War of Azureon Part Two: They're Cute When They're Young

[moonshadows]

 

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, the data from my spells-“

“-goes right over my head, but what the forest says-“

“-I can’t hear.”

In the pause after that exchange, ear pressed to the door, Azureon marveled that both voices were identical.

“And the tauren – Brox? – had a vision close to yours?”

“Partially. The other half sounds more like yours.”

“What’s this about visions?” the disguised Blue asked, startling both twins with her silent entrance. They looked up from the corner they’d been sitting it, well away from the sleeping orc-tauren.

“We both have them, Magus,” Illidan said respectfully. “Every time we sleep, for a few months now. In mine, the Well of Eternity turns into a great maelstrom that cracks the world in half. In my brother’s-“

“-horrible beings march through the woods, burning everything in their path. When they pass, there’s nothing but barren wasteland.”

“Heavy stuff for a pair of younglings,” Azureon said mildly, joining them on the floor. “Have you told anyone about them?”

The twins exchanged a look. “Only our friend Tyrande,” Malfurion said. “She’s a novice priestess.”

“She prayed to Elune about it,” Illidan continued, “and she had a vision. The city of Zin-Azshari turned black and crumbled into a ruin that poisoned the land and ocean alike.”

“We didn’t think it was a good idea to try to bring it up to any of the Highborne after that,” Malfurion said uneasily. “Even to warn the queen.”

“I did tell one of my masters, back when it first started,” the golden-eyed brother said bitterly. “He told me to stop making up stories and work harder, or I’d never achieve my destiny.” His hands balled into fists on his lap, and his brother reached over to cover one with his hand. “Adults don’t listen to orphan kids, I guess. No offense, Magus.”

Azureon covered Illidan’s other hand with hers. “I’m listening.” She gave the silver-eyed twin an apologetic look. “I’m afraid nature magic isn’t my specialty, but show me the data that goes over your brother’s head and I’ll see what I can do to help.”

Illidan’s face lit up with incredulous hope. “You’d do that, Magus?”

The dragon beamed. “Of course! I’ll need to assess your knowledge of the basics anyway, if I’m to teach you while your brother helps my tauren friend.” She gestured to Brox, still sleeping in the corner with his axe at his side.

Shocked now, Illidan looked at his brother, who was beaming. “You’d do that? For me?” he breathed, golden eyes wide. “You’re not afraid that I’ll somehow overshadow you and history won’t remember anything you did but that you taught me?”

“Not in the slightest,” she said blithely, searching her memory of post-Sundering civilization for anyone named Illidan, and finding nothing. “Now, do you have a work room?”

“Yes,” he answered, tripping slightly over the word. “It’s upstairs.”

“You don’t mind if I borrow your brother for a few hours, do you?” she asked Malfurion.

The other boy grinned fit to break his face, as overjoyed as his twin at this development. “Not at all, Magus.”

“Okay, Illidan, let’s go upstairs and see what you’ve been taught.”

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Dinner was done by the time Azureon and an exhausted – but beaming – Illidan came back downstairs. Dawn loomed on the horizon, and Brox was stirring. Malfurion passed out bowls of a simple bean soup and for a handful of minutes, no one spoke as they ate.

“We will depart for Cenarius’s glade when you are ready,” the druid-in-training said to the disguised orc, who only grunted.

“I’m looking forward to a good day’s sleep,” his twin said with a yawn. “I think Magus Azurewing worked me harder than all of my other masters combined.”

“And we were only testing your knowledge,” the woman said lightly. “You have a wonderful affinity for the arcane, and I intend to teach you as much as I can, as swiftly as you can retain it.”

“Why the rush?” Malfurion asked curiously.

The disguised Blue smiled mysteriously. “The future is uncertain. I told you my studies focused on draconic magic?” A pause while the twins nodded in unison. “That means I actually work with dragons. They agreed that Brox’s vision is highly important, but they may decide at any time that I need to return to my home.”

Illidan swallowed the last of his soup and set the bowl down. “Sleep can wait. Teach me, Magus Azurewing. I am your wiling student.” He bowed as best as he could while seated.

The Blue reached out with one hand and ruffled his hair. “How about you show me that data you’ve been collecting, and I’ll see what we can make of it?”

“Yes, Magus! I’ll tell you what we found when you get back,” he told his twin, who nodded.

“And I’ll tell you what we learned as well,” Malfurion promised.

“Go now,” Brox said in rough kaldorei, and with a nod to the others the two departed.

