in another life...

independent roleplay blog for an alternate Garrosh Hellscream.

[sonofdraka]

(Open starter! Feel free to reply!)

Thrall pushed up his tiny reading glasses, grumbling at the small text he was faced with. Damn Forsaken and their dainty writing, he thought to himself, leaning forward to read an illegible word.

With a sigh, he finally gave up and lay the report down, just as a knock came at his door. "Come in," he called, thankful for the reprieve.

[timeslongchanged]

He stood and smiled down at her gently. "We simply fell asleep, is all. Do not worry yourself over it."

She looked at him, silent as her brain puzzled out the circumstances. "We were drinking," she said, as if she had just recalled.

Garokkah stood as well, and dusted herself off slightly. "We did not cause much trouble, I hope," she said with a laugh.

[kingofthelight]

He gave the orcess a wry smile. "Knowing us, we probably caused plenty. How are you feeling?"

[timeslongchanged]

Her eyes were squinted even as he asked the question. She was unsteady, yes, but... "As well I would expect."

The potential stories played out in her mind, and it was half the reason she brought her hand to her face. Brushing sleep from her eyes, she met Thrall's smile-- and faltered beneath it. "I should count myself lucky that you were with me. That last night does not fall only upon my shoulders."

And that, at least, she herself could smile about.

[timeslongchanged]

@kingofthelight The High King of the Alliance had been meaning to visit Shattrath City, to meet with the naaru A'dal.

But routine maintenance on the portals was underway, checking and renewing the threads of the arcane which wore so easily with so little time. The mages had missed one crucial flaw which appeared in the portal to Outland.

Its anchor in time.

Anduin would find himself hurtling through a blinding void, then dropped into a river. To his left, a hill capped with a gargantuan, one-eyed skull. To his right, the bone-posts and leather tents of the Warsong-- surrounding what appeared to be a mountain of white crystal.

Wolves whined and howled in the distance, their counterpoint the throttling rumble of Orcish voices. They were coming for him.

[timeslongchanged]

There was silence as she looked him over. The firelight did little to show his state, but he didn't yet look so ill as she had felt in the worst throes of the pox.

She sat the bowl in his lap, and her rough hand shifted on his back-- not to shake him, this time, but to support him as though she were propping up a child's doll.

"You will need your strength." She turned the spoon in the bowl, so that its end faced him. She would not make him eat... but she would not stop him. She watched, herself leaning back onto an elbow and looking back and forth. From Anduin to the bonfire. From the bonfire to Anduin.

Many thoughts waited within her.

[direbright]

I understand battle, yes. Tactics, how to rally troops- these things I know. Let me serve that way. Find me a foe to face and defeat, and you will see how proudly I will continue to serve the Horde.

[timeslongchanged]

SOUND AESTHETICS

Repost, don’t reblog. Bold what applies to your muse. Italicize what is occasional/verse dependent.

Garokkah Hellscream

heels clicking against a tile floor | snow crunching under foot | glass bottles clinking together | rain against the window | waves breaking | wind howling through the trees | the flap of a bird’s wings as it takes off | wolves howling | crickets at dusk | church bells tolling on the hour | the purring of a well-oiled engine | the crackling of a campfire | the pop of a cork from a bottle | dawn chorus of songbirds | soft singing of a brook meandering downstream | a cat purring | long nails tapping against a hardwood surface | baby laughter | flicking through book pages | the pop of an exploding firework | clicking of a keyboard | a softly hummed lullaby | chimes hitting together in a gentle breeze | bed sheets ruffling as they’re smoothed down | an owl’s cry | a shrill scream | a distant gunshot | tinkling of piano keys | roar of a waterfall | rumble of thunder | snap of a camera | breathing hard after a run | food sizzling in a frying pan | the fizz of a can of soda | clip-clop of a horse’s hooves | pouring out a hot cup of coffee | tearing wrapping paper off a gift | creaking of old stairs | shattering glass | music playing in the next room over

tagged by: @time-lost-exiles

tagging:

You.

