Death Never Dies

by Milton Garby

  Well, at least she wasn't perceptive enough to know what she truly was. "Yes, I am. She and I are old friends, but we got separated during the Lost Year. Would you be so kind as to direct me to her?"

  The pandaren's eyes narrowed. "Why would you want to - " She took a deep breath and calmed herself. "Sorry, sorry. She's right over there," she explained, pointing off into the east. "Third tent from the left."

  "Thank you very much," she said, turning away and heading in the direction she'd been given. Her eyes focused on the third tent from the left, and anxiety began to pool in her stomach. What would Leira think of her? What could Sara say? Leira hadn't exactly been happy with her when they'd last met, but surely a few months was enough time to calm down, right?

  Leira's tent was small and simple. It was made of cowhide, treated and cured. The entrance was closed, so Sara knocked on the flap, hoping Leira wasn't yet asleep. If the light coming from within, and the silhouette of a draenei sitting and reading was any indication, she wasn't.

  As she knocked, the figure inside shuffled around and stood. "Coming!" Sara's heart skipped a beat. That was definitely Leira's voice. What was she going to say? What could she say? All of the planning she'd done over the past few months flew out of her head and she stood paralyzed with fear.

  The flap opened and Leira stuck out her head, smiling. "Hi, who is - " Her glowing eyes widened and her smile flatlined. " - it?"

  Sara's legs felt weak. "Hey," she whispered. "Can I come in?"

  "Yeah," Leira said, stepping aside. "Come in." Sara stepped forward and ducked her head in, closing the flap behind her. Leira's tent was cozy. A bedroll on the floor, a few sheets of paper covered in scribbled stories since few books had survived the Lost Year. Leira was in a white nightgown, but she noticed the purple clothing Sara had given her folded in the corner, and the larger-on-the-inside bag laying on its side.

  "You know, that was intended to be lived in if you needed," she mentioned.

  "I didn't want to live in a bag." Leira turned around to face her, crossing her arms. "How are you even here? I saw you vanish."

  "I banished my body," she explained. "Put it in a lower plane of existence. No native matter or energy, no quantum effects either, so I'm literally going to live forever. I'm actually asleep right now, but I created this body and even asleep I have enough consciousness to pilot it. It'd be braindead otherwise." She shrugged. "I figure I'll use this body until it eventually dies, then make a new one. I'm thinking tauren. Then I'll keep going and... well, eventually heat death's going to happen. Once that happens I'll just probably end up looping my memories, start to finish, until the end of time."

  "You've thought a lot about this." Leira's unflinching gaze was... rather unnerving.

  "It's good to have a plan sooner rather than later," she admitted.

  Leira sighed. "Alright Sara, cut the crap. Why are you here?"

  "I wanted to see you," she said, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. "I hadn't in a few months, and I wanted to make sure you were alright."

  "Alright." Leira sat down on her bedroll, and Sara followed by sitting on the leather floor. "You wanted to know if I was alright? Not the thousands of people who're scared of the dark, who can't look at rocks or tunnels, all of the traumatized people. No, you're worried about me. You know, for a chaos god you haven't changed much," she spat, glaring at Sara.

  Oh, she's still angry. "Leira, please. I know you're not happy about what I did, but I fixed it, didn't I?" She gestured behind her, and started listing things on her fingers. "I killed the other Old God, I put away the elementals, wiped out the faceless, and broke the mantid and qiraji's power. I uncorrupted the twilight dragons, I created Aspect Hearts, I undid most of the trauma, and I banished my body. Doesn't that count for something?" she pleaded.

  "Count for something?" Leira asked, clenching her fists. Her face turned a deeper shade of blue. "Count for something?! You don't get it! You destroyed the world! You mind controlled me and threw me into Outland against my will! If I hadn't come back you'd have swept up my parents in what you did! And even though I did come back, you threw them into Outland instead! You didn't care enough to put them in the pocket-whatever you kept me in! I'm never going to see them again because of you!"

  Sara frowned, shuffling back under Leira's anger. "I'm never going to see my folks again either, you know," she mentioned.