 

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Late-afternoon sun poured through the windows Azureon had finished layering new wards onto when Brox and Malfurion returned. The night elf made a beeline for the chair his brother had curled up in ‘to rest his eyes for a minute’ over four hours ago.

“Illidan, wake up!” Malfurion grabbed his brother’s shoulders and pulled the suddenly-awake teen to his feet. “I did the most amazing thing!”

The excited explanation that followed lapsed often into vague sounds and gestures, but Illidan seemed to follow every unspoken word and looked every bit as enthused as his twin. “What did you see when you finally got into the Emerald Dream?” he asked eagerly, and Malfurion sobered. The explanation this time was slow and halting, with many hand gestures and unhappy expressions, but again Illidan seemed to follow as easily as if they had been words. When his twin finished, Illidan took up the narration as he described what he and Azureon had learned through their spellwork. The consensus was that the Highborne in Zin’Azshari were doing something wrong with the energies of the Well of Eternity, but no one knew what.

Brox stumped over to the corner he’d slept in and sat down; the twins started as though they’d forgotten they weren’t alone, and Malfurion guiltily looked around. Now that the mood had been broken, the late hour of the day settled onto their identical shoulders.

“You should get some more sleep, brother,” he said apologetically. “I woke you up.”

“So should you, brother,” Illidan replied with a yawn and a sleepy grin. “You were up half the day. Will you and Brox be alright for the day, Magus?” He turned to his ne mentor anxiously.

Dragon and orc exchanged a look. “We’ll be fine,” she assured her student. “Sleep; it sounds like you both earned it.”

“Thank you, Magus,” they chorused before half-stumbling into their room.

“The demigod wants to see you,” Brox said in orcish. “He knows I’m not a tauren but he said he’d keep the secret as long as he got the story from the dragon ‘protecting’ me.”

Azureon stretched. “Guess I should go do that, then.”

The disguised Blue slipped out of the cottage. Moments later, a small blue bird darted off into the forest.

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Cenarius started as the insignificant weight of yet another small bird found a temporary perch on his antlers. The momentarily disorienting impression of an enormous Blue dragon perched cheerfully on him made the demigod shake his head, disrupting his feathered passenger. One gnarled, wooden hand held up invitingly, Cenarius waited for his guest to settle down again.

“So you are the one who gave Brox the shape of a tauren,” he murmured once the bird had landed. “Why have you done such a thing?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” the blue bird chirped.

“And why is that?”

The bird fidgeted on the demigod’s finger. “Let’s just say he’s not expected to be where he is, and there’s some powerful forces I’d rather he not attract the attention of.”

Cenarius’s golden eyes narrowed. “Such as?”

“…the armies in your student’s visions?” Azureon chirped innocently. “Or the Highborne currently trying to use the Well as a portal to bring them to this world?”

“I know what you are attempting to do,” the demigod said sternly. His voice like the creak of tree branches swaying in a storm. “You are using the threat of those hellish forces to make the issue of your identities less important.”

Azureon said nothing. The air grew tense, as though a storm were about to break.

Cenarius sighed, and the pressure in the air dissipated. “It worked. Malfurion has told me about you, ‘Magus Azurewing’, and how you offered to teach his brother. You have won his trust, but you have not yet won mine. So tell me, little dragon, why I should not turn you over to your own kind and let them deal with the riddle you pose.”

“The Timeless One knows I’m here!” Azureon blurted, fanning his feathered wings anxiously. It wasn’t precisely a lie.

“The Timeless One…but not your own Aspect?”

“Nooooooo, the Spellweaver knows exactly where I am.” Or at least, he thought, he knows where my egg is…

The demigod harrumphed. “I have no doubts that there is much you are not telling me, but it will do for the moment. Now, what’s this about the Highborne?”

“Well, it’s just a guess, but that’s some very fancy spellwork they’re running from the palace to the Well. Looks like it’s designed to be a conduit for something. I could go into detail if you like,” the Blue offered, but Cenarius shook his head.

“No, little one. You are the expert in the workings of the arcane, not I, and I will not insult you by doubting that you know what you are talking about. But now we must discuss what we will do with this knowledge.”

“Well, we have no proof yet of what they intend – only ambiguous visions. I’ll keep monitoring the Highborne and teaching Illidan, and when I have something conclusive, I’ll let you know.”

“And I, in turn, will teach Malfurion as much as he can understand. I fear we may not have as much time as I would have liked, and I will need to push him far faster than I had intended to.” He shook his head slowly. “I hope he will forgive me for that.”

