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A Pact of Earth and Life	By : wanderingaddict Category: +S through Z > World of Warcraft Views: 2220 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own WoW and I don't make any money off of this.

Chapter List
- 2
- 3
- 4
Chapter 3: Autumn and Spring
Summary:
Not even the wisest Keeper can plan for everything. Some things end while others begin.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
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Dawn, in the Outlands, was not the celestial occurrence that one would find on Azeroth. No great, shining sun crested the horizon, no dramatic shift of night to day - at least, not in whatever planar realm of the Twisting Nether the ruins of Draenor currently floated in.
As far as Antelarion understood it, different areas of the broken world reflected the skies of the past, the future, and all that lay in-between, depending on how far they had been flung in the explosion that consumed the orc homeworld. Shattrah, or Zangarmarsh, as he understood it, were often cloaked in darkness, with nights as deep, as pure as what they might have once experienced a millenia ago.
The baked, burning mountains of the Blade’s Edge did not share those skies; dawn here was little more the the start of a dull, orange glow that slowly suffused the sky during the course of the day, erasing the planets, the arcane energies of the Twisting Nether for a time before it faded again. For all that the Wildlord knew, it wasn’t even a reflection of a day night cycle but the movement of some pattern that even he was unaware of.
Still, it served its purpose well enough, and the natural order of his land had adjusted accordingly. Attuned to the thrum of the Life energy that flowed through him, through the forest and the trees and each animal therein, the cenarion slipped from the warm, balmy breezes of the Emerald Dream and woke - as poor a term that was for describing the shift of a cenarion’s spirit consciousness back to their mortal form - to the dry heat the Raven’s Wood… and the dragon that still shared the glade with him.
The keeper turned his antlered head towards the black flight male, who he could not tell if he was awake or not. His eyes were the same red slits from the night before, nothing more.
Antelarion looked towards the water before them, his mind curiously sluggish, while at the same time his thoughts could not stop churning. The dragon’s offer to stay, several hours earlier, had marked a turning point in their strange relationship, and now the Wildlord found himself in unfamiliar territory.
He had never been one to slink away, the morning after, like so many mortals tended to do after being the target of his sisters’ attentions. Not that he had ever been one to stay, for that matter.
Close to his fourth millennia, yet here he was agonizing over a moment of awkwardness with his… well he supposed he should be calling Hemathion his lover, at this point. The keeper’s mouth turned down at the corners. He stared out over the pool a moment longer, eyes flicking to the black dragon several times, before he decided to simply rise to all fours and stretch. Hemation’s red eyes slid open the moment he moved.
After stretching from shoulders to haunches, the cenarion offered him a small smile. “A new day greets us, Hemathion.” He knelt by the water’s edge, cupping his wooden hand for a drink. “What will you do with it?”
The great black dragon yawned. “I have yet to decide, Wildlord.” At Antelarion’s glance, he added, “There is nothing so pressing that it cannot wait. There will always be more ogres to eat, arakkoa to battle...”
Hemathion’s red eyes slid over to the keeper’s. He swung his head close. “But there’s only one cenarion I’m allowed, apparently. According to the pact.”
“Allowed to eat, or to battle?”
“Either.” The dragon snaked his tongue into the keeper’s mouth.
After a few moments, Antelarion pulled free, wiping the back of his hand across his lips. “Flattering that you might choose him, then, of all your options.”
“Yes. It is.”
Sarcasm was often lost on the black-flight male, since hubris and dragonkind went hand-in-hand. As quirks went, however, a bit of haughtiness was something Antelarion could handle. He stroked his wooden hand along the leathery underside of the black dragon’s chin.
“I have duties I must attend to.” Namely speaking with Mosswood before the ancient left Evergrove, along with seeing to his children. The keeper inclined his antlered head, just slightly, before he made to leave. “Elune-Adore, Hemathion.”
“Del-nadres.”
The dragon’s switch to fluent darnassian had the keeper turning back, a disbelieving grin on his face. “I didn’t know you-” he began, but he cut himself off.
