AZEROTH'S LION

    “You might be surprised, at that. I’ve experienced more adventure in the past year than many are fortunate enough to see in a lifetime.” 

Lothar is a guarded man, normally, but this night his emotions play like sunlight over his face, each shadow and highlight distinct, undiluted by anything so mundane as propriety. Not that Khadgar was one to demand such things… the smile he hadn’t felt curve his lips faded as that shadow fell over the warrior again, the memory of those fallen too close, too real, even with the insulation alcohol could offer.

“But no,” the mage agrees, drinking again with a grimace. Special reserve his glowing magical arse. If he survived the night he would have words with the Innkeeper. “Not lenient. Unyielding would be closer to the truth. They do not evolve, they do not care to look beyond their own and they do not change.” Sighing as he watched Lothar drain another tankard, he continued, hopeful if nothing else he might distract the other man for a time. 

“You have noticed I left them, I presume. They certainly don’t see eye to eye with me on such matters. Tradition has its value, but turning your back to the world when it no longer fits into the box you’ve carved for it makes no sense at all.” Glancing down again, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the dark brew and was surprised, as always, that he looked so much younger than he felt. “Now, they have no choice… change is coming, and with it a new order. There will never be another Guardian.”

“You might not be there anymore,” Anduin offers, with all the gravitas a drunk man can muster, not quite meeting Khadgar’s eyes before they return to his drink, “but some things we never really leave behind. You would not be who you are today without the Kirin Tor, yes?”

He doesn’t particularly wait around for an answer to the question, shrugging it away. His gaze is stubbornly fixed on nothing in particular on the other side of the room, away from the young mage. No, there will never be another Guardian. Medivh had been proof enough that even the best of men were vulnerable to that which none could predict, could foresee. There’s only a handful of people in the world who truly understand why there will be no successor to Medivh.

Nobody understands better than the two men sitting at this bar.

The last mouthful of the drink is drained down briskly, the tankard pushed away from himself. He waves off the barkeep, refusing - at least for now - the next in a chain of drinks that has been crossing the bar steadily all evening. He’s good and drunk now, will be worse when he stands, and maybe that’s enough.

He’s wobbling between the line of drunk enough to forget and drunk enough to care too much, to break down to tears, to scream and shout and rail against the unfairness of it all. He won’t let himself fall to that, not with Khadgar here to see him.

The younger man looks at him too much like he’s worth more than that. It’s a heavy weight to live up to, but he feels compelled. 

He turns, leans his elbows onto the bar so that he’s surveying the half-empty taproom with a sort of bored indifference, gaze not wandering for long before it’s fixed back on Khadgar, thoughtful.

“ Only if those he seeks forgiveness from give him the opportunity to try. ” 

Still he knows the love of the people exists; adoration made tangible with a statue in place in the town square — a monument for a man they had believed in. He carried no crown, no sword, no shield. Instead, there was a staff in hand and the feel of magic bright that would dance at his will. It’s he who they believe in, he who exists in minds and hearts as a hero — the guardian — that fell. That had been his great sacrifice.

There is regret; a sorrow felt for what had come of whispers; what had fed on the softness of his heart and what he truly believed. Guardian carries a burden; title with a weight incomprehensible to those who don’t understand. Frustration eats at patience, selfish and self centered he knows — it’s not so simple, he’s said over and over again. A guardian. A protector. Duty bound to something he believed no one understood ( and perhaps it’s in those thoughts that something wicked festered; twisted words and strings of memory into the piece they wished for ). 

How could he leave a world to rot, leave those innocent to die? How could he break the promise truly meant to protect those loved? 

Medivh’s gaze remains despite the arc made by arms. He listens with intensity and a brace well hidden by the robes worn. He knows, he’s seen it; the before, the after, and the way it came to be. This he hoped would help him stop the cycle; halt the path and obstruct the way of those lost by the evil of the fel. “ We both know of war, Lothar, just as much as we know of peace. We can fix this. ” 

There is resolve in his voice, a firmness rare with a voice often gentle. He dares to take that step forward; space the same once more. Touch here too, hands moving to reach and touch at shoulders — something rare, but necessary, where the gravity of the situation is clear as the blue of his eyes. “ We will need to get to work. Before Gul’dan gains more power from those we hoped would never touch our lands. We will need to rid him of the power he seeks, before we cut him from the power that made him come to be. ” 

Anduin Lothar is a man at odds.

