Who a King Must Do Ch. 04

Darkness.

"It's all my fault," the voice her childlike version said, looking at happy memories of a father that was no more.

"I could have saved him," the voice of her adult version agreed. "Had he only listened to me."

"I could have saved him," the voice of her current version spat out. "If only I had killed them all like the ruthless dogs they were."

Darkness.

"It's all my fault," the voice of her adult version said, looking at the mana bomb as it fell on Theramore.

"I could have saved them," the voice of her current version agreed. "Had I only started massacring Garrosh and his mindless followers where they stood."

"I could have saved them," the voice of her childlike version sobbed. "Had I just never listened to the Prophet."

Darkness.

"It's all my fault," the voice of her current version said, looking at the face of her mother as she sentenced her.

"I could have saved me," the voice of her childlike version agreed. "Had I only stayed at home and been a good girl."

"I could have saved me," the voice of her adult version spoke with a chill that turned all but one streak of her blonde hair white. "Had I only been willing to kill the Horde."

Darkness.

"This city needs to be purged," Arthas said, looking at Stratholme. No. Oggrimar.

"You cannot be serious!" Uthar cried out.

"I can conjure a wave of water elementals to tear down the harbour," she eagerly agreed. "Let me do this with you!"

Darkness.

The stench of the Undercity. The battle after the Wrathgate.

"Horde scum, you have betrayed us one to many times!" Varian said, jumping at Thrall, jumping at Garrosh, jumping at Vol'jin, jumping at Sylvanas.

If she wouldn't act, he would fell all warchiefs in one stroke. Two innocent and good. Two terrible and evil.

She smiled as she did nothing.

That's how that should have happened.

"That way you could have saved them all," a dark voice echoed in the...

Darkness.

"...a...ke u...p."

"Begone!"

Distant voices.

Darkness and a flicker.

"Remember what you say about you!" the dark voice growled. "Beware, beware the..."

"Daughter!" a worried voice.

"...of the sea."

Darkness and a Light.

"Thros is my realm, arrogant pack!"

"Jaina!" a man's voice that she thought belonged to a boy.

"She can't hear you, she is mine and will remain until I have broken her!"

Darkness and Light.

"Impossible!" Gorak Tul screamed.

"Daughter, I see now, Daelin's death wasn't your fault!"

It wasn't?

Who dared suggest something that stupendous? Of course, it was all her fault. The childlike version opened her eyes to see...her mother. Her mother had forgiven her. A shackle broke off her soul.

A swirl of Darkness and Light.

"Jaina, the best of intentions don't always lead to the best of outcomes, but we cannot give up our principles to assure an outcome we like. For whenever we betray our principles what we create is ultimately going to fall."

The mana bomb exploded. Her adult version turned back time in her mind, back to when she landed in Kalimdor. She created an empire in Theramore that was a bulwark against the savage orcs. In her hatred of the Horde, she sent wave after wave after them, boys and girls, not soldiers. The Legion burned Teldrassil in the absence of their strength. The world ended or the mana bomb exploded. A shackle broke off her soul.

Light and Darkness in harmony.

"Take my hand!" the voice made her eyes fly open. Anduin Wrynn stretched out to her as she was flying over some kind of runic stone circle. Where was she? Why was she here? A demon huntress was cutting down undead constructs of wood and souls. Katherine Proudmoore, her mother, was fighting with a cutlass and a pistol. "TAKE IT!" he urged, never had she heard him say something so forceful.

Her mother had soothed the wound on her soul that she had carried with her for so many years. Yet, it was king she only ever saw as a boy before that had her eyes at that moment. He looked physically the same, perhaps a bit more muscular, than before. Why then did he seem like an entirely different person? Was this not the idealistic blonde boy she knew?

"Jaina!" he cried out in desperation, his blue eyes tearing up. "Can you not hear me? I cannot save you unless you take my hand! You need to do what is right!"

When had he stopped being the boy king? Why was she even thinking he had stopped being one? At the moment that Shadow and Light filled her mind and mended her splintered, sealed soul, something had changed. He had saved her. Anduin Llane Wrynn had saved her. He had done so by climbing into the darkness itself, a land where no one had been before him. Now, that she needed him the most, he was there.

