The First of Many.
The world has changed.
When Jackary had become worn down through the Legion and the Nightmare’s relentless attacks, he’d picked up sailing heavily again. Constantly on watch, constantly guarding, the world had become chaos ever since a single sword was plunged into. Azeroth’s very core - a sword that wounded the Emerald Dragon far more than he let on. The ground had cried in pain and burned his feet, the grass bit his heels, begging for healing or to stop the flood of Azeroth’s blood.
Even at sea, Jack could still hear her crying, feel her suffering.
Like an open wound, so too did Jack’s resources bleed out, his exhaustion in the encroaching war, this.. Battle for Azeroth had dragged the beast down until he finally returned to shore. To his rocky relationship with his partner, his boss, his remaining world.
It had only meant to be for a few hours, a few days at best. The dragon had just needed to recharge alone in a small forest clearing. The Dream called to him and he willingly settled in the small grove on Atlas, curling into a ball to let the exhaustion overtake him and so his mind settled in the Emerald Dream, aiding in the remnants of guarding it.
Just a few days...
It was an uncomfortable, jarring feeling that snapped the dragon awake, his peridot hues glanced around, pupils strained from how thin they were in surprise. Where he had awoken was not the grove at all but in a building of stone, covered in mossy growth that took years to grow. It was a temple, a closed off shrine to protect the sleeping beast and all he had been left with was two items to indicate the one person that had known where to find him.
The first was his stuffed tanuki ‘Piffur’, who had been resting near his snout and the other was a small make-shift bed nearby and a workstation, the smell of Darnath and his tools old and faded, it must have been some time since he was last there. These two things alone caused the aching muscles to force Jackary to pull himself to stand, not even bothering to care how he looked in shifting from his draconic figure to a far more recognizable elvish one. Bones cracked with movement, concerning the man further with all of the drastic changes.
He couldn’t feel his Dragonsworn, which further had Jackary finally stumble his way through the shrine and out of the door where he was greeted by a beautiful and horrific sight. The tiny grove he had settled in to nap was now overgrown, fully lush with an entire jungle around him. Trees populated everywhere and the path to the newly erected shrine hadn’t been cleared in so long that the walkway was covered in weeds and tall grass from the forest bottom.
How long had it been?
It was to be the first of many difficult realizations that would come to pass in a single day.
@daily-writing-challenge @darnath (Mention)
