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ventormenta · 7 years

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I couldn’t seem to continue with this story, so I’m posting what I have of it. Basically, it’s game!Khadgar/movie!Medivh: while Khadgar is cleaning up Karazhan after the Legion’s infiltration of Karazhan during TBC, he inadvertently finds himself in the movie verse just as Aegwynn is about to resurrect her son.

This didn’t progress to any real interaction between Khadgar and Medivh; it’s mostly about Khadgar and Aegwynn, with some bits between Aegwynn and Medivh. So read on if you’re interested! It’s 2.8k words.

Nothing was out of place neither in the inverted tower nor in the connected crypts. It was unexpected but welcomed after a long day of getting the tower back in order. Perhaps both the Legion and the Kirin Tor had simply presumed, correctly, that there was nothing of value down here, only chamber after empty chamber and a large pile of bones. The remains were likely human, but Khadgar could hardly bring himself to look at them, let alone confirm their origin. The crypt itself offered no answers, only speculation and hypotheses. The most reasonable of these pointed toward one person, but Khadgar resisted them, opposing his own intellect. Too many sins lay at the feet of the man known as the Last Guardian, and even with knowing the real culprit, it was still an agony to assign more.

Avoidance was easier still, for the crypts housed no echoes, no apparitions to force the recognition of the past. But this also made the place all the more unnerving, as if even ghosts knew that the crypts beneath Karazhan were no place to be. The quiet here was true quiet, devoid of sound and movement, like a pocket of space removed from real existence. Khadgar walked faster, telling himself it was not fear that impelled him, but determination to finish securing the tower. At last, he reached the final room, and he all but sprinted towards the gate that led outside, opening it with the key and then locking it with his own magical ward. Then, lantern in hand, he was about to climb the short stairwell out of the crypt when he heard a harsh sound coming from above, in the graveyard.

It sounded like someone was digging.

Wide awake now, he marched up the steps and shone his lantern over the small graveyard. There, at Medivh’s grave, stood a hooded figure facing him and holding a staff. Arcane blossomed in the stranger’s hands then, and, raising the staff, they shouted, “Leave at once!”

The voice, strong and clear, was familiar, but Khadgar struggled to place it. He peered into the darkness but could not make out the stranger’s face, only some stray blond hairs that escaped the hood and shone under the cerulean magic.

“…Aegwynn?” Khadgar asked. “Is that you?”

The stranger unleashed a spell then, and Khadgar’s defensive shield came just a split-second too late: he was pinned to the dry earth by extremely powerful magic, at which point he understood that he was indeed dealing with the penultimate Guardian of Tirisfal.

“Aegwynn, stop!” Khadgar shouted. “It’s Khadgar! Medivh entrusted Karazhan to me!”

Still channeling the spell, she came towards him and said, “The wizard Khadgar is gone. Dead, with Draenor.”

“What? No – no, I survived; Draenor survived,” he tried to explain. “The Legion reopened the portal – didn’t you hear?”

That was when she came over and crouched down to peer at him. She looked older than she had in that last vision, but her green eyes were sharp in the magic’s light.

“How did you get back?” she asked.

“Kazzak reopened the portal,” he replied. “Didn’t you – don’t you know? The Legion invaded again; Kil’jaeden tried to enter via the Sunwell, and –”

“These things have not come to pass,” the Magna interrupted him to say. But then, before she could go on, the shovel suddenly hit something hollow. At once, Aegwynn vanished and reappeared next to the plot. She took her staff and cast a spell into the grave, and the sound stopped as the shovel resumed digging into the earth.

He came toward her, this time ready to ward off an attack, and asked, “What year is it?”

Instead of answering, she asked, “What year do you think it is?”

“626.”

“No,” she said, “it is 602.”

He believed her, and it was worrisome. But in the immediacy, the grave was dark before them as the shovel continued digging.

“What are you doing?” he asked her.

Simply, she replied, “I am resurrecting my son.”

The words settled comprehension, but not understanding. “Why?” he asked. “And how?”

She looked at him slowly. “Do you plan to stop me?”

Her voice bore the hint of a threat, and Khadgar knew then that even if he thought this was wrong, that the Last Guardian of Tirisfal should not exist corporeally in this world, there was no room for opposition in the face of Aegwynn’s intent.

“No,” he said, and he was sincere.

By now, the situation was brutally strange, like a bizarre dream one had no choice but to accept. As it was, this present was twenty-four years ago; Khadgar was here at Karazhan but also on Draenor; and Aegwynn was resurrecting her son such that by Khadgar’s time, Medivh would be alive. It was baffling and troublesome, but all very possible, in theory at least. Then again, time was not so chaotic that it produced such massive hiccups – there had to be more at play here. But Khadgar sensed nothing wrong with the timeline: it was exactly in-sync, perfectly ordered. What was happening now was as things were always meant to be. His memories failed to confirm this, however, and the more he sought after them, the more muddled they became. He could remember standing here, exhausted on a cloudy night, and he could remember the sound of metal biting into earth, but when he tried to recall whether the box was being buried on exhumed and whether Aegwynn had been here or not, the facts eluded him, seeming to be both at once. The memory swam in a circle, two fish chasing each other’s tail, or a fish chasing its own tail. Fish, or fish? It was the same, and therefore impossible to know.