A presence he had never allowed into the Raven’s Wood suddenly pinged on the edge of his awareness, his whole body going rigid in response. Swift as a river, his consciousness spun outward, racing from tree to tree, noting every threat within five miles. A scorpid nest along the the cliffs to the east. Three ogres skinning a boar. A gnarled Stonebark, twisted, its heart blackened by shadow magic, stomping through a stream to the west. Nothing of immediate concern, to his relative relied. It was the only reason he wasn’t galloping out of the glade at full speed this very moment.
Antelarion let the swirl of vibrant green energy about him dissipate, though he kept his senses carefully extended throughout the Wood. Reining himself in long enough to realize he did not want the dragon following him, he paused. “Apologies, I have something to attend to.”
Not waiting for a reply, the Wildlord bounded out of the glade, at as sedate a pace as he could manage until he was out of sight - where his long, cervine legs extended into powerful thrusts, leaping over logs, over streams and bushes as he tore a path between the terrokar trees. His blood was pounding so hotly it felt like time had flashed when he burst through the undergrowth to snap his son up in his arms.
Shade squawked in surprise. “Papa!” he exclaimed, laughing.
“Hey, little sprout.” Antelarion schooled his voice. Not easy, given how hard he’d been running. “I see you didn’t tell Mossbeard you’re not allowed in the Raven’s Wood.”
“I did tell him, Papa!” Affronted, Shade put a fist on his hip. “‘Tasha said we’d be okay because you’d be a hypocrite if it were safe for you alone but not for us with Mossbeard.”
The Wildlord scowled. “She did, did she?” Natasha was getting entirely too smart for her young, human self. That intelligence had already seen her through several perilous encounters with the Wyrmcult - slightly less perilous than otherwise, given that Samia was with her - but still just enough to see her caught up in trouble more often than not.
At least she had the sense to travel with Mosswood. Though, now that he had calmed, he realized he could not sense them nearby. His eyes narrowed. “And why are you by yourself?”
There was enough warning in his tone that Shade ducked his head. “She told…” he began, scrunching his nose, “She told Mossbeard that she needed to find some scorpids. He said there are big ones here in the Wood, and he would take us!”
Antelarion held back a wince. He knew he should’ve talked with the ancient about mortal fragility. In his arms, Shade blithely continued. “But then he met his other tree-friend and that tree is soooooooo boring, Papa! All he does is complain and also he smells like termites.” Shade imitated his father’s scowl.
It was cute enough that the elder cenarion had to ask. “You don’t like termites?”
“They're dirty.” At Antelarion’s inquiring look, Shade added, “Noko showed me. She mashed them all up and put them in a bottle that she gave to a human.”
While he was assuming that there was a bit more to the story than his son remembered, Antelarion also wouldn’t put it past Evergrove’s strange reagents vendor to have done exactly that. “So where is ‘Tasha?”
Shade scratched at an area beneath his mooncloth wrappings. “She got stung by the scorpids and they made her really sleepy so Mossbeard is carrying her. I could feel you, Papa! I was telling you that she needed your white and green spell but maybe you didn’t hear me?”
Smiling softly, the Wildlord stood. “No, Shade, I could not hear you. When you’re older, your voice will carry, and then we can talk without being next to each other.” Relieved that Natasha had only been poisoned by the scorpids’ non-fatal paralytic - hopefully with a bit of tolerance built up and some lessons learned to boot - Antelarion straightened. “Did you tell Mossbeard where you were going?”
“I told him! He said ‘Okay little one, be good now!’ and kept talking.”
His little boy was already so responsible. “You’re just the best little keeper, aren’t you Shade?” Antelarion cooed, squeezing the fawn once more. Shade tolerated his father’s affection briefly before pushing away to stare in the direction he’d been heading earlier..
“Papa, something’s coming.”
