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When Anduin turned sixteen, his father said: “Anduin, you are a prince. Choose your friends and lovers wisely.”

Less than six months earlier, Velen had told him: “It is important to light the way, but you do not illuminate the path for the sole purpose of straying from it.”

It did not seem likely that these two pieces of advice would ever be at odds.

BEFORE.

“I’ve been expecting you,” Wrathion says, not even looking up from the map. It’s an affectation, Anduin recognizes immediately, almost comically thin in its presentation, as flimsy as a screen of spider-silk, as shadows moving beneath glass. Anduin has spent his entire life in the royal court; he’s watched trusted guardians fall from grace with absurd precision, peeling back their skin to reveal traitors and monsters. He decides quickly that Wrathion does not intimidate him. He decides quickly that Wrathion does not impress him. Wrathion - the Black Prince of Azeorth, the last of Deathwing’s Flight - sits cross-legged on a wooden table in the heart of a gambling den with a red-ink pen tucked behind one ear and a thin ribbon of smoke spiraling lazy from the corner of his mouth. He looks young despite the pretense, and he looks like he is trying too hard.

“If you’d wished to speak, you could have summoned me.” Anduin tugs at the bottom of his uniform, straightening it. It is mud-stained from his journey, and torn in places. ‘Hardly befitting of a Prince’, he thinks wryly. Then he thinks: ‘Good’.

“I prefer,” Wrathion punctuates each word deliberately, “to have people come to me.”

“So I have heard. Many of my people have sought you out.”

He smirks, just the slightest twist of his dark lips. “From all corners of the continent.”

“I have also heard,” Anduin clears his throat mildly, “that many of the Warchief’s people have sought you as well. And that you have been telling both groups some very interesting things.”

That gives the Black Prince pause. He finally looks at Anduin, a sharp snap of his jaw towards the bar’s entrance as his reptilian eyes roll around in their sockets. Wrathion’s features are uncanny - just short enough of being human, of being handsome, to be unnerving. He leaps from his perch and crosses the room in three angry strides. One of his bodyguards - the orcish woman - cocks her crossbow, but he waves her down. He hisses: “Walk with me,” and grabs Anduin by the elbow, yanking him towards the door. Anduin is surprised at how close to the surface his impatience bubbles - of course the calculated demeanour is paper thin; how old is he again? Eighteen months? Not even two years?

“I’ve received summons more polite from Garrosh Hellscream,” Anduin counters, tugging his elbow free. Wrathion makes a face as if he’s just licked a Murloc.

“Shall I say please? Shall I call you by all of your titles? You wish to speak, yes? This room is full of my eyes and ears - I thought you might appreciate a chance at speaking on neutral ground.” The dragon snorts, “I have heard that you are rather fond of neutrality as a concept.”

Anduin looks him over as he rubs at the inside of his elbow. Slowly, he asks, “are you... making fun of me?”

Wrathion’s response is a wicked smile just as slow. It’s not hostile. In fact, the expression unknots his brows a few degrees, enough to make it seem almost like a smile an actual human being might wear. Anduin glances back at the bodyguards - neither of them have moved, but they’re exchanging some sort of silent communication that might be eye-rolling. It’s an honest gesture, Anduin realizes. An unnecessarily showy one at that if the guards' expressions were anything to go by. So he takes it. He follows the Black Prince up the pass and over, ten minutes through the mist to an outcropping that overlooks the Valley of the Four Winds. Through the fog, Anduin can see where the sun cuts through the clouds, bathing the valley below in warm, summer hues and the mountain beneath them in eerie half-light.

“The view is humbling, yes?” The words are not the ones Anduin is expecting and so they are disarming.

“I, uh,” he shifts his weight, one foot to another. “Yes, I suppose it is?”

“I come up here once a day to remind myself of the splendour this world is capable of.” He casts a glance towards Anduin. He’s nearly half a head shorter, but manages to give the impression of staring down his nose even when craning his neck. “I have heard about you, Anduin Wrynn. I have heard about you, and we want the same thing.”

“No,” Anduin replies firmly, “I do not think we do.”

“A united world. A free world.”

“A peaceful world,” Anduin interjects. “I wish for a peaceful world. Everything I have done has been in pursuit of that solitary goal. Meanwhile you sit on your mountain telling lies and sowing discord.”

Wrathion chuckles, “my dear Prince. I have lied to no one.”

“Yet you are playing both sides...”

“The comings and goings of my Champions are hardly a secret.” Wrathion walks two fingers through the air to demonstrate. “The people of this world crave conflict and competition - you cannot blame me for a war that started brewing before either of us were born.”

“Then what do you need from me?”

“Work with me,” Wrathion says. He slams his fist in his open palm, grinning with manic enthusiasm. “Stand at my side and help me achieve my vision!”

Anduin is struck still for a moment. His heart is hammering and he is not entirely certain why. He’s insulted and confused and angry and flustered all at once, as if the dragon’s sheer force of charisma has knocked the wind out of him. He takes two steps back and tries to think of response that isn’t cruel or incredulous. He fails.

“Are you insane!?”

“Far from it, Prince Wrynn. I may be the only sane being left on Azeroth.”

“In your solipsistic delusion, maybe!”

“Oooh,” Wrathion flutters his fingers and fans out his hands in a mocking gesture. “Such a big word for such a small Prince. Truly, I am impressed!”

Anduin opens his mouth to retort, but nothing comes out. Wrathion, the Black Prince, might not be dangerous, but he is certainly audacious. “I… you… h-how…” he stutters about for words for a moment. “How could you possibly ask something like this of me. We’ve only just met and… knowing what I think of your methods? Did you honestly expect me to agree?”

“I expected you to be reasonable.” Wrathion shrugs. He does not seem bothered. “I am only asking you to trust me.”

Swallowing, Anduin shakes his head very slowly. He laughs, but it is not a mirthful sound. “No.” He says. Then he says it again. “I have no idea what you hoped to gain here, but no. No, no, no. Never.”

