The journey from Northdale to Alterac had been an uneasy one, mostly due to the intimidating and rather important looking escorts. Nevertheless, the excitement traveling for the first time had made up for the minor dread and made the trip at least bearable.

Alterac was a dour, gray land, accented by the shiny armor of Alliance soldiers. At least they didn’t look as scary as the escorts, which was of some strange comfort. Alterac City was an even grayer place, with holes in its walls and its people skittering about like scared mice. After days of traveling, reaching the destination felt anticlimactic.

But then they reached the palace, where a familiar figure waited for them with a bright smile.

“Ma. Pa.” Kyle was dressed casually and eagerly walked over to greet them, hugging his parents, who in turn matched the gesture with similar affection. The hugging didn’t last too long, and as ever, he saved a portion of his attention for the third member of the family.

“Kallum,” he greeted with a grin, and Kallum only had a second to brace himself before his big brother swooped in to tussle his hair. The younger boy had learned long ago to put up with this annoying form of affection. It didn’t help Kallum’s embarrassment that there were people in armor and robes watching the whole thing, but he endured the ordeal as best as he could.

Finally, Kyle’s hand lifted off Kallum’s head and he stepped back. “How was your trip?”

“It was nice,” Ma answered with a soft smile. “Though you needn’t have gotten us…guards. We could’ve made it here ourselves, dear.”

Kyle shrugged. “It was my master’s decision to send his people.” He then glanced over to the men and women in violet tabards to give them a nod of thanks, and then returned his attention back to his family. “Anyway, welcome to Alterac. It needs some work, but it should make for a good home. I’ll show you around, and let you pick your rooms.”

“Is that…wise?” Pa asked with a slightly worried frown.

Again there was a shrug. “This whole place was meant to house an extended family, so there’ll be more than enough rooms.” Kyle tossed a knowing grin at Kallum’s way. “There’s even two rooms at least for indoor martial training.”

The boy’s eyes went wide with excitement at that, ignoring his parents’ sudden spike of concern. “Really?”

“Yep. Rooms full of weapons and armor and practice dummies… Oh, don’t worry, Pa. Kallum will be supervised.”

“I hope so,” came the overly gruff reply, and Kallum found his dream of becoming a knight a lot less fantastical.

Kyle led them on a tour of the palace after that, and Kallum was free to ogle at the shininess of his surroundings. It was all far more than he had imagined, especially compared to a farmstead. The biggest thing for him was the complete absence of manure in the air right up until they neared the stables. The air was colder here, but that only enhanced the palace interior’s pristineness in Kallum’s mind.

The bedrooms were about twice as large as their whole home back in Northdale, and true to Kyle’s words there were two barn-sized halls that had racks upon racks of weapons and armor. None of the stuff were small enough for Kallum to wield right now, so they instead became a goal for the boy to reach, a greater motivation to quickly get to training.

“So, uh, do we have to call you ‘your highness’ now?” Pa asked suddenly as they exited the throne room.

“Nah. Just call me like you used to. You’re all technically royalty as well anyway.”

Kallum didn’t know why his parents were uncomfortable at hearing that, but he was ready to jump for joy. He was a prince now! And he’d get to learn how to use swords and shields! And ride a warhorse!

Kyle slowed to a halt and suddenly turned to Ma. “Uh, Ma? No pressure, but do you happen to know any details about my…the bastard?”

Pa tensed up a bit while Ma seemed to grow anxious. “I…why do you ask, Kyle?”

“I was just wondering if he’d have something like secret rooms and tunnels and such. Considering that, you know…”

Her anxiety lifted a little at the reply. “I see. I’m afraid I wasn’t shown any of those.”

“Ah, welp. It was worth a try.”

They finished the tour by the afternoon and took a break for a very, very hearty lunch (they had more than two types of meat!), and then for some reason Kyle personally showed his parents to a particular privy chamber. They were confused as well, until he pointed out something to them and then Ma was grinning like a maniac. She promptly chased everyone out and made use of the toilet after that, cackling in a manner that amused Kyle and Pa.

Kallum had a peek of what his parents had seen, but his young mind still didn’t understand the significance of having the portrait and bust of a man stuck at the bottom of the privy’s hole, other than it being a rude thing to do.

*****

“It was well timed,” Vasyrgos remarked as he watched Kyle interact with his family from a scrying portal. “That should get the thoughts of violence out of the boy’s mind for a bit.”