There is one part of him still angry, still raw with grief at what he has lost. He keeps it chained, that part, caged up until he needs it. Though he has always taught his men that anger burns out of a battlefield, is unreliable when compared to discipline, to loyalty, to love for fellow man and for what lies behind them, he has always kept a little rage by.

Sometimes it works when naught else will.

The other part of him is desperate to embrace his friend, to lay to rest the dreams of betrayal by a familiar face. To forget the sight of Medivh, fel-riddled and wrong, unable to fight off the urge to kill the man he’d called friend since childhood.

The war within him must be visible on his face, in the clear blue-grey of his eyes. Can he forgive? Medivh’s actions were not of his own will, but they were of his own hand. Cruel, perhaps, to require atonement, but men died. His son died. His King died.

No, he has no need to forgive, no yet. Only to allow that one day, he might. The hands on his shoulders decide him. Through his armour, he cannot feel the warmth of those hands, the heat of the blood that assures him that his friend is here, is alive again. Bitterness, in that, a faint sense of unfairness, that he who dealt the blow should return while those who were dealt it do not.

But Medivh is his friend, and Anduin’s loyalty is fierce like nothing else, burned like a brand in the confines of his ribs, marking their undersides where nothing can quite scratch it off, no matter how hard it might try.

One hand rises to circle Medivh’s wrist, the other clutches at the back of his neck, pulling their forehead’s close until they rest against each other. Anduin does not close his eyes against his grief or his uncertainty or his worry for the future.

“I would do anything for these people.” An explanation, of sorts, for his acceptance. “But listen well, old friend: I will not hesitate to do whatever is necessary to prevent such tragedy from striking again. Do you understand?”

    I will not hesitate to strike you down, should the need arise.

Spinning suddenly as the too-familiar voice sounded behind him, his heart pounding and his eyes and hands still aglow with arcane power, Khadgar stared unblinking at his unexpected visitor for a long, breathless moment before the massive stones his art held midair began to slowly orbit above, light coiling and pulsing between them, the circular pattern of his thoughts mirrored visibly in the bones of the shattered Tower.

Of course the wards would not alert me of his arrival– not for him. The only other soul save me still living that they will yet accept. But he’s here. He’s here. 

    Why is he here? 

Mind whirling as he internally verified the time that had passed, Khadgar averted his gaze, more to conceal his reaction than anything else, silently turning back to his work. It had been only hours since he had fled, and surely there was nothing so pressing here to draw Lothar from such an... important discussion of his, and the kingdom’s, very future.

Recriminations would serve neither of them, Khadgar lectured himself sternly, but it was difficult enough to heed whatever bare counsel wisdom might gather when it came to this man. When he was here, inexplicably, and welcome beyond any measure that the Mage might dare reveal.

And yet– he must find his tongue, even if he could not speak his mind. He could feel the pressure of the King’s regard, the weight of a gaze almost tangible as a touch, and closing his eyes against the memory of what it had taken to finally drive him here, to his duty, Khadgar purposefully kept his voice light when he finally answered, tone teasing as had been the habit that had grown between them in the months since they had both lost so very much.

    “I would think that so much time spent on your arse in the council chamber lately would leave you with a desire to be out and on your feet. Perhaps I should add a few more stairs… we wouldn’t want your royal reputation to suffer when you lose track of your breath on the way to the baths.”

The silence is a deafening one, the stillness binding. Even the gentle, ethereal drift of heavy stone and soft light can’t disturb the deep well of it between them, that seems to stretch and grow and deepen until Anduin fears that both of them might drown trying to cross it. He wants nothing more than to shatter it, to break it into pieces.

But being leader of this alliance, standing before the people of Stormwind --- not king, he’s yet to think of himself as king, isn’t sure he’ll ever feel like anything more than a child dressed in his father’s clothes, too big and too fine and far too much room to fill --- hasn’t taught him nothing.

He waits.

The humour ought to break the tension. All it does is drain the well of it an inch, a perceptible change that’s nonetheless insignificant in the overall depth of it. Still, Anduin huffs out a breath of amusement, mock-offence.

“You know full well I could still hand your arse to you, any day of the week.” After all, it’s not all fancy dinners and long council meetings, even though some days it feels like it -- interminable and unending, an eternal circle of petty arguments and squabbling dressed up as politics. He may be acting as these people’s leader, as their king, but he is what he is. He’s a soldier, and the military commander of Stormwind. He refuses to give up those duties.

