Avaruu's Silly Place

“Keep watch over me, Tes. You know I trust you more than anyone.”

If only it were so. Her senses, heightened as they were, alerted her to a sea of lesser presences. Chittering silithid, responding to the unholy mental call of an Old God servant. Desiccated husks overtaken by his black blood experimentation, the final failure of Avaruu’s grand idea of a Godborne legion and reanimated all at once by the sheer willpower of their creator.

He would not need them at his master’s seat.

Tesperxia watched in silence as the draenei turned his back to her, stepping once into the miasma pool. The concoction reacted immediately to his corruption, reaching upward to meet writhing tendrils which erupted from weeping cracks in the hooves.

She knew the gesture of his thrashing tail despite silence otherwise. He was in agony, but agony was never enough to turn him away from this course.

The other hoof plopped into the shallow well, both taking extra steps to place Avaruu in the center. His lords’ gaze now sat still within its totem-cage, fully transfixed on Their servant. His head turned only enough to regard the Twilight drake one last time.

“Listen to the rushing of your blood. Listen to the song in your mind. When I come back with the Black Empire upon my heels to overtake this plane, know that our God will gift you a thousand-thousand more realms to conquer with me.”

Tesperxia’s stony expression never wavered. “I will defend you and your will until my dying breath, Avaruu. We will meet again soon.”

Satisfied with this response, he finally turned away in full, focused on the impending ritual. The swirling pool had begun to lift itself and surround the draenei, serving as the power conduit for his mad journey into the abyss.

Then, he was gone. The draenei remained, the mind had departed. He would not return until the merging of N’Zoth’s realm into Azeroth.

I am sorry. I can never let you return.

She turned to face the rest of Avaruu’s haunt, the hive filled with his grotesque experiments and fleshy growths. His words had rung true - her Twilight blood was designed to serve the Old Gods’ will. Her birthright was that of the most powerful Dragon Aspect to ever live, and her claim to life was through voidfire and destruction.

Yet there she stood, ready to betray all of it. Her loyalty was to her master, not the dark presence which had finally stolen his mind and body.

You were you, until you were not.

Dozens of empty eyes fell upon the drake. She was already well on her way to wyrmhood and could easily overpower these creatures. Surely Avaruu would have known this? Were they simply waiting for her to make a mistake? Would the death of one rip their overlord from his trance and ensure her demise?

This is my only chance.

Violet talons dug into the despoiled dirt below Tesperxia. Her wings folded inward to an awkward degree, shielding her sides as her vulnerable underbelly touched onto the ground. Both silithid and reanimated husk poised to strike, encroaching slowly on her position.

As soon as she inched forward, they were upon her like vultures to carrion. Claws and teeth ravaged against her leathery wings and glimmering scales, drawing acidic blood that sizzled against the flesh of her assailants. Each was treated as a living bomb and potential alarm as the drake belly-crawled in careful silence across the hive chamber towards the exit, putting her thoughts away from the pain as much as she could.

Tesperxia envisioned the future that had been promised to her. Visions of chaos came as easily to her as breathing - endless dreams of tearing apart the fabric of reality and soaring amidst the smouldering ruins of any that opposed the Void’s bleak crusade. Her flight, Lord Deathwing’s final pride, would know eternal power and prestige.

But then she saw the draenei that she once knew, that surprisingly soft mortal cultist who once cherished his new Twilight drake. The one who could simply no longer cope with the wrongs of his past but would still suffer any pain for his family’s sake.

Family. Venita, whom he’d loved so much as to bear a veritable brood between the two (though Tesperxia had noted that the term ‘brood’ was never appreciated.) Areduun, the vehemently irreligious draenei who had a knack for untangling difficult situations and maintaining some semblance of sanity between everyone.

My family.

There were others, of course, but only those two would stand a chance in the Old God’s realm given their masteries, however different they were, of the Void.

The drake’s thoughts returned to the present. With them returned her senses, and the stabbing sensations throughout much of her body. She was now in the hive’s exit tunnel, no longer pursued by abominations - they must have stopped before leaving the main chamber. Streaks of midnight blood followed in her wake, and she could feel the drafty outside air flowing through some of the tears in her wings.

Just like you, I will do what must be done, no matter my suffering. You taught me too much to let this continue any further.

Jagged stones and sand bit into Tesperxia’s open wounds as she clawed her way out of the unstable cavern and into the overbearing heat of Silithus. There was no way that she could maintain her Draenic disguise for easier travel in this shape. She would have to fly all the way to Pandaria, to her family, to rouse them.

Her wings were thankfully intact enough for flight, painful as it was at first. There was no time to wait for mending.

We must stop him, before he destroys everything.

---

“Mm-hm. Mm-hm... ooh! This one’s good.”

Anryssa’s stubby tail wagged with excitement once she picked up a smooth jade pebble. Most rocks would end up in the ocean for fun, but not this one. She pocketed the pebble and just as much dirt with it.

Sri-La Village was silent. Rock hunting in the yard was Anryssa’s favorite activity when the other pandaren children were not out and about. She just didn’t tell her mother nor Areduun that she was sneaking out in the dead of night for it.

A shadow passed over the child. Clouds normally blotted out the moon for a time, but this one was too large, too quick.

Thunk.

Only moderately terrified, Anryssa turned in the direction of the noise. A dark and battered form lay before her, heaving with struggled breath and outstretched wings flat upon the walkway. She knew this dragon!

“Tes! Are you okay? Is Daddy with you?” Fearless, the little draenei placed her hands upon Tesperxia’s monstrous snout, leaning down to stare the drake in one eye.

“Tell them... they must... they...”

Anryssa listened as Tesperxia’s breaths fell short, followed by closing eyes. She might have suspected the drake’s death, but had been taught better. Just wait, Areduun had once told her. The truth always reveals itself to a calm mind.

Her brief patience had won out. She heard faint breathing still, ragged but steady. Her Daddy’s dragon was sleeping, not dead - enough time for her to go and get help.

“Mommyyyy!” Anryssa hoofed it back to the house’s front door, hoping Venita would awaken to her shrill wail as she swung the door open. “Tes is home and she’s NOT OKAY!”

---

Areduun was already awake, reading in silence at his desk as he usually did until the daylight hours. Even before Anryssa had yelled from the front door, a metaphorical dagger twisted through his gut. It was only a matter of time before the Godborne parasite would haunt them again, this time backed by its home realm.

This would be Salvation’s endgame, a decade in the making.