Chromie hummed as she skipped through the bronze corridor of the Ruby Sanctum. She had put on a sparkly little gnome dress for the occasion, and the Time Sandglass at her waist jingled with every step.
"Your Majesty~" she called, drawing out the words as she pulled a small gold-embroidered pouch from her pocket. "I'm here, and I brought you a present."
Alexstrasza lay on the crystal platform at the center of the sanctum. At the sound of her voice, she raised her head. Her scales glowed a weary crimson beneath the sanctum's light, but warmth still flickered in her eyes when she saw Chromie.
"Chronormu," the Red Dragon Queen said, her voice low and gentle. "What are you plotting this time?"
"Oh, I was just passing by!" Chromie grinned as she climbed onto the platform and poured a handful of gold coins beside the Queen's claw. "Look how pretty these are!"
The coins tumbled between the dragon's claws, revealing gryphon designs painstakingly carved by Ironforge craftsmen. Chromie seized the chance to edge closer. "Oh, right! I also brought a copy of Fairy Tales of the Eastern Kingdoms!" She pulled a gilt picture book from her bag. "The children at the Stormwind City orphanage all love it."
The Red Dragon Queen's claw paused.
"Though there are so many more orphans now." Chromie sighed as if the thought had just occurred to her. "Silvermoon City burned terribly. Even the elves' fairy-tale books went up in flames."
The air in the sanctum seemed to freeze. Chromie pretended not to notice and kept leafing through the book. "Look at this one, The Little Red Dragon. It's about a young dragon who saves a village—"
"Chronormu." Alexstrasza gently closed the book. "The Dragon Race does not interfere in mortal wars."
"I know~" Chromie swung her feet. "I just thought..." She suddenly pointed to the illustration on the last page, which showed a village being burned by orcs. "If the Aspect Dragons had helped back then, wouldn't these villagers have lived?"
The Red Dragon Queen silently pushed the book back to her. The tips of her claws scored several charred lines into the stone platform. "Mortals must write their own fate."
Chromie blinked, then adopted an innocent tone. "But what if—and I only mean if—mortals were on the verge of extinction? High Elves, for example?"
"Enough!" Alexstrasza's Dragon Awe burst forth, and the shockwave sent Chromie's braids flying. A moment later, the Queen was once again a kindly elder. "...Would you like to see the dragon eggs that just hatched?"
Chromie sucked on a lollipop, her eyes curving into crescents. "Sure~"
Chromie sat on a low stool in the dragon egg chamber, swinging her short legs as she noisily sucked her lollipop. The Red Dragon Queen was nudging a faintly glowing egg with the tip of her nose, as gently as though it were a fragile drop of morning dew.
"Your Majesty~" Chromie said suddenly, with deliberate innocence. "When I flew over Northrend yesterday, I saw that big lump of ice beside Dragonblight Temple was still belching black smoke."
Alexstrasza's pupils narrowed slightly, but she did not stop tending the egg. "Icecrown Glacier has always been a bitterly cold place."
"That's not what I mean!" Chromie waved her little hands. "I mean the mountain with the huge spike of ice sticking out of it! It's less than three hundred miles from our temple!" She counted on her fingers. "It's so close to us. I can't help worrying."
"The Lich King's Throne." The Red Dragon Queen finally raised her head, her golden slit pupils fixed on Chromie. "What are you trying to say, Chronormu?"
Chromie blinked her big eyes. "I'm just curious~ That enormous Undead lair keeps churning out Abominations and Ghouls, with nothing but a snowy plain between us..." She lowered her voice. "What if the Lich King decides to send the Frostwyrm Legion over for a visit one day?"
The temperature in the egg chamber shot up. Scorch marks appeared on several shells near the Red Dragon Queen. Alexstrasza immediately reined in her fiery breath, but Chromie had already noticed the molten drops falling from her claws.
"The Aspect Dragons do not interfere in mortal—"
"Wars. I know~" Chromie cut in with a grin.
Chromie licked a fresh strawberry lollipop, her little leather shoes tapping against the crystal floor of the egg chamber. The Red Dragon Queen continued tending the faintly glowing egg, but the heat filling the air betrayed her suppressed anger.
