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Dawn of the Dragon	By : RotSeele Category: +S through Z > World of Warcraft Views: 3875 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own World of Warcraft. I do not make any money from this story.

Chapter List
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Nineteen
Anduin followed Shalya's shaded form through the cave, watching her back rather than where he placed his feet. Behind him walked Wrathion, Dashiell, and Shandris. Both elves had their weapons drawn, their eyes darting from side to side as though they expected to be attacked at any moment. All Anduin saw were shale spiders that scurried away from the light of the torch Shalya was carrying, but nothing overtly dangerous seemed inclined to test its might against three warriors, a rogue, and a priest.
No one really spoke much, but Anduin could guess what everyone was thinking. They were worried about Karidormi. Not only had she vanished without telling anyone, they weren't sure when, or if, she was coming back. The only person who seemed unconcerned was Shalya, like she knew something they didn't. So caught up in his own thoughts was he that Anduin didn't realize Shalya was looking back at him. He jumped when he caught her staring, his face quickly turning crimson as he realized where he'd been staring.
"I didn't-! I mean-! I wasn't-!" Anduin held up his hands in surrender. "I was just thinking!"
Shalya smirked lightly. "Thinking? About what?"
"About how sweet an ass you have."
Anduin whirled and punched Wrathion in the shoulder. "I was not!"
Wrathion took the hit, but his eyes sparked in a way that seemed dangerous. Then he grinned. "Oh come on, Anduin. Take a joke. It's perfectly normal for a boy to go all gaga over a female he finds attractive."
Anduin turned an even brighter red. "Shut up." He growled.
"No, Wrathion is right." Shalya said with a smile. "Of course, he's assuming he knows what attractive means to a human. He's a black dragon, after all, and black dragons don't seem to have very good judge of what's attractive."
Both Anduin and Wrathion stared at her with open mouths. Shalya winked at them, then turned and continued up the trail. Anduin looked at Wrathion. "She just insulted you."
Wrathion slowly closed his mouth and tilted his head to the side. "She just doesn't know who she's dealing with, that's all."
"Oh, I think she's got a pretty good idea," Dashiell said as he passed the boys. "I think she knows exactly how far she can push you before you get violent."
Anduin looked at Shalya's shrinking form. "She has led a difficult life."
"She pinned you in the first five seconds of meeting you." Dashiell said. "Don't tell yourself otherwise."
"Why?"
"Because you'll end up on your ass missing a few teeth." Dashiell moved on.
Anduin and Wrathion looked at each other, almost sizing one another up. Then Wrathion folded his arms over his chest. "She's not my type anyway."
Shandris gave them both a shove to get them moving. "You're two, Wrathion. You shouldn't be thinking about types at your age."
"I'm two in dragon years!" Wrathion complained, but Shandris seemed intent on ignoring him, and pushing them both toward the end of the tunnel.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. In any case, you're still just an egg yolk compared to me."
Anduin bit his cheek to keep from laughing at his friend's expense. Wrathion didn't seem too happy, but he wasn't stupid enough to try to fight Shandris over her choice of words. He wouldn't win, anyway.
They walked a few more hours in fire-lit darkness before a light began to appear before them. Shalya doused her torch and drew one sword, creeping up toward the exit of the cave as though she expected to be attacked the moment she stepped foot in the sunlight. Anduin clenched his fingers around his staff, a shielding spell on the edge of his tongue in case it was needed. Shalya stepped into the light and paused, looking left and right. Then she turned to the party and waved for them to follow.
"This is ogre territory." Shalya explained. "Keep your voices down. We don't want them knowing we're here."
"Why?" Asked Wrathion.
Shalya calmly turned and pointed up, toward the high spires of the Blade's Edge. Anduin turned with the others and sucked in a sharp breath. Though mostly skeleton, it wasn't hard to see that the bones had once been a dragon. There were more corpses littering the spires of the mountains in varying states of decay. There were two or three corpses that still sported black scales, and one or two that looked fresh but had incredible, debilitating wounds that didn't come from the spires of the mountains.
Wrathion started trembling with rage. "What the hell kind of person would do this?!"
Shalya shifted, looking for something among the rocks. "Gruul did it. When the gronn tried to settle these mountains, they pissed off the creatures already living here - Deathwing and his kind. But the gronn got help from some Alliance adventurers, and were able to send the dragons away. Not all the dragons left, though. That made Gruul happy, because he really came to enjoy hunting down dragons and killing them, and tossing their bodies up there as warnings to his enemies."
Wrathion turned burning red eyes on her. "Is that bastard still alive?"
