Life in Death
MABalas
Posted: 09/19/17
Chapter: 5/8
AN: Sorry for the delay on this. I'm still not happy with it but felt bad for the wait so this is what you get. Got moved into the new house and subsequently taking on a new role at work so it's been a bit crazy. I normally don't like long ANs in chapters, so skip the next paragraphs and go right to the story if you don't care about my sense of series continuity or if you understand what the heck the Sentinel verse is. :)
When I started this project I wrote the entire rough draft (40k+ words) of the Harry/Riddick crossover, originally Book One of the Kings series, and realized the Harry I had created had not a damn bit of context for his OP and OOC (and I REALLY hate blatant out of character moments and OP characters with no context). So the Prequel was born, and the prequel kept growing, and it's STILL growing. It was originally a single-scene one shot that is now the very last chapter/scene of Pawn to King. Go figure. So for anyone confused by my use of prequel...I've removed it and now consider this Book One of the series.
For anyone confused on what a Sentinel or Guide is, god bless you because you're probably an adorable fluffball and not a grizzled oldie like me. :) Or you don't have an unhealthy obsession with AO3 (Archive of Our Own for anyone who feels the need to google it and lose their life to that particular time sink). Either way. The Sentinel was an old TV series the fandom world has since been bastardized for our own purposes. Find an excellent breakdown and fandom explanation by googling "sentinel verse explanation" and taking a read through Upright Infinity's tumblr post (infiniteeight8 . tumblr . com a few search results down brought on by the question I'm sure you're all asking: "What is this Sentinel/Guide business I keep hearing about?"). Apparently, the fandom is not as alive here on Fanfiction as it is on AO3. :) I wrote this fic with the assumption the background 'verse would be ingrained and have received a ton of questions on it!
Long story short, respect the Sentinel Verse; it's basically the start of all fanfiction!
Harry woke up expecting the same dull weight of icy limbs, the tingling burn of freezing skin, and the wind howling in his ears.
When there was nothing but the sound of his own breath in the stillness of the air he cracked open his eyes to stare up. Candlelit stone and shadows. That was a hell of a step up from a distant black sky full of imminent icy death.
He twisted slowly until he was on his knees with his arms wrapped around his aching chest. His back was stiff from lying on the stone floor for however long and his chest pulled with the stretch of every inhale. He could feel as his body repaired the last of the damage from the extended hypothermia.
He glanced down at the tugging around his internal organs-thinking of Death's shadows knitting him together from the inside out was still bloody creepy-and saw the dead-live pallor of his too-tight skin on his hands and where his sleeves had ridden up.
His glamour was gone. Which meant he was in that Merlin damned circle again. With his mind catching up he could feel the steady draw of his magic from his core, gone as quickly as his body could generate it.
"You were dead."
The voice broke into his thoughts from across the room. He glanced at the seemingly empty corner, but not with surprise. Curiosity. A part of him had been aware of the man's presence in the room from the moment Harry's heart began beating again. The habit was too ingrained for his Gift not to reach out and assess every possible threat nearby.
The words processed in his foggy mind and Harry stared at the corner as a flare of something woke inside. He thought it might be what adrenaline junkies felt in the moment before they leapt from a plane or off the side of a mountain. It certainly brought back memories of freefalling on a broom in a dive for the snitch and sneaking around Hogwarts after curfew in the invisibility cloak for Harry. It was something like danger and a dare and nervous exhilaration all in one.
Harry found himself quite done with people wanting to kill him simply because he couldn't match the mold they expected him to fill.
The pervading numbness of the last few months began to fade in light of the emotion. Harry felt like he had been in an extended dream. It was anyone's guess whether it was the reality of his inability to die finally settling in or he had lost his admittedly tenuous hold on his sanity, but Harry felt nothing in the face of this man but that twisted sense of anticipation.
