World's End by Ashagga

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World's End by Ashagga

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Ashagga sat in the barroom of the World's End Tavern in Shattrath's Lower City. On the table before her sat a leather flask and a chunk of vegetable matter. He stared at them, drumming her gloved fingers on the table. Her not-eye glowed brightly, almost feverishly.

Yichimet. Ashagga did not want to consume the sapta, did not want another vision. She'd been having visions since the Bringer had come, and few of them had been good at all. She was tired of visions.

And yet, she trusted the furry shaman. He had been there for her, helped her when others had shunned her or threatened her. He was one of her best friends, one of what she thought of as her Inner Circle, if she had any sort of organization worthy of the name.

She sighed and threw up her hands. She would take the sapta that night... and let the spirits tell her what they would.
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Re: World's End by Ashagga

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by Yichimet

As Yichimet walked away from the World's End tavern that afternoon, he felt a knot in his heart at what he had done. The Sapta, true enough, would bring Ashagga a Vision. He had mixed it well, an art learned from his dead teacher Hidua, and mastered over the past year since his passing. The other piece he had given Ashagga was a Coyote's Trick.

When he looked at her in the past weeks, he saw Ashagga, but he did not see his sister. She was something different, something else. Her tongue did not sound her own. And so he had gone deep into the forest of Feralas and found the sorceress he had once spent months with in his youth, learning her stories and sharing her bed.

She had walked the paths of the forest with him, searching for what he needed: a small weed that grew, vine-like, with giant petalled flowers that when they wilted left behind a bright red hip. He picked several of the fruits and, as they walked back, told his stories, many many years of them, to Inuahlet. She listened to his words of Hidua, and Snowfeather, and the Grim, and Ashagga and so much. He remembered why he had spent months with her when he was young, besides her lovely eyes and soft nose: the long moments of thought before she encouraged him to go on, her soft voice and her wisdom. That night, Yichimet shared a bed for the first time since Snowfeather had died and, in the morning, felt a warmth in his body that had been missing for some time.

And, when Ashagga had called him to the World's End a week later, Yichimet was ready. He brought the Sapta and the flower hips, and asked Ashagga to consider the Sapta's guiding Vision, and did not tell her why he passed her the fruit with it, hoping she would take it without even wondering.

Like the fruit would empty her insides for a whole day after eating it, the seeds would begin to purge her Spirit. It was a Coyote's Trick, taken from a tale Hidua had told long ago of the Coyote and a hungry Grimtotem shaman who was tricked out of his Voice with the Spirits by the Coyote.

Yichimet prayed as he walked away from the tavern that it would begin his work for him.
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Re: World's End by Ashagga

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Yichimet remembered the words they said when parting: My worry for you is a bundle of sticks in my heart. Every time one is pulled out, two more are jammed in. She had nodded and hugged him, her small arms wrapping around his big waist, and said I need your help, brother. And now, after two nights fighting in Medivh's tower, Yichimet was on the back of a wyvern on his way to the Tanaris desert, praying that his face was clear of lies for the dragons that would be there.

* * *

Not knowing how it would taste, Ashagga ate the piece of fruit and drank the sapta quickly and was glad she did. She nearly gagged. It tasted how she imagined kodo dung and strong coffee and witchbark would taste if stirred together in a jar and left in the hot desert sun for a week.

She settled down for the night.

* * *

I need you to go back to Durnholde for me, Ashagga said. I know my parents are there.

Yichimet had urged Ashagga to find a way to rid herself of the hive of spirits inside her, as she called it. There was a way, Yichimet knew, and he would find it.

I will think about it, she had responded to him, but there's something else. What if the past was changed? What if something happened to my parents?

Deathshadow, in the corner listening not very stealthily, snorted through is rotting nostrils. You're crazy, Ashagga, he said. They won't ever let that happen.

So you were listening, Ashagga said. Yes, that is why I need Yichimet to scout for me. See what is there. Find if there is a way.

Erozion turned to Yichimet, pink-skinned and worried, as he stepped through the portal, and said "Back again, Champion?"

* * *

Ashagga moaned as her stomach churned and did not sleep but dreamed.