Shalya shrugged. "Last I heard, Baron Sablemane got a couple of adventurers to go and kill him. But I don't think Gruul is our problem. As long as you don't attract much attention, you'll survive just fine."
"It's not about me!" Wrathion hissed. He pointed up at the corpses. "Those are my family!"
"And Sablemane got revenge for you. Besides, those dragons followed Deathwing. I'd say they got what they deserved." Shalya turned on her heel and began walking away.
Anduin gripped Wrathion's shoulder. "She doesn't really know."
Wrathion shook his head. "No, she's right. If they followed Deathwing, then I'd have probably ended up orchestrating their demise just like-" Wrathion cut himself off and pursed his lips. "Anyway, this Sablemane... For him to take revenge like that means one of two things."
"Which are?"
"Either he hates Gruul something fierce, or he isn't at all what he seems to be."
They walked mostly in silence, with Shalya leading the way through the barren trail. Anduin looked above him to the sky, watching the colors there shift, with green being the most dominant color. He saw Shandris shake herself and tighten her hold on her glaive, and wondered if the night elf commander was nervous about being here. The Twisted Nether could clearly be seen even during the day, a myriad of colors shifting through the air like some sort of miasma. Anduin looked toward the massive spires of the mountains and wondered why anyone would want to live in such a barren and forsaken place. There was little plant life, and less animal. The Blade's Edge Mountains were a place where one would have to fight to survive, not only against nature, but other creatures as well.
Wrathion canted his head and raised a hand to shield his eyes. The sun was starting to set, and long shadows were being cast along the ground. In the distance, the sounds of something living out there could be heard echoing. He glanced at Anduin, who only put a finger to his lips to tell him to be quiet.
"We'll camp here for the night." Shalya said suddenly. She'd led them off the obvious trail and had tucked them up beneath a massive stone spire shielded on one side by a boulder.
"Shouldn't we keep going?" Dashiell asked. "We've still got plenty of light."
Shalya shook her head. "I don't want to go through Bloodmaul Outpost in the dark. Night comes quickly here. Once the sun goes down the only light comes from the Twisting Nether. And you don't want to be caught traveling by that kind of light."
"Bloodmaul Outpost belongs to who, exactly?" Shandris asked.
"Ogres. They'd sooner eat you than welcome you around their fires. You could try for the Alliance holding. It's about a mile or so north and to the west of the Outpost."
Shandris frowned. "Here is fine."
"What about fire?" Wrathion asked.
Shalya shook her head. "Too risky. Until we're closer to Ruuan Weald, I don't want to use fire."
"Why?"
"Ogres will check out anything suspicious. They won't realize that they're walking into a trap until it's sprung and they're already dead." Shalya replied. "But, as stupid as they are, they make up for it in viciousness. You'll see them coming, but they'll probably flatten you before you get your sword out."
"Shouldn't we have a night watch or something?" Anduin asked.
Shalya gave a little shrug. "For the most part nothing and no one comes out this way. No food, you see. So, provided we don't make ourselves look like something tasty, we should get by tonight just fine."
Anduin shook his head. He was never going to understand Shalya. The differences between them were just too great. He looked at Wrathion in the growing gloom and hoped his friend wasn't going to do anything stupid. Wrathion just kept staring at the spires, as though he could still see the bones skewered on the highest points of the mountains. His hands were clenched to tightly his dark skin was starting to turn white. Finally, Wrathion relaxed and looked at Anduin, smirking. Anduin gestured to him, and the two began to help set up the small camp.
When darkness had fully taken the canyon, Anduin found himself mesmerized by the myriad colors dancing about in the night sky. Beyond the stars was the Twisting Nether, the strange powers that were keeping Outland in relatively one piece. He sat with his back to the others, staring up at the sky. A piece of bread appeared before his eyes. He looked up at Shalya and smiled. He took the bread, saying, "Thank you."
She sat cross-legged beside him and tore a piece of bread from the small loaf she held. She chewed silently for a moment. "If I've offended you, I'm sorry."
Anduin looked at her, startled. "What?"
"Grandfather says I'm too straightforward, and I say what I think, with no regard for the feelings of others. He says that's the human in me."
Anduin smiled a little and, to save himself from answering for a moment, chewed on a piece of bread. "Well, humans are kind of straightforward. But I'll take straightforward and honest over sly and dishonest any day."
"Why?"
"Well, in my experience, most of the people I met didn't have the time to dispense with the niceties. Most of the people I met were warriors, who only knew how to be brutally honest. I met a troll death knight once, and she told me flat out that the only reason she didn't kill me right then was because she thought I was cute and had a smart ass mouth."