Staring at the fawn, the Wildlord had only just spun his senses out into the web of vitality about them when Hemathion’s sinuous bulk glided through the undergrowth. The great black dragon paused upon spying them, his red eyes fixed on the two cenarions. Like a predator.
They only moved when Antelarion placed a protective hand on Shade’s back.
“Ah,” the dragon began. “You left in a hurry. I was uncertain if you needed aid.”
Hemathion’s statement was so benignly matter of fact that it took a moment for Antelarion’s thoughts to catch up. He cast a look from the black-flight male to the fawn beside him, weighing the multitude of responses.
“My son was wandering where he shouldn’t be.” He couldn’t help but slip another stern note in there; the Raven’s Wood was not safe like the Weald.
“Children.” Hemathion snorted. His head tilted as he studied the obvious resemblance - aside from color - the fawn bore to the elder cenarion. Were Shade older, and if his horns came in, the boy would nearly be the spitting image of the Wildlord. In form, at least, if not in hue.
“This is your hatchling?” His nostrils flared wide, taking in their scent. “He is so young. Barely out of the shell.”
Antelarion hid his tension by hefting his son in his arms and exaggerating Shade’s weight. The cenarion did his best to make the fawn halfway presentable before turning fully to the dragon. “Hemathion, this is the some-day Keeper Nightshade.” His voice was smooth. He forced a half-smile. “Shade, currently.”
“Nightshade…” The dragon’s eyes shifted. “That is a plant, on Azeroth, yes?”
A group of plants, actually, but ‘Shade had been named for one in particular; a small, purplish - almost black - bloom that contained a shockingly potent poison in its tiny leaves. Its potency was only part of the reason the Wildlord had chosen that particular name, but none of that was necessary for Hemathion to know. Instead, Antelarion shrugged, grinning and mouthing noisily at the fawnling’s ear. “He is my smol li’l flower!”
“No!” Shade squealed, laughing. “It means terror! I am the TERROR IN THE NIGHT!” He roared, breathing imaginary flames at his father - and everything else in the glade, the dragon included.
“You, little one?” Mirth lifted the gravelly tone of Hemathion’s voice. “Not I?” The dragon swelled, spines lifting, wings flaring to their full width. “You don’t cower before me?”
Twisting his face into his own snarl of defiance, the seven year-old shouted, “No!”
“My, such bravery,” the dragon mocked, his head snaking close. “Why aren’t you afraid?”
“Because Papa isn’t afraid of you.” The fawn wrinkled his nose. “And you smell like him.”
The answer had Antelarion cringing internally, though a large part of him swelled in an odd mix of pride and amusement at his son’s bravado.
“Ho ho,” Hemathion chortled, eyes gleaming. Then he lunged forward, showing off all of his very large teeth. “But what if I were to gobble you both right up?”
“I’d gobble you up first! Gnarrgh!” Nigthshade threatened, gnashing his teeth and chomping down right on the tip of the black dragon’s jaw.
Startled, Hemathion reared backwards, shaking his head. Antelarion scrambled to reprimand the fawnling - as surprised as the dragon that the bite actually hurt? - without making his shocked amusement too obvious. What had happened to his shy fawnling that could barely speak to Mosswood without squeaking!
“Shade!” he began, but the boy protested.
“He was going to do it to me! I just did it first!”
Huffing, the keeper schooled his smile. “You know that’s no excuse. Apologize.”
“No apology is needed, Wildlord.” Hemathion’s eyes narrowed, his words belied by the deep, hard rumble of his voice. “I am merely impressed at his bravery. I can’t recall the last time a whelp thought to challenge me.” His nostrils flared again.
Wary of the perceptive black-flight male, Antelarion set his son on the ground, shrugging off his own keeper-wrappings and winding them about the boy. “I think it might be time for you to run back to Mosswood and your sister, and let them know that you are safe.” As he spoke, he kept a watchful eye on Hemathion’s snout, slightly relieved when it seemed that the dragon had lost whatever scent he’d been tracking. “You can also tell them that I will be coming along shortly.”