The golden-green leaves that form his coat blow in the wind, twist, turn white to show their belly and call the rain. He is a bull, he stands on fingered feet, his eyes are mouths with gnashing teeth. He breathes rain on her, rain falls at her from every direction. Her body is water. He laps it up.

* * *

Yichimet pushed on one of the charred doors to the internment houses. The pink skin that scraped against the burned wood was so alien he preferred to think he was dreaming, even though he felt the body as his own, smaller, quicker to move, more fragile. Past the door were sullen orcs, staring into space, doing nothing, speaking to no one. At the end were two orcs sitting against each other, shoulder to shoulder, and a girl orc on the female's lap. Even at this age, Yichimet could see the wisdom in the young orc's eyes as she turned them vacantly to him.

* * *

In his stomach is a world. She is a world, she feels the bone-spines of the mountains climb her back. She feels her forehead a mesa. A ring of Spirits dance at the base. They yell her name, they stab spears into the ground. Her brain is pierced. She claws through his stomach, bursts free, falls to the ground covered in blood.

* * *

Yichimet tried hard to remember his pink skin, tried hard to remember he must not reach out and brush her face with his hand. He made his voice gruff to hide the knot in his throat at seeing her so pathetic, weak, hungry and powerless and small. Her arms were twigs. Sitting in her mother's lap, she looked broken.

"Ashagga," he said, softly.

Another young orcess standing five paces away and staring out the window turned to look at him as her name was called. Yichimet's bewilderment grew like a stranglevine inside him.

* * *

Her blood is a mirror pool, because it is her blood, not his. She stares into the pool and sees herself, and herself, and herself, and herself. When she whimpers he turns to look at her. His coat is golden-green leaves, it blows in the wind, it twists and calls the rain. Now the blood is around her ankles. In his outstretched hand is an eye.
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Re: World's End by Ashagga

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Ashagga tossed and turned in her sleep, sweat beading on her forehead, her arms, her stomach. Her linen sheets tangled around her muscular legs, trapping her as she thrashed around. Murmured protests and half-screams escaped her lips, but nothing coherent.

In her not-eye, a glowing coal burned.

In her dream, everything was surreal. She'd had dreams before, vivid, nightmarish dreams filled with symbolism and imagery, but nothing like this. She was losing herself in the images, the reflections. She looked up at the monstrous bull, its eye-mouths gnashing, and she saw the eye it offered.

She was desperate. She felt like she was drowning, like she was coughing up blood, vomiting it forth in torrents, in rivers to drown the monster's hand-feet. Blood filled her vision, spilled out of her gaping socket. She had to stop. She couldn't stop.

She stretched out her hand toward the monster, toward the eye, but her arm was too short, fingers dripping with blood. It flowed like water, like wine, and as she scrambled forward on hands and knees, trying to reach the eye, it sloshed around her body like a river, splashing onto her face, dripping in thick globules down her cheeks. It was obscene, it was grotesque, she was vomiting and it was all blood, and she kept reaching for the eye, knowing she had to stop it all.

A looming figure rose behind her, all teeth and blood and eyes and organs. She screamed when it grabbed her ankle, and she screamed blood. It pulled her, and she fell forward into the river, coughing in the blood, drowning in the blood. Frantically, she kicked and screamed and twisted and fought. She could see the monster offering the eye, impassively, standing just out of reach.

With one last, desperate surge of energy, Ashagga pushed forward, lunged, her hand outstretched. Fingers slick with crimson fluid groped at the eye, slid off its curved edge, grabbed the fingers of the monster. The eye fell into her grasp, and the figure behind her howled, a gurgling, strangled cry. Sobbing, weeping, she pushed the eye into her own socket, stemming the flow of blood from her not-eye...

In an instant, she saw Yichimet in Durnholdt, saw herself and... her sister? She saw her parents, envisioned them covered with blood. She saw a young orc girl praying to the spirits, saw another hunting the beasts of Durotar. She saw Warneshi screaming, Sylvanus screaming, Mannoroth screaming. She saw Yichimet standing over her with a knife.

She woke with a start, her good eye opening. Her sheets were soaked with sweat and blood, her body covered with both. She sat up, spitting blood from her mouth. She'd bitten her tongue, and it felt numb. She staggered from the bed and fell to her hands and knees, coughing and choking.

