He always tried excuses those days, told him there were more important things that needed to be done, but whether or not Varian listened to the mage was up to his whimsy. More often than not, Khadgar found quiet surrender was the only way to be eventually released from the other's grip. Some times, he managed to let his feelings on his appearance go enough to even enjoy it. Just rest his head into the crook of his neck and close his eyes.
Khadgar could understand the need Varian probably felt, the last thing that could be considered hid and the need to make sure the orcs hadn't taken another thing away from him. Some days, he felt that weight, knew the want to simply return to a comfort.
That's why he stops hiding so hard from the newly minted seventeen year old and allows the prince to hold onto him with no excuses or much fuss, as long as he was not truly doing something that needed his attention. Yes, of course there were days where teeth would actually graze an ear or Khadgar would press a careful kiss to the others neck, days where when Khadgar was alone and regretting it, despite being the one who was very adamant on stopping before something more than that comfort happened. He was sure Varian cursed him just as much as Khadgar cursed himself for imposing such a thing.
It would be called Nethergarde Keep, Khadgar had quietly thought thought to himself in a meeting on the funding on the much-needed outpost to watch the Dark Portal.
However, the Archmage had not expected color to saturate even more as he scanned the men gathered. It had shocked him for a few seconds, making his breath stop for a second before he reigned himself in. There was something more important at hand, so he did nothing more than lock eyes with Varian and raise a brow at him. He received a nod back, which he assumed meant it happened for both of them. Looking for those he knew, to make the pool of suspects smaller and rule them out as the reason he could finally understand what the color blue truly was.
The young-old Archmage had spent the rest of the meeting with his heart thundering in his ears as he fought the urge to leave the meeting and drag the Prince out to be the one to push him up against a wall and inspect him in this brighter hue. He knew he couldn't, Varian would be busy and he would need to focus on the task he would have in hand.
He had spent hours after the meeting staring at the sky and wondering if Medivh had known the deep blue littered with white pinpricks of light in the sky. He sat on a hill as the excitement of knowing who his soulmate could be died down and was replaced with realism. They would be so disappointed when they saw him, they would undoubtedly be vaguely concerned when he told them his age. He would be rejected for it, be concluded. He was only twenty-two and his body was of a man thrice his age. Who would truly want that? Beyond the needing prince who sought him for comfort in the war, of course.
It didn't matter in the end. Before the year was out, Khadgar was trapped in Draenor and everything was in grey-tones once more, no saturation of any kind got him. He had reacted badly to it. Dealing with a sharp pain beneath the wolf tattooed on his skin, while trying to muscle through the bitter feelings that had begun to form. It didn't help him that right before him there was a pair of soulmates, still seeing the color of the world and one refused to allow herself it.
Khadgar had snapped at Alleria, using biting words to tell her how much he hated watching the dance and the reason why he held such animosity for the view. He was trapped there, unknowing of who his other soulmate was and left the one he knew behind to find a new way to cope. That he would never get a chance like the one she was so carelessly trying to throw away in fear.
They didn't talk about his explosive response ever again after Khadgar apologized and they found their place in the new world.
He found things to occupy him until the portal was reopened and there was a way to return to Azeroth. He didn't until he was called on by the Kirin Tor. Color exploded -- full color, true color in his vision the moment he had set a foot down, he had to close his eyes and take a sharp breath to calm himself.
Something had happened, he could tell as the colors previous to that had not been this intense and bright. He shook for a few seconds and forces himself to move on. Later, he found himself trembling from the knowledge that Varian and the other were still out there and would be seeing the colors like he had for the first time in their lives. Slumping against a wall, he rubbed at his wet eyes and tried to ignore the hope that bubbled into his chest at the prospect of return to Varian and whomever finally.
Instead of taking the chance to find them, Khadgar returned to the Outland when he was finished with his business and pretended that it was for the best. Only after he steps through the portal and see the scraps of land that were awaiting him, that he decides that he was wrong and needs to go back.
He doesn't hesitate any more.
He finds himself in an inn that looked somewhat familiar in style as the one he had last spent in Stormwind and wonders how long he had before there were guards searching for him and the humming buzz Atiesh gives in his hands makes him laugh gently. What's the worst that could happen?
That night, Khadgar looks himself in the mirror and wondered what Varian would think of him with such a white mass on his face. Without a second thought he shaves it, rubbing his thumb across the cut of a jaw he hadn't seen in years. He has a new set of robes sent for and when those are done, surprisingly fast - he was delighted that they took such a request from a raven even, as if it was not the weirdest thing they've seen in a long shot - and exactly to detail.