Where Arthas had lost himself, he was helping to find herself.

Where Kalec had given up on her, he still cried for her.

Was it a boy that climbed into the darkness to save her current self? No, it could only be a man and a feeling she thought she had frozen under chilling hatred for the Horde took hold of her heart. A shackle broke off her soul and she was free.

"Anduin!" she suddenly cried out and took his hand. Together they fell towards the dead, brown and red leaves below. It seemed so close, yet they fell so long. Anduin whirled her around so that she rested on both of his arms. Her heart beat up to her throat and it wasn't from a sense of danger.

She had never realized how good he looked, like gentle, perfect version of his father. Right now, his expression was all that of his predecessor, harsh and ready to fight for what he needed to defend. "Hold onto me!" he told her. Immediately, her arms wrapped around him.

They landed in shockwave of light, scattering the leaves everywhere and leaving behind a spot of golden light in these blighted lands.

"NOOOOOOOO!" A giant of wood, deadly energies, souls and the hatred of a berserking people screamed - the true form of Gorak Tul. "SHE IS MY CLAIM, THAT WAS THE DEAL I HAD WITH THE DEEP QUEEN!"

"Your deals don't matter to me, abomination!" Anduin declared, putting down Jaina before charging at the beast. Shalamayne glowed in two colours, one of which the arch mage could not fathom why it would be there. Those were questions for later, just like the question what the beating in her chest meant for the future between herself and the man she now saw as such.

For now, they had to beat this thing. In its wrath, it only had eyes for Anduin. A big mistake, as it gave Jaina ample time to prepare a vast spell of ice. It would only take a few moments to be ready.

But a few moments could be all between Anduin being alive and dead. The monstrosity ran on legs like trunks, swiping away its lesser kin as if they were mere twigs. It carried all of its momentum into a punch aimed right at the High King. The fist travelled with immense speed and would have shattered every single bone in the paladin's body on impact.

In a sharp drop that even an Infernal would have been jealous about, the unknown demon huntress fell out of the sky. Like a meteor of fel fire, she crashed into the hand and nailed it to the ground just in front of Anduin. The High King continued in his charge his feet losing contact with the fall forest floor and onto the arm of undead wicker.

Gorak Tul tried to jump and throw both of these pests off his massive form, but at that moment Jaina was ready to unleash her spell. A massive nova of frost nailed the feet of all wooden constructs in the area to the floor.

"MEDDLING INSECTS!" he cried out, raising his remaining arm in a spell that attracted whirling souls.

Two gunshots rang through the eerie cacophony of wooden creaks and hallow screams. Two of Gorak Tuls three eyes suddenly lost their light. Jaina looked over to her mother with disbelief. Firearms were just not that reliable. "A lucky shot, but your old lady deserves some luck every now and then," Katherine admitted.

The spell disappeared as Gorak Tul writhed in pain. "No! No! My revenge is not yet done!"

"You end with everything here, from your revenge to all your terrible schemes!" Anduin announced as he jumped off the monsters shoulder. Shalamayne held in both hands, pointing downwards, he rammed the massive sword into the remaining eye at the centre of the creatures forehead. "You will never harm Jaina or anything else I care about again, abomination! Be gone from my Azeroth!"

"Nooooooooooooooo!" Gorak Tul let out a prolonged scream as his skin began to crack from the inside. Golden and purple light broke out of his wide-open mouth and the fissures in his enormous body until he exploded and took all his vile creations with him.

____________________________________________________________________________

"The master of the blighted lands is no more," Ulfar celebrated after pulling them back into reality. "It feels like I am finally fully awake! Ah, wait a joyous time."

Anduin was inclined to agree, even if his body felt like he had just been through seven day march up a steep cliff. He had used more of energy in that final attack than he even knew he had. 'My powers are only expanding in every direction,' he thought as he noticed his allies waking up around them.

Luckily, he didn't need to look around for Jaina. Inexplicably, the arch mage was right next to him, or perhaps on top of him was more fitting. Her arms were closed around his neck and she was snuggled up against him.

Jaina Proudmoore was as beautiful as ever. She had high cheekbones and a beautiful, slender face, with lips that looked sultry even as she pushed out regular breaths between them and a fine nose. The lids of her eyes were closed over her eyes which Anduin already knew were a stunning blue.