First, she spat up only blood, retching and heaving. Soon, a half-chewed chunk of vegetable flesh followed, spattering onto the blood-soaked floor. She kept heaving, her body wracked and spasming, until, finally, a small, man-shaped clump of bloody hair fell to the floor beside it. Ashagga watched in horror as it writhed and mewled on the ground, reaching toward her. It looked like a monstrous infant.

She pulled a dagger from beneath her bed and drove it into the hairy creature over and over again, until it stopped moving, stopping making sound. She slumped back against her bed, panting heavily, wiping bloody tears from her cheeks.

The Bringer had been expelled. She could no longer see it, see spirits, see the future. She could feel the others still in her head, warring. Yichimet had betrayed her, had poisoned her.

...and she had a sister.

Ashagga lowered her head to her knees.
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It took almost a full day for Yichimet to escape the camp guards' notice and move quickly back to Erozion. By the time the Eye of Night rose and Yichimet found his chance to escape, he was nearly Spirit-crazed from being in such a strange body. He had done it for a few hours when the Infinite Flight was threatening Thrall, but feeling An'she bake his unadorned skin was maddening. Once outside Durnholde's walls, Yichimet shifted into his ghostwolf form, losing the pink skin and thanking the Earthmother for it. His paws met rocks and long grass, his fur blew in the wind: yes, he was alive, he would not have to live as the pink-skin forever, the Spirits even in this time were alive in the earth, reaching up and coaxing him to run faster.

He reached Erozion with his tongue lolling from his mouth and became a shu'halo again. Erozion stared at him imperiously and put forth no words.

"Erozion, you must make me an orc for a time," Yichimet said, hoping he spoke with enough deference and demand to gain what he needed.

"No," the dragon said.

Such an immediate answer froze Yichimet's tongue. He did not even have an answer, an argument to use.

"You are trying to play with time, you who are a champion against the Infinite Dragonflight. Why would you want this?"

"I..." Yichimet had no answer. The dragon had anticipated his wishes. Did the dragon see the future's paths the way Yichimet saw the Spirits of the world? Did the dragon know what he would say before he said it?

"A sister of my heart is alive, is young and her sister may die and I need to be among them," Yichimet rambled, letting his face fall into a mass of worry and sorrow. "I have tricked her and she was right."

"It is impossible for you to do this," Erozion said. "We fight to keep the channels of time flowing as they should, and you stand here asking to change them?"

"I do not want to change them, please," Yichimet begged. "I only need to talk to them. I cannot do that as a man with pink skin. I must be an orc and one of them."

Erozion looked with puzzlement at Yichimet. The dragon's eyes were deeper than Yichimet had ever thought possible.

"Time is elastic. It will bend. It would take more than you to break it, but you are enough to cause us trouble. It will not be, tauren. Leave for your time."

Yichimet sat down in front of Erozion and put his hands over his eyes. He had to think. The dragon stared at him still, half bewildered, half stern. How could he get to the orcs?
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Ashagga crouched in the shadows near the time-frozen entrance to the past, watching the Keepers of Time as they moved back and forth, patrolling to ensure that none violated the sanctity of the past. When she looked to her right, she could see into the Hillsbrad Foothills, see into the distant past. When she looked to her left, she could see the Caverns of Time, spread out and disjointed.

She'd tracked Yichimet here, Nexus-Claw and Void-Talon hanging from her belt. She didn't know what she was going to do, yet. She felt betrayed, felt confused. Had Yichimet known all along? Did he know what the sapta would do? Did he know about her sister? How long? Why?

She shook her head. Wondering wasn't going to do her any good. Sighing, she turned her good eye back toward Hillsbrad. He'd promised her he would come here, promised he would at least try to find out what would happen. Yichimet... she pulled her Legion Blunderbuss from her back, loaded a charge, laid it on the ground at her feet.

She glanced back into the Caverns of Time, then toward Hillsbrad, and there he was, as if materialized from nowhere. Time worked differently here, and a walk that seemed to take an hour might take a minute or a week. Ashagga sighed and stood up, letting the concealing shadows fall away from her features.

