than his father, Tiffin helped Varian become the king the people loved.
And yet . . .
Varian struggled to keep the memory away, but could not.
And yet . . . the people were the very ones who killed her.
She lay dead at his feet, slain during a riot. An innocent victim of a time when everything had gone mad. Reliving it, Varian nearly slipped back into his darkness . . . but that would have been the ultimate disdain for his beloved. Tiffin had made of him a better man, a worthy leader. Varian finally saw that he had constantly insulted her memory with his later actions. Tiffin would have never acted as he had. She had always forgiven, always sought to do her best for those she loved.
If Varian hoped to redeem himself to her memory, he would have to do the same.
Varian steeled himself against the images of her death, doing instead what he knew she would have hoped of him. He was right to grieve, but he also had to move on . . . and learn. Most of all, he could continue to learn from her life, use it as the example of how he should confront all of the issues he continued to face as a father, man, and monarch. . . .
Balance . . .
Again the voice startled him, this time because he heard not only his own voice, but also that of Tiffin. Varian imagined her again, only this time with the culmination of their love held in her arms.
Anduin . . .
Anduin was all that he had left of family, the most precious member of all, for in the boy was his mother. For the years that they had been together before Varian’s vanishing, he had tried to be the father Llane had been. Without Tiffin it had been difficult, but Varian recalled times when he and Anduin had laughed together.
He also recalled the fear that he had felt so often when something had threatened his only child. Indeed, fear for Anduin had driven much of Varian’s later life. He now stood as himself, watching his son, then but three, fall from a pony and almost break an arm. Varian again did battle with an assassin who had snuck into the keep and, in what had too much even then reminded the king of his own father’s death, nearly stabbed young Anduin.
Fear . . . Varian refused to give in to it anymore. Fear would only make him helpless against those things that threatened his son and his kingdom. Merely thinking of all those who might harm Anduin was enough to throw Varian into a rage, just as it had so many times prior. However, even as his anger rose, he again saw himself grabbing Anduin’s arm . . . and was suddenly reminded how that rage and the fear fueling it had sent Anduin from him.
With that realization, Varian turned on his own rage. Where it had in the past always commanded him, now he sought to seize control of it. His rage could be a powerful, devastating force, and Varian saw that simply giving in to it did him little good overall and usually more harm in the long run. True, it aided him greatly during battle—the only time when he could truly unleash it—but beyond that, it was a double-edged weapon.
But although the rage no longer commanded him, it also did not abate. Varian felt the struggle within himself. If he allowed the rage to grow, he accomplished nothing, he realized. He would be the same man that Anduin had left.
And so, Varian held tight to the rage as if it were a horse needing to be broken, and worked to master it. It would no longer aid in further ruining his life; it would have purpose. Varian knew only one purpose too. If battle was the single place where his rage did him any good, then it would be where he would channel that force. He would let it fuel his strength against the dragon Deathwing and the orcs and their allies. . . .
The rage surrendered to his will. He had broken its hold over him and now it would serve Varian, not the other way around.
Tranquility . . . balance . . . fury . . . came the voice that was his . . . and now also that of someone whom he did not recognize even though he felt he should.
The beast must be conquered