Christie Golden: Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects

Many of the blues felt that they were being persecuted and hounded by the other flights. In Alexstrasza’s opinion, Arygos was even more elitist than most of his flight. She suspected this had to do with the young blue’s personal history—one that had entailed reliance on other flights. Not for the first time, Alexstrasza lamented the loss of Arygos’s clutch sister Kirygosa. Her mate had been killed, and she had gone missing before the war ended. The unhappy but realistic conclusion was that the young blue, pregnant with her first eggs, had fallen in battle. And because she had always dared to stand up to Arygos, and had sided with those few blues who had turned against Malygos, there was an extra layer of tragedy in that it was likely she had been slain by a member of her own flight.

“I do see that my late father’s plan had negative consequences,” Arygos continued, with obvious reluctance.

“We are still feeling those consequences,” said Afrasastrasz, who had long been a particularly outspoken supporter of Alexstrasza. “The very world is. This is something that was directly caused by the decisions of the blue dragonflight’s Aspect, whom you and others here supported. You need to do more than admit to being misguided, young Arygos. You need to make it right .”

Arygos’s eyes narrowed. “‘Make it right’? Will you make it right, Afrasastrasz? Or you, Alexstrasza? You took my father from me. You left an entire flight without its Aspect . Will you bring him back?” His voice and entire body radiated anger and affront and a sincere, deep pain.

“Arygos!” snapped Kalec. “Malygos was not mad when he chose this course of action. He could have turned from it at any point and did not.”

“I took no joy in the killing, Arygos,” Alexstrasza said. “My heart still aches with the loss. We have all lost so much—all the flights, all the Aspects. Surely now is the time for healing, to turn toward one another instead of away.”

“Yes,” came a quiet voice that nonetheless carried, ending the argument immediately. “We should turn toward each other, and soon. The Hour of Twilight is coming, and we must be ready.”

The voice was soft and lilting, and the green dragon who spoke stepped forward almost shyly. The other dragons drew back a few steps to allow her room to pass. She did not move with the strong, purposeful stride of most of her kind, but with almost dancing steps. Her eyes, which had been closed for aeons, were now wide open, rainbow hued, and she kept turning her head as if ready to behold something new each moment.

“What is this Hour of Twilight of which you speak, Ysera?” Alexstrasza asked of her sister. After millennia spent in the Emerald Dream, Ysera had awakened. Alexstrasza and many others were not sure how much of her had come back from that altered state; Ysera still seemed unanchored to this world, drifting and detached. Even her own flight, whose members, like their Aspect, dwelt nearly constantly in the Emerald Dream and were also guardians of nature, seemed unsure as to how to react to her. Ysera’s integration into the waking world was uneven, to say the least.

“Is it something you saw in the Dream?” pressed Alexstrasza.

“I saw everything in the Dream,” Ysera replied simply.

“That might be quite true, but it is unhelpful,” said Arygos, seizing upon the distraction the Aspect of the green dragonflight had provided him. “You are no longer the Dreamer, Ysera, though you are surely an Aspect. Perhaps if you saw everything in the Dream, you saw also things that do not exist.”

“Oh, that is very true,” Ysera agreed readily.

Inwardly Alexstrasza winced. Not even she quite knew what to make of Ysera the Awakened. She was sane, yes—but was clearly having a difficult time putting together the pieces of the staggering multitude of things she had witnessed in any kind of coherent fashion. She would be of little help today.

“It would indeed be a good thing if we could work together—even before this Hour of Twilight.” Alexstrasza regarded Kalec and Arygos. “The blues must determine how to select a new Aspect, and make restitution. You must show us that we can trust you again. Surely you see that.”

“We must?” echoed Arygos. “Why ‘must’ we, Alexstrasza? Who are you to determine what the blue flight must and must not do? To judge us so? You make no similar offer of restitution. Yet it is because of you that we need to find a new Aspect. What do you plan to do to show that you are to be trusted by us?”

Her eyes widened slightly at the insult, but Arygos plowed on. “How do we know you will not kill me? If I am chosen as Aspect, that is,” he added hastily. “And your mate, Krasus, as he likes to go by—he is no friend to the blues. He has spoken out against us repeatedly. I cannot help but notice that he is not present at this meeting. Perhaps you didn’t wish him to be here, either?”

“Korialstrasz saved your life, Arygos,” Kalecgos reminded him. “When your father was so lost in his insanity that he abandoned you.”

It was a very sore point for Arygos, and few were bold enough to remind him of it. The clutch of eggs that had contained both Arygos and Kirygosa had indeed been abandoned during Malygos’s madness. It was Korialstrasz who had discovered that untended clutch, as well as many others, and taken it to Nozdormu to be cared for. Later, the clutches had been given to the red dragonflight. It was a glowing example of cooperation among three separate flights with a common cause: care of the unhatched, helpless whelps, be they red, blue, green, or bronze when they emerged from the shell.

“And even though he and I have certainly had our personal disagreements, that has not stood in the way of my learning to respect him. I have consistently found him to be reasonable and wise,” Kalec continued as Arygos’s eyes narrowed. “He has said nothing against our flight’s behavior that I myself have not said.”

“Really? And what does that then make you, Kalecgos?” Arygos retorted.

“Enough!” snapped Alexstrasza. She had not expected this meeting to go particularly smoothly, but she had hoped for better than this bickering. “Surely the flights have enough enemies out there that we should not waste precious time fighting among ourselves! Deathwing is back, more powerful than ever—and he has ripped Azeroth nearly to bits in the process. Now he has allies beyond his own flight: the Twilight’s Hammer cult. Whatever the Hour of Twilight may be of which Ysera speaks, the twilight dragons are certainly an immediate threat. The Ruby Sanctum is still reeling from their previous assault. If we do not find out some way to put aside the petty differences and—”

“You murdered my father ! How dare you call that petty?!”

Alexstrasza was slow to anger, but now she marched on the younger dragon and declared, “I say: enough! We must all move forward. The past is the past. We are in danger now . Did you not hear me? Do you not understand? Deathwing has returned! ”

She was nearly nose to nose with Arygos now, her ears flat against her skull. “Our world has never been more fragile! Mighty beings are we dragons, indeed, but even we should be afraid of what will happen. We live in this world, Arygos. We must protect it, heal it, or even the dragons—including your blues!—will be destroyed. We must find—”

Other heads lifted on sinuous necks, turned skyward. And then Alexstrasza, too, heard and saw them.

Dragons.

For a brief moment, Alexstrasza dared hope that it was the bronze dragonflight. But an instant later she saw their coloration, and realized with horror what flight it truly was.