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Wrathion blinks sleepily, quickly trying to appear inconspicuous and hoping that none of the other dragons took any notice of him apparently dozing off during their meeting. He supposes he was planning late into the night last night. Even with the siege of Aberrus complete, there is still the matter of Fyrakk to deal with, and though relations between the flights have improved, there's still difficulties requiring his particular touch.
As he looks around the group assembled today, he subtly furrows his brow as he realizes he doesn't quite recognize any of them. That can't be right. He's a diplomat, he's always prided himself on remembering the names of everyone he works with - even those who prefer to go by unusual assumed names, like his personal guards, Left and Right.
He stares at each of the gathered group in turn. Some sit as true dragons, others stand in illusory visage forms of various races... A couple human, several elves of different flavors, a vulpera, a troll, a tauren, two draenei.
The only tauren visage he knows is Ebyssian, but that clearly isn't him. Selistra is the only vulpera visage he's met, but this one has gray fur, not red. Neither of the draenei look anything like Osoria's chosen visage.
The more he tries to resolve the details, the more determined they seem to slip away. And their words make no sense either, more an incoherent drone that mimics the cadence of speech, than actual discernible words.
Wrathion's blood freezes.
They're staring at him.
They're staring at him, and their eyes sparkle, reflecting a distinctive shimmer of orange and violet - shadowflame.
He shifts his feet, readying for a fight, eyeing each of them as the atmosphere abruptly turns oppressive and hostile.
Their shadows swim behind them, wavering with the influence of the void.
No... They've fallen. The madness has taken them.
The glares from the other dragons become ever more accusing, hateful, malicious, and Wrathion takes an involuntary step back. A tactical retreat, he tells himself. He wouldn't want to let these creatures surround him.
You can't let it spread.
Yes. He's seen this before, in his corrupted kin. The darkness of the void, of shadowflame, the power of the old gods and their vile masters. It's been years, though... He'd been so careful, hunting the infected to the ends of Azeroth, cleansing the infection through fire and mortal blades.
You know what needs to be done.
Wrathion swallows, and shifts to his dragon form. He's still young by the standards of his kind, and dwarfed by a few of the larger individuals present, but if he's going to have a chance in this fight, he needs his full strength.
He leaps for the ones still in their visage forms first - the easiest prey. Though their flesh isn't truly as soft as the mortal guise would appear, they're still weaker and easier to pin down in these smaller bodies. His talons tear into them, and their blood oozes out black, confirming his fears.
Some of the others start to move to retaliate, but their motion is sluggish, nothing compared to him. His jaws clamp down on the neck of one dragon, while he buries his claws in the shoulder of another.
Wrathion wrinkles his snout ever so slightly at the rancid taste of the corrupted blood on his fangs. He's always had a certain distaste for taking on wetwork directly, even when it doesn't involve exposure to this bitter slime.
In a few short minutes, it's over.
A pile of mangled draconic bodies mixed in with broken visage forms lies at his feet, dark blood pooling on the pristine white tile of the city.
His chest heaves in and out, drawing in precious air, while he tries again to figure out who these creatures were. If they had been n'raqi - faceless ones - then they'd surely have reverted to their true forms in death.
But then... If they were truly dragons, that would also be true of those in visage forms.
As he studies the corpses and his breathing slowly settles, Wrathion catches a glimpse of more flickering shadows.
When he tries to focus on them, his head snapping to the flicker of movement, the scene around him changes. He's no longer in the meeting chambers beneath the Seat of the Aspects, but standing on the floating island at the outskirts of the city - the island that's home to Little Scales.
The pile of bodies is here too. The whelps don't appear to notice it, nor do their drakonid and dragonkin tenders. The little hatchlings flit about and play between the pillars of the pavilions on the island while the tenders watch.
Agapanthus, the old blue dragonkin who lost his wings to the Legion invasion, cracks a slight smile as the whelps dart by him. The stumps of his hacked and burned wings hang at his back, the wounds long healed but still ugly and raw.
Wrathion blinks, and then shadowy tendrils sprout from Agapanthus's back. They reach for a few of the nearby whelps, snatching them out of the air and squeezing them - crushing them in a spray of that same vile, oily blood.
