The ground heaved and shook, sending a vase crashing into a thousand pieces on the stone floor. Astarale cast a worried glance at Fernos, as always her worried glance was met by a reassuring smile.
“The dreamer stirs…” Astarale whispered in hushed tones.
“Why do you whisper whenever you speak of the Dreamer? It’s not as if they’re right here with us, besides, we both know it is not us who threatens to wake them” Fernos rumbled in his deep baritone voice, a large rough hand raised to brush the backs of his fingers tenderly against Astarale’s cheek and brushed her fiery red hair back behind her long pointed ear. “Rest will have to wait, we’re needed again.”
“Last to ten kills, cooks and cleans tonight?” The blood elf laughed as she turned and sprinted to the edge of the floating island their home was adrift on, springing into the air and doing a graceful swan dive into the empty expanse surrounding them. For a long moment nothing but silence was heard, Fernos briefly felt alone in their world, yet still he grinned and shook his head. A moment later, Astarale’s gigantic crimson scaled form burst from below with a deep guttural roar that made his very bones reverberate within him.
“Show off!” The snow white tauren shouted after her, his golden horns glimmering in the ethereal light. With much less of a show, Fernos left his bipedal form behind and took to the air with his shining white scaled wings, the purple grass he’d been standing in moments before whipping in the near hurricane wind every beat of his wings created.
“Come on slowpoke, I know you don’t enjoy cooking that much!” the crimson dragoness teased as she darted between the floating rocks and islands, vaulting off an upside down island and causing the water within a pond on the underside to splash out and soak the animals trying to drink from it.
Where Astarale was smaller and more agile, Fernos was larger and bulkier, allowing him to fly in more of a straight line. Smaller rocks exploded off his hide, sending shards hurtling off into the void and causing waves of debris to scatter behind in his wake. Like a glowing white asteroid, Fernos flew through the inky blackness as he watched the red form before him twirl, bound and rocket herself off of every surface she could. Astarale’s enthusiasm and joy truly were timeless, even after millennia of fighting the unending nightmare which threatened to wake the dreamer and end everything in existence.
“There, on that shattered fragment of Northrend. They’re trying to breach the memory of Icecrown Citadel and get into the halls of infinity!” Astarale called out before folding her wings close to her sides and went into a steep dive toward the large floating island covered in ice. The imposing dark structure was surrounded by shadowy figures who were already engaged in combat with the horde of undead.
Like a meteor from above, the large red form hurtled down toward the frozen waste, right at the center of the largest mass of fighting. The ice cracked and screamed as if it were alive from the blow, shattering and raising jagged spikes around the point of impact. Dozens of undead crumbled and scattered around Astarale in a macabre rain of body parts. The shadowy figures were unphased however, turning their sightless gaze upon the new threat and quickly advancing on the crimson dragoness. Astarale drew a deep breath, her golden eyes scanning the clawing and crawling dark shapes racing toward her. Was she counting? Yes, she was. Satisfied that she was adequately surrounded, the dragoness let out another ear splitting roar, loud enough to further crack the ice around her. This time, the roar was joined by a brilliant golden flame from within as she scorched the clawing shapes from existence, their anguished cries fading instantly.
“Look out!” Fernos shouted from above, but it was too late. Another nearby mass of nightmare spawn had coalesced into an even larger form and was bearing down on Astarale. Despite its massive size, the creature moved silently, the only sound it made was the wind whistling over the jagged fist it had formed, which struck the dragoness square on the jaw. The blow was hard enough to lift the large dragoness clear off her feet and send her flying backward into a snowdrift.
Fernos collapsed his wings and tucked them in tight to his sides, aiming straight down as he plummeted toward the large unstable shape of inky blackness moving across the white expanse below and heading directly for the unconscious red dragoness. To his surprise, Fernos felt his glowing golden claws sink into solid flesh, followed shortly by a piercing screech as he collided with the creature. The two massive forms tumbled over one another across the battlefield as they lashed out at one another. Most of the creature’s blows were deflected by his thick ivory white scales, but a strike with its viciously jagged claws sunk behind his scales and pierced his hide, causing the dragon to roar in agony as the blistering cold touch ripped at his flesh. Even with using his tail and all four limbs, Fernos was having a hard time wrestling with the creature as it continued to shift and change form, clinging to him like a Kraken would an unfortunate sailing ship.
With a pained groan, Astarale opened her eyes and felt the world spin. Working her jaw, her tongue moving about in her mouth, she felt a couple loose teeth. Swirling her saliva around in her mouth, she tasted blood before spitting it out. The sound of fighting close by caught her attention, even with her ears still ringing and vision blurred, she could make out the large white shape of her mate entangled with something equally as large and dark as the void around them. A brilliant white light burst forth, along with a deafening roar from Fernos as he finally managed to get the upper hand on the creature. His flame turned the coalesced nightmare into ash, leaving him standing panting in the crater his battle had created around him. “That still only counts as one…” Astarale grinned at him.
Fernos did not smile however, his gaze was on Icecrown Citadel and the streams of shadowy figures pouring in through the bent and twisted doors. “They’ve breached the memory, they’ll start appearing in the manifested realms soon…we need to get help before they succeed in waking the Dreamer.”