“Aw, but-!” Shade whined, looking to Hemathion.
“Now, Shade.”
His protest dying at the warning tone, Shade pouted, but as he turned he was reminded that he got to wear the Wildlord’s wrappings. Swelling proudly, the little cenarion waved his arms about at the bushes, casting spell after spell. Antelarion let his power fill him momentarily, just long enough to check that the path between the two ancients - a brisk gallop away - was still clear of danger.
“Your pride is warranted, Wildlord. He is fierce. Brazen as any black hatchling.” Watching the fawn scamper away, Hemathion, thankfully, did not see the keeper’s guard spike at the compliment. Lost in his own thoughts, the black-flight male continued with, “In fact, between the strength of that bite and that smell, I’d almost think he was…”
Antelarion practically heard the click in his brain as the dragon stopped mid-sentence. His heart leapt to his throat; a thousand ideas of ways to distract the dragon racing through his thoughts and none of them were good enough. Snatching at one fluttery idea, he opened his mouth -
But it was already too late. He only needed to see the half-formed accusation in Hemathion’s wide eyes when he whipped his head around to the keeper. The truth had been uncovered..
“I am suddenly reminded,” Hemathion began, fury fraying the edges of his cthonic voice, “of a story a green drake told me once. About Cenarius.” The dragon swung his whole body about to face him, crouched like a predator, claws out, as he stalked towards the keeper. “And how the ‘Lord of the Wild’ helped that green repopulate his brood.”
The dragon lifted his head, spiney ridges all extended, as his anger built. “At the time, I assumed he meant he had just given him his blessing, but now I am wondering-”
“His horns will come in curled. Like one of his fathers’.” Antelarion interrupted, glancing, pointedly, at the dragon’s corkscrewed horns, before finding himself somehow intensely engrossed by the vines twined about his arms.
Unwilling to say more.
Hemathion just stared at the cenarion, mouth agape. The keeper refused to look at him. “HOW?!” he finally exclaimed.
Antelarion said nothing, an internal debate raging inside him. His eyes kept flicking to the dragon, though he couldn’t hold his gaze. The keeper crossed his arms, shoulders perfectly square throughout his inner struggle, until finally some… softer… part of him won out. He sighed.
This had been a long time coming, after all. He was impressed he had managed to hide this from Hemathion for even this long, given the circumstances. The keeper weighed his words, the different answers he had prepared, should he ever be pressed.
Damn Shade’s precocious little self. He’d hoped so badly he wouldn’t have to do this for at least another ten years. Antelarion cast about, sighed, felt the weight of the dragon’s full-attention bearing down on him, and sighed again.
“While I don’t want to get into the specifics of cenarion biology,” he began, pausing for thought. “The simplest answer is that my kind do not bear children - at least, not in the same sense that mortals, or even dragons, do. You… are aware of our connection to the Dream?” he asked, conjuring momentary growth from his wood-warped hand. He held the green glow, letting it flare over him completely. “From the dream we are born. When I die, to the dream I return, where I am, again, born anew.”
At a loss for how to continue, he let the magic fade and looked to the dragon - who merely narrowed his eyes. “Fascinating.”
The cenarion scowled. “I tell you of the Dream, for that is where I come from. Where all my brothers and sisters emerge.” Antelarion raised a wooden finger. “Now, think, for a moment. If Cenarius was the first - and only - of his kind... where did his children come from?”
Forest sounds filled the air for a moment, before realization dawned on the dragon’s face. Haltingly, struggling to put the concept into terms neither common nor draconic had any words for, the Wildlord motioned at himself with an open palm. “We don’t bear children, or even lay eggs. We… plant seeds.”
Hemathion moved closer, seating himself beside the keeper. He, too, seemed to be struggling with the idea. “If these… seeds… simply make more of your kind… How does that make the whelp… dragon?”
