STARTER FOR @storiesofwildfire PLOTTED | THE IRON BULL & LOKI
Ah shit, shit, shit - it had to be demons! Demons and the fade. Ever since getting to Thedas he’d seen more piles of evil than he’d ever see on Par Vollen. Creepy fuckers crawling up on your skin. They made his horns itch ad he was ass deep in them, swinging with every inch of force he could muster, thinking hard about the nice hot bath he’d have when it was all done.
There would be bubbles. Or someone would die.
It’s more of a challenge to keep track of each member one eye down but he’d had time to adapt. Right down to movements and style, keep turning, the recoil of hits would give him pause enough to catch sight and go again. He’d had practice keeping straight steps, hah, Krem must miss the days of him falling on his face every few hours.
To his right Dorian is moving quickly, him and Sarah mixing bottles and magic to set fire to everything around them. It’d be pretty if it wasn’t scary as all shit. Sometimes he wonders if that Elf isn’t a little bit mage by the way she manages not to go up with it, dancing back and cackling madly as twinkle toes sweeps his staff past her to throw up a wall of ice.
Boss is making short work of enemies with him, blood thick on her blades. Absolute whirlwind with a knife, Adaar suited them. The Ben-Hasraath would’ve made good work of them if they were born to the Qun. ‘Course they wouldn’t damn well be here if the Qun had spread a little further.
The Bull swings down hard, gives a grunt and grins when the body falls under him. Pride demon falling to its knees with a shriek he definitely wont drown out with a bottle later. None of his boys are down, no death calls but the ringing quiet of the battlefield is always better than the noises these things make.
Just for the pleasure he grinds his heel down, huffing through the smoke.
“Aw shite, tell me that’s all of ‘em. It is right? Tell me it is!”
“I have many talents but tragically Demonic maths is one of my lacking. It seems clear for now.”
Bull snorts at the easy back and forth between the pair. Despite appearances theres no heat, all of them too worked boneless to really panic about holding political ground. Dorian even waves a hand passively, a few arrows flying of their own accord back to their shooter.
Kali wipes blades on the fabric of her thighs and all but bounds over to them, reminding him of a needy nug in the way she pushes back blonde hair and fusses over the elf. Sera likes it, shows in how she preens but Bull? Well, a solid ground would be just as hot right now.
“Not to interrupt the warm and fuzzies boss but the big hole in the sky?”
It’s a feeling he’d never want to imagine but couldn’t escape now. Like a weight over his head, pulling, heady. It’s like drinking too much and following ass you know will kill you in a dark alley out of the Tavern. Temptation - it’s always temptation with the fade and the more rifts they close the less open for business it was.
This one seemed particularly angry. Kali turning determinedly even as beneath their feet kicks up spires of not-real-probably-deadly green crystal.
Did he mention he hated this? Ground shouldn’t move like that. It’s ground. It’s solid.
“Right. Last one! Then we can go back to camp and get some dinner. Kadan, take border with Dorian, Hissrad, watch for any stragglers.”
Ugh because that was a thing. Closing them seemed to be a big game of tug and war. Boss once called it stitching with their whole hand rather than a needle. As she closed it there was a chance for something on the other side to try and cut the thread, pull back, get through. Pulses, kick back. It didn’t happen often but usually what dropped dropped with claws and a whole new set of nasty.
Routinely they get into place, Bull turning the weapon in steady hands as he keeps an eye firmly on the gaping chasm of creepy. Sometimes - breath held and tension tight - it almost seemed pretty. Horrific beyond all reason but still. And sometimes after he thinks he might have seen more than green past it, they all did if the nervous twitches and wondering mage eyes gave him any true indicator.
They didn’t talk about it. There was too much potential for apostate or feral claims if they did.
The first boom of connection rocks them. Sera cursing up a storm as she sticks an arrow into the ground to grip and steady herself. Dorian at his side bracing with his staff. He plants his heels, glances to Adaar as she seems to steel herself, squaring shoulders and shoving against the impact. A soldier in her, solid in horns.
It should be a connection, one forward, one back and then it knitted shut tight. Very flashy, sure, but quick only.... it doesn’t start to shut.
“How fascinating. It appears to be redirecting! Don’t sever now, you may well bring reality down if you do!”