*

The next time they meet, Wrathion has made himself taller. It’s a petty detail to note, but Anduin is not feeling charitable these days. He had been braced to die if necessary, but his foolish resolve does not prepare him for the pain, for the sheer mind-numbing, mundanity of the pain. When the fog is thick, his body aches and throbs. When the sun is bright, sharp bolts of heat twitch through his femurs, his wrists, the joints in his ankles. He spends his first week at the Tavern in the Mists staring blearily at an open book on his lap, ordering mug after mug of tea just to keep his hands and knees warm. It is as if he has forgotten how to read. His mind is swampy and distracted; acute cramps rattle through his ribcage if he dares to breathe too deep. It’s just enough to subsist in stillness and silence, to just barely exist at the edges of his consciousness.

But of course, there is Wrathion.

Wrathion has visitors that pour in at all hours of the day and night. When he is not busy entertaining everything from Warlocks to Vindicators - when he is not fussily stacking his precarious empire of card castles - he perches in the window besides Anduin’s chair and watches him attempt to read.

“You’ve been on that page for three minutes,” he comments, curling out his blackened serpent tongue. “It must be a fascinating subject!”

“Nearly every bone in my body was broken,” Anduin grounds out, as if it proves anything. Wrathion’s smile is smug when he props up his knees so that he can lean forward and peek over the edge of the book proper. There is a strange light in his eyes, and he reaches out to cup Anduin’s cheek. From anyone else, it might have translated into something like tenderness. From Wrathion, it is a calculated and determined examination.

“Your mother, I’ve heard, was killed by a pebble to the head. I’d hoped you were not so delicate.”

A week ago, Anduin would not have been able to believe that those words had come out of Wrathion’s mouth. Unfortunately, he was now beginning to learn the dragon’s patterns. He was beginning to be able to predict - and, even worse - understand them. What Wrathion wants is a spark, a reaction. He can hardly be still, he thirsts for conflict so badly. Anduin does not like to think that there is such a thing as inherent nature, but despite all his pretenses, there is something in Wrathion that is Black Dragonflight down to the marrow.

If it were not for the pain, Anduin would never have been even tempted to give him the attention he craved. Because he needs the distraction, he jerks his chin free from Wrathion’s grasp and retorts: “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“I hadn’t thought you delicate either, and yet I’ve sensed a change in your demeanour.”

“You’ve sensed? The human claims to have sensed something as intangible as a change in nature with his limited faculties! Adorable!”

“Something is different about you. You’re colder with the Horde than you used to be. You speak vaguely on subjects that you were once certain on.” Anduin puts his untouched tea in his lap and slants forwards, sincerely curious. “What’s changed, Wrathion?”

Wrathion hesitates, clicking the hard-edges of his black nails together in contemplation. “I…” he breaks eye contact. “I admit, I’ve been forced to… re-evaluate certain elements regarding the… final genesis of my plan. The current situation is so volatile as to be unpredictable. The parametres are always changing. Perhaps I need…”

“Yes?”

“Another voice. A fresh perspective. A... mediating voice to bring... balance.”

Wrathion looks at him eagerly, but Anduin can only let out an exasperated sigh. He knows where this is going, although the tactic is new. The dragon looks needy - almost sincerely vulnerable, a possibility as terrifying as it is absurd. Absurd, because every word out of Wrathion’s mouth is a blatant lie. Anduin falls back in his chair and slings an arm over his eyes so that he won’t have to watch the questioning quirk of Wrathion’s lip when he says, with great finality: “Stop asking me to help you. I will never say yes.”

Wrathion is silent. He is as silent for as long a pause as Anduin has ever witnessed. His eyes are closed, but he can imagine the way the dragon must be gathering himself, curling inwards in a long, sour pout of indignant guff all ruffled feathers and puffed chest. Eventually, Wrathion clicks his tongue and begins to laugh.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says. “Of course you will, Prince Anduin. I always get the yes eventually.”

*

Velen once told Anduin that everyone who enters your life does so for a reason. Every connection made in your time has a specific purpose in the larger tapestry. Anduin thought about this often when he came across people who tested his temper, or when he considered the existence of Garrosh Hellscream. The longer he speaks with Wrathion, the more he wonders if the universe is testing him in some great and terrible fashion. All they do is argue, but Anduin cannot stop allowing himself to be baited. He cannot stop because for all the frustration and exhaustion it causes, he has never felt quite so alive the way he does when he and Wrathion bicker. It’s like hot embers snapping between them. No one has ever looked at him that way, all predatory and intrigued and quietly desperate for his company. It is addictive to a boy left mostly alone to be stared at as if he is the center of a vortex.

Anduin worries, because the thoughts he is entertaining are dangerous. He worries because he is developing an appetite for dangerous things. He never thought he’d be the type to enter the rebellious stage of relishing things his father would disapprove of, but he realizes that he’s been doing it since the day he chose archery over swordsmanship.

Wrathion is not a friend. He is not an enemy, either. After two more weeks at the Tavern and fifty games of Jihui, what Wrathion is, is the person Anduin has shared the most of himself with outside his mentors. He brandies his experiences like knives in political debates. He ruminates bitterly, fishing for agreement. He tries to remind himself again and again that Wrathion is a dragon, he is liar, he is the son of Deathwing and he is two years old. He tells himself that the only reason his breath is catching, the reason that his heart flutters and his hands burn is because he has been so deprived of interaction with people of his own age that any thing, any small scrap of attention will do.

But Wrathion returns it in kind and all Anduin can think is that it is going to end so, so badly.

*

(here are five ways.)

one.

“You’re beautiful in this light,” Wrathion says - suddenly, impulsively and without pretense.

Anduin does not look at him. He says: “Wrathion, the whole world is on fire.”

“Yes. Exactly. This is possibly the last light I will see you in.” Wrathion leans back, pushes off from the balcony banister and begins to pace. Behind him is a backdrop of catastrophe. Inside the tower, the quiet is eerie.

“Burnished is an excellent look on you,” he continues. “The flames turn your skin golden, they make your hair a resplendent gash of light. I fear you have wasted too much of your life in libraries and studies. Magelight makes you pallid. Lamps? Hardly worth your time. I would have you viewed in the fires of the Elemental Planes themselves.”

Anduin nibbles his lip. Flattery is one of Wrathion’s favourite sports and flirtation has been a long and perilous game between them. Wrathion flirts with anyone naive enough to be taken in by him; he loves to test the limits of his charisma, to hone it like a tool, or a weapon. He keeps it as sharp as a blade. But with Anduin, he is usually honest. The teasing comes in caged glances and sharp moments of restraint: a thumb on his lip to shush him, a careful hand at the base of his neck to hold him back. Anduin spins around and forces himself to laugh. It doesn’t sound like anything natural, it is so brittle and thin. He’s trembling, his bones are shaking under his skin.