“It isn’t that simple.” Antelarion ran a hand through his thick, leaf-filled hair, gripping it at the nape. “It’s not... “ he tried, but that path failed. There were just no parallels he could think of! He tried tried again, holding both hands straight up in front of him for aid. An idea took hold. “Having a seed is something that only occurs once in a great while,” he began, warming to the utilitarian explanation. “It may lie dormant, it may demand being planted early. It depends on the environment the cenarion is in. Most seeds on the Material planes require repeated exposure to a partner for genesis. While all our children are always Cenarion, they, if not exposed to the Dream early, can inherit much from the partner.” He shifted uncomfortably. “That’s why Nightshade is the way he is. The Dream is far from Draenor, so what replaced it was… you.”
The dragon was silent for a moment. “I recall, about seven years ago.” His keen mind was clearly ferreting out every aspect of what had happened. “There was a time you were extremely insistent that I not spill my seed in you. I complied.” He tilted his head. “Did it not matter?”
Cheeks flushing, Antelarion tried a halting explanation. “I… had one too many moments of weakness. The… um,” he paused, searching for more delicate terms. “Seed and seed connected. It’s not… It’s not an exact science.” His color deepened. “And once the seed forms, it lasts until genesis occurs. Our repeated mating made genesis happen, um, sooner than expected.”
He waited for the next inevitable question, half-disbelieving that the shrewd black dragon was taking it so well. After some digestion, Hemathion spoke again. “How can you be sure the hatchling is mine?”
“Because.” That first word came out harsh, in large part because he was dangerously close to explaining far more than he had ever wanted to. The cenarion shifted uncomfortably. “Genesis isn’t… accidental. At least, not in the sense that… a partner may be chosen accidentally.” Antelarion released a shaky breath. “It’s an act. It requires joining. I’ve never… joined… with any of the drakes.”
The dragon’s eyes flicked again, as he searched his memory. “The innervate, isn’t it.” He focused on the cenarion. “You never do that with the drakes.”
Mouth working uselessly, Antelarion could only nod, praying to the Goddess that the dragon would not press any further; he wasn’t sure he had any more answers to give.
For a moment, there was only the breeze through the terrokar trees, and birdsong in the distance.
Maybe, for that moment, that was all there needed to be.
Hemathion broke the silence first. “Why did you not tell me?” he asked, with no accusation in his voice, just curiosity.
“Why?” Antelarion stared off through the trees. Despite having had the better part of a decade to think on what he’d say, what he’d do if the truth ever came out… he had barely the faintest idea of what was right. Sharing secrets was never in a cenarion’s nature at the best of times, and opening up about this… to the black dragon himself, of all creatures… He sighed.
“We were just over two years into a pact I’d made out of loneliness and convenience. I had yet to decide if I trusted you not to fall prey to the corruption of Deathwing, much less whether I wanted you to know the details of cenarion biology.” Unapologetic, he shrugged. There wasn’t a world out there that he wouldn’t have done the same thing, even given the choice all over again.
“You were Black Dragonflight. Never has a flight been more callous - or cruel - to its hatchlings. That was on Azeroth.” The list of atrocities they had committed - that he was sure that Hemathion had once committed - against the other flights was innumerable. It was only Draenor’s apparent lack of Old Gods that the remains of the Black Dragonflight had managed to find any peace. Antelarion gestured a bare arm at the mountains around them. “Here, Sabellion is desperate to repopulate the Flight, to the point that exact breeding is scheduled to protect the brood. How was I to know how you’d react to hearing you could beget dragonkin on cenarions?”
“Wise.” Hemathion lowered himself to his belly, half-curled about the keeper with his massive form. “I have always admired that about you, Wildlord.” He paused, and it was only through his years of experience with the dragon that Antelarion thought it seemed like hesitation. “But the hatchling is much older now. Have you not found those answers, in any of the years since?”
Struck that the black dragon would ask, the Wildlord pondered. “I did. I’ve found many of them.” Stating that felt right. True. “But what was I to do? Just announce that you were the other father of a years-old son you had never met?” Irritated at still not having a good answer, even after so long, he looked to the dragon. “What would you have done, Hemathion?”