He rushes ahead, but the other whelps still flying have gained fleshy, spiny tentacles like those of N'Zoth himself, bursting out of their tiny bodies at disturbing angles.
It's everywhere. The infection - everywhere... Kill them, kill them, kill them.
Wrathion freezes, staring in disbelief at the scene. The whelps mutate into fleshlings, the misshapen blobs of teeth and misplaced limbs that are the fodder of the old gods' armies.
KILL THEM.
The creature that wears Agapanthus's face leers at him. Daring him to do it.
Wrathion curls up, pressing his paws over his head as the demands burrow into his mind.
MONSTERS. CORRUPTION MUST BE PURGED.
The words reverberate through his skull, louder and more insistent each time.
"No..."
KILL THEM!
The floating island itself trembles beneath him from the force of the command.
"No! Shut up..."
Kill kill kill kill kill - it's all you know how to do.
"Get out of my head!"
Wrathion digs his talons into his own hide. When the scales split apart, molten blood pours out, igniting into shadowflame, and tendrils of void energy rise like sickly smoke from where the droplets strike the ground.
An impossibly massive silhouette looms over Wrathion as he desperately tries to cleave the voices from his mind. It's another black - but he can't tell through vision blurred by shadowflame and blood if it's Sabellian, or Deathwing himself.
Killer.
Murderer.
Like father, like son.
A pained roar rips out from his shredded throat, half choked on his own blood. He flails his limbs, tearing and thrashing wildly in a vain effort - anything to just...
Make.
It.
End.
"Wrathion?"
He sits bolt upright in the bed, gasping for breath. Sweat slicks his forehead, neck, and chest, and his hairline is matted down with damp. It takes him nearly a full minute to properly register what was said.
The large black dragon laying in the opposite corner of the room watches him through half lidded eyes, evaluating him.
As the Black Prince tries to calm himself, taking slow deep breaths that are nonetheless ragged and shuddering, he catches a glimpse of Left's silhouette peeking around the doorframe into the room. He waves her off, and the orc slides herself back out of view.
"It's fine." Wrathion finally says, addressing his brother, while he pulls a handkerchief from the pocket of the coat hanging on the corner of the bed. He delicately dabs at the sweat on his face and loosens the collar of his light sleeping clothes.
The dragon watching him lets out a long deep sigh, a sound that reverberates in the beast's massive chest. A flash of orange light and a bit of smoke passes over him, and then his fellow dragon is also in his human guise - long dark hair pulled back and sharply trimmed beard framing harsh features and glowing gold reptilian eyes.
Sabellian walks over and sits next to Wrathion on the edge of the bed, expression pensive.
"I'm fine." He repeats, tossing the now damp handkerchief aside. "It's nothing."
Sabellian nods, but doesn't depart. Wrathion briefly considers attempting to order him to leave, but he thinks better of it. Unlike his loyal guards Left and Right, Sabellian isn't in his employ. He's family.
Whatever that even means for us. He scoffs internally at the notion. Family has never really been much of a positive thing for... Well, for either of them, he supposes.
But... after facing the horrors of Aberrus, after reckoning with all the worst parts of their father's horrible legacy, after seeing how even Ebyssian and Emberthal found it in themselves to trust again...
"I know it's not for me to say." Kalecgos had offered one day as they'd left a meeting with the Dragonqueen in Valdrakken. "Certainly your family has a more, um, complicated history than even mine... But if you want my opinion, I think it's you that's keeping you from embracing it."
"...And I understand that myself. The fear... but I think it's worth trying." He had smiled then, as little Stellagosa had run up in her newly chosen visage - a pale elf with long, wavy, light blue hair - to take Kalec's hand and drag him off, leaving Wrathion alone with his thoughts.
Perhaps Kalec was right. After all, he's never trusted easily. Even before he was hatched his egg had been experimented upon by a rogue red dragon.