Exhaling, he admitted, “I haven’t a clue how I got here.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “What matters is that you’re here now.”

Before he could inquire further, she raised her staff and began casting another spell. The shovel shot from the grave and hit the ground with a clang, and then, the wooden box, swathed in arcane, floated up from the dark hole and levitated in mid-air.

It floated towards Khadgar, and Aegwynn said, “Here. Carry it up for me.”

The box didn’t weigh much, but as Khadgar considered its contents, it began to feel truly weight in his arms. Maybe his body was just tired. His mind wasn’t though, and as he followed Aegwynn up the stairs, his thoughts reeled.

“How are you going to do this, exactly?” he asked her.

“You’ll see.”

“Are you going to resurrect Moroes? Cook?” he asked.

“No.”

“No to both? Or just one?” he probed, unable to help himself.

“I am only resurrecting Medivh,” she said.

“Oh. Alright.”

Then he asked, “Will he be alright afterwards?”

“I’ll give you the instructions upstairs,” she said shortly, and he might as well have been seventeen years old, effectively silenced in the same way by Medivh. It was uncanny, really, and Khadgar found himself smiling. He held onto the box in his arms a little tighter, his heart warming as he thought of seeing Medivh again.

When they reached the observatory, Khadgar was surprised to see a large mana pool in the center, to the left of a large and very complex magical circle laid out in dust.

“Did you install this?” he asked Aegwynn, who had by now gone over to a table, where she had supplies and notes neatly arranged.

She picked up a vial and drank its contents, and then walked over to him. Then, very seriously, she said to him, “As soon as I resurrect him, I need you to get him into the mana pool. All the way in, up to the neck.”

“I wouldn’t,” Khadgar said. “I won’t.”

“He’ll need to stay in there for a while. You’ll have to keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t drown,” she instructed. “It might take him a while to recover… or it might not. I really don’t know. But Khadgar,” she said, addressing him by name for the first time, “you will take care of him.”

Khadgar couldn’t tell if this was a command or a prophecy. He looked at the Magna curiously and asked, “So you’re leaving?”

“Resurrecting him will drain my powers completely,” she explained. “I’m going to need to recover, and I won’t be doing that here.”

“Oh” was all Khadgar could say, taken aback by the vastness of her sacrifice. Then he asked, “Why are you doing this though?”

She was silent for a moment, staring at the top of the box with her lips pressed in a thin line. Then she looked at him with those same green eyes and, her regret hard and real, said, “I damned my own child, Khadgar.”

There was little he could say to that – he could not comfort her by saying she hadn’t meant to, because, in the end, the result was the same, and the result was terrible.

He understood now.

“I’ll take care of him,” he promised.

“Good,” she said, and she took the box from him and held it to her chest, her brow furrowed and mouth trembling slightly as she knelt down next to the rune on the floor and began removing the nails with magic. All six floated behind her to the table, arranging themselves into a row of black lines.

Aegwynn then removed the lid and took out the scroll, which she then read, her expression so sad he felt inclined to say something, but did not. Next, she took out the skull and held it in her hands, slowly caressing the brow ridge with her thumb. It was in this that Khadgar saw her love for Medivh, and the room was flooded with his, too, a hot lump in his throat swelling in tandem. With a sorry sigh, Aegwynn took the skull of her child and placed it in the center of the circle, upon a bed a dust.

The box was empty now, the tattered bits of skin having disintegrated over the years.

“Get him in immediately,” she reminded Khadgar, her eyes still set on the skull.

“I will,” he pledged, stepping over to the pool.

Aegwynn took her staff and stepped inside the circle, before the skull. Then, her eyes lit up with the blue of arcane, and she began to murmur a spell: the Darnassian words were a nocturne, crescendoing into ferocity like an evening storm: the air in the conservatory grew heavy and tumultuous, throbbing per the expectation of thunder. The Magna brought forth great swathes of arcane energy that willowed in her hands like wet parchment, unshaped and listlessly resisting, and then the skull floated up into the heart of these energies. Driven by her spellpower, the arcane itself proceeded to mold the energies like a potter would clay: with certainty and care, the penultimate Guardian of Tirisfal shaped the magic with the skill of the greatest of masters. The observatory was nothing before this power, nothing but a cursory definition of reality, of which Khadgar himself was part.