[time-lost-exiles]

timeslongchanged​:

“…Cold brew?” She raised a brow. She had heard the term before, surely, but her time on Azeroth was not so long that she could know the name and nature of every triviality.

She shrugged her shoulders. “Not ready,” she scoffed. The next words came as they did with the trainees in Durotar. “Imprecise, maybe. I am sure you did not intend what you did. But do not let one missed swing keep you from striking again.”

Her attention, then, was drawn to her surroundings. Medics and healers checking on the few injured in a place like this. Their eyes were on her, though they looked away as she met their gaze. She could feel their mistrust… she must have looked familiar enough.

Do not let one missed swing keep you from striking again.

“Spoken like a true warrior,” Kyle replied with an appreciative smile. The advice struck a chord with the young mage and would not be forgotten easily.

“It’s a mixture of creamy ale and coffee,” the young wizard explained. “A beverage so favored by the Timewalkers that the healers would even serve it here in the infirmary.” Kyle took a bottle from a nearby ice chest and popped the cap off before offering the cold brew to the orc. “I’ve been told this special brew helps with speeding up recovery. But don’t take my word for it. Most of the patients I’ve spoken to here are either drugged or constantly drunk.”

“Khaa’iel?” The voice belonged to a shaman. She’d been busy tending to her patients and had only just noticed the pair waiting by the entrance. “Why are you here?” And without hesitation, the pandaren proceeded to inspect the young mage for signs of injury.

“Mei Lin, please. I’m fine,” Kyle groaned, pressing a hand against the shallow scrapes on the side of his face. He then introduced the pandaren to the orc. “This is Garokkah. I, uh, opened a temporal rift and pulled her into our timeline…”

The pandaren let out a soft gasp. “She’s been displaced?!” She chided the young mage, giving him a smack upside the head. “Do you have any idea the trouble you’ve got yourself into, young man?”

“I know, I know. It was an accident!” Kyle argued. “Zidormi left us stranded in Tanaris and we didn’t have anywhere else to go!”

Mei Lin shook her head and sighed, her attention now shifted to Garokkah. She approached the orc, warily, but would never refuse anyone in need of medical attention. “Are you hurt?” she asked.

[timeslongchanged]

Garokkah did not herself smile-- most orcs would not, at least not in the same way that the untusked races might-- but her eyes brightened, and her expression seemed somehow warmer at Kyle's comment.

And then, when he offered her that drink, she gave a low and thoughtful sound. She'd had ale before, of course. Coffee, once or twice. She nodded and took the bottle-- and would have spoken, given some sort of thanks, but before she could... someone else approached.

A pandaren. And, so it seemed, one who knew Kyle so well that it was of nearly no concern to her who he had brought with him. At first, the woman was taken with worry over him.

But that was only at first. She came to Garokkah, eventually, and what she asked had the orc somewhat confused.

Are you hurt?

How divergent, truly, was this timeline? Garokkah wondered this for a moment, then thought on her answer to Mei Lin's question. She could still feel the ache from the Doomhammer's blows, and no doubt there were bruises forming on her blackened jaw.

She lifted her arms, not so much for the pandaren's inspection as her own. There were burns, too... welts where the skin was leathery and somewhat darkened, where the hand of Thrall's justice had gripped her.

"It shouldn't matter." She glanced off to the side. "I will live."

[time-lost-exiles]

timeslongchanged​:

Garokkah hesitated, raising a brow. The Timeless Isle lay just beyond that portal– off the coast of Pandaria.

“That you were conjuring through timelines. And…” She looked back, at the floes of sand her summoning had added to the desert bed. “The sand.”

She chuckled. “I am no Timewalker. But I have known bronze dragons. It was by their sorcery that the Iron Horde was made possible.”

There was no telling whether this student would know the name Kairozdormu. But his instructors would. She spoke no more, and went to follow him through that portal.