"Come to think of it..." Chromie stopped swinging her legs, her voice unusually low. "I saw Sapphiron in Northrend a few days ago."
Alexstrasza's claw clenched. A faint crack sounded from the egg. She loosened her grip at once, but the fracture remained.
"Oh no, the shell cracked!" Chromie hopped off the stool and hurried closer, feigning alarm. "Should I call a Bronze Dragon physician—"
"Go on." The Red Dragon Queen's voice seemed to rise from an abyss.
Chromie tilted her head and rolled the lollipop around her mouth. "Sapphiron looks so ugly now. He's covered in shards of ice, blue fire burns in his eyes, and he flies around killing people for the Lich King." She counted on her fingers. "He was circling Dragonblight."
"Enough!"
The chamber's temperature soared in an instant, and the Titan Runes on the walls blazed with piercing blue light. The blast of heat blew Chromie's braids straight back, but she did not budge. She merely continued in that innocent voice:
"And the worst part? The Lich King put an iron collar on him. It says 'Arthas's most loyal servant.'"
The red stone floor melted into lava beneath the Red Dragon Queen's claws. Sparks burst between Alexstrasza's scales, but in the end, she did nothing.
"We... cannot interfere." She forced the words through her teeth.
Chromie slammed her lollipop onto the floor. Its glassy candy shell shattered. "You can stand by while one of our own is turned into a war machine?!" Her gnome disguise began to waver, and the power of time spilled from the corners of her eyes. "Then who's next? Krasus? Me? Or—"
"You don't understand!" Alexstrasza's roar shattered every stained-glass window in the egg chamber. Wind rushed in, stripping away the magic that maintained Chromie's disguise and exposing her Bronze Dragon form for an instant. But the next moment, the Red Dragon Queen was calm again. She lowered her head to lick the cracked egg, her voice suddenly exhausted. "You're still young, Chronormu. Some shackles weigh more heavily than death."
Chromie had no answer.
At Deren's home in Theramore, Chromie curled up on a sofa in a private chamber, her bronze scales still trembling faintly with anger. She stared at the half-broken lollipop in her hand, her voice lower than Deren had ever heard it. "...Something is clearly wrong with her. She just keeps repeating that she won't interfere in mortal wars. She can't even come up with a new excuse."
Deren did not answer at once. He stood by the window, looking at the dark clouds over the distant horizon, his expression unaccountably grave.
"No. She told you already," he said at last.
Chromie jerked her head up. "What?"
"You said Alexstrasza kept repeating that dragons cannot interfere in mortal wars," Deren said. "That's what she truly believes, and it's how she acts. Because it's an order."
Every Time Sandglass in the room suddenly stopped. Chromie's pupils narrowed to slits. "That's impossible! No one can give orders to us Aspect Dragons—"
"Can no one?" Deren gave a cold laugh. "Have you forgotten how the Aspect Dragons came to be?" He paused deliberately. "In the earliest days, you were all wild, primal dragons. Who granted you divine power and made you the five Aspect Dragons?"
Chromie's little claws dug deep into the sofa. "It was... it was..." She could not bring herself to say the name.
"They haven't appeared in so long," Deren said, his voice piercing her scales like an icicle, "that you've forgotten they exist." He pointed north. "When Neltharion tried to break free of his shackles, all you saw was that he'd 'gone mad.' You never considered—"
"That he might have been the first to wake up." Chromie finished the thought, then began to tremble all over.
"My father didn't truly go mad? This is insane!" Onyxia cried. As the fog parted, she found herself looking at a new and terrifying world.
Deren walked over to the bookcase and leaned against it. "Most noble families in Stormwind City like to keep dogs, whether for hunting or guarding the house. But they always have a chain around the dog's neck."
"So..." Chromie said hoarsely. "We're just another kind of guard dog. 'Aspect Dragons' sounds impressive, but we're no different from the dogs kept by mortal nobles."
"Perhaps my father saw that truth at some point. That's why he had to go mad," Onyxia said ruefully. "And his madness bought my brother and me a little freedom."
"Could it be..." Her voice was barely audible. "Was the Scourge allowed to happen?"
