The Brother-In-Laws Arthas and Neltharion

"Calia..." Neltharion said, waving his claw around, searching for her.

"She is not here," said a strange, echoing, hallow voice.

Neltharion turned his head, his eyes still closed.  Once more he let loose a small, weak whimper, pawing the air for something to reach out and touch him.  He felt two hands upon the upper parts of his forelegs.  His body lifting up off the floor.  Whoever it was, he drew Neltharion near him.  The Black Aspect could feel an icy breath upon him.  

"Open your eyes, brother-in-law," said the voice.

Neltharion lifted his brow, but his eyes remained tightly shut.

"Open your eyes," the voice commanded.  

He slowly began to open his eyes, almost feeling it to be a strain just doing so.  Despite his body healing, Neltharion felt very weak.  His head dipped to one side, hanging there limply upon his shoulder.  He barely could lift his arms.  His wings still drooped upon the floor, draping out like a wrinkly, leather shroud behind him.  His tail dangled loosely, the elementium blade scraped along the stone floor.  His vision was blurry, he could not make out the strange blob holding him up.  

"Who...who are you?" Neltharion asked.

"You do not recognize the sound of my voice, Daval?"

Neltharion's eyes slowly began to clear and the face in front of him slowly came into view.  The man was a human, with a very pale, deathly purple face.  His hair was white.  He was dressed in plate and chainmail, skulls decorated the armor.  A black cape fell over his shoulders.  A crooked smile drew a thin line across his mouth.  Though, what caught Neltharion's attention was the man's eyes.  They were the most intense blue-green he had ever seen.  They looked much like Calia's.  Neltharion's jaw began to work, opening and closing as he stared into those eyes.  There was only one other human he knew had eyes like that.

"Arthas?" Neltharion asked.

He could feel the icy grip of the death knight's hands upon his scales.  He shivered through his spine, causing the elementium plates to clank against each other as they vibrated.  Neltharion looked around him.  The chamber was black, made of the cold sardonite, blood of Yogg-Saron.  He could hear the strange whispers of the Old God chiming through the walls and the floor, but the whispers were faint, indistinguishable to him.  His new found immunity to the whispers of the Old Gods kept them nothing more than whispers, barely even hearing what they had to say.  Though, even then, the constant whispering could drive one mad without the fortitude to ignore them.  

Arthas hefted Neltharion up with unreal strength, dragging him towards an icy pillar in the center of the chamber.  The whole room looked almost devoid of color, as cold as Arthas' heart.  Arthas lowered Neltharion upon a slab of ice.  The dragon could not fight back against the death knight, his strength still lost to him.  He raised a gloved hand to Neltharion's face, feeling behind his long, black beard.  The dragon shrank back from Arthas' touch.

"Tell me, Prestor," Arthas began. "What did it feel like to leech upon my father's mind, make him bend to your will like that?  To manipulate everyone you came in contact with...with only a glance and a smile?  How could we fall for your charms?"  He touched the other side of Neltharion's face, feeling along the scaly bumps of his chin. "The power over lesser minds you wielded."  He grabbed hold of the dragon's lower jaw, pulling him up. "You tricked my father into allow you to marry my sister.  You sewed the seeds of my father's fall.  In a way I have to thank you for it, dear brother."

"Thank me?" Neltharion asked. "Why would you thank me?"

"You, through your machinations, Deathwing," began Arthas. "Brought about all of this."  He raised his hand to the cold air. "The Alliance fighting each other, not seeing the true threat, breaking apart and allowing the Scourge in.  Which brings me here."

"I had nothing to do with your choice, Arthas!" Neltharion pulling away from the death knight. "You pulled that sword out of its icy prison.  You heeded the call of Ner'zhul."

"I swore that I would find a way to protect my kingdom at all costs," said Arthas. "I never knew that my kingdom was in danger until my sister gave birth to something rather...interesting."

"Our child," said Neltharion.  He recalled the day Calia told him about the child.  A half dragon, half human hybrid.  She described the baby as being covered in black scales, with fangs, stubby wings, and a stubby tail.  When the baby was taken away, Calia stated that it was Arthas who took it and then killed it.  It was their child, Calia's and Neltharion's.  Their first child...their only child.

"Who knows what else could have risen if the Alliance became weakened," said Arthas. "You left a gap in the Alliance when you disappeared, Prestor.  A gap that the Scourge later filled.  Your tactics were different, but the result was the same.  Everything fell into chaos, just like you wanted.  I realized then if one powerful entity could take down all my father built up, another could just as well...very easily."

"Don't blame the Scourge's attacking Lordaeron upon me," said Neltharion. "Nor your actions in Stratholme."  He lowered his head, breathing heavily. "Damn it, I'm talking to a ghost!  Or an illusion...you're dead!  And not the moving kind either." He took in a deep breath, lifting his head up again and leaned upon his elbows. "Arthas, why are you here?"

"We are all determined to do what is necessary to protect those who we love," said Arthas. "Protect those who need our protection whether they realize it or not.  Even if that means we go to great lengths and commit acts of horrible malice upon a few to save the others."

Neltharion leaned up upon his haunches, looking sternly at his late brother-in-law.

"I know what I did," he said. "I know the actions I went to, the lengths, I went to in order to protect my world.  And it drove me to madness.  Just as your actions drove you to your madness." His eyes narrowed. "I can no longer lay blameless for what I have done.  Alternate personality be damned, I cannot live without paying for my sins.  But you never came to that conclusion.  You still believed what you did was right, even in your death, you gave no admittance you were even sorry!"