The wry twist of his lips tangles a little against his teeth as eyes wander, unthinking, to the crater that was once the font. To the place where he’d watched a shade that had once been his friend die. The sight of it sends something sharp lancing through his chest, like a blade that has found a chink in armour. He takes an involuntary step backwards before a sharp breath settles him, and he looks back at Khadgar as he works.

“I can’t bear it, sometimes.”  The confession is unexpected, even to himself -- words drawn out like poison from a wound. “Standing where he stood. Leading where he led. I’m a soldier. I was never meant for diplomacy, or politcs, or proposals of marriage from rich men on behalf of their daughters ----”

“ It is not something so easy to explain. ” A squeeze of his hand upon the shoulders of a man who bears a burden too heavy to carry alone ( a burden forced, where two of three, once there, now gone; and now with the betrayer having returned ). The thought causes his mind to drift, the slight glaze of eyes distracted by the sins both committed with knowledge, and those without memory. But here he gives that smile, the one too sly, too teasing, too close to a memory of a time before where armour had been too large and mage’s robes too long. “ It seems this world still needs a guardian, ” a pause, “ or at least, the guardian has a need to return. ”  

Where would he be, what would he be without the duty tacked on and a need to sacrifice oneself like those before? 

“ Perhaps I cannot rest, the endless wheel of my vocation still exists — perhaps I’ve yet to prove myself. ” Good, the word carries a weight that causes the tremor within, the once thought arrow that pointed north on moral compass skewed with the touch of green. Different now he swears, where there’s clarity in his mind, and a silence where whispers once existed. No touch of fel, no green hue in his eyes with a trick of light or the presence of something that had remained unseen, felt only through internal struggle. 

Medivh doesn’t speak for a moment, eyes that had once set on his dear friend’s remaining there, soft in gaze. Another smile, and another squeeze; where Lothar’s hand had left, the mage’s remains — touch a necessity even for him. This is real; no trick of mind or torment made to play with the heart and mind of a man who had done so much wrong despite the desire for that right; skewed only by the chaos that clashed with the arcane he so easily wielded with his hands and mind.

“ Do with what you see and what you know as you wish, Anduin, ” and there is a twitch of brows as he pauses. “ What I’ve done cannot be erased, what I’ve brought upon the peace of Azeroth, what I’ve brought upon you, your family, and those innocent for — a want corrupted… ” The smile fades, the line of lips straight. “ I’m not blind, nor ignorant to what I’ve done, how dangerous I can be — how dangerous I may still be. ” Eyes then up, set gaze firm. “ But, believe me, my friend — I wish to atone, I wish for Azeroth to be at peace once more. I wish nothing more than to fix what I have done with what I can do. ” 

“The world has its guardian. Of a sort.”

Khadgar fulfils those duties now -- in action and in spirit, if not in name. Guardian is a word he speaks now with caution where once it had been with respect or admiration or sometimes a fond exasperation. Where Medivh had been distant -- summoned only by the king, present only for difficulties in which he could help -- Khadgar is a constant. 

It’s plain enough that without him, Lothar would perhaps have made some rash decisions that involve punching men whose ‘politics’ passes the point of tiresome and enters meddlesome.

The road towards relief, towards a shaky and unwise acceptance of his friend’s return is derailed by the mention of what Medivh has done. How different might everything have been, now, without that influence? His son, his men, his friend and king, how they might now have been where they ought. Khadgar tells him that the fault cannot be Medivh’s, entirely. That the fel-touched influence of something great and terrible had driven him to it.

But it had worn Medivh’s face and spoken in his words, and Lothar cannot forget that.

“Can a man atone for this?”

He sweeps out an arm, takes a step back from Medivh. There’s naught to see behind him, but the gesture is clear: this, all this, is your fault. Conflict, and suffering, an alliance that will lead to war like no man has ever seen, and himself at the head of it all. “Peace is a dream I can no longer find! Day by day we hear more reports of the horde, of the influence of the fel. Gul’dan’s army grows and so does his influence. Only two weeks ago I heard reports that it is not only orcs who follow him, now.”

He arrests himself, takes a sharp breath to halt voice, already raised, from becoming a shout.

“ You sound tired, my friend. ” Voice filled with relief, mirth and something else along with that moment of struggled breath. He looks it too, the wear that comes with a crown worn and a duty given. He sees it in the fine gold filigree of armour and the lion emblazoned upon forged steel. It’s a place he knows the warrior will fit with some ease, where the heart is strong and the resolve carries the strength of an idea: to do good. To protect. But of course, Medivh understands. what he occupies, where he now has to sit had been meant for a brother. 