Shalya laughed softly. "I see. I suppose that could be refreshing."
"I guess so. When I'm in Stormwind, I'm surrounded by people who tell me what they think I want to hear. They dab at their lips with scented oils, and the women wear dresses that I'll politely call flattering, all the while twittering behind fans or hands in hopes they'll find themselves Queen one day." Anduin looked at the bread in his hands and sighed. "It's funny; when I was little all I could think of was growing up, and now that I'm grown up, I don't want to think about being an adult anymore."
Shalya raised a brow. “Kind of too late for that.”
"That's right." Said Wrathion with a grin. He sat heavily on Shalya's other side. “You’re old enough to keep giving your dad heart attacks with the stuff you do.”
Shalya blinked. Anduin couldn't tell if she was impressed or just surprised. Finally she looked at him and said, "Your father must be proud of you."
"He is." Anduin replied. "Most days."
Wrathion laughed. "Are you kidding? He hardly smiles, barely keeps a civil tongue in his head, and he scares the shit out of everyone who knows him!"
"Sounds like a great warrior." Shalya said.
Anduin and Wrathion stared at her. Wrathion leaned backwards and looked at Anduin. He made a few pointing gestures, grinned, and gave the blonde a thumbs up. Anduin glowered at him and then focused on Shalya. "I'm sure you've heard of Varian Wrynn."
"Who hasn't?" She grinned at him. "You're the little lion cub mother used to talk about. She said that Varian Wrynn was a great warrior and a good king. She always got this look in her eyes when she spoke about him. Father used to tell her he was getting jealous."
"My father has done a lot, and he's been through even more." Anduin said. He glanced over his shoulder, looking to the two shadowed shapes of Dashiell and Shandris. "I don't know if there's anyone who'd ever be able to understand him. And I'm not a little lion cub."
Shalya smiled. "It would take a special kind of person to understand another so deeply that they aren't offended by particular mannerisms."
"Maybe that's why you don't get along with the prissy bitches," Wrathion said to Anduin. "You've done things that make them ooh and aah, but they don't understand it. Like how they want to see your battle-scars, but they don't quite get that you almost died getting them."
"Battle-scars?" Shalya questioned, looking at Anduin.
Anduin glowered at Wrathion. "I stupidly faced Garrosh Hellscream all by myself and nearly got killed for it. I had so many broken bones that it took every Pandaren mistweaver and any other healer the Horde and Alliance could spare to put me back together. That's how I met that asshole." Anduin jerked his thumb at Wrathion.
"That was stupid." Shalya said slowly. "But also admirable. Brave, but reckless."
"At least you think so." Anduin sighed.
"You did what you thought was the right thing." Shalya said. "If you hadn't, who knows what would've happened. Yet you survived. And because of you, things changed, yes?"
Anduin looked at her, blinking. "Yeah, I guess. I mean, things were already changing, but I guess I kind of helped move it along."
Shalya shrugged. "It's not a question of kind of or maybe; the fact is, you took a stand when no one else did. Even if you stood alone, you changed the hearts and minds of many people." She got to her feet. "You will make a good king one day."
She walked away, leaving Anduin and Wrathion watching her retreating form. Wrathion leaned over to Anduin and whispered, "She likes you."
Anduin flushed. "Shut up."
"I'm serious. She really likes you."
"She's just being nice. 'Thion, she's just our guide. Once we've done what we've come here to do, she's returning to her people."
Wrathion smirked. "Sure, just keep telling yourself that. I'm pretty sure it's called denial, and that's not good for a future king."
Anduin punched Wrathion in the shoulder. "Don't be stupid!"
Wrathion laughed. "What? You don't want to be king?"
"That's not it!" Anduin hissed. "Why are you so insistent that she likes me?"
"Because it's obvious. You'd see it too, if you weren't always getting flustered around her."
"You know, I really hate you sometimes."
Wrathion grinned. "Only sometimes?"
Anduin sighed. "If you weren't my best friend I might have to deck you."
"Never stopped you before."
Anduin was about to reply when he heard something out in the darkness. Wrathion heard it too, because he suddenly froze and his crimson eyes narrowed. Anduin got to his feet; Wrathion quickly followed suit. The two stood close to each other, waiting for an attack or something. The beginnings of a shielding spell were already on the tip of Anduin's tongue.
Then Wrathion took a breath and Anduin felt him relax. Wrathion took a step forward and grinned. "We've been worried about you."
Karidormi stepped out of the darkness. "I'm sorry to have worried you, hatchling." She replied, smiling.
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Dawn of the Dragon