On the other side of the portal was an old brewery-turned-medical outpost situated in the quiet village on the Timeless Isle. This was where Kyle had spent his younger years after his timeway was destroyed. Recently he’d returned after a year-long break from studying and his mentor Zidormi was still nowhere to be found.

Kyle’s own thoughts lingered in the awkward silence between them. He ignored the curious stares and surprised gasps emanating from the inhabitants of the island, keeping his blue-eyed gaze on the cobblestone path as they’re walking toward the village.

Kyle led the former warchief into the infirmary. “I hope you don’t mind waiting here while I seek a Bronze’s help with summoning a portal to your timeway. Once again, I am terribly sorry for displacing you and robbing you of your…fate. I knew I wasn’t ready. But I wanted to prove them wrong. And now–”

He shook his head and sighed, giving the orc an apologetic smile. It didn’t matter. Perhaps his instructors had been right all along. He wasn’t cut out for wielding such magical skills. “Would you like something to drink?” Kyle asked Garokkah. “Some tea…or a nice cold brew, perhaps?”

[timeslongchanged]

"...Cold brew?" She raised a brow. She had heard the term before, surely, but her time on Azeroth was not so long that she could know the name and nature of every triviality.

She shrugged her shoulders. "Not ready," she scoffed. The next words came as they did with the trainees in Durotar. "Imprecise, maybe. I am sure you did not intend what you did. But do not let one missed swing keep you from striking again."

Her attention, then, was drawn to her surroundings. Medics and healers checking on the few injured in a place like this. Their eyes were on her, though they looked away as she met their gaze. She could feel their mistrust... she must have looked familiar enough.

[time-lost-exiles]

timeslongchanged​:

A student? A conjuration test? Her life was spared by the mistake of a half-mage, and she had found herself in…

She looked around, then up, surveying the landscape. Tanaris… she had found herself in Tanaris, and perhaps no longer in her own timeline.

“Garokkah. Daughter of Grom,” she answered. If this was a mistake, it was quite possibly the greatest mistake of Kyle’s life. “You summon the deposed warchief of the Horde on Azeroth… you are lucky, then, that the Horde is not here to see you.”

She paused, in thought. “A student of the Bronze flight, are you?” Kairoz had made her familiar enough with their sorcery.

Well, fuck fuckity fuck.

Kyle turned away from the orc and let out an exasperated sigh. He hated that his inner voice was swearing like a pirate while he thought hard about what he’d done wrong.

Had he miscalculated his spell casting? Uttered the wrong incantation? He’d torn open a rift in the cosmos and brought not just any orc, but a warchief of the Horde into his timeline???

Panic rose in his stomach. He felt it churning as he turned to face Garrokah again, yet was too embarrassed to meet her gaze.

“I am,” Kyle replied, nodding. “And now I’m left with no choice but to take you to our base of operations.”

Activating a chrono-beacon in his hand, a portal to the Timeless Isle opened before them.

Kyle gestured for Garokkah to follow him through the portal. “How did you know that I’m a student of the Bronze? What gave it away? Was it the infinity symbols under my eyes? I mean, any mage could cast a conjuration spell.” A slight pause. “You’re not a Timewalker, are you?”

[timeslongchanged]

Garokkah hesitated, raising a brow. The Timeless Isle lay just beyond that portal-- off the coast of Pandaria.

"That you were conjuring through timelines. And..." She looked back, at the floes of sand her summoning had added to the desert bed. "The sand."

She chuckled. "I am no Timewalker. But I have known bronze dragons. It was by their sorcery that the Iron Horde was made possible."

There was no telling whether this student would know the name Kairozdormu. But his instructors would. She spoke no more, and went to follow him through that portal.

[time-lost-exiles]

Commissioned art of my Timewalker and Chronomancer Khaa'iel Sparkseeker aka Kyle Strudelman!

Thank you @jozlix-art for this beautiful rendition of my boy. You've been a pleasure to work with.

[timeslongchanged]

@kingofthelight The High King of the Alliance had been meaning to visit Shattrath City, to meet with the naaru A'dal.