As Aegwynn continued the spell, the energy began to take on a distinctly human shape. The skull now its head, the figure was floating upright in the center of the circle. Then, very gradually, the magic began to trickle away from its form, revealing pale flesh. Khadgar took a step closer, ready to fulfill his duty, the moment for which came less than a minute later: the figure, ultimately revealed, hovered for about half a second before everything stopped and gravity brought him crashing into Khadgar’s arms. Rattled, Khadgar lowered the heavy body into the mana pool as gently as possible, and though the endeavor was executed with panic and awkwardness, he succeeded in getting him in. The man gasped, his eyes flashing open as he choked on his first breath. They were familiar eyes on an unfamiliar face, and Khadgar could only stare into them wordlessly before he was pushed aside.

The Magna pressed her lips to the man’s forehead. Holding his face, she began to sob, the whisper of joy wafting into her voice. “My darling, my darling,” she said, her relief rife, richer for her sorrow. “Oh, my poor, poor darling, my poor dear heart, my poor Medivh.”

The groggy voice was feeble, barely audible: “Mother…”

“Yes, it’s me, it’s me,” she said, petting his hair. “I’ve brought you back, darling, you’re alright now.”

Medivh murmured something and then reached out for Aegwynn, the movement weak and stilted. She grasped his hand and broke into tears, her sobs filled with both happiness and heartache as she kissed his face over and over again.

In Deadwind Pass, no birdsong welcomed the light of dawn. The world was soundless, and in Karazhan’s observatory, Khadgar sat in a chair he had pulled up, dutifully watching the blond man sleep. His chest, fuzzy with golden hair, rose and fell nearly unperceptively, casting just the slightest tremor in the blue mana. He looked absolutely nothing like Medivh. It was disconcerting. Khadgar’s conversation with Aegwynn had been fruitless.

“I mean no offense, Magna,” Khadgar had begun in a tentative whisper, not wanting to rouse the man, “but why does he look so different?”

Aegwynn looked at him with the most worn expression, and then, in a way that had the power to shake him, she very dryly said, “Excuse me?”

“It’s just – he just – He doesn’t quite look the same, that’s all.”

The Magna flashed her gaze to Khadgar, and then definitively and with some hostility, she said, “Yes he does.”

And that was the end of that. The Magna ported herself out, to where only she knew, and Khadgar was left to pass the early morning hours deliberating Medivh’s altered appearance. Did Aegwynn really think he looked the same? Maybe she was a bit off her rocker, too, or had become so after a thousand years. No, no, that was a cheap conclusion, too easy. What was noteworthy was that Aegwynn had seemed offended, almost angry when he asked her. Perhaps she had resurrected Medivh with a different appearance on purpose, either for safety reasons or maybe even… vanity reasons? It was true that Medivh, with his black hair and sharp nose, had not resembled Aegwynn much apart from the green eyes, so maybe she just wanted him to look more like her this time around.

It made a lot of sense, actually. Khadgar studied the face of the man in the pool, looking for similarities in his softer features. Yes, he did seem to resemble Aegwynn a fair amount, especially in the chin and mouth. So there it was: Nielas Aran had been cut from the picture entirely, the link between mother and son now shining freely in long, blond hair. And yet again, Aegwynn had departed, leaving her son in someone else’s care. Khadgar struggled not to blame her for this. What would she have done if Khadgar hadn’t showed up? This was a very good question he had neglected to ask. Indeed, what would she have done? Taken care of Medivh herself? But no, she knew she wouldn’t have been able to – she was barely able to stand on her own in the aftermath, having to use her staff to hoist herself up (she refused Khadgar’s help). Maybe she had anticipated Khadgar’s arrival all along. Maybe she even caused it. But then why had she attacked him? Why had she seemed so shocked?

Khadgar gripped the armrest in frustration. Aegwynn’s prime motivation was clear, but the woman who had named her child “Keeper of Secrets” had plenty of her own, and she knew how to hide them. Worse yet, he had found himself deferring to her, simply accepting her refusal to relinquish answers. Just like with Medivh. Damn it, he should have been more forthright, should have persisted against the impulse to shut up when she gave him a harsh response. And now she was gone, perhaps never to return.

Leave it to a Guardian, he supposed. No, no – it was just these two, one literally cut of the other’s cloth.

The man – no, Medivh – lay idly in the mana pool, his head resting upon the floor of the observatory. His breathing went on, steady like clockwork, each subsequent breath defining the previous as anterior. But chronology was a ruse, as Khadgar knew. Even now, the present was alive in the past, constituting the future. Still, the question remained: had this moment been foretold, or was this a departure from inevitability? The tower yielded no answers, its magic long usurped. All that could be discerned definitively was now, the hour of the Medivh’s rebirth, in which he was vulnerable, requiring protection. And Khadgar was the only one here.

#raventrust #khadgar #medivh #aegwynn #fanfic

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