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WHO: Anduin & Wrathion
WHEN: Present-ish, following this conversation
WHERE: Their accommodations
WHAT: Anduin receives an assignment from the Merchant; having absolutely no idea how to handle this, he be panicking a little
WARNINGS: discussion of Wrathion's history with content including draconic slavery/experimentation/forced breeding

Anduin paces back and forth along the length of the room -- their room, he supposes he should consider it, though he is still having some trouble adjusting to that fact -- his hands clasped behind his back and a troubled expression on his face.

He supposes he might have expected a message from the Merchant sooner or later. Anduin has questioned the man's motivations in aiding the displaced otherworlders from the start, Anduin's distrust of his motivations only growing the more that he had learned about the strings the man was pulling behind the scenes of the rebellion. With the debt that is owed to the man from the way that he had rescued them from the desert, it stands to reason that he would come knocking, asking for some sort of compensation. When the message finally comes, however...

Anduin feels as though a mistake has been made. Or is it a test? Of his resolve? His dedication to the cause? Whatever the Merchant's motivations are for having chosen Anduin himself for this particular assignment, they can't be good.

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It's certainly all anyone can ask, in Wrathion's opinion.

Then again, Anduin has always asked more of himself than most would. He has a warm, gentle demeanour. He shows softness and sympathy where it is not, in Wrathion's opinion, deserved.

He's not quite sure he's earned the right to it himself, for that matter, but that's a different consideration.

"Nobody could ask more of you," he says finally. "Although your priority must be survival. We both of us have plenty left unfinished at home. I my quarry, you yours."

Sylvanas Windrunner is now on the run, following Saurfang's defeat, and N'Zoth still looms over them all. It seems strange to be relaxing at all knowing all that is yet to be done.

It takes Anduin a moment to process exactly what it is that Wrathion has said. It's so much along the line of something he's heard him say in times before that it slides right by him. At first.

Perhaps it's because it is so familiar that it catches his attention in the end. His quarry. His quarry... Anduin frowns after a moment, before turning towards Wrathion, an expression of confusion on his face.

"Forgive me," he says, shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts. "It is difficult to follow the politics of this place. Is there someone else you are after here as well?"

Someone else here?

"Not that I'm aware of," Wrathion says. Did Anduin think he was referring to this place as home already? Surely not. He takes a small sip of his drink, frowning as he sets it aside. "I was speaking of Azeroth."

Surely he follows now? Both of them, he supposes, technically have several different... rivals of a sort. They both have main interest, though. Anduin finding Sylvanas, and Wrathion on stopping the Black Empire by defeating the Old God that drives it forward.

Of course, this clarification only serves to confuse Anduin more. Azeroth?

I my quarry, you yours.

Anduin turns in his seat to consider Wrathion fully. The warmth of his body, which he can just feel radiating off of him, sitting as close as they are. The tired circles under his eyes and the way that they do absolutely nothing to detract from the casual elegance he has settled back into. The tumble of his hair, the way his shirt is just a bit too loose to show some extra skin and he's probably done that on purpose as well, knowing him. The way he had been playing Jihui, the conversation leading up until this moment. This is Wrathion, and yet.

"Do you mean to say... That you have not yet faced N'Zoth?" he asks, as carefully as he can.

An odd sort of question. Wrathion tilts his head slowly, trying to decide how to take it. There are, after all, many possibilities. One is that N'Zoth himself had somehow tricked Anduin into believing he had been defeated, causing Anduin to lower his guard. One is a report had misconstrued something, mortal error is always very possible. One is that interference from the Infinite Dragonflight has caused this, or some other games with the timeways.

"I was unaware you thought I had," he admits finally. Honesty and openness seems best, allowing Anduin to say as much as he believes he should on the topic.

Edited 2022-01-22 20:32 (UTC)

"I..." Anduin says, clearly struggling with how to respond. What to say. He's coming to several conclusions all at once, and none of them make sense to him. The fact that he is from a separate point in time than Wrathion. A later point in time than him? It's the only logical explanation, if...

He shakes his head slightly, though he doesn't know why. He doesn't want to say the wrong thing here, but he needs to make it clear that--

"Yes," he says, at last. "I have read the reports myself. The Alliance champions..." he trails off, not knowing what else he should say.

Read the reports. The Alliance Champions...

He feels a knot of unease build in his chest, shifts from his faux-relaxed slouch to sit more upright beside Anduin.