But routine maintenance on the portals was underway, checking and renewing the threads of the arcane which wore so easily with so little time. The mages had missed one crucial flaw which appeared in the portal to Outland.

Its anchor in time.

Anduin would find himself hurtling through a blinding void, then dropped into a river. To his left, a hill capped with a gargantuan, one-eyed skull. To his right, the bone-posts and leather tents of the Warsong-- surrounding what appeared to be a mountain of white crystal.

Wolves whined and howled in the distance, their counterpoint the throttling rumble of Orcish voices. They were coming for him.

[timeslongchanged]

As Anduin's mind further strayed from him, he began to whisper prayers to the Light, begging it for mercy. At times when the heat became unbearable, the Light would come and soothe him, setting his mind back in place. Still, exhaustion settled deep into his bones, and he found himself falling asleep against Garokkah.

Lok-rath grew quiet, as the afternoon dragged on. The commotion of the visiting warlord calmed, especially as the warlord went out to hunt. Curiosity remained about her prisoner, but none dared risk her wrath by touching or waking him.

Night was falling as Garokkah returned. The smell of cooking meat and alien herbs drifted throughout the village, as the Warsong prepared their food-- the warlord cooked what she had hunted, a talbuk which would feed both her and her captive.

All that was left was to wake him. She returned to the hut where she had left him, atop but not wrapped within sleeping furs for fear of overheating him.

She sat beside him, and shook him as gently as she could be bothered to. In her other hand was his portion of the food she had prepared, thick slices of talbuk meat suspended in a thicker stew, within a clay bowl more appropriate for a young orc than a mature human.

"Wake up. Do not return to the Light yet, boy."

[timeslongchanged]

@kingofthelight The High King of the Alliance had been meaning to visit Shattrath City, to meet with the naaru A'dal.

But routine maintenance on the portals was underway, checking and renewing the threads of the arcane which wore so easily with so little time. The mages had missed one crucial flaw which appeared in the portal to Outland.

Its anchor in time.

Anduin would find himself hurtling through a blinding void, then dropped into a river. To his left, a hill capped with a gargantuan, one-eyed skull. To his right, the bone-posts and leather tents of the Warsong-- surrounding what appeared to be a mountain of white crystal.

Wolves whined and howled in the distance, their counterpoint the throttling rumble of Orcish voices. They were coming for him.

[timeslongchanged]

He sighed at the question, thinking. “Five… six years? At minimum. It’s… been a whirlwind since, but things were beginning to calm down before… this.” He waved a hand lazily at their surroundings.

“If I knew where this disease stemmed from in the body, I could call upon the Light to lessen the symptoms, if not destroy the disease completely. But… I guess we can only hope for the best.”

She did not respond to his comments on his own time-- but she did think upon them. Calm down? She could only assume he meant the faction conflict... but how? How had the Wrynn king done this... if the ruler she had known still lived?

"It is the red pox," she said. "Maybe a lesser form, if you are still lucid as you seem. But it has killed orcs-- they vomit blood, and blood weeps from pustules on their skin. Such a disease claimed Garad of Garadar... the father of Durotan."

She lifted him further from the water, again holding him to her chest, with his head beneath her chin. "I can only assume it lurks within your blood itself."

[kingofthelight]

He wheezed heavily, looking up at her with glazed over eyes. "Red pox... I've heard of that. It was supposed to be eradicated..." A cough racked his body, blood spilling onto his chin and arm. "It can't be cured with the Light, but its effects can be lessened. Doesn't make it any less deadly."

[timeslongchanged]

"I do not know how you contracted it. Only that you have." She wiped away the blood from his mouth with rough fingertips.

"Call upon your Light, if you believe it will save you. But remain lucid. You will need your wits if you are to survive."

She waded to the bank of the river, and mounted her wolf again. When she kicked Malak into a run, she kept Anduin just under her chin.

The sun crawled across the sky. It would not be long before the golden hour-- and then, the evening.