A clearing of his throat, and arms that wrap around metal warm from the sun which had touched them. Lothar’s hugs always had a force to them he found to be almost too much, like his rib cage threatens to fracture and his lungs are squeezed of the air they’re supposed to hold. Metal against metal, there’s a scrape and dull clatter that comes with the embrace. It’s good, it’s real, and it’s a touch of comfort he realises only then is something a small part of him has yearned for. 

Perhaps he too, wasn’t sure if this was real; wasn’t sure if this was him. For how was he to know himself without the corruption that had spread since the wake of power? How was he sure even now, that it was gone — defeated by a lion and a boy mage who wished to save Azeroth and their king? LLane. The idea comes, flickered memories stained with the hue of a green that once had blinded him, consumed his thought, his mind and body. It causes a falter in that smile, and an ache in his heart he knows will forever remain. 

“ I’m glad that I’ve returned. ” Somewhat. “ I have plenty to do. ” Plenty to fix. 

“It has been a long time since I slept the night through.”

Even when embrace is broken, hands do not leave his old friend’s shoulders -- though whether they act to keep Medivh at arm’s length or to hold him close for fear of his leaving again, even Anduin himself cannot say. “Not all of us have had the rest granted by our graves.”

Because he had buried Medivh. Stormwind had mourned their guardian, and Anduin had mourned his friend. There can be no denying that this is either a trick or a miracle. He hopes for one and expects the other.

“And how have you? Returned?”

He’s half-expecting the kind of explanation that Medivh used to give him when they were young men, and when he was curious of all the ways the world worked, all its nuances, how a mage’s touch could shape magic to defeat even the strongest of warriors. It’s magic, my friend, would be all that he would get, no matter how many questions he asked.

“What am I to tell the council? That our guardian has simply returned?” The accusations rising in his throat like bile taste just as bitter, and he takes no joy in framing the thoughts. Hands fall away at last as he remembers the betrayals that few have been told about. There is yet one that is widely known, that cannot be denied.

         The guardian had not saved their men from ambush. The guardian had not saved his son. Something pained settles on his face.

It was unlike Khadgar to avoid what scared him, however little he would admit– even to himself– that returning here was indeed a thing he feared. But it was, for all the reasons he had first entered the twisted, shadow-shrouded Tower back before this mess had all occurred, mingled excitement and trepidation pooling, lingering in his very bones even now, and yet more reasons besides. That shadow he had pressed through with every determined step, that disconcerting aspect of time spiraling recklessly, of memories that could not be held accountable for their desolation, of blood spilled both ancient and fresh– no. It had not faded in the slightest.

Instead, it had grown only more complex… layered upon the lingering essence of the last Guardian, of his countless hours spent here, of study and of familiar power that would never leave the crumbling stones, of the corruption that had finally claimed him, even now when no visible remnant of that taint could be discovered.

And upon that complex weaving of past and present, of pain and doubt, of glorious legacy and exaltation, Khadgar’s very presence added another subtle shade to the mix.

He mourned, as illogical as it was to do so. For himself, for the loss of a man he had very nearly worshiped, for what he could have learned, for what they could have accomplished together. He mourned for Llane, cut down in his prime, for his son, and for the entirety of his subjects. And finally, the Mage mourned for Lothar, perhaps most intensely of all.

They had become close enough, even before the nearly disastrous war they’d almost been forced to engage in, for him to understand how very damaged the man had been by Medivh’s betrayal. The awareness that the Guardian had no real choice in the matter was little consolation when the new King was forced to go on alone, without those he had cared for nearly the entirety of his life.

Well. Perhaps not alone. Khadgar had been a nearly constant presence at Lothar’s side over these past few months, making himself available as possible in an attempt to both to aid Lothar in whatever manner he may, and to comfort himself as well. Perhaps it had been a somewhat selfish sacrifice, but Khadgar found he could not care when it came to the man he had come to regard above all others in this world and the next.

And that regard, of course, was what had led him here. Where ultimately, his duty resided, regardless of his halfhearted attempts to evade that responsibility. Lothar, it seemed, would not remain alone for long, regardless of his own absence.

