as they must have observed those phenomena already.
Finer details were to be worked out later, if the diplomacy were to proceed smoothly, but it was very likely to. Still, there was an order to things like this.
"And they dug enough to cross two-thirds of Kalimdor. This… this is far, far worse than I ever imagined, Ohto…? They can be anywhere, and we have no way to know." Thrall let out with a short pause after my name as if confirming it was actually me.
Understandably, I didn't often go out, and the few times I was seen didn't have the Warchief in any of them. I had changed quite a bit since we last spoke, too.
"That is precisely why the Wild has agreed to listen to your pleas and consider a potential alliance with the Horde. Temporary it may be, alone you would be destroyed, leaving Ahn'Qiraj free to put its entire focus on us." Magatha followed neatly, words as gentle as my claws in a demon's gullet.
'And as duplicitous as ever.' I thought. It was as if she didn't come up with the idea the moment she understood the size of the threat.
"Magatha, you cannot believe your little half lies. You will fall as we do with little delay. The Horde may not possess the… advantage of millennia and demi-gods, but we are no weaklings easily crushed under hoof." Cairne responded with a measured yet harsh tone.
"Then you will see how wrong your perception of power truly is, old fool. You always mistook confidence and arrogance. Be it in others or yourself." The Elder Crone shot back.
My ears twitched in annoyance; this was veering to a path I didn't want. Their theatrical worthy of a spat between a bitter divorced couple in a soap opera could wait.
If the Chieftain of the Bloodhoof weren't here, I would let her deal with it, but my fellow Representative rapidly lost grey matter when he was here, as did the bull.
"Enough." I let out, and Thrall did much the same, though my voice overpowered the orc's with ease, even with the spirits amplifying it. Even if that was virtually the same for me as of late, furbolg and wild spirits followed me like moths to a flame.
And I didn't let him continue, directly speaking to him. For all my faults, I dislike doing this in particular; it was just rude. But a bit of rudeness was required here.
"The Wild desires to work with your Horde as do you, as we did against the Burning Legion. The threat is smaller, but no less apocalyptic if left to fester. Survival serves no point if we cannot lick our wounds in time and permanently purge the chitinous cancer. The Legion's twice-shattered pride thirsts for retribution." I said, advancing forward and staring down at the Warchief from my much, much greater bulk.
There were some reactions from his guards, but nothing more. Some were more twitchy than others, though; ancestors bless me, Thrall didn't bring Grommash.
He seems to have wised up on that front.
Not that if a fight were to break out, his presence would make any difference to the result.
The shitstain was immensely skilled–more than me even now–and a mighty warrior, but that was pointless if you were stung to death by bees.
It was a funny but ultimately pointless thought.
"You seem acutely certain of your words," Thrall said, frowning. The truth was hard to swallow, by all accounts. The demons weren't defeated by any definition of the term.
And that wasn't the only danger, just the biggest. Azeroth was a Death World. Deathwing, the Scourge, those elemental versions of the Aspects, and the Old Gods. It wasn't about us alone.
Of course, that couldn't be said like this.
Azeroth wasn't a place where everyone was trustworthy and would willingly work together; there needed to be a reason, most often paid in death and blood, first. It didn't work like this on Earth; here, it was the same.
People were people, furry, green-skinned, or long-eared.
"Merely pattern recognition, this was their second invasion, and the fact that demons are still running around means a third is assured. But that's for the future. To Ahn'Qiraj, are we in agreement?" I asked if any further discussion and spinning in circles would be pointless.
There were a few seconds of silence, during which my eyes never left the pondering ones of the orc, but we both knew what he was going to say.
This was a matter of utmost importance, rendering our enmity to a petty squabble.
"We are."
And with this, the meat of the bone of the discussion truly began. We had to grow a table from roots and stones, complete with an adequate set of chairs, given the lengthiness of it all.
Agreeing to work together was all well and good, but alone, that was a bunch of empty words. We needed to discuss resources, knowledge, logistics, plans, and more, all while maintaining confidentiality regarding certain information. It was an infuriatingly delicate balance.
Our alliance wasn't formed in chaotic haste like the Third War; we didn't have mere hours to discuss tactics and even less time to prepare.
And unlike the invasion, those were much less straightforward battles that awaited us. Archimonde hadn't in his possession thousands of kilometers of knowledge and an army of millions.