  "That was YOUR choice to make!" Leira shouted. "You had no right to make my choice for me! But forget about my parents, how about everyone else?! All of my friends from the Chimes are DEAD because of you!" she accused, openly screaming now. Sara hoped they weren't attracting any attention. "All those people out there are scarred for life because of you! You could've fixed them completely! You could've made everything just the way it was! Put back the continents, raise the cities back up and undo all of the trauma! But you didn't! You didn't stop ruling Azeroth because you felt bad! You stopped because you were bored! Because this is fun for you! You're the worst person I've ever met!" she roared, towering over Sara and pointing at her accusingly.

  But the draenei wasn't done yet. "And now you think you can just, just waltz back in here, after you forced me to go around as the one sane woman in a ruined world, and say 'Hey I missed you'?! Think that I'll forget everything you did just because we used to be friends?! No, you don't get to do that! And the worst part? I can't even DO anything about it! Nobody can! You're going to get away with this, you're not going to be punished for what you did!"

  Sara flinched away and closed her eyes. "Leira," she pleaded.

  The warrior took a deep breath and sat, wiping her forehead. "Just go," she muttered, resting her head in her hands and glaring up at her. "I've said what I have to say. Just get out of my sight before I do something I'm going to regret," she said coldly.

  She swallowed hard. She knew there was a chance this would happen, that Leira wouldn't forgive her and wouldn't accept being friends with her again, but to hear how angry Leira was hurt her. Like a zombie, Sara pulled herself onto both feet. "I, I understand," she croaked. "I'll just go." She approached the tent flap and grabbed it, but paused. She turned her head to look at Leira. "I... I hope you have a long and happy life, Leira," she said, shaking and forcing back tears. With that she turned away and lowered her head. "Goodbye."

  Sara pushed her way out, stumbled, and ran. As she ran she fell to all fours, changed back into a dragon, and leaped into the air. She beat her wings as hard as she could and soared out of the sleepy village, desperate to put as much distance between it and herself as possible.

  Idiot. She was such an idiot. What had she been expecting? Leira'd been furious when Yogg-Saron had first risen, before the Old God had done the things it did. Why did Sarastrasza think she'd be any more forgiving after the fact? Sure there was the idea that time healed all wounds but... that didn't seem to be the case.

  She'd always known this was a possibility, but she didn't want to admit it. Her visit to Leira was so much shorter and so much worse than she'd hoped, and now she wasn't ever going to see her again. The three mortals she'd ever cared about were no longer part of her life.

  Well... fine! It was fine. Everything was fine. Sara may have grown up with Leira, and Yogg-Saron may have had residual attachment to her, but that was fine! Sarastrasza the red drake had never known Leira, right? No reason to be attached. No reason to be upset. No reason for drops of water to fall from the sky from her face, no reason for her lungs to be tight.

  She... she needed to get back to her cave.

  She flew off into the night sky, heading north for where she made her home. She needed to distract herself. She had whole lives ahead of her, after all. Look to the future. New friends and all that. They'd probably just be acts, but she was using an organic brain. Surely, she'd form an attachment to some of them. And there was still...

  Ah, nevermind.

  Sarastrasza flew off into the new world, determined not to look over her shoulder.

  A Few Years Later
...

  Nathaniel Havenshine

  Nathan hummed to himself and walked out of school, skipping as he did. School was over! School was over! He could go and play with his toys!

  With his backpack secure, he ran across the village, darting between the legs of grown-ups, until he spotted his house. It was a little... small, he thought. One story, made of stones pieced together with mortar. But he liked it! He had his own room and everything, with some books that were trasc... scrip... written based on the ones from before the Lost Year. Mom and Dad didn't like to talk about the Lost Year though, said he was too young to hear about it. Hmmph!

  He ran inside, wiping his shoes as he did. "Mom! Dad! I'm home!" The inside had unpainted walls, but there were windows to let in the light and unlit candles for nighttime. He flung off his pack and slung it against the wall. He'd pick it up later.

  Mom's voice sounded out from the right, from within the kitchen. "Your dad's out in the fields, honey! Come inside, lunch is ready!"

  "Ooh!" he cooed, running through the doorway. There was Mom, with her hair tied up in a bun as she went around their wooden table, setting out plates filled with steamed carrots, rice, and broccoli. Yum! And it was different from yesterday's lunch of chicken soup, too! He took a seat and started eating, digging into his plate as fast as he could. After all, he had games to play!