Now that he had awakened to his sexual interest, he noticed just how sexy her body was. She breasts on the larger side of things, not truly big but certainly above average, and he had a direct look into her pale cleavage. Her waist was narrow and her hips wide, the body shape of an hourglass, incredibly attractive and, whilst not muscular, well maintained. For the most part.

The recent years hadn't been kind to her and it showed in a darkness under her eyes. Her hair, almost completely white (even extending to the eyebrows) except for a singular strand, was put together in a braid that could only be described as messy. That was in reference to both the shape, strands loosened out everywhere and not in a sexy way, and the hygienic status.

These were things a lot of sleep and a long bath would hopefully fix. 'Although I know of other therapies to alleviate her pent-up stress,' Anduin thought, but that was putting the cart before the horse. For now, he was just happy to have her secure, seducing her would come later.

Everyone else woke up around him, but Jaina's eyes stayed close. "Don't worry, that is completely normal, complete body plane shifts from the Emerald Dream usually have the wearer fall into a coma for a few hours or days," Ulfar told him when the High King looked up with concern in his eyes.

"That is good then," Anduin said and looked back down, tenderly brushing aside a strand.

"By the sea...you are not just here to save a friend, are you?" Katherine caught on by that gesture. "You plan to add my daughter to your bedroom cabinet."

"If she agrees," the High King told the matriarch of house Proudmoore. "I do not intent to force her." That was true, he would be fine with forcing some, mostly Sylvanas, into sucking him off, but for those that could be convinced normally he would always take that route.

"Of course, she will agree, there is no woman that wouldn't after what you just did for her," Katherine declared, ready to rant. Then she looked at her daughter and smiled wryly. "...but I have made enough mistakes. What I hear of Stormwind has me shaken, but I shouldn't judge too hastily again. I will see that you stay decent." She looked after Aclysia as she headed for the cave exit. Her war blades were dull and crumpling away. "Where do you think you are going?"

"I have other obligations in Zandalar," the demon huntress answered. "Of the kind that I cannot wait to get back to that front. The danger here was threatening the islands. The danger there is threatening the world."

"What is it?" Anduin had heard nothing of that yet.

Aclysia turned around, flickers of green energy darting through her natural mascara, "It is best you don't know right now. Concentrate on what you need to do. We will see each other again." She said with absolute certainty and then left completely.

________________________________________________________________________

One day later in Boralus, Anduin hastily walked up to a door within the Proudmoore estate and knocked. "Jaina?" he asked loud enough to be heard on the other side. He had been sent for after a maid reported that the arch mage had woken up. There was some rustling, then the door opened and Katherine hastily stepped out.

The Lord Admiral looked better, still spent but better, she even smiled for a moment. "You come just in time," she told him, "I have finished explaining everything to her. Everything I know at least." She left the door only a gap wide open as she stepped away. "I will accept whatever decision she makes regarding you, although I may have a condition or two depending on the outcome."

"I will hear it should you deem it necessary," Anduin promised and walked inside.

He found Jaina sitting in a queen-sized bed, leaning against the backrest. Only a blanket of smooth, shimmering silk covered her body, held at the bosom by one of her hands. It didn't even manage to cover her breasts completely, Anduin catching a glance of a delicious pink nipple. When Jaina caught him staring, she blushed but didn't fix the position of the blanket.

Anduin blinked as to that reaction, if she had just ignored it he would have put it off as her still seeing her as a boy that she did not need to hide her sexuality towards. However, with her pale face turning in a light red shade, there was something more afoot here. Could it be that he had already succeeded in making her see him like a man? 'If anything would have done it, me saving her from a dark corner of the universe would certainly be it,' he realized.

"And- High King Anduin," Jaina respectfully bowed her head. Her open hair sticked slightly to her head indicated that she had taken a recent bath. The maid must have only called for Anduin once the arch mage had seen to her hygiene and food situation, maybe Jaina had been awake for several hours already. Katherine having finished talking to her daughter certainly indicated so. "I have awaited your arrival."

"No need for honorifics, Jaina," Anduin told her and sat down on a chair by the bedside, left there from the earlier visitor. "I am just glad to have you back."