“Sometimes I wonder, did Rheastrasza read you nothing but the ‘Steamy Romance’ series while you were in that egg? Stop bein-”

He falters when he notices the very slight tremble down Wrathion’s arm that matches his own. The dragon is standing with his knuckle curled beneath his chin, mouth open just enough that his sharp incisors are visible. Anduin has seen Wrathion distressed, thwarted, bleeding to death and too arrogant to accept something to kill the pain. He has watched him eat a heart of a centuries dead Emperor. This is the first time he has seen him frightened. He is staggered by the sight, something strangled halfway between empathy and pity caught in his throat. Ah. Of course.

“You really thought you could prevent it,” Anduin whispers. “You thought that you could prevent the Burning Legion from taking our world?”

“Yes,” Wrathion answers hoarsely.

“Single-handedly.”

“I never for a moment doubted myself.”

“You fool,” Anduin laughs, genuine this time. “You unbelievable narcissist.”

“Perhaps,” Wrathion offers, “perhaps I believed it possible with you at my side?”

“Liar.” Anduin crosses the room in four strides and kisses him. And then kisses him again. And doesn’t stop kissing him until Wrathion is kissing back with his burning mouth and his sharp teeth, kisses him until his lips start to bleed. “You look best,” he wheezes, “in normal light.” No, that sounds terrible. Again. “In moonlight, maybe?” Even worse. “I don’t know - but I intend to live long enough to return the compliment.” God, he sounds stupid. He’s been trying so hard to laugh today. To affect a steel-jaw reminiscent of his father. To pretend that he believes Azeroth’s final assault against the Burning Legion will work, the way desperate, last stabs against the darkness always work in the stories and legends. He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until the tears dip into the hollow of his split lip and begin to sting.

Wrathion smiles and wipes at the tears with the calloused brunt of his thumb. “My dear Prince, I am exquisite in all lighting and from all angles. It is only you who requires the apocalypse as a backlight to appear beautiful.”

Anduin kisses him again just to shut him up. And then again because it will probably be the last chance he will ever get.

*

At least: they go down together.

Azeorth falls. Another point of light flickers dark in the endless, burning wheel of the Twisting Nether.

two.

It’s quarter after seven and Anduin is already going to be late for the feast when Wrathion tumbles in through the window in all his house-cat sized glory and turns into a human on the window sill.

“Good evening, Prince Anduin,” he says, calmly plopping himself down on the stone and crossing his legs.

“What are you doing here!?” Anduin hisses, kicking his door shut. He limps across the room with an unsteady gait and plants both palms firmly on Wrathion’s chest. “I told you a hundred times! Get out, get out, get out.”

Wrathion does not budge. In fact, he retains dignity and posture with a stoic determination that is incredibly suspicious. He clears his throat and says: “I cannot leave. We are to have words. I have words planned to say to you.”

“Yes, you usually do. However, I cannot participate in the word saying tonight, you’ll have to come back another time.”

“Explain to me,” Wrathion begins, rising to his feet abruptly and brushing past Anduin unheeded. “- what the point of this human marriage contract ritual is.”

Anduin gapes a little. “I… I already explained this to you when the betrothal was made. Wrathion. You’re nearly five years old. Don’t make me explain the birds and the bees to you.”

“No, no, no,” Wrathion snaps. He begins to pace, rolling his wrist irritably, his tone scattedand distracted. “I mean, what is the point of this particular contract. Why must your father marry you off as if…. as if you are some sort of physical commodity! I do not understand what the tangible value of this union is!”

With a tired sigh, Anduin slides into his desk chair and pulls his cane across his lap. He isn’t certain why he indulges Wrathion like this. Somewhere at the back of his head there is an itch he can never quite scratch, one that is thankful to be late for a high-society social function. One that is specifically thankful to be late due to Wrathion’s meddling. He watches the dragon stride from one end of the room to the other and feels a fondness for the slant of his nose, for the way his pointed teeth poke out over his lower lip, just a little bit.

“Wrathion, if my father is to help rebuild the seven kingdoms, he must show that he is willing to treat them as equals. That means allowing the Old Houses to marry into Stormwind’s royal line, no matter what ills have befallen their nations.”

Wrathion makes a frustrated noise and spins on his heel. “If your father is truly a strong ruler, then the Old Houses should take him at his word!”

Anduin chuckles. “That isn’t how politics work.”

“No,” Wrathion’s eyes flash as he levels an accusatory finger in Anduin’s direction. “That is not how politics work in your limited, new-world view. Your father is building a nation more concerned with appeasement than Empire-building.”

“Yes. Yes he is, and I couldn’t be glader for it. Wrathion, have we not sparred enough on this topic for you to realize that this line of debate never works on me? Why do you insist on pursuing the same argument again and again?”

“Is it the same argument, Prince Anduin?”

“Of course it is! I can recite it from heart by now! First you lure me into a tiresome game of definitions, then you rebuke me my softness and we quibble about the virtues of diplomacy versus dictatorship. Maybe you quote a few ancient Pandaren philosophers and I impress you with my ability to cite Draenic sources in an appalling accent and then we have tea and discuss the weather.”

The fight seems to drain out of Wrathion. He leans back and holds his arms awkwardly, as if he cannot decide what to do with his hands. After a moment, he asks: “Then… you do not enjoy our conversations?”

“I never said that.”

“But you find them redundant?”

“Well I… I mean… yes? Because they are, Wrathion, and quite at that.”

“I… I have always felt that they possessed a certain synchronicity. There is a pattern to our interactions - a sort of symmetrical familiarity.”

Anduin lifts an eyebrow. “Is that… a thing that dragons like?”

Wrathion lifts one of his right back. “Is it not something humans like?”

“You’ve lost me.”

“In Jihui, what is the gambit that must be played once the White Emperor has fallen?”

“Uh… the Xao Fao Compromise, if I recall correctly?” Anduin wonders what this has to do with anything. “The Black Emperor may continue to advance the front, but he must sacrifice a temple for each gain he makes.”