“A purely fortunate coincidence that they arrived when they did,” Korialstrasz replied not too coldly beside him. “But yes, this has the added benefit of incentivizing Kyle to properly tend this land.”

The blue dragon turned to the red one with a fanged smirk. “Ever the master manipulator, eh?”

Korialstrasz dipped his head in some embarrassment. “It is...a habit I am trying to wean out of,” he actually admitted, surprising Vasyrgos. “But Kyle does deserve some ease of mind having his family here.”

“And it saves on resources having them all here, I bet.”

“Quite.”

From within the privacy of Vasyrgos’ pocket dimension they watched as Kyle introduced his family to Halion, Pelton and Lora, and Vasyrgos couldn’t help feeling some amusement at watching Kyle’s younger brother charge at the dwarf almost immediately and swamp her with a storm of questions. His thoughts threatened to turn back to exuberant dragon whelps zipping about in icy caverns, but the flashback was quickly crushed before the claws of mourning could grab at his emotions again.

“On to other matters,” Vasyrgos decided, changing the target of the scrying portal to bring up a different scene. Or rather, different scenes. The view split into four even sections, each showing one of the four regents of Alterac moping or brooding elsewhere in the palace. “You’re not going to clear off these humans?”

“The time is not right for their expulsion, not without drawing undue suspicion. Besides, Kyle will be headed back to Dalaran soon enough.”

The blue dragon grumbled at that. “It’s a shame their disruption to the lessons have been so tolerable so far.”

“Pelton and Halion have been very effective at distracting them,” Korialstrasz replied with an undertone of smugness. “Even with the fact that they’ll be leaving along with Kyle, the added work they’ve saddled on the regency council will ensure that Kyle need not worry too much about losing control of his kingdom.”

That was good enough news. Though… “Huh… So you’re really gonna make the boy a mage-king? I thought humans especially had biases against such a thing?”

The red dragon shrugged. “It is worth a try. The enslavement of my queen had revealed major vulnerabilities in affairs of mortal kingdoms. Their prejudice towards magic have hampered their effectiveness against the more esoteric weapons of the Horde, so if-”

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“Korialstrasz. Vasyrgos.”

Both dragons jumped and immediately snapped their heads towards a space they were certain was once empty. Now however a vast dragon, almost larger than Korialstrasz and Vasyrgos combined, filled the space. And contrasting from their coloration, burnished bronze scales covered her.

Both dragons relaxed their guard as they recognized the intruder. “Soridormi,” Vasyrgos identified, half confused and half annoyed. “How did you get in here?” One didn’t just let themselves into pocket dimensions.

The prime consort of Nozdormu, Aspect of Time, gave him an expressionless, almost aloof glance. “I entered before you closed the entrance.”

“But there was no one th-”

Vasyrgos caught the last words as he remembered what his bronze cousins could do: As the guardians of time itself, the members of the bronze dragonflight were gifted with temporal magic.

“Right. You shifted yourself through time and space at the right moment and slipped in…?” he speculated with irritation.

Soridormi nodded her head once. “A little reductive, but simply put, yes.”

“What brings you here, Soridormi?” Korialstrasz politely asked. If Vasyrgos wasn’t so annoyed about completely missing her sudden appearance, he’d be deferential too. His annoyance melted away though when the bronze dragon fixed them both with a serious look.

“I’ve come bearing a warning: Be careful with how you tread around the human Kyle Daelam.”

It sounded more of a threat than a warning to Vasyrgos, but he was too taken aback by the fact that he was hearing such a thing in the first place. As guardians of time, the bronze dragonflight took their duties very seriously. From what he understood, they rarely interfered with its flow except for the direst of circumstances, and rare indeed was it for them to dole out warnings of something or someone considering the events that they’ve passively watched unfold over the millenia. From Deathwing’s fall and repeated reappearances, to the demonic incursions and the Horde invasion, the bronze dragonflight had allowed such things to pass.

Rarer still was their warning when one remembered that they could simply avert said issue from happening in the first place by amending the flow of the past.

The more Vasyrgos thought about it, the more disturbed he was.

“You could’ve told us before we took the boy in,” he dryly remarked, earning a glare of contempt from Soridormi.

“We have only managed to stabilize a great disruption that threatened existence,” she snapped back. “Matters are fragile as is without further risking the temporal fabric.”