  Apparently, Mom noticed. "Nathan, slow down. You'll choke," she chided. Funnily, her face turned a little lighter when she said 'choke', like she was scared of something. Which was silly, it was just a word!

  Still, he listened. "Yes Mom," he said, slowing down his eating. Soon, he was done and he pushed his plate away dramatically so she'd notice he was full. "Alright, I'm done! Can I go play in the woods?"

  "You can go, just be back before supper, you hear?"

  "I hear," he agreed, getting out of his chair. He ran, getting out of his house in no time!

  His town, Goldenrod, was next to a deep and dark forest. A lot of grown-ups, from gnomes to nerubians, wandered about, doing grown-up things that Nathan didn't really care about. Farms grew all around them, stretching into the horizon where he heard there were other towns. When he grew up, he was going to go exploring and find ALL of them! And what better way to practice than by exploring the forest next to his house?

  With his shorts, shoes and shirt on, Nathan clambered into the trees. He pushed aside branches and leaped over rocks, smiling. The sun shone through the treetops in a thousand shifting beams of light, lightly kissing his skin. He didn't like it. He never had liked the sun, for some reason.

  Eventually, Nathan arrived in a more open area. It wasn't really a clearing, but it was big enough for him to stretch his arms out aaaall the way without touching anything. If he was there, he might as well practice.

  Nathan froze and held out his hands, concentrating. Soon, black smoke began to flicker in the palms of his hands. Green and purple circles pulsated around the smoke, growing larger and larger until two orbs of black energy swirled around his fingers. "Alright, how did it go?" he asked himself, looking from one hand to the other. He imagined giving the energy in his hands orders, weaving a spiderweb for it to obey. And obey it did. The tug on his arms vanished and the energy condensed into two purple balls that fit in his hands. They were solid to the touch.

  He giggled. He did it! Could he juggle them?

  Nathan tossed one of the purple orbs into the air and caught it. Eventually he tossed both at once and caught them in the same hand. Then the opposite hand. He dropped them a few times, and whenever he did the grass smoked and died under the balls, but he quickly picked them back up like nothing had happened. Soon, Nathan was juggling the two of them well, throwing the balls up into the air with one hand, catching them with the other, and repeating the process. Ha! He was awesome!

  And then the seven year old got bored.

  He 'told' the magic balls to vanish, and they popped like firecrackers, turning the grass around them yellow. He also got a face full of black smoke, but he just waved it away. It smelled like something burning and he loved it.

  Nathan crouched to the ground, looking for any toys. Eventually he found a few ants hiding in the grass and focused his powers on them. They started dancing around, twitching and spinning on their backs. Eventually, though, they slowed down and stopped. He frowned as they died, but oh well. Ants never lasted long anyway. A shame there weren't any chipmunks or boabears around. Those lasted a while.

  He liked this. Out in the forests, with nobody to see his powers. He could practice, he could kill things, he could juggle and - fireworks!

  Nathan gasped. He'd almost forgotten to make fireworks!

  He snapped out his hands and covered them in his black/purple/green smoke. Concentrating, he pointed at a stone and ordered his powers to do what he wanted. And true to his word, an explosion of lavender sparks burst from the rock, soaring into the air before fading away. He giggled, and pointed at a patch of moss. The same explosion came from it, turning the moss brown. He kept pointing, summoning up small bursts of light and sound and dying plants. His breaths started to come a little harder, but he wasn't too tired yet! Nathan could keep this up for a whi -

  "Enjoying yourself?" a woman's voice with a growling undertone asked.

  "AH!" he shouted, instantly extinguishing his powers. He whipped around and stuck his hands behind his back, glaring angrily. Who snuck up on him?! He was supposed to be alone! Then he saw who it was and frowned. "Oh, um hi!" he greeted the red drake. Nathan was in awe; he'd never seen a dragon before, only in books. She sat on a boulder, looking down at him with a crooked smile on her long, fanged mouth. Her wings were tucked in close, probably so they wouldn't tangle in the branches, and her tail slowly swayed behind her. It always struck him as odd that dragons didn't wear clothing though; wasn't she cold?

  "What are you doing here?" he asked, pretending to be nice. Maybe if he was nice he could get this stupid-head lizard to go away.

