World of Warcraft: The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm Page 0,129
with Cairne and Jaina. You live what you believe, even if you didn’t understand it until you underwent the vision quest. You are not a power-hungry child seeking a new, better challenge. You are striving to do what is best for your people—all of them. Not just orc, or Horde, but you even want what is best for your rivals. You want,” she said, and placed a brown hand flat on the earth in a loving gesture, “what is best for your world.”
“I am not sure that what I have done is best for it,” Thrall admitted quietly. “If I had stayed—”
“Then you would not have learned what you have.”
“Cairne would be alive. And so would the tauren who lived in Thunder Bluff and—”
Her hand shot out and gripped his arm, the nails digging angrily into the flesh. “What you have learned could save everything. Everything!”
“Or nothing,” Thrall said. He did not pull his arm back, instead watched as blood began to seep from beneath her nails.
“You chose possibility over certainty. The possibility of success over certain defeat. If you had done nothing, then you would not have been a warchief. You would have been a coward, unworthy of such an honor.” Her face hardened slightly. “But if you want to wallow? Cry, ‘Poor Go’el, woe is me’? Then by all means do so. But you will have to do it without me.”
She began to rise. Thrall caught her wrist, and she glared at him.
“What did you mean?”
“I meant, if you choose the path of self-pity over action, that you would prove my change of heart to be wrong. And I would not go back to Azeroth with you.”
He tightened his grip on her wrist. “You … were planning on returning with me? Why?”
Emotions flitted across her face, and finally Aggra blurted, “Because, Go’el, I found that I did not wish to be apart from you. But it seems I was wrong, because you are not what I thought you were. I will not go with one who—”
He pulled her down into his arms and crushed her to him. “I would have you come with me. Walk with me wherever this path may take us. I have grown used to your voice letting me know when I am wrong, and … I like to hear it when you speak gently. It would pain me, to not have you near. Will you come? Be at my side?”
“To—advise you?”
He nodded, his cheek resting against the top of her head. “To be my wisdom, as Air, my steadiness, as Earth …” He took a deep breath. “And my passion and my heart, as Fire and Water. And if you would have it so, I would be these things to you.”
He felt her trembling in his embrace: she, Aggra, strong and courageous. She pulled back a little and laid her hand on his chest, her eyes searching his. “Go’el, as long as you have this great heart to lead—and to love—then know that I will go with you to the ends of any world and beyond.”
He placed a hand on her cheek, green skin against brown, then leaned forward slowly to rest his forehead gently against hers.
THIRTY-TWO
The funereal cloth in which High Chieftain Cairne Bloodhoof had been lovingly wrapped was exquisite. It had been woven in the hues of the Earth Mother—tans and browns and greens.
As was traditional among the tauren, the dead were cremated with ceremony and ritual. The bodies were placed atop a pyre, and a raging fire was lit beneath them. The ashes would fall to the earth; the smoke would rise to the sky. Earth Mother and Sky Father would thus both welcome the honored dead, and An’she and Mu’sha would witness their passing.
Thrall wore, as he almost always did, the armor that the late Orgrim Doomhammer had bequeathed to him. Its weight hindered him somewhat, and Thrall was forced to climb slowly atop a ridge so he could be on the same level as the body and look at what remained of Cairne with vision made blurry because of tears.
Thrall had rushed back to Azeroth. He and Aggra had met briefly with Baine, and Thrall had requested some time alone with Cairne. The request had been granted. Later there would be long conversations, and planning, and preparations. But for now Thrall sat near his old friend for a long time, while the sun made its languid path across the blue sky of Mulgore. Finally Thrall took a deep breath