Chapter 2
"You tire easily, Odinson," Solas said as they all trudged up the snow- covered slope. "Do your injuries pain you?"
Loki very much wanted to throw something at him. He wasn't falling behind by any means, but he was breathing hard in the mountain air. No self-respecting Asgardian should have been wearied by this; they weren't even at the top yet.
He shouldn't have been this weak, but as he'd discovered once he'd joined the fight against the demons, half his power was missing. What little remained was drained from trying to stop the anchor from killing him. Once Solas had touched it, the anchor had calmed dramatically, but he was still exhausted from the pressure.
"Please, call me Loki, Solas. Or do you prefer 'Chuckles'?" he replied, with a snide smile. Behind him, Varric laughed and Cassandra made a noise of disgust. "And you're just as tired. What's your excuse?"
"I have been tending to you for the last three days." Solas walked with his staff in his hand, using the carved lyrium- infused weapon as a walking stick.
"And yet, I am still weak and injured," Loki said.
"A wonder you are not dead. What sort of human could survive such power?" he asked with an air of innocent curiosity.
"What sort of elf could comprehend it?" he replied in kind, a smile on his face.
"All right, really?" Varric said., "The two of you have never met before?"
Before Loki could deny it, or perhaps not deny it and completely blow the ancient elf's cover, they arrived at the Forward Ccamp. Leliana was arguing in the midst of a flock of squawking humans. The poorly defended encampment was filled with them, and they quarrelled over Loki's supposed guilt and petty human politics. Some blamed Lavellan – apparently, it was more believable to them that an elf was responsible.
Nobody thought to blame Solas. How very curious.
Apparently Tthey stood upon the wreckage of a religious site, and it was a religious figurehead that had been murdered. Loki was fairly certain he wasn't responsible. He looked around in curiosity, trying to make sense of the smouldering ruin before him and the green Breach above.
This realm was Thedas, he had figured that much out. But it didn't look anything like Frigga's descriptions, given to him so very long ago. The stories had told of spires of crystal, magnificent temples, and floating fortresses couched on cloud and magic. There weren't even meant supposed to be humans here. When Asgard's ambassadors had last visited the city of Arlathan, the immortal elves above ground and powerful dwarves below it had been the only inhabitants.
He glanced at Varric – short and stocky as any dwarf, but with no magic and no fear of being above ground – and Lavellan, no longer tied up, standing next to Leliana with a short bow in her hands. She was shorter than any elf he'd ever seen. Arlathan's elves were said to have been even taller than the Alfheim ones. Solas stood off to the side, suspiciously tall and broad- shouldered.
Admittedly, it had been so long ago, even by Asgardian standards. Odin had only been newly crowned when he visited the Elvhen, whose empire was older even than Asgard, the Eternal Realm itself. Apparently, the two powers hadn't gotten along and diplomatic ties were eventually abandoned. That had been millennia before Loki's birth. He had only heard tell of Thedas because it was a magical anomaly.
When Frigga had first begun teaching him magic, she had mentioned a planet where magic flowed freely through the fabric of reality itself. It was outside of Yggdrasil, so the magic wasn't entwined in the roots of the great Tree, buit was free to flit through the air, giving birth to spirits and wisps and great marvels unrivalled in all the galaxy.
This sad and dirty mortal realm, with its magic locked behind a choking veil, was a sad substitute. How very disappointing.
While Loki had been looking around and observing the curious misery around him, Lavellan had approached. Cassandra and Leliana were deep in an argument with some grasping human, and paid them no mind.
"Did you do this?" Lavellan asked quietly next to him. "Did you cause the explosion?"
"Would I tell you if I had, accomplice mine?" Loki replied, smiling down at her.
She scowled back.
"You certainly didn't do it," he continued. She wasn't magical at all. What kind of elf did that make her?
"No, I didn't, and they know it." She held her bow tightly and gave him a meaningful look. "I will not take the punishment for your crimes."
He was tempted to roll his eyes. "I didn't destroy the temple." Probably. He wasn't above causing havoc, but to what end? What did he care for the human affairs of Thedas? Outside of the Nine Realms, fFate was not woven into the same eternal tapestry; this planet affected none but itself – which was why ties between Arlathan and Asgard had been permitted to fall by the wayside.
"How would you know, even if you were the culprit?" she asked. "If you are to be believed, thean you barely remember your name, let alone what you were doing at the time of the explosion. And if you are lying, then it is because you are guilty."
He scoffed.
"Those are the only options, little Lavellan?"
"Do not speak down to me, Shemlen," she bit out.
"Well, you are very short." He returned his focus to Cassandra. The humans thought they were in charge. He would let them believe that, for now.
"Andruil, grant me strength," Lavellan ground out.