Harry felt free, caged by runes and unable to hide behind his glamour, for the first time since he killed Voldemort. Harry was actually enjoying the challenge the man presented. The man did not fear him, did not glorify him, did not try to coddle or push him. He had no ulterior motives for the Savior of the Wizarding World or even Harry Potter.
No, the man only wanted him for his raw power. He had been brutally honest about that. This wasn't about any of his titles or his bank account or his bloodline or his political sway. There was something refreshing about that. A new way Harry could be used and manipulated.
Merlin, he really had lost it.
Harry laughed to himself. His magic was being siphoned as quickly as it regenerated. With his new clarity Harry stared resolutely at the hands of the monster he had become.
The change was starkly real when he was forced to look at the corpse-like pallor of his arms and hands, veins black beneath the sallow skin stretched over corded muscle. It was even more final as he stared at the too-long fingers. He flexed them carefully. With their extra joint for enhanced gripping and all tipped in ebony claws made to rip and rend it was easy to acknowledge to himself that he was a predator-a creation and extension of Death meant to deal death to all who tried to avoid their end or needed to meet it earlier than planned.
Harry delved deeper inside himself. The well of Death's power, twined gracefully around his magical core, beckoned to Harry's soul. It whispered a siren song of sound without language. Harry had only to ask and it would all be his to take and to use. Harry had been frightened of that promise of power for so long. It seemed rather ridiculous in light of this new, broken world with no life. Death was death. Nothing more and nothing less.
"Yes," Harry finally answered the waiting shadows. "I suppose I was dead."
The man laughed softly, unfazed, but for all the sound was pleasant to the ears it grated on Harry's mind. It was as if the agony behind the action had a psychic presence that vibrated at the perfectly wrong frequency against his shields. Harry felt like a cat that had its fur rubbed wrong and its tail tugged with a heavy hand.
Everything about the man was wrong. He was fundamentally wrong in the gut-churning, soul-unsettling way someone could only know when they stared at a stranger and saw their own future mirrored in an unknown face. It was a self-awareness as horrifying as it was captivating; the snake charmer's song to the serpent.
The man's form slipped from the shadows into the light, a curve to his lips like a blade's honed edge. Harry's answering smile met blade with fangs.
"Clever creature," the man murmured almost proudly, as if Harry was a particularly bright child of his. "Your heart ceased beating, your lungs ceased breathing, and every cell in your body froze solid. I killed you."
Harry turned his head to follow the soft footsteps as the man circled slowly around the runes caging him. The man's hands were held loosely behind his back and he took in every angle of Harry's inhuman form like someone observing a beast for purchase before it went to auction.
Harry didn't enjoy the comparison. "Yes, well, it didn't stick."
No response, but the man walked full circle to stare down at Harry. His eyes were fever bright with something bordering on fanaticism, a hint of an unhealthy color high on his cheeks if Harry squinted at the gray shading; all of it was a stark contrast to the carefully controlled tone of his words as he watched Harry.
"Not exactly normal corpse behavior. Please imagine my surprise when you came crawling back to die, again, at my doorstep four days later." He paused to stare at Harry. "I watched your body heal. Not even my kind can repair such extensive damage. Certainly not while deceased. None of the known species have that ability."
"Dead does usually stay dead," Harry agreed solemnly. Death was strict with her rules after all. Harry was very much an exception.
The man, or whatever he was, did chuckle at that as he dropped his own glamour. He was blue with red eyes again-the colors were hard to pick apart in the world of gray but Harry had experience-and this time Harry took a moment to catalogue the change as it spread across his skin. He observed the raised curves of the markings on the man's exposed face, arms, and hands. The eyes made the fevered gaze madder; the markings made him more dangerous on a visceral level, tribal and uncivilized. It was nearly the opposite of his cultured human appearance, stark black and white to this heavy gray shadow. It was like looking at two different people in one body and not knowing which was the truth.