So the beating heart behind our cooperation was here, and I would have it pump blood even in death.
It wasn't desperation, far from it, but logic dictated that winning with as few losses as possible took precedence above all else.
•••••
Dironormu always found the manipulation of events, and often mortals or others themselves, for specific critical moments in the timestream to happen, displeasing even if he never understood why.
He wasn't alone within the Bronze Dragonflight to share his opinions.
They were not cruel, sadistic monsters who adored watching mortals and immortals suffer and die from their carefully woven millennial machinations.
It was painful to be seen in this light, and the male wyrm couldn't blame anyone who held this view.
Still, direct intervention was generally something they avoided at all costs. They were not part of history, only unseen hands of fate, the guides and wardens behind the great veil of time and space.
As was their divine duty placed upon their mighty shoulders by Aman'Thul to prevent the Hour of Twilight. Azeroth and life itself upon its surface were for them to save; among the Dragonflight, no greater task existed.
Yet the Titan's edicts weren't rigid; time was in a constant flux. Merely knowing about it changed the result; even the Timeless One's sight wasn't perfect. There were always differences from what was foreseen.
However, they were almost always minors, unless malignant or ignorant agents violated time.
The Twisting Nether was chaotic and couldn't be read with any substantial precision. Yet they weren't blind to it. There were signs.
The Void was no different, as were any forces when Order was in the minority or absent. Time was a complicated matter that did not operate under linear logic. Only bronze dragons were capable of grasping its nature.
Yet there were tell-tale signs. Past, present, and future were inseparable. And certain moments were required to happen.
This means that at times, intervention was even necessary when no time anomalies were detected.
Be that as it may, they were of the magnitude of a push here, a word there, and practiced in ephemeral branching streams of the True Timeline.
Dironormu had never done anything of the scale he was doing now in this context.
Time wasn't fixed, but paradoxically, it could be simultaneously, and when it was, nothing could be done but adapt.
The True Timeline was in such a state. It was wrong, yet it wasn't. On the contrary, the water of time was purer than the wyrm had ever recalled.
Nozdormu had awakened with a revelation that caused equal parts relief and dread: the Infinite Dragonflight had been retroactively corrected away.
Their anchor in the timestream was erased on a fundamental level, as were any signs of their existence, far earlier than their known birth at that.
It was as if they were brutally ripped out of existence. Every record of them was turning to sand, and minds were not spared.
It was… terrifying, disturbing, satisfying, and relieving at once.
Routine was broken, and the rules of the world were changing, and changing fast.
The vision of Aman'Thul could no longer be followed, yet the Hour of Twilight was to be halted, no matter what.
This fueled the Bronze Dragonflight to find a way, innovate, and use alternatives. And so they did with the same dignity and dutifulness as they did for uncountable ages.
And those were the reasons why Dironormu found himself walking the steps of a pyramid hidden below the pleasantly scorching dunes of Vol'dun. In his bloodied, three-fingered, scaled hand was a stone humming with ancient, awesome power.
This was no simple odd magic stone crafted by an eccentric mage wishing for a pet.
It was Vorrik's Keystone, one of the three keys to deactivate the prison holding Mythraxx the Unrevaler.
The dry blood upon his dull, dirty bronze sethrak's scale was of the same man. Diroth'kar, per his name, was one of Korthek's most trusted and skilled followers for the past centuries.
He was a spy, an assassin, and at times an unwilling confidant to the mad Keeper's ramblings of grandeur.
It was the third and last of them for 'his' Emperor's ambition to concretise and the sethrak to rise again.
The Faithless Empire, indeed, would be like a New Year's fireworks festival in the Pandaria sky: impossibly bright and brief, yet marking the spirit.
And so Dironormu did his duty, faithfully wearing his disguise of Diroth'kar among the Faithless as he enacted the new vision of his father, the Aspect of Time.
He daggered Keeper Vorrik amidst his sleep under the order of the Faithless Emperor.
While he did this, his poison should have put Sulthis in a profound time coma for the loyals of the traitorous Keeper to grab the Keystone.
If this failed, the Emperor would resort to more violent means, but the recovery of the stone was inevitable. The Zandalari Empire had stowed away from the wider world for too long. Thus, the Keystone in his claw was the final one. The bronze was the sole judge to decide when to hand it.
'May their sacrifices not be in vain.' Dironormu internally called, his hand holding Vorrik's Keystone ever so tightly.
*
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