“Yes, you see. While the Black Emperor can control the board on his own, he cannot win the game without the White Emperor’s support. It’s perfect, you see, their beneficial co-dependence.”

Anduin laughs into the back of his hand. “I seem to recall a certain someone always tipping the White Emperor off the board intentionally in his vain attempts to win the game solo. It took us a month to win our first match.”

“I was very young then, Prince Anduin, and could not appreciate the elegance, the simple beauty of the concept. It’s a matter of different strengths, of like and unlike filling the balance between each other to achieve harmony. It’s quite a bit like our debates.”

“H-how do you figure?”

“The Black Emperor and the White Emperor, long ingrained archetypes of Pandaren lore. We met on Pandaria - the Black Prince and the White Pawn. Ancient Pandaren symbolism venerates the meeting of two extremes. It can’t have all been a mistake.”

Wrathion is almost talking to himself now. His chin is perched delicately on a single knuckle and his expression has softened so intensely that he hardly looks like himself. Anduin stares at him for a tense, protracted minute and it’s only after he’s forced to inhale sharply that he realizes he’s been holding his breath. It hits him all at once, like tripping down an imaginary stair when you're half asleep. Wrathion meets his gaze very suddenly and all Anduin can do is let out a thin, nervous whimper and say: “O-Oh.”

The silence is broken by an insistant rapping at the door. A servant calls through the door, startling them out of their stalemate.“Prince Anduin? Do you fare well?” Of course - Father would want to ascertain that he is dressed and ready, that he hasn’t fallen and broken both his legs, that he hasn’t run away to do anything stupid like make a marriage overture to Vol’jin’s charming twice-removed niece Zaeleja. No sarcasm there, she really was quite charming. Anduin remembers not only to breathe, he remembers to move and manages to hobble towards the door and bar it shut with his cane before the key begins to turn in the lock. Slip and crack your head on the corner of your desk once and no one in the castle ever forgets that despite all you’ve accomplished, you’re an invalid with a crooked walk.

“I’m fine!” He grates out, flattening his back against the door. “I had some… difficulty getting changed! I’ll be down within the quarter-hour!”

She hesitates, but the attendant relents with a sigh audible even through two inches of wood. “As you wish, Prince Anduin. Do not hesitate to ring for help.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it!”

He listens to her footsteps fade down the hallway, but does not move. He and Wrathion stare each other down from across the room. The distance between them is suffocating.

“So,” Anduin whispers. “What now?”

“Now you get married. That’s what you’ve been telling me, yes?”

“That’s it? After all that, you’ll allow me to get married? I expected something a little more grandiose, a little more megalomaniac. Are you saying that you’ve come here with no plans to whisk me away?”

“I would have stormed the castle with fire and brimstone,” Wrathion replies flatly, “but I’ve another twenty years, at least, until I am grown enough to take on the entire Stormwind guard.”

“So in twenty years, then?” Anduin forces an airy laugh.

“I had just always assumed,” Wrathion says, very quiet, “that you’d be at my side. You are a Prince, like I am. You can do anything you want.”

“Unfortunately, in my world being a Prince is the furthest thing from that. My options have always been very limited.”

“A gilded cage,” Wrathion snorts.

“Yes. And I mean to live within it to the best of my abilities.”

three.

His bones will never completely heal and neither will the scars of Azeroth.

“I warned him,” Anduin whispers to himself.

“Your father was a mad animal, Anduin, as Garrosh was. There is nothing to be gained from regret.”

“How do you,” Anduin clenches his teeth, “always know the exact wrong thing to say in every situation?”

“It is one of my many gifts.” Wrathion hovers near him, a constant these days. He slides one of his sharp hands up the narrow line of Anduin’s bicep and clamps it around his shoulder. “Anduin,” he murmurs, “Anduin, my dear Prince. You should not suffer the sight of this.”

“I am not so delicate.”

“As you wish.” But the dragon does not remove his hand.

Anduin is not so delicate that he will turn his eyes away from his own father’s funeral pyre. Stormwind burns tonight, but tomorrow, he will be King. And he will rebuild.

Anduin is not so delicate that he will turn his eyes away from the sight of Wrathion carving out his father’s heart with great and reverent delicacy. He remembers the first time he watched Wrathion eat a heart, absorbed with a breathless mixture of revulsion and fascination. Varian Wrynn’s corpse is posed on the Stormwind throne in a profane parody of authority, eyes raised towards the heavens. The shock came after the blow; Varian never would have suspected that his son would allow this to happen. That his son would betray him, would choose a lover over his father. No, Anduin corrects himself - he chose ideology. He chose the future of Azeroth. That he and Wrathion are in agreement about ends if not means is incidental. If Anduin closes his eyes and repeats this to himself silently, he is almost able to believe it.

*

It’s shocking how many of their allies - new and old - Wrathion’s honeyed tongue was able to lure from Varian’s side. Not Muradin, of course, but Moira and Falstad with little difficulty. The swiftness of Gelbin’s agreement stung, but not nearly so much as the weary tone with which Velen chose to abstain. Baine had glanced, almost imperceptibly, from Vol’jin to Anduin, a pained question rattling the rim of his soft eyes. Anduin - lips tight and fingers clenched with the knowledge of what had happened to Baine’s kind father - nodded in encouragement.

“It is certainly true that in his absence, these talks have proceeded with an unprecedented grace,” Tyrande said, her voice silk smooth and older than the greatest trees in Stormwind. “Like a blade passed beneath the calm water.”

“No rapids,” Malfurion agreed. He and his mate knocked together their goblets and downed the thick, spicy offering of trollish draught Vol’jin had poured for them.

“Da two greatest and oldest Empires on de planet are break’n bread and bone for de first time in millenia,” Vol’jin crowed, throwing an arm over Anduin’s shoulders. “Boy, I hope you get de honour a’ write’n da history book on dis one.”

“Yes,” Anduin answered politely. “It would be an honour.” An honour to explain why none of Varian’s allies came to his side that day, written intimately from the perspective of the one who knew him best.

*

“Wrathion. W-wait.”

Wrathion turns to face him, blood speckled and cat eyed already. “Yes, my dear?” He smiles gently, buried wrist deep in the gore of Anduin’s father.