"Death is usually final, yes." He paused to stare at Harry as if he was the keystone clue to the answer of all life's questions; the last piece in a lifetime-long collection. "But not for you. Tell me what you are."
Harry stared back blankly. Then he smirked; too many too-sharp teeth. "I am what I always will be."
The man's frown turned to a scowl. Angry but not afraid. He was as insane as Harry. More that that, even. He was all fraying edges and tangled string, something shattered too many times to find all the pieces again. At least Harry still had some semblance of himself.
"What are you? What power do you wield?"
Harry would not answer a question he had yet to figure out himself. The man didn't take the silence well.
"I can magnify your time on the tundra one hundred fold. You will beg to tell me your darkest secrets."
Harry barked out a laugh. "Really? Threats already? I like to at least make the acquaintance of any of my torturers first. It makes the moment you fail more personal."
The man narrowed his eyes.
"I am Loki Liesmith. The last of the Jotun and the Asgardians." He smiled coldly at Harry. "I have had many centuries to perfect my tortures. They have never failed."
"I am Harry. And people have been trying to torture and/or kill me for my entire life." He smirked. "Yet here I am."
Loki sneered.
A raised hand was Harry's only warning.
Power converged on the circle. He had no magic to combat whatever it was and he had enough self-control yet to ignore the call of Death's power in his core. After all, Harry wasn't only a wizard.
Harry was Gifted. Even more, Harry was a Guide.
His shields sensed the attack and his Gift responded. Whatever magic or illusion the man had tried to cast had been for his mind-likely to halt his sense of time and make him relive his deaths in the snow over and over again going by the particularly malicious flavor of it.
Too bad Harry had plenty of practice with people trying to force their way into his head.
The illusion met Harry's shields and shattered. His Gift ripped the power apart and aimed the pieces back at the man.
They shattered in turn against an emerald shield of magic Loki waved absentmindedly into existence. But Harry had Loki's attention.
"A Shield. A true Shield," the man whispered. Harry must have looked confused because Loki clarified, "Midgard called you Guides."
It was all the more sense Loki made for some time. Harry could see the isolation behavior clearly as the man began ranting to himself in whispers.
Harry caught some words as Loki paced around the room, but they made little sense to him. "...the illusion. A glamour...yes...seemed human…sentient magic-not Latent, no..."
Harry watched Loki Liesmith get lost in thought over his own words. Loki's pacing stopped abruptly and his eyes were worlds away. Harry could see him mentally check out for all that he stood right there. No one was home upstairs. It lasted a minute, maybe more, before Loki was back in the present.
He walked slowly around Harry again, observing him as if he were a new and unexpected species of roach discovered in a lab. It was a small step up from chattel.
"Your shields are superb. I've only ever seen similar in one other. You may have been hidden on Midgard before but I see you. I can read your signature now. You cannot hide. Never hide," he trailed off, his eyes going hazy again before snapping back to reality.
He was unnervingly focused on Harry. His expression had smoothed into something bland and mildly inviting, as if the world was made for his amusement and he wanted to let Harry in on the joke; a special secret for the two of them. The effect was a little skewed thanks to the barbarian look, but it was a damn good mask if Harry had ever saw one.
That train of thought had Harry cocking his head at the man-Jotun, Asgardian, whatever. Was this what the man might once have been? Was this the truth or the lie?
"If you existed in the Midgard even close to what I knew, Hunters-you would know them as Sentinels-must have been clinging and clawing at you. Fighting for your bond on a dare as much as a desire. All because their precious Centers told them you were broken and unsuitable; but they all knew under the official decrees there was so much more to you." His voice changed pitch, becoming soft and conspiratorial. "Because your Gift cannot be tested or categorized. Your Gift has claws, does it not? Claws and instincts where all the others have been diluted to nothing but trained pets, leashed and docile.
"And your innate magic," his face turned sincerely sympathetic; it was so convincing Harry was almost drawn in for a moment. "It must clash painfully with the Gift. They rip and tear at each other, I imagine. No rest from either side. Rightly you should be dead without a Sentinel bond. But I see staying dead may be a small issue for you."