"You expect much of your gods." He remembered the accounts of Andruil. Lavellan would have been more likely to be hunted for sport than aided by the ancient huntress. What ever had happened to the ruling Elvhen?
"Do you not expect the same of your Maker?" sShe retorted.
"He isn't my Maker," he said airily.
"Then who are you?" She looked at him with her brow drawn down. "If you have no people, no gods, and no family, what are you?"
He looked at her sharply.
"And what are you, little elf?" he bit out.
"Dalish," she said impassively.
He scowled because he didn't know what that meant.
The arguing humans grew louder. The squabble sounded like it was about directions of all things. Honestly, how did these people get anything done?
"If you are done asking for directions, Cassandra, might I ask suggest we continue onwards?" He called. "Unless you expect the breach to seal itself, of course."
He was rewarded with another noise of disgust, but actual progress was made. At his insistence, they took the twisting hidden path, instead of the just ploughing through the demons on the main road as Cassandra wanted. Soon enough, the ruined temple itself opened up before them.
Petrified corpses littered the courtyard, some with their charred hands raised to fend off the first blast, others clenched in frozen agony. Red crystal stalagmites grew out of the ground at odd angles, casting an eerier glow on the crumbling temple walls.
In the centre of it all was the largest rift, and, hundreds of metres above that, the massive Breach, feeding off of it.
A deep voice echoed through the temple, bleeding out of the rift in flickering strands of magic.
'Bring forth the sacrifice.'
It was a memory, imprinted on the raw substance of the rift. He knew he had been there, yet he couldn't remember it. The voice tugged at an empty place in his mind where memories ought to have been.
Demons still leapt through the rift. Envy, Despair and a large hulking Pride demon, they fell to the ground and charged at their party.
He drew the daggers he had found on the way up and. Wwith a small push of magic, flame licked across the blades. That someone had dared to tamper with his mind made him angry and his aim true. Arrows rained down upon their enemy, launched by Lavellan and the archers lining the higher walls, and by Varric, who leapt and rolled across the stone floor with surprising dexterity. Solas threw magic at the demons, a myriad of weak but complex spells, while Cassandra bashed in heads with her shield and swung her sword without hesitation.
'Help me! Somebody help me!'
An old woman's voice cried out from the rift, a plaintive wail laced with panic. It carried the same lilting accent as Leliana.
'What is this?'
He straightened at the sound of his own voice, indignant and laced with pained.
'Slay the intruder and commence the ritual.'
The first voice echoed again, dismissive and irritated. It certainly wasn't Solas' voice, but the old elf's power fluctuated through the air, trembling around the rift. There was a brief flash in the air, magic surging from the rift, and for a single instant a vision formed in his mind. The anchor flared in his hand.
Then the moment passed, and he rolled away from an Envy demon. He leapt forward and stabbed it in the abdomen and tore the blade up through its heart, if it indeed had one.
"Close the rift!" Cassandra called, fending off the electrically charged whips of the Pride demon and then bashing its brains in. "Close it!"
Sprinting past the blast of a screeching Despair demon, he held up his hand, the anchor flaring. He would have turned invisible, but he felt the stores of his magic wouldn't be enough. Instead, he stood boldly in the centre of the ruin, his hand held up to the rift, feeding a massive spark of magic and drawing the rift in on itself. His head spun from the drain.
It surged, and then, with a slam, the rift snapped shut. It sent out a blast up to the Breach above, and Loki's vision blackened. His legs gave out, and the last thing he knew was a mouth full of gravel.
Three days later, Solas sat with a book in the little room provided for him at Haven. His eyes had stopped following the words.
The Breach was stable now, but still open. Loki had passed out after sealing the smaller rift beneath it, and he Solas had spent the last couple of days tensely waiting for him to wake up again. If the Asgardian could arrange to actually stay conscious for more than two hours at once, Solas would greatly appreciate it.
He could have fled in the meantime. He probably should have. But Loki knew far too much, and to leave now might draw more attention than he could afford. He could just kill the Asgardian while he slept and be done with it. But he heard what the humans whispered. The 'Herald of Andraste' they called him, some kind of saviour sent by the Maker in their hour of need. No, it was too late now; if he were going to kill Loki, he should have done it before he awoke in the first place.
Behind him, the door swung open and the Asgardian in question strode in. He looked around leisurely, as though he hadn't just barged into someone's quarters, his eyes sweeping the room with amused indulgence. Finally his gaze settled on Solas, and a broad grin fixed itself to his face.
"Seeker Cassandra is waiting for you," Solas said tersely, snapping his book shut.
"She can wait a little longer," he replied, still grinning and watching him.
"Did you have something to say or are you merely here to stare?" Solas knew it was a mistake even as he spoke. Loki's grin just grew. Now he knew that he was unnerved and irritable.