I am not so delicate that I-

“My fathered was a splintered man, but I believe that he could have been a fair leader.”

“As he lived, he was a ticking timebomb,” Wrathion says. They have had this conversation many times. Never quite as an argument.

“Yes. But that’s not what I meant.” Anduin strides the long walk of the throne room, faltering every off-beat without his cane. He stands on the opposite side of the throne from Wrathion, casting them in the role of the Stone Lions that stand guard at the King’s side. A sad joke; two cubs with barely the scruff of a mane between them. And now it is their teeth and claws that will guide the fates of man, elf, orc and every other creature on the cursed planet of Azeroth. The metaphor is thin, but the reality of it makes Anduin dizzy.

“I meant that he was literally a man split in two.” Anduin dips his finger in the blood pooled at his father’s jugular. He holds it up for Wrathion to see and then draws a shaky line down the center of Varian’s paling face. “There were two halves of Varian Wrynn, and the one I loved could have been a fair leader.”

Wrathion watches him with predator’s eyes. He moves slowly and methodically as he snaps one of Varian’s ribs in half with his dragon’s strength. He tugs the bone free of the webbed cartilage, shears off the lung-flesh and blood, then holds it aloft triumphantly: a narrow blade of calcium and marrow that glitters the same white as Stormwind’s throne room. “Speak your peace, Anduin Wrynn.”

“Half of it belongs to me,” Anduin says quietly, firmly, and without shaking at all.

Wrathion is rendered speechless for a moment, which is the day’s greatest victory. Anduin holds his bloodied finger like a knife, slices it down the center of his palm. “You cut it in half, Wrathion. And you give half of it to me.”

“And what, pray tell, do you plan to do with half of your father’s heart?”

Without breaking Wrathion’s gaze, Anduin licks the last of Varian Wrynn’s blood from the pad of his finger. “What do you think I plan to do with it?”

*

“Why Wrynn and not Sylvanas?” Genn Greymane was the one who asked the question, but it was Muradin Bronzebeard whose eyes cast about the table judgmentally.

“The problem of Sylvanas is not one we can solve until the Burning Legion is defeated,” Wrathion explained.

“Yes,” said Anduin. “She hates the Legion more than any of us. She is a useful ally. After what happens to my fath- t-to Varian Wrynn, she will toe the line we give her as long as-”

“As long as what, lad?” The steel in Muradin’s tone was meant to pierce. It sent a shudder down Anduin’s spine. Beneath the table, Wrathion set a steadying hand on his knee. Anduin forced his breathing steady and touched the rough patches of Wrathion’s knuckles for strength.

“- as long as we give her what she wants.”

Genn leant back in his seat. He appeared to turn the statement over in his mind for several minutes. He ran his tongue over his sharp incisors - capable of ripping flesh even in his human form - and said, simply: “Fine.”

*

They dine together beneath the two moons.

The flesh is slippery and it fights against his teeth, his tongue, his throat. Bile rises in the back of his esophagus at the snap and tug of the arteries. He has to chew the fat and muscle for longer than his mind is comfortable contemplating. It rebels, refuses to be disassembled by his molars. With feverish resolve, he tears wet chunks from the heart and swallows them whole, choking it down through a torrent of stubborn tears. It burns and fills his mouth with mucus and stomach acid. Wrathion slithers around him and rubs his back soothingly, whispering legends about conquering emperors and their downfall in his ear.

Wrathion takes the last piece of Varian’s heart and puts it in his mouth. Anduin paws at him weakly in protest. Mine. My duty. My half of the crime. Wrathion chews the flesh slowly, pulping it between his predator teeth. He cups Anduin’s chin in his hands and kisses him gently, passing the meat between their mouths. Anduin’s throat is so sore that Wrathion has to stroke his jugular to guide it down.

“From now on,” Anduin says weakly, “we do everything this way.”

“Half and half,” Wrathion agrees.

“Everything. Promise me.”

“I’ve not lied to you yet, have I?”

Anduin nods and lays his back on the stone. The night smells like blood and smoke. It is the end of an era, he tells himself. No more nights that smell like this, ever again. Otherwise, what was the point of it all? “Wrathion, we will put this world back together.”

“Yes. And when the Burning Legion comes once again to take this planet, they will expect a broken land. They will expect a fractured people, easily defeated.”

“What they will find is an alliance stronger and truer than has ever existed in the Twisting Nether. And for the first time in their endless existence, they will know they have made a mistake.”

Wrathion pushes Anduin’s hair- matted thick with sweat and blood- back from his eyes. Anduin looks at his friend, admires his dark skin and sharp bones.

Wrathion’s eyes are redder than blood and brighter than flame. “Oh, my dearest Anduin,” he purrs. “How they will fear us.”

four.

“The new human King has a pet dragon! Have you heard? His father plastered the city with the Black Dragonflight’s skin and now his son brings one to trade negotiations! What sort of foul magic has him shadowed by such a beast?”

“You shouldn’t read gnomish gossip rags, Wrathion. They’re like junk food for the mind.”

“Oh, and he condescends to the the great beast about his health of all things! How darling!”

“You’re still so young. I think it’s important to be careful about what you consume.”

“Ah, well, if it will comfort your fluttering heart, I doused the paper in wine before I consumed it.”

“Before you-”

“Oh, and a dash of Pandaren Siracha.”

“Wrathion, you did not literally eat the gnomish gossip rag…”

“I ate twenty-six of them. Every single copy of the edition that the merchant had in his misbegotten possession!”

“Hmm. I’m glad to see that you accomplished something today, at least.”

Anduin is concentrating very hard on trimming his beard in the mirror so he is quite surprised at the aching, weezing crack that suddenly reverberates through the room. He drops his trimmer and squeezes his eyes shut. He knows what happened without even looking, mostly because this is not the first time it has happened. He eases his eyes open by degrees and quickly scans the state of his bedroom in the mirror before turning around to assess the full breadth of the damage. Wrathion has made an unfortunate habit of transforming himself into his draconic form while laying in Anduin’s bed. It used to be cute, once upon a time, but Wrathion is about the size and weight of two-and-a-half adolescent elekks in his terrible tweens. The bed is crushed utterly. The nightstand as well, a casualty of Wrathion’s irritable, flicking tail.