While Vasyrgos reeled from the larger dragon’s wrath, Korialstrasz took over the conversation. “Kyle is the cause of this?” he queried, not bothering to mask his unease.

Soridormi shook her head with irritation. “In all honesty, we are still unsure. But more likely, he is a byproduct of the disruption. My lord Nozdormu is still investigating the matter.”

Both blue and red dragons were frowning at the explanation. “That sounds…severe. Should we have a…private conversation with Kyle?”

Once more the bronze shook her head. “You are free to do so if you two wish to. For the time being, until more can be ascertained about the nature of the disruption, the bronze dragonflight has been ordered to avoid Kyle Daelam.”

“Is that truly wise?”

Soridormi turned to the scrying portal and reached out with a forelimb. The scene reverted back to Kyle and his family, now taking a leisurely walk in the garden.

“What do you see?” she asked softly.

“Humans…?” Vasyrgos ventured.

Soridormi let out a soft sigh before she closed her eyes. “This is what I see.” The scrying portal shivered, and the scene within took on a sepia tint. Both blue and red dragons gasped.

Kyle was not there. In his place was a shifting void, with vivid white arcs of light lashing out at the red-brown environment. The boy’s family obliviously walked alongside the hole in reality, leaving disturbing afterimages. Those of Kyle’s parents morphed from aging gracefully to putrefying and then shambling along as walking corpses. The image echoes left by his younger brother flickered between a proud knight, a decrepit vagrant, and a mutilated lump of meat.

It was the same for Kyle’s immediate environment. The garden shifted between leaking magma, blooming vibrantly, or glowing a sickly green, while the castle rose into a gleaming stronghold and fell into ruin. Everything was in a constant state of change.

No, the future of everything was in a constant state of change.

With his annoyance and surprise gone Vasyrgos tore his gaze away from the scrying portal and finally noticed just how…worn the prime consort looked. She looked like she had just escaped a great century-long battle. Soridormi let out a slow, heavy sigh before opening her eyes and fixing them both with a tired but severe look.

“My lord Nozdormu has allowed me to offer you a glimpse of the danger that is faced: The future is in flux; we cannot ascertain a growing swathe of what is soon to come.”

Her voice dropped to a soft, fearful whisper. “We’ve lost near total control of the far future. The few islands of certainties that are left are at risk of being torn apart by the currents of causality.”

“Wait…” he growled with a rising dread. “When you say you’ve lost control of time…?”

Soridormi offered a lopsided smirk. “Typical of a bluescale. Temporal magic remains largely stable enough for the time being, so long as it does not draw too far into the future. The sands of time still flows, it merely joins a growing sandstorm as it leaves the present. As such, any sort of divination is wholly unreliable.”

The bronze dragon rose up, drawing up a reserve of inner resolve. “The other Aspects and their allies are being notified, as are those allies that are deemed relevant to such information.” She inclined her head a little towards Korialstrasz. “Our agents will also be briefing the relevant individuals in Quel’Thalas and the Kirin Tor. Kyle’s link to the temporal disruption will be omitted for the time being, to avoid unnecessary tampering.”

Vasyrgos huffed. “If he’s directly linked to the event, shouldn’t you take him in? Confine him for study, at the very least?”

Soridormi looked conflicted. “Some within our flight have suggested that, but others have countered that being connected with the anomaly as he is, trying to impede the human might only serve to worsen the situation… Like blocking a mana spring along a leyline.”

Her analogy helped hammer home the potentially perilous nature that Kyle had become, and Vasyrgos felt the blood chill in his veins.

“Is this a theory Nozdormu agrees with?” his red-scaled colleague inquired, earning a pained nod from Soridormi.

“Kyle Daelam might be an unwitting victim or a catalyst. He will be allowed to carry on with his life. With any luck, some clues can be gleaned into his connection with the temporal disruption. Until then, as dragons closest to him, Nozdormu, the Guardian of Time, has asked that you be mindful about how you guide him. And should the time come, should the human be found to be more than just a byproduct of the disruption, you might be tasked to rectify the issue.”

Vasyrgos turned back to the scrying portal, now reverted to its original, colorful state. He stared at Kyle sharing smiles with his family for a moment. Then he turned to a stunned Korialstrasz.

“So, are either of us going to tell him?”