The Blue Phoenix, Part Three

[Kaerisk]

"Their evil is mighty
but it can't stand up to our stories.
So they try to destroy the stories
let the stories be confused or forgotten.
They would like that
They would be happy
Because we would be defenseless then." (1)

It had been three months for Resurgam just getting to the realm, and now he had spent two months there. The experiment had been successful and the Lich King was unaware, just as Malygos had planned. All was going according to plan for the Blue Flight, but not for Maekrux, for Maekrux had almost forgotten the reason for which he had come. He worked on his runic; forever had he found power in symbols and enjoyed the thought of writing existence into being through the runes. Malygos had commented that his calligraphy was poor, to which both laughed jovially, and so that was where Maekrux found himself, practicing his calligraphy with all five digits. Carving the magic into the air, claw tips dancing and glowing as they moved side to side, round and around as the hands that held them turned and waved, long runic stories came into existence only to fade away upon reading, never to be perfectly repeated again. It was a serious meditation upon the power that stories had and upon the patience and reverence to let things come and pass that would drive the industrious mad. But Maekrux understood the value to such patience, for Maekrux was dragon.

Once more the symbols faded into nothingness, leaving behind only their memory. As they did, Malygos stepped into the chamber and lumbered around Maekrux, curling in front of him. “Brother Resurgam, I would like to thank you.”

“Thank me? Why, Lord Malygos?” he asked.

“For me to answer that question, I must tell you a story. When you last visited here, many years ago, it was a different time indeed. I was a tired and unfeeling wreck. And that too requires a story which I shall impart to you now.

“Long, long ago, over ten thousand years, we dragons were whole. We had been empowered by the Travelers to defend this realm from all forms of evil – those who sought the destruction or subjection of this land. We discovered in time that such evil did exist and it made itself known as the Burning Legion: the infinite evil that has threatened this land since the Old Gods were subdued. When they came into this land, we dragons came together to decide how best to withstand their threat. Our youngest aspect and my greatest friend, the Black Aspect suggested that we turn all the power of the dragon race against the interlopers through an artifact called the Dragon Soul: his own creation to be imbued with the essence of every living dragon. It would permit us to share our power, every dragon’s power in every dragon, and form a nigh undefeatable force. Some were skeptical of this sharing, but I stood by my brother’s side. I urged the others to contribute to the Dragon Soul. And so the dragons were convinced. But the Black Aspect, unbeknownst to us all, did not contribute his essence. He had been tainted by something ancient and evil. With it, he took control of every dragon at the apex of a great battle. We blue dragons, masters of Magic, were the only ones who were able to resist the control and so we tried to stop him. But though we could not be controlled, we could be killed and through the magic of that infernal device, my entire Blue Flight was destroyed in a cloud of blood. I survived only for my strength, but I was unable to resist again. He – he who became Deathwing had destroyed my heart. The blood of my children rained down upon me, and I wept.

“Though he was eventually deprived of the Dragon Soul and forced into hiding, my heart had broken beyond repair. I cared for nothing but my own grief and sealed myself away in the Nexus. In retrospect, I might have been considered insane, for my viewpoint was so skewed that I saw all as unnecessary, un-alive, unforgivable. I raged internally amidst my sorrow. And for ten thousand years, I saw none, inconsolable.

“I was approached by Krasus, a red dragon in disguise. He wished to free my sister, Alexstrasza, from the binds of the orcs. Though Deathwing could no longer use the Dragon Soul, he had duped others into using it for him. I did not care, though. For inside I was bitter and broken still. But then he offered me hope: my sister, Alexstrasza is the Life-Binder. She would be able to restore some of my flight to me, not those who had died, no, but to give to me new children, another chance. Begrudgingly, I agreed. We fought with Deathwing while the mage Rhonin destroyed the Dragon Soul with a scale from Deathwing himself. With Alexstrasza freed and our powers fully restored, we attacked at full force, and Deathwing was defeated.

