Much as Ellisaria dislikes the intimation of weakness, she dislikes being impaled on a mountainside even more. Her human form is simply more subtle, and thus better suited to evading the gronn.
Unfortunately, it is also conveniently sized to be eaten in one gulp by the mirror-faced snake (what) that comes out of literally nowhere.
At least she is alive to be indignant, even if she's no longer in Outland.
"'What are the people like' is probably too broad a question... I guess - what are the big stories you tell? About yourselves and your history."
"Hmm. The biggest story, I suppose, would be the origin of the dragonflights and the empowerment of the Aspects. Containing, as it does, the seeds of almost every other story."
"My world, Azeroth, was created by beings called the Titans. Dragons were the first intelligent species to arise. The first dragons were... clumsy creature. Inelegant. Though powerful despite this. The largest and strongest of these proto-drakes was named Galakrond. He consumed others to fuel his power and left a trail of devastation in his wake. His depredations grew to the point of threatening the stability of the still-nascent world.
"The Titans were still on the world, but occupied in the south dealing with the forces of the Old Gods, remnants of void trapped by the formation of Azeroth and bent upon its destruction. Thus, the task of ending Galakrond's threat fell to his own kind. Five leaders arose. Neltharion the black, Malygos the blue, Nozdormu the bronze, Ysera the green, and Alexstrasza the red. They rallied their clans and raised their armies, and brought a terrible battle to Galakrond. It raged for a week, scarring the continent back and forth. He was finally defeated by his own hubris, forced into a crevasse of his own making and trapped.
"With this deed, the Titans saw that their world had raised up worthy guardians on its own. They blessed the dragonflights, giving us the form we have now and the power to change it. They named the dragon leaders Aspects, and charged each with safeguarding a portion of Azeroth. To Neltharion was given the bones of the world, rock and stone and soil, to order the terrain and keep it pure. Malygos was given charge of all magic, its maintenance and preservation. Nozdormu was given command of the timestreams, that they flow as they must to necessary outcomes. Ysera was given command of nature, green growing things, and the Emerald Dream, where slumbers the spirit of the world. Alexstrasza was named dragonqueen, and given command of life."
She listens, fascinated.
"That sounds closer to the Valar and Maiar - I don't know the full tale, but..."
"In the quiet before Song, the first Voice spoke, and from his Voice came the dance of Music, but it was a harsh, controlled music. The world spun out as an illusion, made of order and stability, utterly sterile. Fifteen Powers were sung into being, and they Sung alongside the First to make the world envisioned before them, and they were given their charges - things like wind, and dreams, and youth - and they sang in perfect harmony. But one of the fifteen sang alone - in disharmony. He destroyed what the others made stable, and poisoned what they made beautiful."
"Eventually they finished the world and filled it with all manner of creatures - but only those that could live in harmony. Melkor, the trouble-maker, set their world on fire, again and again, destroying their work."
"A great war raged for eons between Melkor, who was mightiest, and the other Powers. Eventually, the Powers won through trickery and imprisoned Melkor. But then the Powers discovered Elves, who had awakened unknown to them on the battlefield - the Powers stole some of the elves away, and took them to a certain small continent where they made court, and left the rest of the world - including those elves who had hidden from the Powers - to develop on its own in the dark. Sometime after this the dwarves woke beneath the mountains and began to make their civilizations."
"The elves and Powers and Maiar - lesser servants of the Powers - prospered in their fenced land, but then Melkor convinced the Powers he was redeemed to their perspective. They set him free, and he convinced the elves there to fight each other, and he destroyed the last of their lights, and he stole their greatest treasures and fled to the continent the Powers had abandoned. The Powers refused to go after him this time, so the elves fought him alone. The Powers did then make the Sun and the Moon out of the lights Melkor had destroyed - the world'd been lit by glowing trees before, I think - but didn't do much otherwise."
"When the Sun rose, Men woke up. The alliances of elves and dwarves and men challenged Melkor for a few centuries, so Melkor made the dragons to be his mightiest fighters. Eventually an elven princess - who was also a Maia's daughter - fell in love with a human, and her father said they could only wed if they stole a gem from Melkor's crown. They did, and then their... I think granddaughter or great-granddaughter? Eventually brought it to the Powers, after Melkor had nearly finished destroying everyone on the continent. It was apparently one of the treasures Melkor'd stolen? And she convinced the Powers to fight against Melkor again, which they did, and they won - sinking a continent in the process - and then threw Melkor out of the world."
"We never had anyone appointed by the Powers to rule in their stead, though. Dunno they had good priorities, so I dunno it'd be good if they had - things're only interesting 'cause of Melkor, pretty much."
"There is a renegade Titan who wishes nothing but the destruction of creation, and he has a Burning Legion to follow his commands. They have invaded Azeroth before, but always been repulsed."
"I wonder if a renegade Power trying to destroy everything's just a - thing that happens when you make a bunch of extremely powerful people and tell them to make a world," she muses.
"Perhaps. I have heard no evidence the Titans were themselves made. But in any group, there is variance of personality."
"Reds are condescending, greens are lazy, blues are cold, bronzes are erratic, and blacks are cruel. Or so the stereotypes go."
Laugh. "I think we say that fire-breathing dragons are arrogant and violent, but otherwise we don't really have divisions like that."
"Each flight has its separate business. This affects our focus, the causes we choose, the way we educate our young."
"I find that in most stereotypes there is at least a grain of truth. Entanglements have always been more trouble than they are worth."
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