"How long?" he prompts, wariness colouring his voice. Is this a matter of days or... longer? Not that he's sure if that makes it more... believable or not. Perhaps he wants to believe, though. Perhaps he wants the reassurance that he will succeed. That N'Zoth will be defeated.

A very similar knot of unease is building within Anduin's chest, has been building as soon as Wrathion had said those words.

I my quarry, you yours.

Anduin shakes his head in response to the question again, uncertain whether he should be telling Wrathion these things, but then again the cat is already out of the bag. He has already revealed that he knows that Wrathion does face up against N'Zoth, he... Supposes this is not that much more information.

"A month," Anduin replies. "Maybe longer. It has been..." He trails off. Wrathion does not wish to hear his explanations, nor his excuses.

"You shouldn't tell me too much," he murmurs, half agreeing with what he assumes is Anduin's unspoken concern. "Knowing the future is never wise. Besides which, it may not be my future."

It wouldn't do to get overconfident, in case he happens to be from a different branch of the timeway. One where N'Zoth doesn't fall, one where he is corrupted and absorbed into the Black Empire's forces.

Or where Anduin is.

The thought makes him frown down at his drink once more, a tingle of dread creeping over his skin.

Anduin's head snaps to Wrathion's at that.

"What do you mean, not your future? Of course it is," he says, perhaps a bit too sharply. It has already come to pass. Anduin has experienced the aftermath for himself. He may not personally have fought N'Zoth, but he was there. And there has been no indication that Wrathion is from any separate dimension up until now. He understands the importance of not changing the timeline with anything he might tell Wrathion here and now, but.

No. It cannot be.

"You have no way of being sure of that."

The smallest thing can ripple, cause a fork. It isn't at all wise to be certain of these things, to be assured of the future in any way.

Wrathion himself manage to learn that lesson quite harshly. Anduin may want it to be true, but that doesn't mean it is.

Anduin feels suddenly sick. Everything he had thought he had known suddenly turned on its head, and Wrathion, who he had up until this moment considered his only real steady support member, suddenly feels...

But he is Wrathion. His Wrathion. He has to be. One way or another...

Anduin raises his hands and runs them over his face, trying to keep himself collected.

"I don't," he says, after a moment. "But... I have to have faith. In you. In... In all of this. There is no other way." Not for him. It's too much.

Wrathion tilts his head curiously, considering this.

"Of course, I would not expect any less of you."

Anduin always did try to believe the best in people, whenever he could. Even if evidence suggested he should not. He hesitates, weighing up the situation.

"You should focus on things within your power," he suggests finally. "Not things that we cannot know or change."

Primarily, he thinks, getting through tomorrow. Surviving. Then, of course, them both getting to the beacon and trying to return home.

Focus on things within his power.

Anduin forces himself to breathe, to steady himself. Wrathion is right, of course. It doesn't do him any good to let himself get caught up in the potentials, the possibilities, the unknowns. It's only that there are always so many things beyond his ability to control... There has been for a while, if he allows himself to consider it. Since even before finding himself in this strange otherworld, things that people have been looking to him to know the answer to...

Only that which is in his power. Where does that leave him here and now? Leave them?

"I don't know exactly how much of our current situation really qualifies as such," Anduin replies, rubbing a hand over his eyes once more. "But. I do see your point. And I'm fairly certain I will not be able to sleep a wink tonight if I keep thinking about anything to do with timelines..."

Quite so.

"One thing is very clearly within your power alone."

Wrathion gestures to the jihui board, where it's still Anduin's move. They still have the option to play, after all, to take Anduin's mind off things. Nothing they have discussed has changed that, nothing they have learned is anything they can use. There is no action they can take now, no more progress to be made by discussing or worrying.

Sleep would be a preferable thing, but that aside they do still have the game.

Anduin is somewhat startled out of his train of thought by the reminder of the gameboard in front of them, and it does help, at that. He smiles, wondering whether Wrathion really knows him so well or whether it really does not take all that much to understand how to sway his moods. Perhaps a bit of both?

Regardless, he is grateful for the assistance in the distraction nevertheless.

"Yes, of course. You are right," he says, turning towards the jihui board. He studies his pieces, contemplating his next move for a long moment before making a slow, careful advance. He takes in a breath, letting it out long and slow before reaching for his glass and sipping from it. When he speaks again at last, he asks, "Do you play often, these days?"

Jihui. He had been carrying the game with him, when he'd been drawn into this land, after all.

"Not as much as I'd like."

A lack of free time, and a lack of people to play with. Wrathion rarely travels for pleasure, and rarely has travelling companions beyond perhaps Left and Right. He matches the cautious advance, glances sideways at Anduin.