[timeslongchanged]

@kingofthelight The High King of the Alliance had been meaning to visit Shattrath City, to meet with the naaru A'dal.

But routine maintenance on the portals was underway, checking and renewing the threads of the arcane which wore so easily with so little time. The mages had missed one crucial flaw which appeared in the portal to Outland.

Its anchor in time.

Anduin would find himself hurtling through a blinding void, then dropped into a river. To his left, a hill capped with a gargantuan, one-eyed skull. To his right, the bone-posts and leather tents of the Warsong-- surrounding what appeared to be a mountain of white crystal.

Wolves whined and howled in the distance, their counterpoint the throttling rumble of Orcish voices. They were coming for him.

[timeslongchanged]

He sighed at the question, thinking. “Five… six years? At minimum. It’s… been a whirlwind since, but things were beginning to calm down before… this.” He waved a hand lazily at their surroundings.

“If I knew where this disease stemmed from in the body, I could call upon the Light to lessen the symptoms, if not destroy the disease completely. But… I guess we can only hope for the best.”

She did not respond to his comments on his own time-- but she did think upon them. Calm down? She could only assume he meant the faction conflict... but how? How had the Wrynn king done this... if the ruler she had known still lived?

"It is the red pox," she said. "Maybe a lesser form, if you are still lucid as you seem. But it has killed orcs-- they vomit blood, and blood weeps from pustules on their skin. Such a disease claimed Garad of Garadar... the father of Durotan."

She lifted him further from the water, again holding him to her chest, with his head beneath her chin. "I can only assume it lurks within your blood itself."

[sonofdraka]

(Open starter! Feel free to reply!)

Thrall pushed up his tiny reading glasses, grumbling at the small text he was faced with. Damn Forsaken and their dainty writing, he thought to himself, leaning forward to read an illegible word.

With a sigh, he finally gave up and lay the report down, just as a knock came at his door. "Come in," he called, thankful for the reprieve.

[timeslongchanged]

He stood and smiled down at her gently. "We simply fell asleep, is all. Do not worry yourself over it."

She looked at him, silent as her brain puzzled out the circumstances. "We were drinking," she said, as if she had just recalled.

Garokkah stood as well, and dusted herself off slightly. "We did not cause much trouble, I hope," she said with a laugh.

[sonofdraka]

(Open starter! Feel free to reply!)

Thrall pushed up his tiny reading glasses, grumbling at the small text he was faced with. Damn Forsaken and their dainty writing, he thought to himself, leaning forward to read an illegible word.

With a sigh, he finally gave up and lay the report down, just as a knock came at his door. "Come in," he called, thankful for the reprieve.

[timeslongchanged]

Thrall woke up early that morning, blinking at the morning sun through one of the windows. He’d woken with a crick in his shoulder, but, when he moved to stretch, he found himself with a head on that same shoulder.

Garokkah had fallen asleep on him.

“Girl, it’s time to wake up,” he whispered, shaking her gently. Part of him simply wished to leave, to tip toe away and forget this had happened… but that felt too impersonal to do to her.

She made a sound not unlike a frustrated wolf pup, shoving her head further into his shoulder-- but, as she did, her eyes fell half-open.

She flinched away, sitting suddenly upright-- and swaying slightly as she tried to balance herself. Garokkah huffed and tossed the hair from her eyes, trying to see if she had really...

She had. "Thrall--" she began, pausing as words failed her. "...What happened?"

Even as she asked the question, memories of the night before returned to her. But it was just as well-- she hoped he believed she'd forgotten.

[timeslongchanged]

@kingofthelight The High King of the Alliance had been meaning to visit Shattrath City, to meet with the naaru A'dal.

But routine maintenance on the portals was underway, checking and renewing the threads of the arcane which wore so easily with so little time. The mages had missed one crucial flaw which appeared in the portal to Outland.

Its anchor in time.

Anduin would find himself hurtling through a blinding void, then dropped into a river. To his left, a hill capped with a gargantuan, one-eyed skull. To his right, the bone-posts and leather tents of the Warsong-- surrounding what appeared to be a mountain of white crystal.