The room where Medivh had breathed his last– witnessed only by Khadgar himself and the restless ghosts of previous victims– was unchanged save for the removal of the man himself for proper burial. Rubble still lay strewn about the chamber, the balcony overhead partially fallen, and the remains of the golem that had once sought their demise still lay where it had fallen, reduced to its base components, any animation that it had once possessed as absent as the beating heart of his Master.

Shaking his head deprecatingly at his wool-gathering, Khadgar pushed up the sleeves of his robe and began to focus, his feet braced solidly shoulder-length apart as he raised his hands, already faintly glowing, determination obvious in the grim set of his features. He had work to do here, and he had wasted time enough ensnared in what dreams would never come. It was time. Time to move on. If he proved strong enough to do so. And so he must. 

What else was left to him, in truth?

There has always been something about flying.

Now, more than ever. To leave behind the petty politics and stifling, gilded chains of this place he’s found himself in is a relief, to watch it shrink away beneath him until he can taste nothing but wind. He never dreams of leaving, but he dreams of this -- of the freedom of flight.

Urging the beast as fast as she’ll fly, they soar towards Karazhan with a harsh wind tugging through Anduin’s hair, biting at his skin and sending his eyes streaming. He fears that if he slows, he will not be brave enough to continue.

Bad enough to face what he has lost every day, without having to stand in the places that he lost it. He hopes to find Khadgar outside the tower, or in the library, but he knows in his heart that he will not, even before his approach reveals to him the white-blue flicker of magic atop the tower. He falters for the first time at the sight of it, at the memory of being stood across the font from Medivh, inviting his friend -- what had once been his friend, he corrects himself, little more than empty shell carrying some dark evil he may never understand -- to kill him. I have nothing left to lose. He had thought that he had meant it. He had been wrong.

He mounts the stairs, sets punishing, steady pace that has him breathless within seconds, but which he will not abandon. When did he become this frightened thing, unwilling to stop for fear that he will freeze, all courage lost?

By the time he reaches the top, his pulse is pounding too hard beneath his skin to let him focus, and perhaps he could claim that to have been his plan all along. The tightness in his chest, the shallow hitch of his lungs may prove distraction enough from what he must inevitably confront.

Khadgar stands, feet planted and hands raised and even without seeing his face, Anduin knows that he looks more sure here than at any dinner, or sat around any negotiating table. The set of his spine is stronger, more solid. As if this is where he finds himself.

“If you’re making improvements, can I suggest fewer stairs?”

A stretch of his neck to gather breath, and hands that once had fallen to his sides move to lift and touch at wrists. The unsteady fury within the warrior almost tangible with the bare distance between them. Eyes meet, and he speaks still with a steady calm that contrasts harsh when matched against Lothar’s. “ Your friend is very much alive. ” 

A Guardian is not a passive being, not meant to stand idly by and watch and allow himself to be harmed in the face of danger and in front of threat. The power remains within him, courses through his veins like a current quiet beneath his skin. 

He doesn’t want to fight. He doesn’t mean to harm. 

( Yet, memory there within his mind that obstruct the laminar flow — there is duty, and there is good intention, and yet… even a good man may wander the wrong path with suggestion and the relativity of the expanse of worlds and realms ). 

One thing remains, however. This is still, and this will always be his friend. 

“ I am Medivh, ” He says once more. A pause, then a blink and a soft curl of his lips. Again, comes the thoughts he’d had before: he doesn’t want to fight, he doesn’t mean to harm; and yet, eyes glow for a moment that tell of the arcane powers he possesses. It’s a brilliant, icy blue, and lasts only for a moment. “ Do I need to prove it? “ The smile is telling: I would rather not. But, another duel, perhaps, just like old times? 

It is Medivh.

Right down to the expression, to the dry curl of humour behind his words; the tip of his head, the sharp edge of his smile. An expression that Lothar has seen a hundred times, one that generally signalled imminent surprise -- the clash of sword against spell, muscle against magic.

There is no hint of the Fel in his eyes, nor of the dark-eyed demon that had torn its way from his old friend’s skin, intent on destruction. But nor had there been before. Still he wakes from clawing nightmares of catching a flash of green in Khadgar’s dark eyes, of something hidden and dormant taunting him. Taking another friend, the last of them.

    Or perhaps not the last.

“ -- I’m not in the mood to be put on my back,” he says, and along with his words, the tension drains from the line of his shoulders. Not entirely -- there is some part of himself still held back, unwilling to give into what must surely be a trap, a trick, already thinking that it is Khadgar who must be the one who will know for sure. But he’s tired of carrying around this steel-sharp and brittle burden. King. Never a title he was meant for, and a desperately lonely place to end. “So I suppose I can only take your word for it.”