Though now he understands that Rheastrasza had only the best of intentions, though he's now grateful that her meddling gave him the freedom to think clearly, without the cloud of darkness that had infected the rest of his father's brood, he still rankles at the idea that he was being toyed with and manipulated from before he even drew his first breath.
It's partially because of his lingering issues from that invasion of his body, and the knowledge that Rhea had died because of it, that he could scarcely believe that Alexstrasza was able to trust him at all upon their return to the Dragon Isles.
Trust... Hrm.
He'd told himself in the aftermath of the recent battle, when Sabellian had accepted him as his brother, when they'd mutually agreed that Ebyssian should be their new Aspect, that he wanted to try.
He wants to have what the other flights do. He wants this... family.
Wrathion takes a breath, clutching the edge of the blanket tightly in his fists.
"What if..." His voice cracks. He clears his throat, and tries again. "What if you were right? What if I could have saved them?"
He starts speaking faster, the words seeming to spill from his mouth freely like the lava pouring through the caverns outside. "There must have been other titan artifacts, maybe some could have fortified their minds as mine was... What if I wasn't even purified? What if the whispers simply took a new form and bid me to seek the expedient answer and slay my kin, rather than try to..."
Sabellian lays a hand heavily on his shoulder. "Wrathion."
"Sure, the mortals did most of the dirty work, but they did so at my order. My claws are bloodied regardless... and I--" He nearly chokes on the last part. "What if I am just as bad as--"
"Brother." Sabellian squeezes Wrathion's shoulder, nearly as hard as he's gripping the blanket. So tight he can feel the ghostly force of talons behind the illusion of human fingers.
Sabellian stares at the younger dragon, patiently waiting for him to meet his eyes. His expression is much softer than Wrathion is used to seeing from the man that has so often infuriated him since they first met only a few months ago. Gleaming golden eyes now shine with genuine concern. "You are not him."
They sit in silence for a while. Wrathion's eyes find the floor again.
"I understand, brother. I understand your fear. But we... more than any other flight, as guardians, as the forefront of dragonkind's defense, we are burdened with the responsibility to make tough choices. To do what needs to be done." Sabellian relaxes his grip on his brother's shoulder, and Wrathion breathes deeply.
He wants to believe that, he wants to.
"Maybe there were other ways. Maybe. But you're my brother, and I trust that you did what you felt you must." He pauses, then nudges Wrathion gently with his elbow. "You hear me, whelp? I trust you."
Wrathion turns back toward his brother, his mouth hanging open. His chest aches, the pain of a longing only just realized. Trust. Loyalty. Respect.
But not from a follower. From an equal.
Is this what Kalec meant? How family should feel?
A part of him considers the irony that it would be a blue that brought him to this point. The flight most brutalized by his father's initial betrayal.
If he can move beyond it... If he can see me as more than a shade of Deathwing, then perhaps...
"...Thank you."
Sabellian nods, his face swiftly returning to his usual stoic and aloof look.
Wrathion follows his gaze to the door where Left has stepped into view again, waiting patiently to be acknowledged, her face utterly impassive and unmoved by the conversation she surely must have overheard. He's always valued her discretion.
Wrathion gestures for her to speak.
Left tips her head down the hall that leads to the laboratories, the areas still being slowly cleansed of the rotten and inhumane experiments, of the shadowflame and void corruption that Sarkareth had foolishly awakened - that he and Sabellian had once both idiotically sought to claim. "Prince. You're requested to see to the cleanup below."
Wrathion sighs, running a still trembling hand over his hair to get a few unruly strands back into place and starts to get up.
As he reaches for his coat, Sabellian lays his hand on his shoulder again.
"Let me, brother."
He shoots the older dragon a questioning look.
Sabellian stands, taking a couple steps from the bedside. "I suspect you could use some more rest. And if we're to be a real family... Perhaps I should start looking out for my little brother." A rare playful smirk crosses his face for an instant, and then it's gone.
Wrathion lets out a faint chuckle before settling back into his bed. "Thank you, brother. I owe you."
"I won't forget that." Sabellian grins over his shoulder and waves as he passes Left at the door, turning to head deeper into this cursed facility.
Perhaps someday, with enough work... It might truly feel like home.