He enjoys everything he's shown – the tram and the remains of where the old park had been destroyed. He finds himself directing the heroes of the world - some he knew even from their visits to Shattrath, to how they could fight the new orcs invading their world.
In between these gleeful moments of reacquainting himself with Stormwind, he gleans information on who has died and who remained from that meeting so long ago, from that he narrows it down. He spends nights in the various Libraries all over Stormwind, his neck getting a crick that ached pleasantly in the reminder that he would at least know who he could've – and it will always be a could've – found himself with in another life. It wasn't a smart idea, he remembers Cordana telling him, putting a blanket over his shoulders as she woke him enough to drink some warmed milk before he could settle back down against the wet papers that had been beneath his cheek. It was opening him up to the idea that he could still have such a thing, that the thirty years and the rare spurts of time where color filled their world could have just made them bitter and unwilling to meet him. Khadgar doesn't particularly remember what he said, only that she sighed something about insufferable mages and left him to return to his study.
At one point, he sees Varian himself, strolling through the Dwarven District - closest to the keep and cannot help but wait to see if the now king would recognize him after the years apart. He has his back turned to Varian for only a few seconds before he feels the other's gaze on his back. Slowly, he turns, waving at the other and smiling cheekily as he moved to turn into an alley and turn into a raven. He doesn't stay to see if Varian ran after him, instead he returns back to the Inn in Old Town and moves instead to the one in Goldshire.
He figures out who his other soulmate is when he returns to Stormwind from Goldshire to offer his aid in pushing back the Iron Horde, orcs for the second time in his life.
He doesn't actually fully figure it out until he is sidestepping a Horde rogue who danced their way into the keep to attempt murder upon the king of Stormwind. He smiles gravely, a difference to the more jovial one he had when he fled from the king in a tease of how much harder it was to catch him, and holds the greatstaff in his grip tight.
To the right of Varian he finds a blond boy dressed in blues, purples and golds. The beginning of a pony tail tied back at the nape of his neck flickers as the young holds himself in a defiant way thst denoted who he was. Varian's son, a boy who showed his upbringing well and surmises very easily that the boy is not a warrior or a paladin, a caster - though of holy or arcane is beyond him. He glowed, almost and Khadgar felt the urge to protect that light for another reason completely.
That boy was to be the finest leader Azeroth has ever seen. He smiles a little honestly at the proud boy and it hurts to turn his eyes to the one standing directly to the left.
Though it had been a long time, Khadgar would never forget such an expression in all his life. He remembered the complaining and how his hair had been much less... grey the last time he had seen it. He takes stock in Genn Greymane, the dark left of the king to the brightest light Khadgar had ever seen. He was alive, which surprised him slightly. The King of Gilneas had been in his sixties, if he recalled correctly, he would be well into his eighties at this point. He caught the other's considering look and offered him a polite nod back.
It was then that the intruder took his chance to rush passed the Archmage and had him slightly off balance, when he caught himself Genn Greymane was gone and instead, there was a grey wolf-man wetting his claws with the rogues blood. It was not a pretty sight and when the wolf reared his head back... Khadgar paused. He raised his brow as the other scented the air for any others that may have followed him. When it was deemed fine... well, the wolf flicked droplets of blood back towards the corpse and returned to a more familiar sight.
A shrewd King, who had only been able to see the small picture at the time. His people were above everything else and any other time Khadgar would have found it admirable. But now he knew that the second wolf's head stood for the cursed king. Well, that made quite a bit of sense, he thought. The ache formed just behind his breastbone as he plays his blatant staring off as never seeing a Worgen himself, keeping keeping a straight face. Saying nothing to acknowledge the urge that was building in the base of his spine that screamed for him to go to his soulmates and throw everything else away.
However... it was a hard sell for him to bleep his face straight as Greymane was a complete and utter asshole, but he was his second soulmate.
He wasn't sure how to feel about that, mentally cursing Cordana for being right that it was probably better that he hadn't known who the second one was.
There was no time for him to even think of what the situation could mean for him – for the any of them, even. Not with the orcs knocking at Azeroth's door for a second time - and they were even more organized than previously.
Perhaps he dictated to the King of Stormwind that he would go into the portal to close the breech with others and remain there to offer his guidance and yes he could see the blatant displeasure with him mounting. But he smiled wryly at the king and promised to send for others when the heroes of Azeroth when he was able. The Archmage couldn't help it as he winked at the king and left the thrones room as a raven.