“You do realize that the coin to repair my personal belongings comes from taxpayer money?”

“A tragedy indeed. If I manage to crush a hundred more beds before the equinox you’ll have another Defias Brotherhood on your hands.”

“That’s not even a little bit funny.”

“Say what you will, Anduin Wrynn. I am hilarious.”

“It is not even in the same elemental plane as funny.”

Wrathion shakes his head, further demolishing the bed by cracking the posts apart with his horns. He puts his snout in his paws and pouts, but rather majestically so. Anduin sighs and finally relents, going to sit on the edge of the dilapidated bed.

“What’s bothering you?”

“The Black Prince of Azeroth does not indulge in trite relationship therapy.”

“Of course. The Black Prince of Azeroth indulges only in trite temper tantrums. He must never extinguish the dark and terrible fire roiling inside of him.”

“I am not your pet,” Wrathion rumbles quietly.

Anduin holds his tongue wisely. Instead of speaking, he sets a steady hand between Wrathion’s eyes. The dragon closes them in response to the touch.

“When have I ever treated you like an animal?”

“We agreed long ago that we would be equals in all things. Rulers, side by side.”

“Yes, we did. I have my obligations in Stormwind. Your forces grows by the day. Vol’jin and I do what we can to help you prepare for the Legion. Cloudsinger and Firepaw as well. We did this together, Wrathion. No one doubts that.”

“Great and terrible,” Wrathion mutters, his voice a rolling, whispering growl. Like a handful of rocks and feathers in the small of his throat.

“What? Did you imagine us flying through the sky, razing the countryside together? Until all the citizens of Azeroth cried out in one unified voice, ‘Stop! Stop! We’ll concede! We’ll unite! Just stop burning our houses, mighty Dragon King!’?”

“Diplomacy certainly lacks the…” the dragon smacks his scaly lips together, flicks his tongue distractedly. “The… taste of glory I’d been weaned to anticipate.”

“I hate to inform you of this, Wrathion, but we all have to grow up someday. We have to abandon our childhood fantasies.”

“Easy for you to say,” Wrathion snaps. “You were born grown-up.”

“I-” Anduin attempts to argue, but finds himself bereft of evidence. There is truth in what Wrathion says, and it makes him terribly sad. So he says: “I’m sorry.”

“You should be. Hmph. Mammals. You just keep getting older - and hairier.”

“Hey!” Anduin touches his chin in offense. He has worked hard on growing the beard! It hadn't come in until he was twenty-three! Wrathion rolls his neck and lays his head in Anduin’s lap. The weight is unpleasant on Anduin’s delicate bones- all pressure reminds them of the dozen hairline fractures they barely survived- but he does not mind. He runs his fingers over the curvature of Wrathion’s left horn fondly.

“Hey,” he repeats, softly this time.

“You get older every day.”

The weight of those words hurts more than the weight of a half grown dragon across his legs. Anduin stops breathing for a moment and feels the air build up and turn hard and thick at the center of his chest. They’ve never talked about it. Oh, they have talked around it. They have laughed around it - delicate mammals, little human made of glass, might as well be an hour-glass so fragile and you can see the time ticking away by the quality of their skin ha ha ha. Oh Wrathion, don’t talk so big little dragon. Your kind are mortal too now, you know. Mortal yes, but still not as mortal as you.

They had talked around it, but never in relation to each other. Never in terms that could be easily perceived and understood when you lined them up side by side: Wrathion, the Black Prince, will live longer (so much longer) than Anduin Wrynn.

Anduin breathes again, and he buries his nose in the rough bristle of Wrathion’s mane. He wraps his arms around the dragon’s neck and cherishes the blood-beat that pounds through the major artery there, and how it matches up with the one in his own arm. Wrathion’s heart beats slower, however. Much slower.

“You know,” Anduin whispers into Wrathion’s fur. “The new governor of Valgarde has been skimming off the top in trade negotiations lately. Would you feel a little better if I let you hold him in your mouth for a while?”

A slow and wicked grin stretches across Wrathion’s narrow snout. He shows each and every one of his teeth.

five.

Jaina speaks first. Her voice is not kind. “You have not asked my advice in a long time.”

“I haven’t felt welcome,” Anduin says. “I’ve not wanted to overstep any boundaries. But I-”

“I know what you’re going to ask me. I was there, Anduin. I saw your father’s tiff with the Black Prince. It was very public.”

“I-”

“And now you want to know: how is it possible to carry on a clandestine affair with someone who is technically your enemy. You’ll ask me how I managed to do it right under the Alliance’s nose?”

Anduin wrenches his hands around the grip of his cane and makes the shape of apologies or denial with his mouth, but his “Aunt” Jaina has never been foolish, and she is no longer patient. So he sets his jaw and says: “Yes.”

Jaina laughs bitterly. “Well, I didn’t do it very well, did I? Otherwise you wouldn’t be asking me this.”

“Aunt Jaina, I’m not asking you to help me do anything unwise or… illegal. I am in need of guidance, and you understand that I can hardly go to my father about this.”

“Oh, I know exactly what you’re asking me. The question is, do you?”

“I… I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Anduin. Wrathion is a problem. One day, we will have to put him down. You already know that, don’t you?”

“I-”

“You should have known better. And because you didn’t, you also know that you’ll have to be the one who does it. You’re not stupid, Anduin. You’re not like I used to be; you talk pretty, but the “better world” you speak of is not the one you see.”

“Aunt Jaina, that’s-”

“And you want to know how I felt when I cast the man I loved into the dark water, so soon after I helped put another man I'd loved long ago to death . You want to know how I felt when I threatened to bury everything Thrall ever cared and worked for beneath the ocean.”

Anduin says nothing.

"It's more than that," she stares into him, speaks calmly. "You want to know how I felt when we killed Arthas."

Helplessly, he meets Jaina’s hard eyes and nods. Yes. He wants to know.

“- it begins as a burning,” Jaina whispers, touching two fingers to Anduin’s chest. “Right here, between these two ribs. It fills your lungs with fire, chokes all of your crying with steam. It burns out the light behind your eyes and makes your fingers bright with sparks.”

Anduin swallows thick and shudders - just a half inch, a hair’s width - away from her touch. “And that’s what it feels like?” he asks shakily, “to want to destroy someone you once loved?”