Azureon fluffed his feathers, then smoothed them down with quick, smug strokes of his beak. “If he’s anything like his brother, that won’t be a problem.”

 

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Dusk had deepened into night and Azureon was puttering around in the cottage’s kitchen when an insistent rattle at the door sounded, making Brox reach for his axe. When the door didn’t open, a hard, rapid knock replaced the rattle. Dragon and orc looked at each other, unsure of what to do, but the door to the twins’ room opened and one of them stumbled out, still half asleep and unidentifiable in plain linen pajamas. He shuffled blindly to the door and opened it without hesitation, stepping back to let the insistent visitor enter.

The same age as the twins, aqua hair tied severely back to expose a face that seemed too stern for its age, and a frame just starting to go from ‘gangly’ to ‘feminine’, the young night elf female in novice’s robes put her hands on her hips and glared at the sleep-muddled youth. “Illidan,” she scolded in a voice as sharp as her elbows, “why didn’t your wards let me in?”

“I don’t know, Tyrande,” came the muzzy reply as the boy scratched his blue hair.

“They were my wards,” Azureon said, emerging from the kitchen. “I didn’t realize that hole was a deliberate exclusion when I strengthened them. My apologies.”

Illidan knuckled sleep out of his eyes. “Tyrande, this is Magus Azurewing. She’s teaching me magic,” he finished in a tone of quiet awe.

“Oh,” the novice priestess said. “Well, you’d better wake Furion and start making yourself presentable. You don’t want to be late again.”

“Okay,” the golden-eyed teen said absently before shuffling back into the bedroom.

“I’ve known them almost all my life,” the younger female said by way of explanation for her overly-familiar treatment of the twins. “They were wards of the Temple for a few years. Tyrande Whisperwind, Magus.” She bowed respectfully.

“You’re the one who had the vision of Zin-Azshari crumbling,” the dragon said cheerfully.

The young priestess started. “They told you about that?”

“My tauren friend had a vision similar to theirs, which led him here.” She gestured to the disguised orc staring at the other female.

“This is the priestess,” he said in orcich.

“Looks like it,” the dragon replied in the same language. “Don’t tell her about what we know, just give her the respect you’d give a shaman. I’m going to tell her I’m telling you what a priestess is, since she looks about to ask.”

Brox clumped forward a few steps and kneeled before Tyrande, who had just opened her mouth. “Shaman,” he rumbled, “may this humble warrior have your blessing?”

“Of course,” she answered, extending her hands and intoning the words.

“His people don’t have priestesses,” Azureon said brightly. I told him you were like his tribe’s shamans – that you ask, and Elune grants.”

“Elune grant I’m not late again!” Illidan interjected as he burst from the bedroom, straightening his tunic and vest as he hurried towards the door, only to be spun around by Tyrande as he passed her.

“Illidan. Calm. Focus.” The priestess-in-training took his face between her hands and kissed his forehead. “You’ll be fine.”

“I hope so,” he sighed. “I think my master is about to declare that I can’t learn any more from him and pass me on to someone else.”

Tyrande scowled at the boy’s dejected tone.

“If he does,” Azureon said blithely, just tell him that Magus Azurewing is your new master.”

Illidan stood a little straighter. “Thank you, Magus,” he said gratefully. “And…thank you, Tyrande,” he said in a softer, almost reverent tone. “I do have to run now, or I will be late.”

The younger woman nodded and released him, and he dashed out the door. A moment later, Malfurion shuffled out as well, and Tyrande sighed at him. “You’re supposed to be tending the Temple gardens, Furion,” she chided, hands once again on her hips. “If Cenarius’s nature magic weren’t such a help, the elder Sisters would be quite cross with you for what it does to your sleep schedule.”

He blinked at her in sleepy confusion. “But Tyrande, we’ve always been slow to wake up.”

“I know.” Tyrande grinned suddenly. “But the elder Sisters don’t. Come on, get dressed and I’ll walk you back.”

The young male grinned shyly back and nodded before ducking into his room again. He came back out a minute later in plain, sturdy clothes suitable for working with dirt and plants. Tyrande gestured impatiently, and with nods and brief reassurances that he’d be back just after midnight, he let himself be led off.

“I’m not waiting up,” Brox said dryly to Azureon before settling in his corner to sleep.

“That’s fine,” the dragon replied, magic already being woven into complex shapes. “I have work to do.”