Wolves whined and howled in the distance, their counterpoint the throttling rumble of Orcish voices. They were coming for him.

[timeslongchanged]

In the time that she was gone, Anduin’s overheating had gotten so bad that he’d begun to undress, kicking his pants off until all he was left in was his underclothes. He attempted to use his shirt to wipe the sweat from his body, but it only left him stickier than before.

“Praise the Light, you’ve returned,” he gasped, another cough racking his body, worse than before. “Please, water…”

Garokkah openly took measure of his body as she lowered herself. He seemed strong enough, if not having trained particularly recently... but he was no orc, and his build was incomparable to that of an orc.

She offered the water-- and once he had taken it, she would seize and lift his arms, inspecting him more closely. It should be impossible, or at least unlikely-- but she had to be sure, and so she checked him for the splotchy, mottled ruddiness of those early stages of the pox which had nearly killed her.

[kingofthelight]

And there it was.

All along his arms was the mottled ruddiness she was looking for, the sign of the red pox. Anduin was too engrossed in the water to wonder why she was so curious about his arms, allowing her to maneuver him all she wanted. The water ended too quickly for his liking, however, and his mouth felt just as dry as it had before.

[timeslongchanged]

As soon as he was finished, Garokkah was lifting him again. She wordlessly bore him in her arms, nudging his clothes into a corner of the hut, and pulled a cloak from the wall to cover the two of them as she left again.

She remembered little of what the Greatmother had done for her. Some, but not enough... so she supplemented it with what she wished had been done.

Though the air was warm, the wider rivers of Nagrand were cool. She went downstream, to where the water stretched wide and deep enough to hold both of them, and she clasped Anduin close to her breast as she waded into the water.

And she could wade, quite a bit, before it grew too deep for him. She watched him as she held him afloat in the water, back to the ground and face to the sky. It should sap some of the heat from him, she thought, though she was unsure how much.

[kingofthelight]

The water was a blessing from the heat. Anduin was practically catatonic as he lay in the stream-- the only sign that he was still alive was the wheezing of his breath as it escaped his lungs.

After a long while, he finally spoke. "Am I going to die?"

[timeslongchanged]

Garokkah looked down at him, her eyes little more than slits of yellow. "If the illness has set in this quickly..." She lifted him slightly, making sure the water would not flow over his head. "Perhaps."

She did not speak for some time-- once or twice, she took a handful of water and splashed it over his head, but otherwise, she was silent as she held him in the river.

And then, eventually, she broke the silence. "How many years have you lived since my trial? How long has it been?"

[time-lost-exiles]

timeslongchanged​:

It was for only seconds that Garokkah was supine. The agony from what should have been her deathblow faded, and as it did she righted herself.

She was without weapon. Her skin was unscathed, without any trace of burns or other injury…

And before her was a mage. A slip of a mage, and the elf she had expected.

“You,” she rumbled, the sound like distant cannonfire. “You have taken my death from me. The culmination of all I have done.” She drew nearer, her steps sure even on the sand.

“Who are you, to make this decision?”

The young mage froze. Never in his nineteen years of existence had he ever been in such close proximity with an orc. Yes, he had lived in alternate Draenor for a few years, although only among the Draenei in Nagrand.

Kyle was clearly intimidated by the orc’s presence, his blue eyes reflecting the fear that had rendered him speechless and temporarily paralysed. 

Blood trickled from his nose, indicating he’d overwhelmed himself from casting a spell too powerful for his inexperienced and young mind to bear. 

Rather than summoning a familiar from another realm, Kyle had inadvertently summoned her, the orc, into his timeline.

“I-I am…terribly sorry. I didn’t mean–” Fuck. It was so typical of the Bronze to just leave him stranded like this! Slowly, Kyle braved himself to glance up and meet her gaze. "I’m just a student. And I’m pretty sure I just failed my Conjuration test again…“ he admitted. “I promise I’ll fix this. I don’t know how, but I will find a way…”

He wiped the blood off his face. “My name’s Khaa’iel Sparkseeker. You can call me Kyle. What’s yours?”