"I...heard some interesting things about what happened in my absence," the arch mage told him. "May I ask you to repeat your side of the story?"

"Certainly," the High King agreed and told her everything. From how it had begun, over his new arrangement with the Shadow and his plan to make all of the important women on Azeroth his, to how they had gone to save her. He didn't spare any details, not even the part where he planned to have her carry his human heir. "...and that is the entirety of the situation."

"So, you saved me only to be soil for your seed," she looked more disappointed by this than angry and then confused at her disappointment. She twirled a white strand around her finger and send testing glances towards Anduin, adjusting the blanket to paradoxically show more skin.

Anduin wasn't oblivious enough to miss the obvious signs. Not anymore. He climbed on the bed, causing the arch mage to take a bit of defensive posture. Staying put, however, she let him approach and climb half over her. "No, Jaina," he whispered earnestly, slowing down to crawl as his lips approached hers. "It is because it is you that I chose you to be the mother of my child. Yes, you being the rightful heiress to Kul Tiras admiralty makes this decision easier, but that doesn't change that I desire YOU."

"And what would that desire look like? Do you wish to enslave me too?" Jaina asked.

"You need not be a slave, but you will submit to me," Anduin responded firmly. "You can be my queen, but you will not be my equal."

"Your proudest whore, then?" Jaina made a pun on her own expense, making Anduin chuckle. Only a sheet of paper would have fit between their lips now, he stopped there as he felt her hand against his chest. "I thought I had lost love forever, only desired to see the Horde's end," the arch mage whispered, their blue eyes getting lost in each other, "and of all the people that I know, the boy you were would have never entered my mind."

Her legs angled up, the inner side of her left thigh sliding over Anduin's arm. "What changed?" he asked, because he felt it was expected of him.

"I just...when you commanded me to take my hand, I couldn't see anyone but the you you are now and it made my heart flutter," she answered. "It seems it only took a step off your puritan path that made me see the truth in you." The hand on her chest gently caressed his muscles, "I feel like I am too old for this kind of love, to just fall for and confess to someone in a matter of a single day. Maybe it is precisely because I am this old that now that I want to be with you this very moment. Maybe, too, I subconsciously waited for you to become a real man."

"You are 35, Jaina, a certainly not progressed age, especially for a mage," Anduin told her. It was certainly young enough to marry him and give birth to several children. "Do you agree to become my queen, then?"

"Now that the Light shows me that it is an option, I realize that I want nothing more," she sighed lustfully, a stray hand travelling up the slippery satin and the warmth of her soft curve's underneath. "But being one of many feels so wrong..."

"None of you will be one of many," Anduin assured her, "you will be many ones." That answer did seem to appease Jaina, the love she had discovered was so strong that she ignored the drawbacks didn't matter enough. It just felt like her heart finally found the person who she could give herself to completely. Anduin didn't even need to resort to any of his shadow tricks, although every bit of his mind demanded her marker her as his just so he could show her the heights of bliss that came with it. "I ask again, do you promise to be my queen and submit yourself to me?"

"Yes...yes, I do," her voice was as if she was making a point to the whole world. "Do you promise to be the man I always yearned for?"

"Yes, I do," he answered. The vows were spoken. A priest would later make this thing official with lots of pomp for the people, but what mattered had happened today on this bed. It wasn't the last thing that would be important and happen there.

As if a ritual had concluded, suddenly all bets were off. Their lips met in a devouring need to taste each other. They were soft and a brownish pink, not that their colour mattered now that they were parted by his dancing tongue. Their bodies writhed on the bed, Jaina slowly sliding down the rest until she was completely pinned under Anduin. When had he become taller than her? Didn't matter.

"Don't resist!" she warned him, between kisses, her the blue of her iris expanding to her sclera as she weaved a quick arcane machination. Suddenly, Anduin found himself naked, all of his clothes falling down from a metre height next to the bed. "Never let a lesser mage try that on you," she warned, teleporting only the clothes was hard enough when the receiving end was willing.

"I bow to your wisdom in the regard, my queen," the High King declared.

"Anduin, no need for honorifics," the arch mage panted, "just call me what you want to."