Of course, Khadgar was no stranger to the cost of peace (as he currently viewed being unable to see in color as one, except in short bursts of halt saturation. Though he never knew which half was visiting Draenor.) and could only sigh at what he found in Draenor. It was so different than the world he visited so many years ago - so lush, so green and there were no red skies. It was breath taking.
He makes his tower in Talador and begins to focus on the aid he promised he would provide to the forces of Azeroth to prevail.
More than once, Cordana had called him distracted when he found himself looking in the direction of Tanaan, of the Dark Portal – of Azeroth. She had pitied him sometimes when he did not snap out of it right away, simply setting a hand upon his shoulder and telling him that he should return inside instead of out in the open.
Many times, Khadgar made his mistakes - like asking the Champions for an obscene amount of Apexis crystals, assault at moving train and more than once almost killing them and expecting them to react well... but at least he had at plan. It would cone together, of course.
Eventually.
At least it was going fine up until he annoyed Gul'dan into doing exactly what he wanted. Sadly, it was at an inopportune time as his world was half saturated and Khadgar swore in every language he knew while he wheezed his pain and told Cordana to stitch him up fast and administer some form of antivemom - he had some alchemists do it just in case of an emergency.
He heard a crash from his tower, staring blankly at the unhappy Champion and the smashed vial laying directly in front of her. The woman sneered, scowling an, "oops," out before hearthing.
Astonished, he turned his head to Cordana who had paused her check over the wound to look at him from behind her armor expectantly, "really?" He sighed, closing his eyes once more and focusing on his breathing. "That was the last one."
"You're probably going to die from your own stupidity, Khadgar," Cordana tells him flatly as she sends Champions off alive, smacking Khadgar upside the back of his head when he reminded them to bring Garona back alive.
"If I were to die from anything less than my own stupidity, I would find myself disappointing my dead friends."
"You're going pale," she informed him bluntly before picking him up with little issue to her him at least inside the tower. "Where's your servant?"
"I had given him a vacation after he had delivered so many summons to the Champions and I believe I may not even be able to conjure anything else." Khadgar said, allowing his forehead to press against a shoulder pad as a dizziness took him.
The last thing he heard before passing out was Cordana swearing at him in Darnassian.
The next thing he knew, Khadgar was very aware that he was not in his tower any longer and he felt only mildly sick instead of half dead. Stitches, he recognizes, sliding his hand over the bandages and began to push himself up and off of the cot he was stuck on to find out exactly where he was taken.
no subject
Khadgar could understand the need Varian probably felt, the last thing that could be considered hid and the need to make sure the orcs hadn't taken another thing away from him. Some days, he felt that weight, knew the want to simply return to a comfort.
That's why he stops hiding so hard from the newly minted seventeen year old and allows the prince to hold onto him with no excuses or much fuss, as long as he was not truly doing something that needed his attention. Yes, of course there were days where teeth would actually graze an ear or Khadgar would press a careful kiss to the others neck, days where when Khadgar was alone and regretting it, despite being the one who was very adamant on stopping before something more than that comfort happened. He was sure Varian cursed him just as much as Khadgar cursed himself for imposing such a thing.
It would be called Nethergarde Keep, Khadgar had quietly thought thought to himself in a meeting on the funding on the much-needed outpost to watch the Dark Portal.
However, the Archmage had not expected color to saturate even more as he scanned the men gathered. It had shocked him for a few seconds, making his breath stop for a second before he reigned himself in. There was something more important at hand, so he did nothing more than lock eyes with Varian and raise a brow at him. He received a nod back, which he assumed meant it happened for both of them. Looking for those he knew, to make the pool of suspects smaller and rule them out as the reason he could finally understand what the color blue truly was.
The young-old Archmage had spent the rest of the meeting with his heart thundering in his ears as he fought the urge to leave the meeting and drag the Prince out to be the one to push him up against a wall and inspect him in this brighter hue. He knew he couldn't, Varian would be busy and he would need to focus on the task he would have in hand.
He had spent hours after the meeting staring at the sky and wondering if Medivh had known the deep blue littered with white pinpricks of light in the sky. He sat on a hill as the excitement of knowing who his soulmate could be died down and was replaced with realism. They would be so disappointed when they saw him, they would undoubtedly be vaguely concerned when he told them his age. He would be rejected for it, be concluded. He was only twenty-two and his body was of a man thrice his age. Who would truly want that? Beyond the needing prince who sought him for comfort in the war, of course.
