moonshadows

The Kal’dorei woman skipping merrily up the hall with the rest of the petitioners didn’t attract any undue attention. Blue hair was normal for her people, and her dress – while shimmery and exotic – was by no means outside the realm of accepted fashion. Even the way she looked around, trying to take in everything at once, was not out of the ordinary. No one paid her any attention at all until she passed into the throne room and sneezed. Suddenly tripping over her own feet, she fell to the floor and when she landed, the mortal seeming fell away. The blue dragon sneezed again in surprise as every eye turned to him.

“There is a dragon in my throne room.” One incredulous voice shattered the silence. “Why is there a dragon in my throne room?”

The beast in question righted himself and sat, tail curled around his haunches like an enormous cat. He shook his head to clear it, then bent his neck to peer at King Varian Wrynn from a more comfortable distance. “Probably because you blanketed the room in a ward to disrupt shape-change spells.”

The guards nervously shuffled closer, forming a loose ring around the blue beast in their midst. The civilians shuffled just as nervously for the walls and door.

“I know that,” Varian snapped.

“Then why did you ask?”

Slightly taken aback, the king blinked. “Why are you here?” he demanded, opting to change the subject instead of engaging in a rhetorical debate.

“Because the Warchief didn’t have what I need.”

Intrigued now despite himself, the king of Stormwind relaxed slightly. “And what’s that?”

“Remember when the Lich King sent frostwyrms to attack Stormwind?”

“What about it?”

“Their bodies fell into the harbor, right?”

“Get to the point,” Varian growled.

“…are they still there?” The dragon asked eagerly. Confused now, Varian nodded and the tip of the long, blue tail began twitching like an excited cat’s while the expression on his scaled head resembled that of a child on Winter Veil. “Can I have them?”

“Well, I suppose if you can get them out of the harbor- wait, what do you want them for?” Off-balance, the surly king nearly forgot to be angry and suspicious of the dragon who had called on him unannounced.

“Well, the frostwyrms were raised from the bones of blue dragons killed by Deathwing during the War of the Ancients, about ten thousand years ago. They were dead before I started my genealogy project, so I don’t have them placed, but if I can get their bones, I can extract enough magical residue to properly place them in the family tree and hopefully extrapolate their common ancestors!”

The king frowned quite alarmingly, given his scars. “You want to fill out your family tree?”

“Yup!”

“We’re in the middle of a war.”

The dragon rolled his eyes. “I know that.”

“…with some of your people.”

“Don’t remind me,” the Blue sighed.

“And you want to dig up old bones to fill out your family tree.”

“You got it!”

The dragon’s cheerful obliviousness irked Varian just slightly. “Don’t you think you should do something about the war?”

Huge, confused eyes blinked. “That’s what I’m doing.”

Varian stared at the blue dragon. “You’re crazy.”

“Hey, I’m not the one picking fights with the people who could be my allies,” the Blue retorted. “I mean, it’s only death by hordes of mindless skeletons, obviously your little macho fight with the orcs is more important than making sure you’re not overrun and eaten by zombies.”

Flushed with anger, Varian Wrynn glared up at the dragon. “And how are old bones going to help anything?”

“Well,” the dragon said in a tone somewhere between smug and innocent, “if I can identify who’s masquerading as Malygos and making my Flight all crazy, I can counter their spell and stop the Nexus war cold.” He chuckled. “Get it? Cold? Because the Nexus is in…oh, never mind.”

While not amused, the warrior-king at least looked impressed. “I take it back, you’re not crazy. That’s actually very cunning. You’re welcome to whichever bones you can find in the harbor; all I ask is that you don’t interfere with any of the ships there.”

“Aw, you’re so sweet!” The dragon shrank suddenly, becoming the night elf female once again. While the king was still startled at this development, she flounced up to him, kissed him on the cheek, and flounced her way towards the door.

“Hey!” Varian shouted. “You’re not supposed to be able to do that in here!”

The night elf stopped and looked over her shoulder. “But then where should I kiss you?”

The human king gaped, face red from something other than rage. “Your shape. The ward.”

“Oh, that?” One blue-tinged shoulder shrugged. “Yeah, it took me a minute to figure out how to work around that. It’s a good spell, though. Ought to work great against any Black dragon trying to sneak in here!”

Without warning, the night elf turned into a blue bird and flitted out of the room.