"Hooo, boy." Mar folded his arms over his chest, glancing over to Nepeta from where he lay. "Wartorn, is the first word that comes to mind. The Alliance and the Horde have been going at each other's throats for years now. The Horde leader is essentially shooting for genocide of every non-orc, to the point that pretty much the entire Horde is in rebellion now. We've wrecked the hell out of the beautiful land of Pandaria, after our own lands got trashed by Deathw-- errr, by a powerful evil." Don't break the timeline and prejudice everyone against the Aspect here and now, Mar...
"But it's also a land of immense hope and potential. Azeroth is the biggest and most significant world in the entire universe, you have to understand. The Titans bound the Old Gods into its very existence," he said, unfolding an arm to pat the ground beneath them. "They left the Well of Eternity behind, and thus drew the Burning Legion here, to the one world in all of existence that has ever managed to resist them. Most likely, Azeroth is the source of the greatest hope in all creation, which is the Legion's total defeat. And there are still moments of beauty on Azeroth, despite all its horrors and misery. Simple ones, like a parent's love for their child, and epic ones, like willing sacrifices to save the whole world, born out of love and honor and duty."
He had lifted one hand to the sky, spreading his fingers wide.
"One day, when I was in Dalaran, the skies went dark and the voice of Rhonin, leader of the Kirin Tor, echoed across the city and brought everyone to a halt. 'Raise your eyes to the skies and observe,' he said. 'Today our world's destruction has been averted in defiance of our very makers. Algalon the Observer was sent to judge the fate of the world. He found a world that had deviated from the Titans' blueprints, where not everything had gone according to plan. Cold logic decided our world was worth saving. Cold logic did not account for the tenacity of free will. Algalon the Observer was defeated.'"
Abruptly, Mar sat up, looking over at her properly. "I was lucky enough to talk to one of my order who had helped defeat the Observer, and I got some insight into more of what had happened. Algalon had come to check Azeroth for exactly the problems it has, and if he found them, he would 'reoriginate' the planet. Tear it down and rebuild it from scratch, in other words. Destroy everything. An emissary of the Titans, with unimaginable power when they faced him, and they kicked." He dropped one mailed fist into his palm to punctuate each word. "His. Ass.
"And at the end of it, with his last energies, he said..." Mar cleared his throat, doing his best to imitate the Blood Knight who had imitated Algalon. The tone might be wrong, but Mar remembered the words as keenly as the moment he had first heard them. "'I have seen worlds bathed in the Makers' flames, their denizens fading without so much as a whimper. Entire planetary systems born and razed in the time that it takes your mortal hearts to beat once. Yet all throughout, my own heart devoid of emotion... of empathy. I. Have. Felt. Nothing. A million-million lives wasted. Had they all held within them your tenacity? Had they all loved life as you do? Perhaps it is your imperfections... that which grants you free will... that allows you to persevere against all cosmically calculated odds. You prevail where the Titan's own perfect creations have failed.'"
Letting that sink in, he lowered his back to the ground again, and again folded his hands behind his head. "That is my Azeroth."
...today's lesson, Mar liked to burst into dramatic speeches for the most tangential and feeblest of reasons.
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"But it's also a land of immense hope and potential. Azeroth is the biggest and most significant world in the entire universe, you have to understand. The Titans bound the Old Gods into its very existence," he said, unfolding an arm to pat the ground beneath them. "They left the Well of Eternity behind, and thus drew the Burning Legion here, to the one world in all of existence that has ever managed to resist them. Most likely, Azeroth is the source of the greatest hope in all creation, which is the Legion's total defeat. And there are still moments of beauty on Azeroth, despite all its horrors and misery. Simple ones, like a parent's love for their child, and epic ones, like willing sacrifices to save the whole world, born out of love and honor and duty."
He had lifted one hand to the sky, spreading his fingers wide.
"One day, when I was in Dalaran, the skies went dark and the voice of Rhonin, leader of the Kirin Tor, echoed across the city and brought everyone to a halt. 'Raise your eyes to the skies and observe,' he said. 'Today our world's destruction has been averted in defiance of our very makers. Algalon the Observer was sent to judge the fate of the world. He found a world that had deviated from the Titans' blueprints, where not everything had gone according to plan. Cold logic decided our world was worth saving. Cold logic did not account for the tenacity of free will. Algalon the Observer was defeated.'"
Abruptly, Mar sat up, looking over at her properly. "I was lucky enough to talk to one of my order who had helped defeat the Observer, and I got some insight into more of what had happened. Algalon had come to check Azeroth for exactly the problems it has, and if he found them, he would 'reoriginate' the planet. Tear it down and rebuild it from scratch, in other words. Destroy everything. An emissary of the Titans, with unimaginable power when they faced him, and they kicked." He dropped one mailed fist into his palm to punctuate each word. "His. Ass.
"And at the end of it, with his last energies, he said..." Mar cleared his throat, doing his best to imitate the Blood Knight who had imitated Algalon. The tone might be wrong, but Mar remembered the words as keenly as the moment he had first heard them. "'I have seen worlds bathed in the Makers' flames, their denizens fading without so much as a whimper. Entire planetary systems born and razed in the time that it takes your mortal hearts to beat once. Yet all throughout, my own heart devoid of emotion... of empathy. I. Have. Felt. Nothing. A million-million lives wasted. Had they all held within them your tenacity? Had they all loved life as you do? Perhaps it is your imperfections... that which grants you free will... that allows you to persevere against all cosmically calculated odds. You prevail where the Titan's own perfect creations have failed.'"
Letting that sink in, he lowered his back to the ground again, and again folded his hands behind his head. "That is my Azeroth."
...today's lesson, Mar liked to burst into dramatic speeches for the most tangential and feeblest of reasons.