Through the Nether

by StormDancer

The Unbroken Sky

Author's Note:

Cheers.
Just a thought I had a few days ago. It will be presented in a few short chapters like this one, some more WoW-esque, some more MLP... but I'm hoping folks can appreciate the story as two very different worlds collide.
I doubt this will be much longer than any of my other shorts, but I'm trying a different approach to posting so that folks can try out nibbles more than courses.
As always, comments are always appreciated. Have fun.

Addendum: After submitting, it has come to my attention that such an intro chapter won't pass muster alone... as such, the first 3 are being submitted (don't worry... number 2 is under 1k words) so that there is sufficient pony to merit a submission. Just pretend that there's a page break rather than a new 'chapter'.

Lady Sylvanas had never promised them that they would return, she hadn't promised them anything really. All she had said was that it needed to be done and they had been willing, every last one of them, to ride or fly, or even just run off into that distant, horrible, land.

No one could fault the Dark Lady. She had saved them all more times than any could count. Where others had given up hope, had run screaming into the night or drawn up arms... where others had surrendered life or given in to despair... where family and friends had become the enemy, she had called upon them to rise up and break their shackles. She had fled with them, shedding her very own flesh and bone to raise them higher. She had pulled them from madness and torture and had helped them to make themselves anew. She was the Dark Lady. She was Sylvanas Windrunner, the Banshee Queen.

And when she spoke, the Forsaken listened.

She never gave orders, she made requests of her people. And when she had brought the horrible truth of the collapse of the timeways to their knowledge, even the lowliest of the rotbrains or rattlecage skeletons understood: Sylvanas needed their help.

Of course it was given. It must be given. It was only right. She had pulled them all from the wasting, timeless, death of Arthas and had returned them to their freedom. It had been a long road, one fraught with suffering and loss, but it had been also their redemption.

Of course they had gone.

Into the blazing heat. Across the red clay. Below the burning sky and further than the very edges of their world. The Forsaken had marched with The Horde, decaying banners and leather had marched beside heaving Orc and the towering Troll and Tauren. In step with Goblin and Blood Elf alike, while even a few of the elusive Pandaren would take their cause. Far to the west, the Alliance poured into the Blasted Lands, eventually to come to face the horrors as well.

Some had gone on to face the Iron Horde, while others, younger or weaker, had struggled back through the collapsing timeways to maintain the embattled history of the Outlands... the fallen remains of Draenor. Wherever they went, they did so knowing that should they fail, all of Azeroth would burn in the fickle fabric of the Titan's tapestry... for their very history was under attack... their very beings, their redemption, would be lost.

Too many had come. Too many had departed. And far, far, too much had been fought to not answer the call.

And so she had done so. She had dusted off her best robes, mended their many holes and patched that which could yet hold stitch-work, and had drawn out the pitted remains of her mace once more and answered her mistress, her Dark Lady, her... unknowing friend.

The walk had been long, aching bones and long weathered flesh working against the laws of life, but she had made it. She had called up her steed, a long dead stallion named Mercium and had set herself along the path. She had ridden along roads forgotten by the living and had suped in mausoleums, she had found a band of like minded travelers and parted ways with them only when they had succumb to the treachery of their own greed. Even then, she had tried to save them, the poor devils.

When she had found herself upon the road to the portal, she had taken one last look at her home, memorizing the cleft in the great stone barrier that rimmed the Blasted Lands, and had turned faithfully towards the baked waste before her, not knowing if she might ever return to the land she had given her life for... so many times.

The last mile had been easy, naught but the most stalwart of beasts would approach, and those that did were dealt with severely. Even there, amongst the warping scar of the land where two worlds met in three different times, yes even there there were those who would choose petty squabbles over the right of life. For those, she responded as any bringer of light would... she dismissed them as the beasts they were. Perhaps in their deaths, some good would come of their worldly beings... perhaps their flesh would enrich the meager soil or feed the ravenous beasts that stole a living from the barren land.

She had finally seen it, amidst a barricade of steel and stone, flesh and magics, all bent upon one purpose, to invade and subjugate their world... her world. She had watched as the beastly orcs streamed from the great stone gate like some form of river, its eddies iron and its mists spittle and blood. Their eyes, the glinting ferocity of the untempered Horde, their will that of the conqueror. These were not the Horde of which her brethren belonged. These were not the Horde she had fought and died against, only to later ally. These were not the noble savages whose minds and souls had been tainted and redeemed, whose very nature screamed against such madness.... these were those who had sloughed off their temptations and had never felt the sting of failure, of subjugation. These were the petulant, angry, seething, selfish bones of their forefathers... these were the ones who should have died and given the future its heroes.

These were the Iron Horde.

She had watched, for a time, debating if she could truly hate them. It was true, they would bring death on a horrific scale, but was that not what had happened already so many times? They would blight the land, poisoning its children for generations, and yet it had happened all before. They would enslave and torture and murder relentlessly, and still, these things had happened. Were they truly so different from those that already resided upon the face of Azeroth?

And then she healed a troll, his arm a bleeding stump as his brother lifted it to beat one of the invaders to death. Yes... they were cruel, but their cruelty was not lost upon the face of Azeroth. Azeroth, however, had its fill of wickedness already, there was room for no more.

Their cruelty belonged in the past, and in the past it must remain.

Taking a moment more to heal the troll, who flexed his fingers and offered up an appreciative nod, she strode towards the Dark Portal and stepped through.

As she felt the world slide away, she briefly cast her gaze upon the countless stars that swam before her empty eyes. Here, in the Dark Portal, the vastness of the cosmos was set before her as to all who would witness its inky depths. Here, she saw glittering stars and blushes of color, entire strokes of brilliant light and swaths of deepest pitch. Here, in the between, she could know peace for her unliving heart.

And all too soon it was over. She strode out upon the great gray slab of some half constructed pyramid, a sky of planets and moons, and the unrelenting clamor of battle. Casting about, her skeletal fingers plucked the ancient mace from her hip as a glowing skin of light enveloped her body. With one last cry, she leapt into the bloodshed, determined to save the world that had killed her and denied her eternal rest.

Here, she could finally purge the evil of those that had evaded destiny... for if they lived, they would poison those who had finally purged so many evils of their land.

If Draenor lived, Azeroth would die.