[timeslongchanged]

A student? A conjuration test? Her life was spared by the mistake of a half-mage, and she had found herself in...

She looked around, then up, surveying the landscape. Tanaris... she had found herself in Tanaris, and perhaps no longer in her own timeline.

"Garokkah. Daughter of Grom," she answered. If this was a mistake, it was quite possibly the greatest mistake of Kyle's life. "You summon the deposed warchief of the Horde on Azeroth... you are lucky, then, that the Horde is not here to see you."

She paused, in thought. "A student of the Bronze flight, are you?" Kairoz had made her familiar enough with their sorcery.

[sonofdraka]

(Open starter! Feel free to reply!)

Thrall pushed up his tiny reading glasses, grumbling at the small text he was faced with. Damn Forsaken and their dainty writing, he thought to himself, leaning forward to read an illegible word.

With a sigh, he finally gave up and lay the report down, just as a knock came at his door. "Come in," he called, thankful for the reprieve.

[timeslongchanged]

He smiled gently down at the wooden figurine, carefully tracing what little details it had. "Thank you, my friend. I will treasure it for as long I live. May I go place it in my room?"

She was quick to nod again. "Of course." There was a lightness in her chest, that he would even ask.

The rest of the night was intended to be quiet. But they kept talking, kept finding distractions, and eventually they began to drink again.

Her head was fogged, as she found herself leaning on Thrall. He may well have been asleep-- but she would not fall asleep. She would watch over him, since he could not watch himself.

Even as she said the words, she knew they were lies. Within moments, she had lost the drive to remain awake... and the last thing she saw before nodding off was Thrall's ears twitching.

He was dreaming, she thought.

[timeslongchanged]

@time-lost-exiles

You chose your own destiny.

As the lightning struck, her flesh searing black, Garokkah remembered the scouring air of Durotar. Feverishly hot, dry, like the sand itself battering her lungs whenever she breathed in.

It was familiar, the dark she plunged into. It felt like sand.

She gasped, and tasted air. The sands bore her limp body, rolling, onto hard-packed ground. She was still burning, unable to breathe–

Her eyes shot open, though for a moment she did not see. On that air was the scent of a young male… an elf? It was hard to say… but her head turned toward it, and she stared blankly into the blinding daylight.

[time-lost-exiles]

This was not supposed to happen. 

Kyle could see it in Zidormi’s steely gaze that he’d fucked up. Again.

The young mage felt the adrenaline coursing through his veins, his face flushed in the heat of the afternoon sun.

What had come tumbling out of the temporal vortex he’d just summoned?

Kyle looked to Zidormi again, his mentor, who’d remained silent for too long. “When a chronomancer foolishly opens a portal and displaces someone, they will have to deal with the consequences on their own,” the Bronze finally spoke. “Deal with it, Khaa’iel. Learn from your mistakes.”

Her image vanished into thin air, leaving the young mage to fend for himself on the parched grounds in Tanaris.

“What?!” A gust of wind blew across the desert. He felt the sands of time rolling over his feet and lost his balance, a string of curses pouring out of his mouth as he stood up and dusted himself off. 

“Hello?” Kyle called out to the other, one arm shielding his eyes against the harsh sunlight. “Whoever you are, I am not your enemy. Please do not attack me or you will be sheeped! I mean it!”

[timeslongchanged]

It was for only seconds that Garokkah was supine. The agony from what should have been her deathblow faded, and as it did she righted herself.

She was without weapon. Her skin was unscathed, without any trace of burns or other injury...

And before her was a mage. A slip of a mage, and the elf she had expected.

"You," she rumbled, the sound like distant cannonfire. "You have taken my death from me. The culmination of all I have done." She drew nearer, her steps sure even on the sand.

"Who are you, to make this decision?"