“Even this did not restore my sanity. Killing my brother was only the first step at healing for me, for the wounds had festered for ten thousand years. That was when you arrived, Maekrux. Resurgam. I had been overseeing the few children Alexstrasza had given to me, when you arrived. I was interested in you, for you were different, a distraction. At first, I thought you one of my own children! Perhaps that is why it was so easy to call you Brother. But you were a distraction from the pain. In your stories, I began to see that I was not the only one who had suffered. Perhaps you have not suffered on the scale that I have, but you have known what it is like to be completely without family. You have known was it was like to be without friends. You have known what it is like to be without power. And still, you tried. I was so amazed at how you had suffered and yet still continued to try. That was why I took you under my wing; that was why I helped you: I wanted to be like you, Resurgam. I wanted to be able to rise again.

“And so that is how we came to this place. I have found redemption for the blacks, I have found hope, and I have found conviction – sweet conviction – the purpose for which I now must live. I cannot express how good it is to see you again.”

“Lord Malygos, I don’t know what to say… I am honored,” Maekrux said after a pause. He was struck by the Spell-Weaver’s candidness. How could so ancient and great a dragon as Malygos have fallen so far? How could Maekrux have been the one to raise him up again?

“You are more than honored, Resurgam: you are blessed.” If only Makerux knew it.

“I am glad to be here, Malygos. But-” he paused. But what? He had come here for a reason, but he could not remember what it was. He had family here and – ah, that’s right, he had questions about family. “Malygos, you found redemptions in the blacks. They all turned against the other dragons, didn’t they?”

“Yes, though the evil of their Aspect. But through magic, they have been restored. Come and see.” And so Malygos led Maekrux from the chamber and to another place within the Nexus.



1 - Ceremony, by Silko.

[Kaerisk]

Maekrux erased away the last rune on his lair. No traps, no wards, no living thing remained within its bounds. He stared at the entrance for a long time. It had been over a year since he abandoned Selen for a lair of his own. This place was supposed to have been his fortress of solitude, with only one secret path up to it. How strange, he thought, to have longed it was not so, only to now, with his lair being so often visited, wonder why he had so longed for it. He had considering collapsing the entrance, but he had put too much work into it. This lair, which he had built for his family, his mate, would lay as dormant as his family and mates were now. Perhaps it was to stand as testament to what might have been, just as one of his dead hatchling’s lair in Snowfall was. “And so, I retire,” he said to no one in particular and took to the air.

It was a long and heavy flight. Maekrux did not have many worldy possessions, compared to others of his age; still, he needed some construction materials and items of importance, relics of the past, knick-knacks, and mementos mostly, memories of things now gone. It was hard to explain how Maekrux felt during that flight. Anguish, bitterness, grief – these words are merely words. Maekrux’s heart dug at him and tore at the walls of his chest like a trapped animal.

At last, the old and half-blighted isle came into view. It made sense to him. It was an isle of duality, of many levels, of history, and of loss. Where else could he go? If he was not to fight, if he was the last of his race, there could be no other place for him. Here, where knowledge and history and learning had been cast aside, torn asunder by hate, death, and evil; here, where scholars of old had once retired, where they became old teachers; here, where shadows of two generations and their teachers still wandered. He would retire to Draak and let his knowledge die with him.

He took up the high ground, a bit removed from the other three dragons who continued their watch. There would be time enough to carve a hut in the side of the cliff. For now, he merely took to the shadow of some rocks and curled up in them. It brought back memories. Maekrux’s first ‘lair’ was a series of rocks not far from Kirascant. It was there he had first found love and entertained guests. Of course, he fit in those rocks a lot better back then. Now that he was an ancient, he felt rather childish, curled up in those rocks like a hatchling. Still, he found more comfort within those tiny confines than he did at his relatively massive Harton lair.

Maekrux stood up again, unpacking some of his equipment. The first was a series of large travertine bricks, carved with runes. They would keep the Aegis at bay, should they wander up the mountain, though the other dragons should be watching that daily. Maekrux could not trust them, though. Not because they fled at the fall of Draak, but because he now distrusted all his kyn. He saw them now as wurms – wingless dragons who had lost language, culture, and vision along with their wings. It was a sad and bitter fate for one who had given his life to the pursuit of a dream of building a community. He dropped the last block into place. But for the first time in his life, Maekrux had given up.