"Sometimes I set up the board and play against myself. Keeps my mind occupied."

A way to keep himself from forgetting the rules and to stretch his mind when entertainment opportunities are limited, or when he simply needs to distract himself and nothing else requires quite enough concentration to hold his attention.

Anduin can picture it. Wrathion sitting up late at night, perhaps, as they are doing now. Unable to sleep, thoughts and questions circling his mind, pulling out his board to redirect his attention elsewhere. Perhaps it is why he had suggested it for the pair of them tonight.

"Mmm," he hums, considering it. "I suppose that is reading, for me." He glances aside at Wrathion, uncertain whether he is making himself clear, so he elaborates, "When... I am in need of preoccupying my mind, that is. I have always turned to books. There is -- an abundance of them, in the keep."

He wonders how much Wrathion really knows about his home, in truth. He'd been there the once, but. It had not exactly been a social call.

"No doubt Stormwind has an extensive library. I've read my fair share of history books, theory on titan advances and so on. I cannot say it proves a... distraction."

Wrathion is usually reading for a purpose, investigating something or trying to understand a problem. The books he reads are all on the very topics he is looking into, and there is little reprieve in them. If anything, they can make his mind obsess further. Perhaps Anduin is choosing books on alternative topics? Or... fiction?

Fiction is popular, Wrathion is aware. He has not had time to read much.

"Sometimes it is good to turn your attention onto something less...immediate," Anduin points out, though he cannot say that he is surprised Wrathion is unfamiliar with the concept. Wrathion always seems so focused, and he supposes that he has reason to be, but he wonders now whether he really ever has had time to really relax. If their time together in Pandaria is perhaps the closest he ever truly came...

"Did you know, for instance," Anduin says, as he reaches to make his next move on the board, "that mageroyal is a common ingredient in both mana potions and chocolate cake?"

He blinks in surprise, then tilts his head in thought -- considering the game board.

"I was unaware it was in chocolate cake," he admits. He did know about the mana potions, however. "I see mages eating a lot of sweet food. I wonder if mageroyal as an active ingredient is part of the reason?"

Perhaps the driving force behind it all is mana, after all? That would make sense.

Anduin hums slightly, offering Wrathion a slight shrug as he does.

"The collection in the Stormwind library has any number of subjects to bury yourself in," he elaborates. "History of course, and everything a king is supposed to educate himself upon, but also. Herb lore. Beastiaries. Some of the most interesting narrative accounts that our adventurers have donated from their explorations, at that."

He reaches for his drink, playing with it in his fingers and turning to glance towards the fire.

"I suppose that I also... Go out riding," he elaborates, after a moment's thought. "It is very hard to think of little else than the immediate, once you are moving fast enough."

He glances sideways at Wrathion. "Do you find it the same for you? To fly, I mean?"

Wrathion considers that a long moment.

Flying can be dangerous, as a black dragon, if you're near settlements. As such, he rarely flies for pleasure -- mostly when needing to be somewhere with great speed, in an unpopulated area, or when escaping. When he was small, it was easy to do such things unseen. Now, less so.

That is not, however, the answer Anduin wants to hear just now.

"I wish I could fly more," he says honestly, "though I find I spend much of my time inside buildings of late. They tend not to be scaled to accommodate dragons."

Anduin's lips curl ruefully in response to that reply. "Of course," he replies, "I suppose that would rather limit things for you."

And being here, in this place. Not wishing for his true nature to be revealed. He supposes that Wrathion must not have had much opportunity to take his true form in some time. Not since his encounter with the Beastmaster, at least. Thinking back, that may have been the last time he had had the opportunity to fly, at that...

Anduin takes in a deep breath, letting it out long and slow.

"Perhaps I can can teach you," he says, after a moment's thought. He glances aside at Wrathion. "Riding, that is. I understand that you are perhaps... Not enamored with the practice, currently." His lips twitch again as he recalls again the image of Wrathion and the yak. "But maybe. You might learn to like it? As a poor alternative, of course."

"I'm not in need of tutoring," Wrathion protests, "I'm quite able to ride should the need come."

He isn't, necessarily, good at it but he technically can ride.

Still. He adjusts the himself to slump down sideways by Anduin, propping his chin up on one hand as he studies the board idly, trying to guess what move Anduin will make and what will be a good counter.

"However, I would accept some advice from a skilled expert."

Which Anduin appears to count as, in this instance.

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chosenbylight - 2022-02-08 23:16 (UTC) - Expand

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