Jaina’s lips twitch with the barest smile. “No.” She cups his face tenderly, the way she used to when he was a small boy. “Anduin, that’s what it feels like to love someone you want to destroy.”

*

She’s right, of course. Jaina Proudmoore has always been a woman cursed by her prescience.

When Wrathion does go dog-mad, he goes fantastically. His alliance with the Old Gods nearly tears Azeroth apart worse than Deathwing’s did. Anduin has to give him one thing however, one small credit - despite years of half-drafted treaties and sincere overtures, it is Wrathion’s madness that finally sees Anduin Wyrnn, King of Stormwind, sitting in a tent with Warchief Vol’jin, splitting a jug of brandy.

“Ya know, man-child, in Trollish mythology, all a’ de greatest love stories end wit one lover kill’n de ot’er. Grind up dem bones and put’n em in a broth. Dat way dey be toget’er forever.” Vol’jin holds up his goblet for a toast.

Anduin clinks their glasses together and wonders how thick his beard must be before Vol’jin stops calling him child.

“Amazingly, that does not lighten the burden on my heart, Warchief.” He doesn’t ask Vol’jin how he knew; the Warchief is the only person Anduin has ever met who is equally brilliant at both chess and jihui.

“As long as it be a burd’n an’ not a shadow, boy.”

Anduin thinks that one over. He knocks back the brandy and nods.

“I’m going to speak with him now.”

“Spirits be wit ya, Anduin.”

Wrathion’s fall was at the foot of Blackrock Mountain. It’s a place with such a long, dark history that Anduin is honestly surprised it has not yet collapsed beneath the weight of its own profane importance. Then again, so many wars had been conducted from that peak, so many Accords shattered… for Blackrock to be the place where the Horde and the Alliance finally make a lasting peace? Doubtlessly Nefarian was howling with agony in his grave at the sick irony.

Anduin picks his way across the battlefield slowly, offering aid and healing to both sides along the way and trying his best to hide how much he is depending on his cane today. Wrathion is trussed up in a cave near the ruins of Flamestar Post. The troops are awaiting the verdict. Anduin knows that the decision is his. Vol’jin all but told him so back in the tent and the Pandarens had washed their hands of the issue hours ago. “I dunno, kid. Burn the fucker, I say,” was Prince Steamwheedle’s sage advice. “One chance, man. He fucked it up.”

“Thanks, everyone,” Anduin says under his breath. Privately. Rolls his eyes. Oh, Light, his hands are shaking.

The guards at the cave both salute him. One human, one orcish. Anduin smiles sadly, but of course, they don’t get the joke.

“Sire?”

“You are relieved, Lieutenant.” In orcish: “You as well, Legionnaire. Get some rations. Some water.”

The guards exchange a baffled look. It’s almost beautiful, that look. A silent communique of “is this man insane?” that manages to bridge the language barrier. It is an incredulous eyebrow quirk forged in fire and blood. That look is the future.

“I won’t tell you twice. I wish to speak with the Black Prince and I would rather not have an audience, intentional or not.” They don’t need to be told twice.

When they have gone, Anduin hobbles down the shallow incline to Wrathion’s prison. He isn’t quite ready to see him. He definitely is not quite ready to see him as he is - bound in so much chain and metal that he lays flat beneath their weight. Burnt, bruised, sliced. One of his great, ram horns is broken at the base. Wrathion would have been a beautiful dragon. Is a beautiful dragon. A rare and beautiful creature; the first black dragon born free of the taint in centuries. And the last. The very last. Anduin still cannot bring himself to believe what his old friend has done.

“The Old Gods.” Anduin says. “Really?”

“Yes, yes,” Wrathion hisses, turning a wild red eye in Anduin’s direction. His great mouth lolls open and he unfurls his black tongue. Foam bubbles between his jagged teeth like that of a rabid wolf. “Their voices make daisy chains of lights in my mind! Oh, the smell of boiling blood when the black sun and the red moon cross, it’s-”

Anduin clenches his teeth. “Wrathion…”

“And you! Shine! Like the ignorant sun, reborn from the ominous dead words. You come to me regretfully from the land of flowing sweat!”

“Wrathion, I know that you are not-”

Black smoke billows from the dragon’s nostrils. “An insect approaches,” Wrathion sing-songs. “Passing the door opened by the dirty old troll’s words. Beyond the soundless sounds of the red mountain’s ass. Go further, sweet prince. No, no, no. He must advance on his own. That name... carved into five million barrels of ale by a gnome living inside the newborn snail’s shell.”

“For light’s sake, shut up.” Anduin grabs Wrathion’s unbroken horn and braces a foot in the dent of his scaly cheek. He forces him to make eye-contact. “I can see the lucidity in your eyes. I can sense disease of the mind, you idiot! Whatever the Forgotten One did to you, you are free of it now! So, stop making fun of me!”

Wrathion huffs in defeat. “A beautiful melody,” he sighs, “from all of your holes.”

Anduin lets go. “Are you ready to talk?”

“I don’t have much of a choice seeing that I am all but hogtied in this cave,” Wrathion sneers. “There are iron bolts through my wings and paws, Lordship.”

“A foul indignity.”

“There is a ship’s anchor speared through my tail to keep me down.” Wrathion might have been a terrible and full-sized drake, over twenty feet long with a wingspan to match. He might have downed a thousand men and women single-handedly in combat, but oh, oh, he could still whine with the best of them.

“You could always choose to remain silent. To hold your tongue.”

“Ha!” Wrathion tosses his head, rattling the chains of his prison. “You know me better than that, Anduin Wrynn.”

“Yes,” Anduin says softly. “I do.”

They stare each other down for as long as Anduin can stand it. He turns his back to Wrathion and slumps to his knees, leaning his head and shoulders against the dragon’s side. He listens for Wrathion’s laboured breathing. Counts the ticks between his heartbeats.

“Foolish, sentimental human,” Wrathion tsks.

“What made you think you could forge a pact with the Forgotten Ones,” Anduin asks. “Were you already mad, Wrathion?”

