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War has made you strange bedfellows.
Your common enemies have made you allies among old enemies, enemies you no longer considered your enemies; because the fighting between them all seemed so infantile now—could they not see what was at stake, here? Could they not see how the fabric of reality could unwind with the tugging of a single thread? And Xal'atath is stealing multiple threads, carefully plucked to weave into a tapestry of her very own. Your master warns you of her practiced hands—what has been done to one world will be done to yours in time, and each day your methods of forestalling her only seem to draw you more ire from your husband, more confusion from your son.
(He does not know you, not really—though he was of your blood and body you left him so soon after he scarcely recognized you upon return, that longed for reunion souring in your memory as he stiffened in your arms. Oh, Mother, it is you...)
War has made you strange bedfellows. Your enemy runs beneath the crust of the world, to the domain of the dwarves and gnomes and goblins.
Into the goblins' most sacred house, their Undermine.
War has made you strange bedfellows. Monte Gazlowe was by all rights your enemy.
Well, he had a tired look to him. You had a hard time placing his age—he could have been anywhere between thirty and three hundred. You know what they say. The enemy of my enemy.
At the rocket station they ask for papers you do not have.
The shadows flicker at the edges of your vision. The corners of the room grow darker. You imagine doing horrible, terrible things to the goblin in front of you, with her cake-face and too-tall heels. "You need papers to be here, honey," she tells you, over and over, in a slow, soft voice like she's speaking to a child. "I can't let you through without 'em."
Does she not understand? Does she not understand what is at stake? Xal'atath is here. "I need through. There is something terrible loose in your city—"
"I got 'em." Your savior, Monte Gazlowe, parts the crowd that has been slowly gathering around you and the customs agent. He waves a sheaf of papers over his head, about the height of your waist, and then hands them to the agent. She barely thumbs through them.
"Okay, honey," she says with syrupy condescension. "You're free to go! Welcome to Undermine!"
The Bilgewater Cartel's presence within the city is vanishingly little. Your base of operations becomes a large hotel at the heart of the city. The windows are large and the lobby spacious, but the beds are too small for you, and rooms smell of mildew.
Gazlowe takes you to a small restaurant hidden away in an alleyway. From here, you can only catch a sliver of Undermine's artificial sun. He buys the two of you greasy burgers and fries, and then takes you out on the patio to eat.
"Your people don't seem to have much of a presence here." You were not expecting that. You aren't sure what you were expecting. You know nothing of goblin culture or politics.
"Yeah, well, no one leaves Undermine if they're popular," he says dismissively.
"So you weren't popular."
He scoffs. "Hardly."
You sense you may have touched a nerve. He had a screaming match with Reznik, up in the Ringing Deeps where he thought you could not hear, I'm not going back there! We're here today because we got out when we did! There's no fixin' that place!
So what, we just let Gallywix win? Gonna go back out there and tell Alleria it's over because you're too pussy to go face your past?
They yelled a bit more after that, but you stopped listening. This was too personal—their problems were not your problems. All you needed was an in—once you were in Undermine, you would have a shot at stopping Xal'atath.
When you followed him to the small, ramshackle building the local branch of the Bilgewater Cartel called home, the doorman nearly sobbed. Gazlowe, you're back!
"You seem popular enough."
A grunt. "To the right people. Not so much to everyone else."
He doesn't want to be here and yet he is. Because if he told you no, he'd be too pussy to face his past. When the doorman started to cry, he took her in his arms and swore, I'm here to fix it, I promise.
He's too kind, you realize. It's always in short-supply and you're afraid you have too little of it. Seeing it in action makes you feel strange, the depth and breadth of this goblin man's kindness. What you were doing was for the good of Azeroth, but Gazlowe—
You sit back and eat your fries. War has made you strange bedfellows.
When there is an explosion he digs you out.
Xal'atath set a trap and you all fell for it, hook line and sinker. She led you into a trap, and you still were not perceptive enough to smell the rat poison mixed into the feed.
The rubble should be no match for you, not now, not as you are. With a flex of the shadow lurking behind your eyes and at your back you would phase and be free of the rock, but green hands reach you before you come to your senses. Small hands dig you out, and pull you free. Small hands reach your hands, and help you to your feet.
"That was some explosion. Are you all good?"
Monte Gazlowe must crane his neck to look at you.
"Oh, you're bleedin'. Here—"
A handkerchief is offered. You take it without thinking. You do not know where you are bleeding.
The fabric of the handkerchief feels oily in your fingers, already smudged with black grease. There is a frayed monogram on one corner, MG.
Something warm trickles down your face. Your temple begins to sting.
Oh.
The cut is dabbed. Your blood dapples the fabric, a touch darker than it used to be. Less red, more maroon.
You keep the handkerchief.
"Alleria?"
War has made you strange bedfellows.
"I have to go."
Xal'atath is gone, and the Dark Heart with her.
"But what about Undermine? We're not done here. Gallywix is still out there—just give me some time and we can—"
"I'm sorry," you say, "I have to go. But thank you for all your help."
What he proposes will take too long. You cannot afford to waste time here, while Xal'atath runs off to further her unknowable schemes.
He will fight for his people. You will fight for Azeroth. War made you strange bedfellows, but this is where you part.
He scoffs. You did hear what he said to Reznik that day, after he accused Gazlowe of being a pussy. Fuck you. Spitting the words like an ancient curse.
His voice sounds like that, again, but pained. "Fine," he says to you. "you're welcome."
Later, in K'aresh, you plunge a hand into your pocket in search of spare string for an arrow and instead come up with a grimy cloth.
It is mostly grey, in some places black, oily to the touch. In some places, it is dotted with your own dark blood. There is a frayed monogram on one corner, MG.
Gazlowe's handkerchief. You never returned it. He never asked for it back.
You're bleeding.
For a moment you consider simply tossing it aside. It was far too dirty to be of any use, you reason. Yet you hesitate. You hold the handkerchief in both hands and try to remember the last time your husband had done the same.
Perhaps you are simply being unfair. You and Turalyon haven't exactly had the time to meet as of late, and he was suffused with the Light. His touch felt like needles, and you cannot imagine your own to be any more pleasant. But you thought you could make it work—told yourself so. You fought by his side for over a thousand years, a dozen human lifetimes and he loved you all the same. But his first look after you stood in the tainted Naaru's light, that knowing look, the sense that something had changed, the horror; What have you done?
What have you done?
(You abandoned your son. You abandoned your husband. You abandoned those hopeful goblins to their nasty little city where they would continue to squabble away and you—you would save the planet, you would save Azeroth and Gazlowe does not understand, none of them understand—)
(The doorman's face is hard, with a deep-set frown that crumbles the instant her eyes land on Gazlowe. You're back! She cries, like a girl, Gazlowe, you're back!
He gives her a hug. I'm back. I'm staying. I'm here to fix it, I promise.)
You turn your face up to K'aresh's swirling purple sky. Hardly a sky, really, more of an open wound to the howling aetheric winds of the Twisting Nether, upon which the planet's remains float.
A fate this world shared with Draenor, though the circumstances that led it there were different. A fate Azeroth might share, if you should fail on your quest.
You consider the handkerchief again, and tuck it back in your pocket. Perhaps, if you succeed, you could return it.