He rested between them and thought of his son- no, wait. He no longer had a son. Carenath had decided that Maekrux’s crimes were so heinous, such a betrayal of trust, his faith had been irreparably shaken. This, at the same time he discovered within him another self that made him feel as old as Maekrux. Maekrux supported his son – protégé, as he was now – in his choice. Not because Maekrux wished to be rid of Carenath, but because he loved him dearly. Indeed, as Carenath had mentioned, the similarities between Aika and Carenath had become eerie. Carenath disowned himself to find his own path. Maekrux has disowned Aika so she could find hers. And Maekrux himself? Oh yes, he also disowned himself to find his own path in life. Seems that sort of thing ran in his family. No wonder they wished to be rid of him, rid of the past.

While this was only a half-truth, Maekrux no longer desired to see. The great and proud hypocrite, paragon of the dragon race, was no more. Pride had become dirty; hypocrisy had become dirty. Duality, building, seeing beyond the ground level of things; clearly they held no further value. The dragon was dead. The dragon was dead and the Empire had killed it. We have killed it, Maekrux thought.

He couldn’t go to the Rift, which was what he really wanted to do. For some reason, his ancient-rite Rune of Teleportation no longer worked for him and he had no need for the runes on his shoulders. He loathed himself for wanting to run, bitter and raged amidst his own internal struggles, his family gone – again – with only a daughter who had flown the nest and was well into her own life.

And yet even here, voices bugged him. Tsargoth, welcoming him back to Istaria after his ‘absence’ which had merely consisted of hiding himself with magic. Hiding was entirely unnecessary since Carenath’s good-conscience betrayal. What’s the worst they could do, kill him? Death had no meaning any more than life did to him now. A human who had precipitated meeting with Aurakvoar the day before and ultimately leading to Carenath’s self-disownment; he was rambling madly about some possession or other in Galdethriel. It was the first Maekrux had heard of it. That made him even more bitter and angry: perhaps Miira and Tsargoth would not have so readily turned against him if they had just bothered to face him and ask for help? Maekrux would have willingly given it then. He could not now. No, there was no reason to help. His race was dead. The only merciful thing he could do now was to take his memories and knowledge with him to the grave. Never should the wurm race know what it once was, lest it felt the utter shame of what it had become. They had killed the stories and left Maekrux to deliver the deathblow. They would be happy to see the stories confused and forgotten. Perhaps ignorance could be bliss.

He stared out at the blight surrounding him on all sides, at the walking corpses of his tiny kyn below. He sighed as the stench of blight filled his nostrils as the wind shifted. Even though three dragons lived nearby, he felt as isolated as when he was in the Rift. There were only two who might pull him back now, but he would not expect them. He surveyed this new, empty, desolate domain. “And so, I am home,” he said and curled back into the shadow of the rocks.

[Kaerisk]

Several netherdrakes clustered in a large open chamber, with a great flame in the center of the hall. Their scales were lucid and almost see-through, like a translucent skin of gel, usually black or blue. The larger dragons had been so irradiated by magic that their skin was white-blue, not see-through, but clouded and ghostly. They sought the warmth of the flame as they shivered in the cold. “Malygos, what is this?” Resurgam asked.

“These are the netherdrakes. They were eggs left behind by Deathwing on the Otherworld I told you of before. When the Otherworld was destroyed, they were irradiated in the egg by the cataclysmic magical energy and were wrenched free of their father’s tyranny and corruption.”

“Have you done any of this to them?” Resurgam asked, bewildered.

“I have experimented some, yes. To see if those more black than others might be rectified of their heritage of evil more completely,” Malygos admitted.

“I can’t believe this,” Maekrux murmured, looking about. Though some of the dragons held themselves proudly, most were huddled, broken, by the fire. Could these rift-spanned creatures truly be dragons? No, how could they be? Their very name, netherdrake, denied them even the pride of being called dragon.

“It was pure luck. We have saved them, Resurgam. In time, they will be able to stand on their own four claws. For now, we are in desperate need of shelter more suited to them,” Malygos said.

“How can you claim to have saved them? They no longer even look dragon! Are they free to follow their own wishes, Malygos, or yours alone?” Maekrux demanded.