It didn't matter in the end. Before the year was out, Khadgar was trapped in Draenor and everything was in grey-tones once more, no saturation of any kind got him. He had reacted badly to it. Dealing with a sharp pain beneath the wolf tattooed on his skin, while trying to muscle through the bitter feelings that had begun to form. It didn't help him that right before him there was a pair of soulmates, still seeing the color of the world and one refused to allow herself it.
Khadgar had snapped at Alleria, using biting words to tell her how much he hated watching the dance and the reason why he held such animosity for the view. He was trapped there, unknowing of who his other soulmate was and left the one he knew behind to find a new way to cope. That he would never get a chance like the one she was so carelessly trying to throw away in fear.
They didn't talk about his explosive response ever again after Khadgar apologized and they found their place in the new world.
He found things to occupy him until the portal was reopened and there was a way to return to Azeroth. He didn't until he was called on by the Kirin Tor. Color exploded -- full color, true color in his vision the moment he had set a foot down, he had to close his eyes and take a sharp breath to calm himself.
Something had happened, he could tell as the colors previous to that had not been this intense and bright. He shook for a few seconds and forces himself to move on. Later, he found himself trembling from the knowledge that Varian and the other were still out there and would be seeing the colors like he had for the first time in their lives. Slumping against a wall, he rubbed at his wet eyes and tried to ignore the hope that bubbled into his chest at the prospect of return to Varian and whomever finally.
Instead of taking the chance to find them, Khadgar returned to the Outland when he was finished with his business and pretended that it was for the best. Only after he steps through the portal and see the scraps of land that were awaiting him, that he decides that he was wrong and needs to go back.
He doesn't hesitate any more.
He finds himself in an inn that looked somewhat familiar in style as the one he had last spent in Stormwind and wonders how long he had before there were guards searching for him and the humming buzz Atiesh gives in his hands makes him laugh gently. What's the worst that could happen?
That night, Khadgar looks himself in the mirror and wondered what Varian would think of him with such a white mass on his face. Without a second thought he shaves it, rubbing his thumb across the cut of a jaw he hadn't seen in years. He has a new set of robes sent for and when those are done, surprisingly fast - he was delighted that they took such a request from a raven even, as if it was not the weirdest thing they've seen in a long shot - and exactly to detail.
He enjoys everything he's shown – the tram and the remains of where the old park had been destroyed. He finds himself directing the heroes of the world - some he knew even from their visits to Shattrath, to how they could fight the new orcs invading their world.
In between these gleeful moments of reacquainting himself with Stormwind, he gleans information on who has died and who remained from that meeting so long ago, from that he narrows it down. He spends nights in the various Libraries all over Stormwind, his neck getting a crick that ached pleasantly in the reminder that he would at least know who he could've – and it will always be a could've – found himself with in another life. It wasn't a smart idea, he remembers Cordana telling him, putting a blanket over his shoulders as she woke him enough to drink some warmed milk before he could settle back down against the wet papers that had been beneath his cheek. It was opening him up to the idea that he could still have such a thing, that the thirty years and the rare spurts of time where color filled their world could have just made them bitter and unwilling to meet him. Khadgar doesn't particularly remember what he said, only that she sighed something about insufferable mages and left him to return to his study.
At one point, he sees Varian himself, strolling through the Dwarven District - closest to the keep and cannot help but wait to see if the now king would recognize him after the years apart. He has his back turned to Varian for only a few seconds before he feels the other's gaze on his back. Slowly, he turns, waving at the other and smiling cheekily as he moved to turn into an alley and turn into a raven. He doesn't stay to see if Varian ran after him, instead he returns back to the Inn in Old Town and moves instead to the one in Goldshire.
He figures out who his other soulmate is when he returns to Stormwind from Goldshire to offer his aid in pushing back the Iron Horde, orcs for the second time in his life.
He doesn't actually fully figure it out until he is sidestepping a Horde rogue who danced their way into the keep to attempt murder upon the king of Stormwind. He smiles gravely, a difference to the more jovial one he had when he fled from the king in a tease of how much harder it was to catch him, and holds the greatstaff in his grip tight.
To the right of Varian he finds a blond boy dressed in blues, purples and golds. The beginning of a pony tail tied back at the nape of his neck flickers as the young holds himself in a defiant way thst denoted who he was. Varian's son, a boy who showed his upbringing well and surmises very easily that the boy is not a warrior or a paladin, a caster - though of holy or arcane is beyond him. He glowed, almost and Khadgar felt the urge to protect that light for another reason completely.
That boy was to be the finest leader Azeroth has ever seen. He smiles a little honestly at the proud boy and it hurts to turn his eyes to the one standing directly to the left.