"Yichimet. We need to have a talk."
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Yichimet stood and walked away from Erozion, toward the Caverns of Time. It would not help him to stay here and cry for what he did, and could not do. He would go to find a path to walk in his world that would bring him back here.

Time broke around him and reformed as he walked through the portal. Ashagga stood on the path, her gun at her feet. "Yichimet, we need to have a talk," she said, bluntly. Her skin was pale, as if she had been very sick, and the shaman was not surprised. What he had given her was terrible medicine. But while her skin was pale, her face was sharp: jaw set, anger in its lines.

Yichimet walked toward her without caution, hoping that they were beyond violence with each other. "Ashagga, we have to go back in...you have a--"

She nodded. She knew already.
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"Ashagga, we have to go back in... you have a-"

She nodded. She knew already.

"How long, Yichimet? How long did you know?" She was furious. She was amazed how angry she was. And yet... she felt foolish. Her gun, her weapons... even betrayed as she felt, she didn't feel like hurting Yichimet. "What did you do to me? I spent last night vomiting blood! I coughed up something that I had to stab to death! What did you do?"
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He said, with defeat in his voice, "I began to purge you of the hive, sister. I tricked you, I was a Coyote and I am sorry I did it. It was not the sapta but the green you ate. Its seeds are powerful. The plant I took it from has roots that wind into the center of the World.

"I am sorry. But for weeks now, I have felt you far away even when I am near you...I thought I was going to lose you like I have lost my other brothers and sisters." He waited for her to slap him, or stab him, or yell, anything to get this out of the way so they could go back to the past.
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She stared at Yichimet for a long time. He just admitted it... she sighed. She would not yell, or slap him, or stab him. She stepped forward, very suddenly, and pressed herself against his huge, hairy frame. She closed her eyes, burying her face in his fur, her arms sliding around his waist.

And she cried.

She held Yichimet tightly, refusing to let him pull away. She sobbed, weeping out the tension she'd had building inside her for weeks, for months. She let go of all the hate, all the anger, all the righteous indignation. She let go of all the fury, all the worry, all the warrior's instinct's she'd been honing. Yichimet was her friend, and she hoped he understood. She desperately needed someone to just be her friend.
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Ashagga cried for minutes as Yichimet held her. Inside him he let go of that bundle of twigs in his heart that was his concern for her. He had done something desperate, something that could have harmed her, and he realized suddenly what a terrible Coyote's Trick it was. He nuzzled the top of her head with his nose as she continued to cry and all he could do was comfort her and worry what they could do to save her, and her sister.
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Eventually, Ashagga got herself under control and stepped back, wiping her eye. "That's enough of that from me." She felt ashamed of herself for acting like that, for practically collapsing, but at the same time, she felt relieved and less burdened. She looked up to Yichimet. "What's the news on the Caverns?"
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He looked at her as she pulled away and felt something strange about her: a peace, or a calming on him. Still, though, he could barely see the Spirits about her when he had no troubles with others.

"You've seen it, you said? You were there, and your parents, and a little orc who looked just like you...is she your sister? She was going to die soon if someone did not heal her spirit."

Yichimet looked over his shoulder into the cavern that lead, twisting, to the past.
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Ashagga nodded. "Aye... I've seen her. And I presume the Wardens of Time wouldn't let you do anything, or else you'd have done it already." She smiled a bit. "I anticipated that. Go back to them, Yichimet. Ask them again, right now. Time works differently here, so it may mean that we can do this. If I've done everything right..." She patted the Nexus-Claw and Void-Talon at her hips. "...then we have one chance to do this, and it has to be NOW."

She plucked three folded, sealed letters from her pouch, one addressed to Yichimet, one to Chingaso, and one to Muatah. "Make sure these get delivered, but only AFTER we're done."
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Yichimet took the letters, staring down at them. He knew she would not write these letters if this was not an ending, but he said nothing.

He looked at her, with her jaw set. The Spirits that usually wailed around her were calm. Something in her heart was moving her in the direction of her peace.

"That is all I am meant to do? Ask them, again, for their say?" He waited for the answer, unable to say anything more, and turned around to look at the portal, hoping this would not be the last time he saw her.
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