The words hung in the frozen air. The man stood straight and smiled the small, content tip of the lips that could only come from a verbal barb more devastating than any blade or bullet.
Harry's mind halted as his Gift surged and swarmed over the man, trying to figure out how he could know. How could he put words to Harry's darkest thoughts? Delve so easily into his fears and truths.
Harry hadn't realized he had been harboring the hope his Gift would not matter here. But of course this world still had Sentinels and Guides. The rules would never change. Sentinels would always want the strongest Guides. Guides would always want the strongest Sentinels. It was as immutable as earth's sky being blue and the grass green.
"I can help you hide. Hide yourself so completely even Hunters here will not know what you are and the Midgard Sentinels will not know you from a non-Gifted. I need only a favor and in return I will teach you how to hide any and every trace of your Gift until it is your own secret to keep or divulge."
"A favor? Was it a favor when you stole me from my world and life? I owe you nothing."
"Yes, that," he mused. "The circle I've crafted is unique. Nothing else like it exists. What I needed was no longer available to me, and so I took the necessary steps to make it available.
"You're not only on a different planet at a different time. This is an alternate existence, a version of the universe you knew and that seems to be hundreds of years in the future from your knowledge. There is nothing you can go back to now. Midgard is gone. Humans are extinct. It's all long dead. The only way is forward if you wish to go back."
Harry closed his eyes. He had known that, somewhere in his bones. He had sensed that change. His connection with Death had whispered the truth of it.
There was something fundamentally broken in this universe. The balance of life and death was too far gone to Death. There was nothing that could be fixed here. There was only the end.
"Apocalypse."
Loki stiffened and watched Harry warily. He obviously hadn't expected Harry to realize the truth.
"Yes. Ragnarok. Revelation. The apocalypse. Whatever you wish to call it this universe is dead. But the being responsible for this end is not, and he will continue to consume all life."
Harry stared at an interesting crack in the rock wall for a few seconds as he took in those words. Someone had caused this discord. Death itself had abandoned this universe, the scales tipped too far out of her control to fix. Harry was the fulcrum point, the knowledge of it all coming too easily to his mind.
This broken universe was his real purpose as Master of Death. This was the reason for his training. The truth of it was a bullet train coming full speed while he stood on the tracks. Death and Life were balance, and only Harry had the power to restore it.
Loki seemed to sense he was winning Harry over.
"You were hiding on Midgard when the circle ensnared you? On earth?"
"Of a sort," he said tiredly.
"It was one of the first worlds destroyed by the Titan."
Harry feels nothing but harsh truth in the blunt words. "Because humans fight. They survive. It is few who welcome Death's embrace." Harry's lips quirked. "Especially from alien overlords out to destroy the planet."
Loki visibly flinched at the words. Huh. There was a story there.
"So I've learned," he whispered. "But in the end they all died," he went on in that same quiet tone. "Humans are extinct. Wiped away after their heroes rose up to try to stop the Mad Titan before he could claim all of the stones of power and failed spectacularly."
Loki's voice was flat but the pang of sorrow, regret, and bitter hatred for himself and likely the Titan at those words spoke the real story behind the sentence.
"Once he had them, there was no more hope. Worlds fell. Species tried and failed to fight and they were all eradicated. Sentient or not. Peoples, animals, plants. Nothing is left. I am the last of my kind. I am the last of any kind," he finished softly.
There was silence as Harry took in the enormity of the man's words. The last living person in the universe. Even Harry's shields could not completely keep out the sea of loss and sorrow. There was so much said in the pauses between the syllables. So much regret in the breath between words.
"Why did the Titan let you live?"
It had to be asked. If nothing else could stop the Titan, it made no sense Loki had somehow escaped him.