Arthas turned away, slowly waving his hand in the air.  

"You and I make an interesting family," he said.  A rush of air swirled around him.  Neltharion brought his wings around his body, shielding himself from the piercing, stinging cold.  Once more, his body trembled and his plates rattled with every shake.  Neltharion clinched his teeth tightly.

"Family?"

"Both of us, sacrificing our very sanity for the destruction of all that threatens us," he replied. "But now, someone else follows in our footsteps.  You've seen it in her eyes."

He once more smirked when he heard the dragon's growling huff.  Noxious smoke escaped Neltharion's nostrils.

"That determination," began Arthas as the swirl of air coalesced into a rippling image.  Neltharion slid off of the icy table.  His head felt heavy as he attempted to lift his great body up.  Arthas looked back to him. "Our determination."

Neltharion looked upon the vision before him, seeing a human female shuffle through the streets of Stormwind.  The city was on fire.  Neltharion watched as she came to a Twilight cultist, driving her daggers into his chest without paying any heed to the calls of innocents crying out for her help.  

"Calia?" he asked.

"What have you done to my sister?" asked Arthas.

Neltharion's wings gripped his body tightly, the digits squeezing in desperation to keep what little heat he had left inside of him trapped.  He looked away from the vision before him, his wife continuing to slaughter any and all Twilight Hammers she could find.  His black scales looked pale, cold, as a growing frost began to cover them.  Neltharion closed his eyes tightly.  He usually could withstand such extreme temperatures, no matter hot or cold.  There was something about the chill that drove deep inside of him.  He could feel the molten core that kept him alive, solidify as the cold over took him..  He raised a claw, noticing his movements were sluggish.  

"What are you doing to me?" Neltharion asked.

"Don't like the cold?" Arthas asked.

"I don't!" the dragon bellowed, his voice echoing off the tall walls.

"Determination," said Arthas. "Yours, mine, and Cali's.  No, it is desperation.  What have you done to my sister?"

"I don't understand the question," Neltharion replied, his head stiffening as he moved it back towards Arthas.  His tail coiled around his body and his shoulders haunched up.  He could feel every joint in his body aching as they froze solid.

"Think on it, Prestor," said Arthas. "But do not take too long.  I just might have a new dragon statue to decorate here."

Neltharion lowered his head stiffly down.  He felt it lock to his neck and he could not move it another inch.  Arthas walked around the large, Black Dragon, laying a hand upon the shoulder of his wing.  He leaned closer to Neltharion's head, pulling down on a horn.  Neltharion felt his neck begin to move, the scales cracking as he drew closer to Arthas.  His claws clinched up.  He bit his lower lip.  His heart pounded against his chest, trying to pump the solidifying magma inside of him.  His breath became shallow, wheezing as he breathed.  Neltharion desperately gasped for air.  

"So...cold..." Neltharion said in a shutter.

"Desperation," said Arthas.  "Look how desperate you are.  Clinging onto life as it slowly begins to freeze over."

Frost formed tiny crystals upon Neltharion's eyelashes.  His green eyes began to slowly gloss over with the growing ice.  He blinked, feeling the crystals painfully scrape across his inner lids.

"Answer my question, Prestor," said Arthas.

Neltharion felt a tear drip from his lid, only to freeze instantly upon his cheek.  His sight becoming cloudy with the ice.  

"I...don't understand the question..." the Earth-Warder repeated.

"The cold will give you clarity," said Arthas.  He lifted one of Neltharion's braids.  The braid snapped, breaking off like a shard of volcanic glass. "You better hurry.  You do not have much time."

"Stop doing this...to me..." said Neltharion, his voice barely making a sound. "Arthas..."

"Death..." began Arthas. "Is never soothing, is it?  Cold.  Painful.  Scary.  You called yourself Deathwing, and yet, you've never experienced what death is like.  Only delivered death, never experienced it.  Pitiful.  Desperate.  My sister....say the words.  Don't hide them.  And this will all go away."

"She is...desperate!" Neltharion whispered. "Desperate.  Because of me."  He blinked, the shards of ice cutting thin, lines inside his lids. "Desperate.  I...was desperate.  Attacking him, not asking for help.  Not telling anyone about Ultraxion.  I have no one...to blame but...myself.  And it finally bit me in the ass."

"What is she doing?" Arthas asked.

"Revenge for...my mistake..." said Neltharion.  His eyes began to close as he felt the last bit of the cold clutched at his slowing heart. "I am sorry.  The desperation that we have felt...now is upon her.  And she will...fall into the madness that we succumbed to.  My redemption, I thought I could...fix what I have done...it is only more of my selfishness.  My desperation.  Now, it is hers.  I love her, I want to be with her...I don't want her to make the same mistakes I have."  He opened his eyes up.  They were completely white, frosted over. "Or you have.  We are no different.  Different methods, but we are the same.  And we have hurt her because of it...we have hurt them...Calia, Teneras, Onyxia, Sintharia, Nefarian.  We use them, when we need them, we push them away.  We don't deserve them..."

Neltharion felt his body lower to the ground, stiffly laying upon his side.  His wings folded once more around him, wrapping him tightly in a blanket of wrinkled membrane skin.  

"No, we do not," said Arthas.

Neltharion felt the cold air rush against him and he curled up tightly.  He could hear the sound of cracking along his body as it hardened into cold obsidian.  The pain of the chill slowly etched away as his senses numbed again.  He was bathed in darkness.  He closed his eyes again, grateful for the numbing sensation as his body locked up, changing to rock.

We do not deserve them...