"Fen'Harel," Loki finally said with a low bow that reeked of mockery.
"Your Highness," he replied, keeping back his sneer. He had never liked Odin or any of the Asgardians, really. They were too self-satisfied with their own greatness. Just like the Evanuris, in the end.
"I see we understand one another," Loki said.
"Why are you here, princeling?" He stood and returned his open stare. "After all these years, what interest does Asgard have in Thedas?"
"None whatsoever," he shrugged and idly disturbed the herbs neatly arranged on the desk. "I am simply given to travelling, and the stories of Arlathan were so very enchanting. A shame they weren't true."
Solas scoffed. "If Asgardian memory serves, then Arlathan was everything you were told. But even the mighty may fall, if they are not careful."
"Only to be found hiding behind mortals and hoping nobody looks at them too closely?" Loki asked, watching him out of the corner of his eye.
"Quite." Solas picked up his staff and leaned on it with an unhurried air. Loki was young for an Asgardian. He hid it well, and the weight of heavy burdens on his shoulders aged him further, but to Solas' eye he could be no older than a thousand years. Solas had been playing this game for more than five times that, even if he had been sleeping for a large portion of it.
"You do not live up to your father's name, Odinson," he observed quietly, testing the waters.
The Asgardian stiffened at the name. It was barely perceptible, but Solas saw and stored it away as useful information.
"I think you'll find I have far exceeded his expectations," he replied with a studied calm.
"Then he did not expect much." Solas watched his shoulders tense before he squared them defiantly. Whatever the cause, it was an interesting reaction. "Has weakness and vagrancy become the norm in Asgard?"
"I have more power than any elf on Thedas." He lifted his chin and looked down at him, with simple belief in his own grandeur over anyone else, and that was less interesting. As arrogant and self-assured as any other Asgardian, then.
"Yes, I imagine the one currently wielding that power is delighted," Solas replied dryly.
"You would know better than anyone." Loki's voice dropped and his smile became sharper.
Solas could have sworn.
"Thedas doesn't concern me," the Asgardian continued, stepping closer to him. "If its denizens wish to tear it apart at the seams, that's hardly my problem, but I am curious. The Veil stinks of your magic, and so does the gaping hole torn in it. Is chaos alone your goal, Wolf, or have you some greater scheme?"
"I do not owe you answers." He turned away dismissively.
"I think you'll find that you do," Loki said, his voice low and threatening. "Your pawn was free to unleash as many demons as he wished, but now he has taken what is mine and if you think I will simply sit by-"
He spun back to face him. "He is no agent of mine."
Loki gave a bark of laughter.
"I had hoped to slay Corypheus," Solas said, scowling – at Loki, at Corypheus, at himself. "It appears he was stronger than I anticipated."
"So, he took your power and left you wandering amidst the mortals," he spoke almost pityingly, but there was no pity in his eyes. Instead, his gaze burned with frustration.
"I let him have the Orb because it should have destroyed him." He didn't know why he was explaining himself. He looked at the Asgardian suspiciously.
"So it is your fault." Loki's smile was unpleasant.
"Does it matter who is to blame?" he asked. "Corypheus has the bulk of both your power and mine, locked away within the Orb."
Loki's smile turned into a scowl. Had he hoped Solas wouldn't notice he was largely powerless? Oh yes, he was definitely young.
"How did it take my power?" he asked, aiming for an indifferent manner, but falling short.
"That is what it is designed to do, to store power. If you did not wish to use it, you should not have touched it," Solas said, looking at the now dim anchor on Loki's hand. He wouldn't pretend to be sorry. Loki had been an inconvenience, but now he was an opportunity. "Shall we argue over it, or retrieve what was not meant for mortal hands?"
Loki stepped back and raised a brow at him.
"Independently, neither of us can destroy Corypheus," he said to the unasked question. "We need not be enemies."
"Oh? Shall we work together, then? United in our cause, sharing strength and information?" There was laughter in Loki's voice. He bounced between moods unexpectedly and with alarming alacrity.
Young. Temperamental. And impossible to predict.
"I understand this world far better than you, and you have greater sway with the humans," Solas said simply.
"Ah, so it profits me to trust you?" he asked with both eyebrows raised.
"It would profit both of us to fight together."
"How can I say no to such an offer?" Loki's smile was wide and full of teeth.
"Then we do understand one another." Solas allowed himself a smile as he held out his hand to the young prince. It was a human tradition, shaking hands, quaint and newfound in the world of politics.
"May the Norns guide us, my friend," Loki shook his hand, his eyes glinting with laughter and something far sharper. "And may our enemies ever provide a worthy challenge."
"I do not doubt it."
A/N: Thanks for reading! Leave a review if you like.
Next Time: A Brave New World