“What are you saying, Resurgam?” Malygos asked. The commotion was rousing the netherdrakes, so Malygos ushered Maekrux back out of the chamber. “Some of the netherdrakes are not here by choice, yes. They do not realize that what is left of the Otherworld will be destroyed soon enough by – you guessed it – meddling magic using blood elves. The worst of all the addicts here. So I must bend a few to my will! It is good for them ultimately. They will have time enough for their own choice once they are settled here and have a good dose of their history. It is my only hope of ever reconciling the past and the mistakes of my once-kyn Deathwing.”

“Do you really wish to make up for his mistakes or is it a matter of pride?” Maekrux asked.

“Pride? Of course there is some pride. True dragons will experience pride, you know that well.”

Maekrux could not deny that fact, so he changed direction. “They must be free to make their own choices though, must they not? You have interned them here. Do you consider them family as you do me?”

“They will have time enough for their own choices.” Malygos was silent on Maekrux’s second question.

“When I left, I-” Maekrux paused, trying to remember why he had left. “I was no longer certain if I could believe in my kyn. I had lost faith in them. They had taken one of their own, me, and vilified me to serve their own purposes, be it consoling of grief, release of anger, or to have some moral ground to hold themselves somehow better than I. I had begun to believe that my kyn were no longer dragon. This broke my heart, because I love my kyn. I have spent the days since I returned home finding love, teaching hatchlings, adopting hatchlings, telling the stories of our race and history, building my lair for my family and all to visit, and building a greater community for all. Again and again I have tried, for that is my name, my heart. I never give up. But this-” Maekrux turned his pained gaze onto the curious netherdrakes looking at them standing in the hall. “This is not treating them as family, is it, Malygos? Surely there is another way that does not destroy their heritage.”

“Their heritage is one of corruption and death!” Malygos roared, causing the curious netherdrakes and some others huddled in the room to cower. “They are better off to be rid of it.”

“But if the cataclysm freed them and not your magic, did they not have a culture of their own, free of the black history you so hate?” Makerux asked. Malygos was stunned into silence. “I know better than to destroy history and culture. I disowned my niece not long ago, not because I hated her, but because I loved her! She needed to find her own path in life, to find her own balance between that which made her a Stardragon and that which made her Istarian. She did not believe she could find it with me – this I knew. It made me hurt; it made me anguish. And others took my grief for maliciousness. If they did not, I would not be here!” Maekrux spoke with fury until his last sentence hit the frigid air. Now he remembered well. His kyn had been unable to take the sky and free themselves of their wurmsight. The tradition of waiting to fifty seasons, to make one weary of wurmsight, to dawn in a dragon’s perception such depth that goes beyond mortal comprehension. Had his accusers waited? Were they not stuck in wurmsight?

But was that not what Maekrux was trying to do? With his teaching of history, of hatchlings? Of telling stories, of keeping culture? With the Community Rites, one might expand their perceptions and roles in life to be more encompassing. If they could not see beyond their own wurmsight, someone had to help them. Someone had to lift them up. That dragon should have been Maekrux. The only one who had failed was he.

“I believe I am beginning to understand. I should not have come here,” Maekrux said after a period of uncomfortable silence.

“Resurgam, don’t say that. Your insights are very valuable to me. Perhaps between the two of us we might-”

A blue drake rushed down the hallway to the two dragons. “Lord Malygos! The city of Dalaran has suddenly appeared in our skies! They are beginning an attack on the Nexus!”

“What?!” Malygos exclaimed. “We must prepare for war immediately. Prepare the countermeasure and set our brothers to flight. We shall meet them and retake the skies from these impudent mortals!”

“My lord, that is not all. The mage city is followed by – by red dragons,” the messenger said.

“Betrayal… BETRAYAL!” The voice of Malygos echoed throughout the Nexus. War was upon him and his kyn.

[Kaerisk]

((End Part 3.))

[Galdethriel]

(( *drools* Amazing! Write more now, I command it. XD

You write often Mae? You seem very experienced. ))

[Kaerisk]

((Yeah, I'm a bit of a writer. Not published or anything though, least not yet. As for the commandment at hand: I'm working on it! ;p I've been having trouble writing what I should be writing lately and it's always a nice break to work on another project. So far, I seem to be getting these updates out about once a week, which is pretty decent.

We have two more installments to go, though, so hopefully by the week after Thanksgiving Mae won't be a hassle to deal with ;p))