“Kept it secret until you found out on your own.” To his credit, the black-flight male’s reply didn’t contain a trace of sarcasm, for all its irony.
The ghost of a smile graced Antelarion’s mouth. “Just so.” He shrugged, tilting his antlered head back to meet the dragon’s eyes. “I figured you would find out eventually, and whenever that time came I would… just be ready.”
Both of them retreated into their own thoughts after that admission, neither sure of what to say or even what needed to be said, but both knowing that things could not end there. For all that he knew more needed to be done, however, the keeper had to admit that being open with the dragon was something of a relief.
“The green drake told me Cenarius repopulated his brood.” The break had given Hemathion enough time to parse out that niggling detail. He peered quizzically at Antelarion. “He could not have meant with cenarions.”
“Um… no.” The keeper took a moment to best explain it. “Cenarius is a demigod. The Father. I am just a cenarion. No matter the mate, we only make more cenarions. Cenarius, however…” Antelarion drew his hand across the forest around them. “He’s a god of nature. Fertility. Life. His children can be his own, or of any race he were to mate with.”
His night-elf face colored. “He… he mates with a lot of different species.” For all the open, relaxed sexual freedom of his race, the demigod’s unquenchable thirst was something of an open secret. He spread both hands, the wooden one tapping his breast while the other counted out four fingers. “Cenarions are simply what happens when he hasn’t mated with anything for a while. That’s why he has only ever had the four - Zaetar, Ordanus, Remulos, and Lunara. All other cenarions descend from them.”
“All other cenarions?” Hemathion shook his head in disbelief. “Isn’t he tens of thousands of years old?”
Face tight, Antelarion nodded. “Yeah.”
“And it’s only when he… isn’t mating with another race that he creates cenarion children?”
“Yeah.” Antelarion huffed, shuffling his legs in frustration. “Amazing, I know. But is it really my progenitor’s quest for cock that interests you?”
“No.” Hemathion’s reply was quick. His eyes moved away, towards the orange glow of the horizon. After some thought, he explained. “I’ve sired no hatchlings in Outlands.” Given Sabellion’s vehement protection of the remaining Black Flight bloodlines, that surprised the keeper. The dragon continued, gesturing with one set of his massive claws. “Unless an uncorrupted black female arrives from Azeroth - which somehow I doubt will happen - I am not likely to ever have a clutch of my own. My father sired Sabellion. I shared a mother with his mate. I could only be more related to most of the existing flight if I had sired them with my clutch-sister myself.”
The dragon’s eyes narrowed, anger welling at some unseen force. “There would be no hatchlings of my descent in Outlands. I had resigned myself to that decades ago.” Then, he softened. “And today, I find out there is one. Of my very own.”
“Where does that leave you?” Antelarion asked, not sure what answer he wanted to hear.
Gazing off into the distance, Hemathion struggled to formulate a response. "I would like to watch him grow,” he admitted, grudgingly. “I would like to see the awe in his face when he discovers the world outside the Weald. I would like to be there when he finds his calling. When he needs advice. When he is angry or afraid."
“I… I would like that too,” the Wildlord murmured, softly.
Hemathion tapped his claws in succession against the ground. “I would show you something.” He rose, moving towards the center of the clearing. “A secret thing. I have been perfecting on it for some time.” The dragon stopped suddenly, his head whipping back to the keeper. “You can’t laugh.”
Already amused at the sheer… innocence of the massive, predatory beast’s request, Antelarion schooled his face. “I’ll do my best.”
The dragon narrowed his eyes, for a moment, but pulled himself back to his full height, snout scrunched in concentration. Then his entire body flared. outline shifting, his draconic form melting away to reveal the onyx-black locks and dusky complexion favored by his kind... along with a great, black-furred, four-legged, cervine body.
Antelarion could only gawk.