Loki's smile was brittle. "Punishment. I played a dangerous game started out of childish spite decades ago and I did not come out the victor. I thought I could maneuver the pieces and I was maneuvered in turn. My punishment and penance has been to watch it all burn around me. I do not have the power now to move through universes. I cannot escape it and I cannot fix it. I will die in the very realm I despised and ridiculed despite calling it my birth home."
Harry blinked. That was a lot of fucked up in that punishment. Even Voldemort hadn't been that deranged or cruel.
"I am the only one," Harry said slowly; he wanted to offer some semblance of peace to this broken creature, "ever made of my kind. No others will ever be created. No others will ever understand. I will never die and never age but I can feel every wound and I know every death." The words were hollow in this dark cave. "I was human. Once." Stark in their truth. "Even with my presence now humans are still extinct. I only hold the image of my former self. There is nothing human left." Harry held up his pale hand and sharp claws to study them. "Not really."
Loki leaned towards Harry, grief carved into his skin and the light of madness in his eyes. A desperate creature, scrabbling for the last shreds of hope in a hopeless world.
"And what are you, then? What have you been made. Humans failed, I failed, all of the others failed. We need something more."
"Yes. You do," he agreed.
He did not look away from Loki. Harry reached into the vortex of Death's power around his magical core, that link that was there but never really accessed.
Harry grabbed the power with both hands, metaphorically speaking, and ripped open the door.
There were no words to describe the rush. The instant change. Death's power filled up the cracks and crevices inside and spilled into a writhing darkness outside his skin. Harry felt like he could breathe. Even better, the gray faded from his vision and for the first time since waking as the Master of Death Harry saw color again. All of the colors of Death and his Gift. He had to blink a few times to take in the striking contrast of mad red eyes and blue skin, the yellow glow of the candles and shadow-cloaked brown and gray of the stone walls and floor. The dark wood of the tables. The parchment yellow of the notes and equations littering the room.
Color. Life in his acceptance of Death. Again. Harry could appreciate the being's sense of dramatic irony.
He can't go back to his time. Not the way he came. Every word rings Loki's truth in that. His only choice is forward. Every instinct-Magical, Gifted, and Death-says this universe is too broken to fix. The Mad Titan had left this future horrifically wronged. It could not be corrected.
But this was only one possible future. Harry could take the steps to ensure the others had a chance.
His decision made, Harry funneled Death's power into the circle. There was no drain, no draw, no cost. Harry wished it and Death's power complied, the visible darkness moving at his command.
With an audible crack the tendrils slithered through the power of the runes like ivy through stone. Inexplicable and inevitable. The circle cracked and shattered, the stone floor physically cracking under the backlash of broken power.
Harry stepped through the circle in a blaze of black shadow and gold sparks as his magic flooded back to mix with Death's power. His glamour settled on his skin like a favorite coat, hiding the true Harry from the world once more.
"You called at the end for an end, Loki Liesmith."
Loki cackled madly at the show; his eyes glittered as his own illusion poured down his body to match Harry, leaving the Liesmith in his human appearance of pale skin and black hair in some silent, twisted game of Simon Says that only existed in Loki's brain.
Harry smiled, a wolf who had lost his sheep skin. No matter the time or place, living or dead, Harry was a means to an end. Nothing more and nothing less.
There was a certain freedom in that.
He stared into the madness of Loki's eyes and found that same jittery eagerness from before rising. Death's power still swirled about his legs and feet like a cat greeting its beloved master home from a too-long trip.
Harry stroked a hand through the air and the darkness came all too willingly to his request. He let it pool and play about his fingers and palm, dancing it around like a living liquid in a subtle show of power that had Loki's face near split in two from his manic grin.
"An end you have been given. I am the Master of Death. Judge and jury. Pardon and execution. Subject to neither life or death. I am what I always will be and will be what I always am."
Loki clapped once in ecstatic excitement before his smile turned predatory.
"Then let the end begin."