Redirecting. Bull turns his head to look at Dorian in disbelief, the Serabaas only shrugging when the thread tethering Adaar to the damn fade throbs twice then flickers gold and without any kind of not-freaky warning goes a bright, burning blue.
It’s never been blue before.
“Defransdim, what is it doing!”
Kali hides her panic well but The Iron Bull see’s it. Canines snapping, a faint tremor in her fingers.
“It’s fighting back! I - I’m trying to close it but it’s pulling me! Saar-”
Not good. He’s moving without thinking, knowing the others are following. Last time anything batshit happened with one of these they were dragged upside down with a fear demon, the basic manoeuvre was to grab for Adaar and keep her ass here in the real world and act as an anchor so that she could slam the door on whatever reached back.
The Iron Bull grabs for Sera who grabs for her Kadan and Dorian plants his staff to the ground and begins to feed magic into her like a very pretty parasite. It’s easier not to think about what’s going through him in that moment.
One last pulse hits hard. Funnelling upwards like a bolt of electricity, hitting the middle and arching across the length of it. Twisting until it curls like ice webbing along the edges and as Bull yanks on the three of them with a kind of language that Tamma would hide him for the world goes fucking still.
It’s messed up, the ringing in his ears that leaves only their breath fogging infront of them. Going on for what feels like forever before in a rush that would leave anyone heaving the world comes back with a vengeance.
Sera is tiny but she’s not light and Dorian looses all grace, knocking against his horns on the way down, Kali bracketing them all with a yelp.
It’s closed. But not for free.
“Dorian, protective stave! Sera, healing flask, Bull, help me catch!”
If it hadn’t been thought enough to day he takes a second to reiterate their situation.
A lot of freaky things have fallen out of the sky for them the past few months. Demons, monsters, Grey Wardens, that one memorable time with the Qunari but as Bull surges forward, bracing for impact and rolling to soften it what’s lying in his arms is something else entirely. Blue softer than the ice in the sky curls up like a soft grey, lacing across skin and closed eyes, decorating curved horns with a sort of elegant scribe that has his heart picking up pace.
The Ben-Hassrath didn’t have many answers on the people that came before them. Most of the stories were trauma oral, unreliable. Messy. Some had probably been intentionally erased by their predecessors but what they did have deep in the archives were faded images, half drawings.
Careful are the hands that cradle it close. Trying to stave off some of the ice on soft skin. The Temassaran were going to flip later. Later, when the body against him isn’t half dead. Coming through the fade hurts, keeps something of you in it and this shouldn’t even be -
Adaar had been the one to help him up. Between the two Qunari it was easy to hold the reality, sheltering them from the harsher lights of the wastelands with wide eyes. Getting back to camp? That was more of a task given the track of crap and lingering bandits but despite their confusion and fascination Sera and Dorian were good people, keeping up a hell of a frontline between them and any dangers.
Cullen had appeared pretty quickly with the other two advisors and a small team of healers and The Iron Bull is thankful when Kali doesn’t let them order him out of the tent. Krem bringing by food every few hours as he sets up in a corner. Whoever this was (he’d tripple and quadruple checked it wasn’t a demon) they were one of his people and the humans might be fine but they were selfish. If they thought a Kossith was here...
So they sat guard, humming away as they worked on sewing a more fitting set of clothes. Seriously, a Qunari leader and these people still didn't know that horns meant bigger neck holes. The only stops were to coax some water into them and wipe down the fever.
They were beautiful though. Qunari they had to mimic the markings of their kin. War paint, decorative colours. They drew and marked their skin to show what was lost, celebrated it even as they mourned but the lines so sweet on blue didn’t leave when he dragged a gentle cloth over them. They were born there, meant to be there.
Tamma was going to loose their mind.
Bull just sat and hoped that the healers had worked their (no pun intended) magic so that the Kossith would wake well.
“Feels kind of weird talking to someone who’s out cold. Normally my guys talk back, loudly. Actually, it’s less talk, more mouth.” Bull pauses, adding another thread to the rope, stitching protection symbols alone the knotted threads. “Come on baby blue, Cassandra might start beating my ass if she can’t ask questions soon. It’s a fine ass, you’re risking a real winner.”