"In the End, Treason is a Matter of Dates." [langauge]
"You're troubled."
"I am."
It was an understatement. He seethed. Silence hung between warlock and drake for a long moment.
"What's troubling you, then?"
"What isn't, Lyr?"
The drake pressed his scaly lips into a taut line. "Don't snap at me. I'm your ride down."
Oriseus shook his head irritibly. "You've p-picked up contractions well."
"Don't change the subject."
More silence. Lyrasz curled his tail around his feet and stretched a wing out to shield his working partner from the wind tugging at the both of them. A thousand feet up it's everpresent, but the view of Nagrand is nonpariel from its floating islands.
It's hard to be cross with someone who's keeping you warm and, literally, sheltered. The warlock made a grumbling noise. "How th-the fuck did I get t-tangled up with a b-bunch of spies and traitors and r-reprobates," he snorted - more an annoyed statement than question.
"Suffering a fit of patriotism, then?"
"I w-would appreciate it," Ori said crisply, "if y-you would refrain f-from sounding so am-m-mused or m-making what remains of my morality s-sound like an inc-convenience."
The drake rumbled, trying very hard not to say something to the effect of, "You mean to say that it isn't?" Perhaps it was already implicit.
"You make a good show of remaining open-minded about the company you keep elsewhere," Lyr remarked instead.
"W-well maybe it d-does bother me," the warlock snorted. "I've d-duties to uphold to my people still."
Lyr gave his wingbrother a sidelong look. "'Your people' being...?"
Ori's jaw clenched. He'd done enough chewing on his tongue-piercing for one day; the last thing he needed was broken teeth. Damn him, but it was a good question. Some days he wasn't sure.
Below them, the Mag'har hunted and gathered and asked the spirits for their blessings. They sought the counsel of their matriarch, as they would continue to do until her failing health finally gave out and she joined the ancestors. The warlock and his paladin lover were guests still when they came to Garadar: honoured guests, but never part of the clan, nor would the elves ask to be considered such.
"You live here," the dragon pressed on, "but when you ask me to take you home, this isn't where you mean."
Their island - not this tiny vantage-point, but the huge chunk of land suspended in the Nether above Oshu'gun - and the house Khaavren had built for them with his own hands - that was home.
And yet.
When he told his wingbrother, "Take me home," he didn't mean Nagrand, nor did he mean the brilliant gem of Quel'thalas that had been all he'd known until a few brief years ago. The Mag'har were not and could never be his people. The sin'dorei had....
Everything since they became sin'dorei had been fucking ridiculous. He couldn't stomach walking through the streets he'd grown up in anymore, much less being around the city's inhabitants. No.
"Fuck Silvermoon."
Belated he realised he'd said it aloud, when Lyrasz made a harrumphing noise of disapproval for the profanity.
"You've left that nation behind too, then, haven't you," the drake rumbled. Damn him, but it was a good point.
The warlock could only shrug. "G-guess so."
"Then if you're working towards the same goals," Lyr said, long spine flexing, "it would seem you're among kindred spirits."
The next few words out of the warlock's mouth were quite rude, and the dragon pointed this fact out.
"D-don't lecture m-me. Warlocks c-curse. It's p-part of the job description." Oriseus did not allow Lyr the opportunity to make a semantic argument. "En-nough. Take me home."
The drake unwound his sinuous body, all crimson brilliance laced with black and gold, and lowered his neck. "Undercity, then?"
Ori had to think for a second or two.
"No," he murmured. "Oshu'gun. T-take me home to m-my paladin."
Lyrasz smiled very faintly. One takes small victories where one can get them, these days.