  "Oh, just looking around," she said, getting up and prowling towards him. She inspected the area, taking in the dead plants Nathan had caused.

  He gulped. He'd learned in school that red dragons really liked keeping things alive. Did that mean... "Am I in trouble?" he asked.

  She laughed, closing her eyes. Nathan growled at her. Was she laughing at him? Eventually she calmed down and waved it off with a paw. "Oh, no no, don't worry. Though... if someone else stumbled on this they might end up asking some questions. Hang on, this'll just take a minute." The drake took a deep breath, and Nathan backed off. Once her underbelly scales stopped expanding with the intake of air, she exhaled a river of blistering, burning flame. He screamed and ducked away as the fire curled through the air, seeking out the plants he'd killed and washing over them. He'd expected them to burn, but instead the little clearing looked good as new.

  He felt like he was going to puke, though.

  Apparently the drake noticed his discomfort. "Yes, I imagine it would feel uncomfortable. Anyway, what's your name? I'm Sarastrasza," she said, gesturing to herself.

  Nathan frowned, but swallowed his lunch back down. "Mom and Dad told me not to talk with strangers."

  "Your Mom and Dad are very smart," she said. "But I'm not a stranger. We've known each other for a while, even if you don't remember."

  He narrowed his eyes. Okay, red dragons were supposed to be goody two-shoes but this sounded bad. He got up. "I need to go," he said, turning around.

  "I know how you feel about everyone outside your parents," she said, stopping him in his tracks. "Bunch of stupid-heads, right? You come out here because you can find all sorts of animals to play with, make them do what you want and kill them when you're done."

  He turned around and gulped. "A-Am I in trouble?" he repeated with a squeak.

  Sarastrasza shook her head and approached him. As she did she warped, changing and compressing until she was a grown-up woman with brown hair and eyes, and a brown shirt and red skirt. "I told you, no. I used to do those th
ings too!" She shrugged. "Well, I didn't know I was killing things until much later," she admitted. "Anyway, I came here because I wanted to give you something! Then I'll be out of your hair." She held out her hands and, with a flash of fire and cinders, a thick book appeared in her hands. "Do you know how to read?"

  "A little," he said.

  "Well, that's fine," Sarastrasza conceded. "You'll learn more eventually. Anyway, I made this book. Just for you! It'll teach you all about how to use your powers. Your magic," she said, stressing the last word.

  Nathan gasped. "It's called magic? But I thought magic made stuff like fireballs or ice."

  "That's fire and frost magic," she said. "You have shadow magic, just like I have both fire and nature magic. Here, take it," she said, holding the book out to him.

  He looked at her nervously, but what could a book do to hurt him? Nathan walked towards her and grabbed the book from her hands. "Oof!" he grunted.

  "Careful, it's heavy," she said with a smile. Nathan sat down and flipped it open. He gaped. There were so many words, but there were pictures too! Colored pictures, even! He didn't know many of the words, though. "Take it home and give it a look. Try to keep it our secret, though. Even if you don't understand most of it now, I promise you that you'll understand it later." Sarastrasza shifted and warped, transforming back into a dragon. She was enormous, towering over him even though she was on all fours. She could reach her head out and bite his arm off before Nathan had a chance to do anything.

  "Um," he said, looking at the book. New ways to make fireworks? New things to do? New ways to make animals dance? "What do I do now?"

  "Hmm," the drake said, looking around. "Well, I'd like to see you again. How about... I swing by on the Feast of Winter Veil?"

  "Alright!" he said. "But how do you know me?" he asked. "You still haven't told me!"

  Sarastrasza chuckled. "No, I did not. I'll tell you when you're older." He glared at her. 'When you're older'? "I know, I know. I hated it whenever I was told that, too. But if I told you now, it wouldn't mean anything. There's a lot of things you need to learn first before you can understand it, and it's getting dark." Was it? Nathan looked around. It was still pretty bright, but the sun was starting to set and he had a long way to go back. "And besides, I have to meet up with a few of my friends in a bit and it's a long flight." She turned around and hopped to the same boulder she'd been sitting on, her spiked tail-club waving through the air. She winked a slit-pupiled eye at him. "See you around, Nathan," she said, before running into the woods far too fast for him to ever catch up.