Deren did not answer directly. He opened the window, letting the salty sea breeze pour in. Far away, the square in Theramore shone with lights as people prepared for the next day's rescue mission.
"Think about it. If every race in Azeroth united because of the Undead threat..." His words mingled with the sea breeze. "Wouldn't that make a fine story about the righteous joining forces to defeat evil? One people could tell for a thousand years."
Chromie suddenly felt cold all over. As a Bronze Dragon, she knew better than anyone that stories like that did not happen only now and then. They happened again and again. It had been true of the War of the Ancients and the Orc Invasion. It was even truer of this Undead invasion.
"What should we do?" she asked quietly.
Deren rubbed the Agricultural Company badge. "Save whoever we can first." His gaze turned north. "We're readers outside the story. Let's break the plot they've laid out."
"Interesting. Oh, ha ha..." Onyxia burst out laughing. "How interesting! I love an unexpected surprise." She stepped forward and threw her arms around Deren. "Do you have a plan already? I can't wait to see the look on those old things' faces when they're caught off guard."
"Shh!" Deren pressed a fingertip lightly to her lips. "Don't speak of them so freely. They have ears everywhere."
Onyxia nodded.
Chromie jumped down from her chair and paced back and forth, one hand under her chin, her eyes full of doubt. "There's one last question. Why are they doing all this? They've transcended the mortal world and possess supreme wisdom. They wouldn't waste energy on something meaningless. Deren, what do you think?"
"My idea isn't actually that complicated." Deren grinned. "I heard a story back home. There was a nobleman with a vast estate but only one son to inherit it. The nobleman was getting old, and his health was failing, so he wanted to raise his son properly. You can understand how he felt, right?"
The two female dragons nodded.
"Good. Now he needed to turn a young master who'd spent his life enjoying himself and knew nothing into someone capable of inheriting the estate, and he had to do it as quickly as possible. He had a few options." Deren raised a finger. "One was to teach the boy himself: how to handle the family's affairs, deal with other nobles, bargain with merchants, manage servants—all the knowledge he needed. His son would watch him and imitate him. That's what most people would think of. But it would be slow, and the lessons might not stick."
"Of course, he could also hire professionals to teach the boy how to audit accounts, fight, observe noble etiquette, and so on. There was too much to teach, though, and no guarantee he'd learn it all," Deren continued. "In the end, the old nobleman decided to try a completely new method to make his son grow up as quickly as possible."
"What method?" Chromie asked curiously.
"Fake his death!" Deren declared.
"How is that a method?" Chromie said dismissively.
"You're right, it isn't a normal one," Deren explained. "But it has an advantage. His son would take over the family's affairs at once and have to face and solve every problem himself. Meanwhile, the old nobleman could watch him from the shadows. If trouble arose, he could offer advice through the butler. Each time the young master followed that advice and overcame a difficulty, he would grow, becoming more and more adept at handling different situations."
"Huh. Put that way, it really is a good method." Chromie nodded, then asked in puzzlement, "But what does this story have to do with what we were discussing?"
Deren nodded and went on. "The young master grew quickly while handling day-to-day affairs. But some situations wouldn't arise on their own, and the old nobleman was afraid his son would never develop the skills to deal with them."
"What skills?" the little gnome asked, playing along.
"Things like deception and intrigue among nobles, plots in the shadows, bribery and spying, or attacks by thieves," Deren said evenly. "Those are much more dangerous than routine affairs. Mishandle one, and the family could be destroyed."
"True. Nobles get up to plenty of that. How could the young master learn to handle such shady business?" Onyxia had spent time undercover among the nobles of Stormwind City. She knew them well.
Deren continued. "The old nobleman decided to hire a band of thieves. Following a set script, they would draw the unsuspecting young master into a performance of noble intrigue. Naturally, the butler would have to direct the whole thing, coordinating both sides to put on the show."
"Ah!" Chromie shrieked. "You... you... you can't be saying that's real!"
Onyxia's mouth hung open too. She was too stunned to speak. Could the truth really be that simple?
Deren gave a cold smile. "Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. But does the truth matter?"
Here's the second update. Please keep voting and adding this story to your favorites. It's only going to get more exciting as we peel back the secrets of the powers behind Azeroth.