Now at equal height with the Wildlord, sporting a similar, if drakenoid, pair of horns, and bearing an unmistakably elven face, Hemathion waved a hand at himself. “What do you think?”
Speechless, the keeper moved about the once-dragon, now-drakenoid cenarion, tentatively reaching out to touch the coal-black fur of Hemathion’s lower body - just to make sure it was real. When he rounded the circle, he met the same fiery-red eyes he had known for the past ten years.
Although Antelarion had not known many dragons, he understood that their natural shape-shifter ability was difficult to access and required a great deal of mental control. Few dragons could manage a form that held no tells - and from those dragons he had met, most had an opinion of mortals so low that few would even think to try.
Hemathion’s cenarion form was what the Wildlord would expect from a dragon that had only heard what a keeper looked like from second-hand accounts. His horns remained the same: long, spiraled twists of a serengeti beast; his coat was the color of coal, and his eyes blaze-red. Even the kaldorei half of his body was full of tells, both hands ending in claws, his long ears just slightly too short, pointed up like a sin'dorei instead of out like a night elf’s, and his jaw - managing to both possess far too many teeth, all of them far too sharp, and yet somehow carry a delicate cast - was firm-set. Almost scornful.
Flushing at the scrutiny - something the Wildlord would have never expected from the black dragon - Hemathion stomped a cloven hoof. “Surely you’ve a thought or two.” His voice, at least, was the same.
Flummoxed, Antelarion shook his head. He could tell the dragon wanted approval, and certainly he had spent a long time mastering the form - it was a far cry from the humanoids most dragons shifted into - but he didn’t understand why Hemathion would bother. “Why?”
“I have been thinking. For some time now.” This time it was the dragon who turned shifty, refusing to meet Antelarion’s gaze. “The domain of the Weald is yours. You have always decreed no dragons are to enter. We have many enemies, the druids of Evergrove are neutral, I get that.” His eyes flicked to the keeper’s, lighting mischievously. “If I were just another cenarion, however…”
By Elune, Antelarion thought. He thought back to the previous night, to the last few times they’d met. To the respect the dragon had always held for him, Hemathion’s clear preference for the cenarion alone…
Antelarion stepped forward to wrap an arm about the dragon’s trim, brown waist, his mouth curving of it’s own volition. “Sloppy. Barely better than Silteon’s shift.” His eyes danced, his free hand exploring the sculpted lines of Hemathion’s chest.
The dragon snorted. “Should I bother?” he asked, leaning close. “I need only fool a mortal, after all. I’m not likely to fool a cenarion anyways.”
Not without a connection to the Dream, no, Antelarion agreed. But the dragon interrupted him, clasping the keeper to his breast with a strength belied by his current form. “Besides,” he growled, flashing fang, “I rather like the thought of reminding you that I’m still a dragon.”
“I never said it was unappealing.” Antelarion extracted himself. “Why now?”
Hemathion’s now-elven jaw worked once or twice before he spoke. “Lately I found myself missing you. When we part…” he trailed off, “I look forward to the time we meet again.” The dragon shuffled his hoofs. “And now, I would be there with you and the hatchling… the - um,” he stammered, “Our son.” He snapped his teeth in frustration. “What do cenarions call their young?”
Smiling softly, Antelarion crossed his arms. “We call them fawns.” After a moment he added, “I would have you know him as well.” Knowing the potential Shade was already showing, the keeper held out a hand. “He is strong. He will likely grow to be a greater keeper than myself.” It was no mere boast. Just as Faradrella was one of a kind, Antelarion had no false modesty about himself. Very few keepers in Azeroth had ever attained his skill with spell or claw. And his son… seven years old and already summoning, on top of weaving elemental powers the elder keeper had never even dreamed of controlling. Keeper Nightshade would one-day be far beyond anything any cenarion - save perhaps the elder breed, born of Cenarious himself - could reach.
