#emeraldaspect

Dearest Wrathion.

Endearment comes from her easily, warmly, and where in any other upon Azeroth he might doubt it from her he sees honesty enough in it not to raise his hackles in agitated defense. From another he would take it as vicious lie, as something patronizing, something to hook beneath his scales and pull in hopes of finding something vulnerable beneath.

Ysera was no other though, and whilst he faces her as ever with the carefully hidden bemusement of one who doesn’t understand such softness he blessedly accepts it without barbs.

“Yes, well. I suppose it cannot be helped that people should know, though it is quite embarrassing as I am sure you can appreciate.” It was not. It was the cold chill of seeing corpses of all flights strung up like cattle, of eggs broken, defiled, of dragons twisted as he had been except impossibly worse. It turned his stomach in ways he cared not to admit, paled his dark skin ever so with the sickness it lurched in him. Worse was it that they had intended to us him too, as if he were a mere component to the vile machine they ran.

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         First thought is that her hair has snagged on a branch overlooked in the shadowed forest she skulks through —— baffling, for Valeera is rarely so careless to let herself be ensnared by anything, inherent awareness of her body extended scrupulously to include the jagged spikes of her spaulders as well as the long tail of her hair. Anything less would be unbecoming of one of her skill. But if she is fastidious in that regard, she is just as vigilant against sounds suggesting her detection. Long ears twitch towards quiet flapping where she perceives her hair to be caught. A bird? She has heard of some filching shiny materials for their nest, and her hair certainly fits that category…

          She turns cautiously, loath to send the thing squawking into the skies to betray her position —— only for the creature, a green blur, to dart behind her. With her hair in its mouth!

          “Hey!” Protest hisses even as her sight marks the shape too bizarre to be a bird. Next glimpse reveals something featherless, so chubby as to be barely held aloft by tiny wings, and apparently undaunted by the fact that its prize is attached to something wielding knives.

          Kael’s teeth —— an infant dragon is chewing on her hair!

          “That isn’t edible,” she mutters fiercely, arms reaching behind herself to swat at the rascal as it swerves this way and that, jerking her head around as if a puppet on a string. Thank the Sun she had come to Val’sharah alone rather than accompanied by others of the Uncrowned who would surely relish in her humiliation.

For all mortal form was so oft garbed in luxury such was hardly inherent to vagabond, life spent more as he was now as true form of drake curled upon himself in dark cave nestled in the midst of seemingly nowhere. He would have expected solitude, desired it even beyond the twinges at the periphery of his conscience that were the bright spark existences of his Blacktalons. Or merely their gems, but such was near synonymous really.

It was first whimper that gave away child, echoing in shrill relief until ever glowing eye slid open, body heaving as it unfurled to stand. The sound, one so foreign to him, tugged him along as if here were a moth to its light. A flame unexpected at huddled whelp, one scared and really quite alone. A fact he finds terribly, terribly irresponsible. The greens were a flight he’d interacted with little enough, but perhaps he had expected better than this. To allow hapless lamb to wander to carelessly into potential maw of a lion’s den.

Yet, for all his annoyance, he finds himself at a loss for words. The sharp and cutting way he addressed all others falling short here, because perhaps he knows better than most what it is to be a lonely child in a world which is nothing but terrifying. And so he sighs, a heaving thing as he sits before lithe form settles to lay a ways off, eyes a slow blink as he regarded whelp.

“Come here.” Whether it would or would not he hardly knows, and that is a choice only it might make. “Where is your.... caretaker?”

He is the cataclysm. He is magma and earth wrought flesh. 

He used what little magic he had at his disposal in a last minute attempt to save her. True, the amount was vast, but it still was so little. If he had others, there may have been more time to do preparation … alas he did what he could.

Everyone had betrayed them … deserted them. The nightmare still remained. It would always be there … part of the balance now. Always fighting it, but Xavius was not going to be as idiotic as he did in the past. He’d allow the druids to fight the nightmare, he’d build a wall to keep them out … thinking they are shrinking his domain, but it simply would get larger.

It’s own place in the dream where no one could bother him for quite some time.

“Correct,” he says, clawed hand moving to rest calmly by an ear. “You live whereas others do not. Defeated, but worry not. It was only a set back.” One that he disliked, but  . . . it would work out in the end he was sure about it.

“How do you feel?”

In this case, discovery was going to come, but not by mortals. No, he was here to talk. Advice if you will; not an action of war. No, he wasn’t going to go that far. His own time would come soon enough. Just . ..  not right now. Not before he was prepared for an all out war.

Breath was sucked in as eyes closed tightly. To many, he would appear as a random mortal; an adventurer, but he was anything but. Anyone with a brain knew that with how the earth trembled before him.  How it heard his call and acted accordingly.

He may have been corrupted, but even he knew what it was like before hand. Before things were changed; the plating infused on his body because he was coming apart. Because of what he heard and found in the deeps of the very earth.

“The point I must emphasize is that you should be prepared for anything.” Words were spoken lowly, speaking to something out of sight, but not out of mind. Not entirely.

“Up to and including visits from long lost friends,” he says, this time much louder . . . as if formally announcing his arrival.

To be the guardian and crafter of time itself never meant she wouldn’t be affected at any point by the destruction or the amusing nature of her element. It could lead to herself as well at any point, as Kronika could fall victim to her own machinations. There’s the action of returning the favor, the balance in life itself. Could it be that the times now flow against her? Being so close to the Sands of Time for eons, with the first breath of life in the universe, might now be seeming like a harsh experience comparable to the ones she writes exclusively for the mortals and gods.

Perhaps a helping hand could liberate the stress she experiences with every breath now if it can be called that. Her features seem unmoved once the Titan returns her sight towards Ysera, her realm is much less affected by external circumstances.

Hope is never lost. The words echoed in the young warrior’s mind as she laid on the smooth emerald-toned scales of the dragon’s shoulder. In truth, her actual discovery of this realm long ago had been near-accidental, a cautious test of its existence through a portal that ended in her befriending its resident. Though it was much more diverse than her own home, the flora of Ysera’s mountain brought her immense comfort and clarity in a similar way to which the green canopies and underbrush of her childhood forest did. She often visited in times of duress and unrest or sleeplessness to spend time in the company of the entity - her companionship a delight in all forms she’d met thus far. This visit was one of those fueled by stress - frustration with herself for not being the same sort of seemingly perfect warrior as many of her peers in her clan. She had spilled her troubles to the dragon while she rested, staring up at the sky.