Though it had been a long time, Khadgar would never forget such an expression in all his life. He remembered the complaining and how his hair had been much less... grey the last time he had seen it. He takes stock in Genn Greymane, the dark left of the king to the brightest light Khadgar had ever seen. He was alive, which surprised him slightly. The King of Gilneas had been in his sixties, if he recalled correctly, he would be well into his eighties at this point. He caught the other's considering look and offered him a polite nod back.
It was then that the intruder took his chance to rush passed the Archmage and had him slightly off balance, when he caught himself Genn Greymane was gone and instead, there was a grey wolf-man wetting his claws with the rogues blood. It was not a pretty sight and when the wolf reared his head back... Khadgar paused. He raised his brow as the other scented the air for any others that may have followed him. When it was deemed fine... well, the wolf flicked droplets of blood back towards the corpse and returned to a more familiar sight.
A shrewd King, who had only been able to see the small picture at the time. His people were above everything else and any other time Khadgar would have found it admirable. But now he knew that the second wolf's head stood for the cursed king. Well, that made quite a bit of sense, he thought. The ache formed just behind his breastbone as he plays his blatant staring off as never seeing a Worgen himself, keeping keeping a straight face. Saying nothing to acknowledge the urge that was building in the base of his spine that screamed for him to go to his soulmates and throw everything else away.
However... it was a hard sell for him to bleep his face straight as Greymane was a complete and utter asshole, but he was his second soulmate.
He wasn't sure how to feel about that, mentally cursing Cordana for being right that it was probably better that he hadn't known who the second one was.
There was no time for him to even think of what the situation could mean for him – for the any of them, even. Not with the orcs knocking at Azeroth's door for a second time - and they were even more organized than previously.
Perhaps he dictated to the King of Stormwind that he would go into the portal to close the breech with others and remain there to offer his guidance and yes he could see the blatant displeasure with him mounting. But he smiled wryly at the king and promised to send for others when the heroes of Azeroth when he was able. The Archmage couldn't help it as he winked at the king and left the thrones room as a raven.
Of course, Khadgar was no stranger to the cost of peace (as he currently viewed being unable to see in color as one, except in short bursts of halt saturation. Though he never knew which half was visiting Draenor.) and could only sigh at what he found in Draenor. It was so different than the world he visited so many years ago - so lush, so green and there were no red skies. It was breath taking.
He makes his tower in Talador and begins to focus on the aid he promised he would provide to the forces of Azeroth to prevail.
More than once, Cordana had called him distracted when he found himself looking in the direction of Tanaan, of the Dark Portal – of Azeroth. She had pitied him sometimes when he did not snap out of it right away, simply setting a hand upon his shoulder and telling him that he should return inside instead of out in the open.
Many times, Khadgar made his mistakes - like asking the Champions for an obscene amount of Apexis crystals, assault at moving train and more than once almost killing them and expecting them to react well... but at least he had at plan. It would cone together, of course.
Eventually.
At least it was going fine up until he annoyed Gul'dan into doing exactly what he wanted. Sadly, it was at an inopportune time as his world was half saturated and Khadgar swore in every language he knew while he wheezed his pain and told Cordana to stitch him up fast and administer some form of antivemom - he had some alchemists do it just in case of an emergency.
He heard a crash from his tower, staring blankly at the unhappy Champion and the smashed vial laying directly in front of her. The woman sneered, scowling an, "oops," out before hearthing.
Astonished, he turned his head to Cordana who had paused her check over the wound to look at him from behind her armor expectantly, "really?" He sighed, closing his eyes once more and focusing on his breathing. "That was the last one."
"You're probably going to die from your own stupidity, Khadgar," Cordana tells him flatly as she sends Champions off alive, smacking Khadgar upside the back of his head when he reminded them to bring Garona back alive.
"If I were to die from anything less than my own stupidity, I would find myself disappointing my dead friends."
"You're going pale," she informed him bluntly before picking him up with little issue to her him at least inside the tower. "Where's your servant?"
"I had given him a vacation after he had delivered so many summons to the Champions and I believe I may not even be able to conjure anything else." Khadgar said, allowing his forehead to press against a shoulder pad as a dizziness took him.
The last thing he heard before passing out was Cordana swearing at him in Darnassian.
The next thing he knew, Khadgar was very aware that he was not in his tower any longer and he felt only mildly sick instead of half dead. Stitches, he recognizes, sliding his hand over the bandages and began to push himself up and off of the cot he was stuck on to find out exactly where he was taken.