“What other options did I have? Even with simpering, pandering bleeding hearts such as yourself and Vol’jin in power, the war continued! Worse, even, than when Garrosh and Varian were in control because at least with those two lunatics I could trust that one of them would eventually take it a step too far and wipe the other side out! But with you and Vol’jin… you did nothing but gingerly chip away at each other. And every inch so regretfully chipped from your mutual defenses was an inch closer to Sargeras's inevitable victory.”

“You always did know how to flatter.”

“The Pandarens wanted nothing more to do with it. The goblins are hopeless. Who else should I have turned to? The Vrykul? The ogres?” Wrathion laughs, deep in his belly.

“The Old Gods,” Anduin repeats. It’s absurd that Wrathion is attempting to defend it.

“Azeroth is their home too. Why shouldn’t they have listened to me, I thought. My only crime is optimism.”

“Azeroth is their prison. How could you have been so stupid!?”

Wrathion says nothing.

“You said that you wanted to be different from your father. That you wanted so badly to escape his legacy. You staked your pride on it! But in the end, you were the same as him. But worse - a pawn, Wrathion. A stupid child who was tricked into burning everything he claimed to care about!”

Still, no response.

“That’s what makes me angry, Wrathion. That’s what makes me furious with you! It’s what makes me burn. You had a chance to redeem the legacy for your entire people. History had closed its pages to the Black Dragonflight, but you had a chance to flip the book open again and decide how the story continued! To make certain that your people were remembered as more than…?”

“Mad animals. Savage beasts in the thrall of insane Gods?”

“Yes. And you… you squandered the opportunity! You made every foul thing my father ever thought and said about you true. You… You-” Steamwheedle’s words return to him, suddenly. “You fucked it up!”

“Do you still love me?” Wrathion asks, very quietly. The voice of a scorned lover, or a scolded child. That similarity had always been one of the problems with their relationship.

Anduin is shocked by the question, but not for long. He answers truthfully. “Yes. Y-Yes. Always.”

“Then keep my bones for your throne, my dear King.”

“Of course.”

“When the Burning Shadow does come, adorn yourself in an armour of my skin. Take me to that battle.”

“I will.”

“Eat my heart. Do not let anyone touch it. Paint yourself with my blood.”

“I know.”

“You understand what I’m asking you, Anduin Wrynn?”

“Yes.”

Anduin shuts his eyes and watches the light behind them burn out. His fingers are bright with sparks.

AFTER.

The atmosphere of the Timeless Isle makes Anduin languid. He leans back in the grass and props up his bad leg, basking in the strange, muted light of the frozen sun. Beside him, Wrathion sits crosslegged with his chin in his hand, staring. Anduin casts a sideways look at him and frowns.

“What?”

“Why are you here, Prince Wrynn?”

Anduin stares at him, flatly. “You asked me here. In fact, you pursued me quite ruthlessly.”

“Did I?”

“Yes, at every avenue since the moment we first met. Before that even. And I’ve still no idea why you did it.”

Wrathion takes a minute to answer. He does not move, but his lips inch apart to form a toothy grin, svelte and snakelike. He chuckles. “I supposed I fancy myself a collector of rare items.”

“Of what?” Anduin sputters a little. “How am I a rare item?”

“Oh, I don’t know-” Wrathion tips his head further to the left and waves his claws, swirling them about in the air. “A gentle hearted priest who indulges in mind control? A sheltered prince twice as savvy as his political seniors and yet more naive than a child? You’ve the build of a scholar and yet you go charging into the fray? I would call all of this rare indeed.”

Anduin flushes because he is sixteen and susceptible to such talk. He hides his face behind the curve of his shoulder and shakes out his hair. “That honeyed tongue is going to get you in trouble someday, Wrathion. You cannot mean even a fraction of what you spit out.”

Wrathion bounces to his feet suddenly and offers Anduin his palm. “If my words are so troubling, then how about a dance instead, my dear?” He drops the “prince” off the formerly safe endearment almost like a dare. Anduin narrows his eyes.

“... do you even know how to dance?”

“Of course I know how to dance!” Wrathion huffs, puffing out his cheeks. “Dancing is a princely endeavour, and I am a Prince!”

Anduin does not take the invitation. He leans back on his palms and studies the dragon critically. “What is this about?”

“Customary, is it not, on human days of celebration? That is what you’ve come to me to avoid, yes? The particulars of your father’s merry jig on Garrosh’s ashen throne?”

“I wouldn’t have phrased it quite like that…”

“Naturally,” Wrathion looks at him through his eyelashes. “Anduin, you haven’t the tongue for poetry.”

“- and I would hardly say that my father is particularly pleased at this outcome.”

“Appeasement,” Wrathion snorts. “Half-measures. I’m shocked you aren’t more eager to celebrate.”

“... you know I can’t.”

Wrathion straightens at the waist and taps his chin. “You can’t what, Anduin? You can’t dance, or you cannot celebrate Garrosh’s defeat?”

Anduin laughs ruefully, under his breath, but just loud enough that it quivers through his shoulders. “Neither,” he says. He’ll never walk without a cane again, let alone dance.

“How unfortunate,” Wrathion sighs, sweeping down and grabbing Anduin’s hand tightly. He pulls him to his feet with an elegant flourish. Anduin stumbles at first, unsteady on aching bones and without the comfort of his cane to keep him upright. Wrathion fits an arm into the small of his back and spins them both around clumsily. “You’ve every reason to treat yourself to both. Very few people got what they wanted today and I was certainly not one of them. If you were a creature with any sense at all, you’d be gloating right now.”

Anduin smiles despite himself and allows the dragon to sway them gently to some imaginary beat, leaning his dead weight against Wrathion’s shoulder as he basks in the sensation of disagreeing with literally every word that comes out of his mouth. “And why should I treat myself to this part as well?” he asks slyly.

Wrathion twirls him carefully, steps on his foot by accident and then leans in to whisper: “Beatific gratitude that the future supreme ruler of Azeroth holds you in the highest esteem.”

Anduin’s heart leaps and he rolls his eyes so hard he’s afraid they might fall right out of his head. When he eases back to look Wrathion in the eye, there’s something in the expression that is sincere and fragile and arrogant and worrying and hopeful all at once. Anduin decides that he can worry about what it all means later. Wrathion holds his chin just a little too high to be properly believed as a tyrant. He won’t get his “yes” from Anduin just yet, but right now the ocean is endless and the sun is golden and this is an evening that will never end.