“Heartening.” The dragon’s interjection stole Antelarion from his thoughts and he shot Hemathion an inquiring look. The black-haired keeper grimaced, teeth a little too sharp; but the longer Antelarion was exposed to it, the more kaldorei his new form looked. The dragon seemed genuine when he continued with, “That means he will definitely outgrow me. Words every father should be proud to say.”
Few could manage to mix pride and envy so well as a black dragon. While amusing, Antelarion had the wisdom needed to see through the facade.
He eyed the black dragon, one of the few elder black dragons left in the world - in any world. “I had hoped you might teach him the ways of the earth.” His son’s burgeoning powers needed direction. Hemation desired this; Antelarion had sensed it, a desire that lay more deeply than perhaps even the dragon knew. “Train him to be an earthwarden. As the Flight once was.”
Hemathion was silent for a long time, before he stirred. “In time, when he’s older and the bonds to the earth start to form.”
Antelarion clarified. “He channels the earth now.”
The dragon started. “... greater than either of us indeed,” he mused. Hemathion glanced at the keeper from the corner of one eye - an expression disconcertingly familiar. “Would you have me tonight?”
A giddy little grin appeared on Antelarion’s face. “Is there a better time?” he asked, as the dragon - in cenarion form - closed in, but by then neither of them were going to manage much of a response. They were both occupied otherwise.
It wasn’t because Hemathion had chosen a cenarion form per se; it was that, for the first time in the ten years they had known each other, Antelarion could wrap his arms about him. Feel the other man’s warmth against his skin, could bite and suck and kiss parts of the dragon he had never dreamed of knowing.
Hemathion fell apart at the onslaught, breathless as the keeper sought out sensitive spots on his neck, collarbone, shoulders, and ears. He laughed, rich and low. “You like this form, Wildlord.”
Antelarion crushed the dragon’s upper body to himself, marveling at the feel of the hot brown skin against his bare, purple chest. “I let you progenate my child,” he murmured, drawing another kiss from the drakenoid cenarion. “I like both your forms.” He pulled back to admire the exotic creature before him. “But this one…” He trailed off, because nothing more needed to be said. It was only the two of them, the sounds of forest, the trees around them and the ground below.
The thought of Shade returning broke the spell. Antelarion pushed Hemathion off of him, their lips wet and swollen. It seemed that the dragon - no matter his form - had zero inhibitions about the full use of his tongue.
As much as he wanted to stay, there would be more time in the future. Antelarion jerked his chin towards the ancient - and his children - at the border to the Wood. “They are waiting for me,” he demurred, mouth still tasting of dragon. He licked his lips. “Would you like to join us?”
After a moment’s hesitation, the black-flight male shook his head. “Perhaps this afternoon?” He held up a placating hand. “There are some… matters... I would attend to first.”
The dragon didn’t elaborate. Antelarion didn’t ask. He merely nodded, though the little smile was still on his face. “Very well then. Elune-Adore, Hemathion.”
“Til next we meet.” Hemathion turned and - still in cenarion form - bounded out of sight… as graceful as one might expect from a true son of Cenarius. Antelarion was surprised. The dragon truly had spent quite some time in his new form.
Musing on that, the keeper set hoof for his children, and the ancient treant watching them.

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Notes:
This chapter isn't quite as long, but had to split because it worked well and because at least one person was kind enough to tell me they're eager for more. :)
Lore Bits!
Cenarious is indeed the father of many children, but the only ones directly listed from him (in any order we know of) are Zaetar, the eldest and father of the centaur race (with Princess Theradras, a bipedal earth elemental - centaur look like brutish cenarions), Ordanos, master of magic and able to prevent warlocks from summoning fel magic in the entire length of Ashenvale and Stonetalon, Remulos, one of the greatest healers in Azeroth and guardian of Moonglade, and Lunara, First of the Dryads.
Mosswood is meeting with Treebeard, the ancient of lore that protects the Raven's Wood.
Mooncloth was (once) the highest-level tailoring cloth, and the best cloth available across most of Azeroth. It requires water from moonwells to be made.
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A Pact of Earth and Life