Crystalline concentration; void of the fractures once known that propagated with the green vein of the Fel and the whisper of another that dwelt within, there is no need for Medivh to use speech to cast. It would be easy, a gesture quick to pluck at invisible threads in the air, create that figure with magic’s string formed by a knowledge arcane, and to most, unknown. It would be easy to defend oneself, to still the hand that comes with a means to harm — fingers clasped, curled tight with purpose. It would be easy. 

And yet…

He knows the strength of the lion, of the friend who would leap before he looked ( march and fight his way through hell for those he trusted to call his closest friends ), he’s felt it once before — roughhousing, play and tricks and training for a mage against a warrior. Unnecessary, he argued, for those born of flesh rarely could match those who knew the world like he. ( But of course, Lothar would prove him wrong, would move like a force that refused to relent ). So the fist makes contact — intentionally so, and the Guardian staggers from the blow. 

Touch necessary, even if this was not the way desired, nor the one intended. Touch allows Lothar to see — to feel that he is real. A hand extends to balance, readied should force become more lethal. He doesn’t want to hurt. He just wants to talk. The other hand moves to his jaw, thumb and fingers cupped as if to support the jaw that aches from impact. “ — I have missed you too, old friend. ”

“You’re not my friend.”

Words are fierce, heated with the certainty of belief that burns in his bones. Medivh is dead. Medivh had died twice over, and Anduin may not have noticed the first time, but the second had been unavoidable. 

          (‘He was still a good man, in the end, you know.’                    ‘I know.’)

         “My friend is dead. I don’t know what you are, but you’re not him.”

And yet -- he hasn’t thrown a second punch. Hasn’t drawn his sword, for all that he’s had the time and the opportunity. Because it looks like Medivh and it sounds like Medivh and the connect of knuckle against jaw had been solid and real. Whatever this is, it isn’t a dream. It’s not some hallucination or mirage.

He gets two fistfuls of robe, pulls whatever’s wearing Medivh’s face close enough to look into his eyes. Not a hint of green, not the faintest edge. They’re the eyes of an old friend, eyes that he knows all too well. Eyes that he recognises.

Though sarcasm was no stranger to either of them, Khadgar couldn’t help the faint swell of amusement that rose in him at the other man’s words, and he thought again, not for the first time, that if he must be trapped with any alive, there were none better than Lothar, despite his surly humor.

It helped, of course, that at least if he were here, the Mage need not worry for him, as little as his king would appreciate such concerns. The other man’s change in station had altered his nature not at all– yet another strength of his character for which Khadgar found himself caught powerfully in helpless admiration. They did not speak of such things, those words remained trapped within his throat, twisting within his chest, leaving him uncertain and assured all in the same breath. He would not be another burden– Lothar had more than enough of such things already, and that resolution, at least, he was determined to hold dear.

“Unless you fancy a broken bone or two, no. Though you would likely be quite fetching thrown over my shoulder when we do finally make our way free, your fingertips dragging the ground in our wake.”

Baiting Lothar, of course, was as second nature to him as his Art, and Khadgar finally completed his rounds of the cell and settled himself against one of the featureless stone walls, sliding down until his cloak was tucked around him and his legs were folded neatly within the confines of his robe.

“There is no obvious weakness… which, of course, would indicate a weakness in and of itself. If there is no apparent channel to make use of, I shall simply have to create one.”

He tips his head back, doing his damn hardest not to turn and land a frustrated fist hard on the cell wall. Khadgar is right -- only broken bones down that path -- but he won’t admit it out loud. That would be too much like letting him win. 

   “As if you could carry me.”

A harsh sigh spills from his lips as he follows Khadgar’s example, slides down with his back against the door, legs splayed out in front of him. How long, he wonders, until their absence is noticed? Surely mere hours. Surely. He’ll accept a rescue, grudgingly, for all that he would much rather secure his escape himself.

But their options are limited. There are few things he hates more than being useless.

“Create one?” he’s half-interested, tipping his head in the mage’s direction. “You can do that? And before you start babbling about it, you can spare me the explanation. A simple ‘yes’ will do.” Impatient, even when there’s nothing for him to do but wait. A fault which it has always taken another to balance out. Llane had always played that part. Now, Khadgar.

The tightness in his chest last only a breathless moment.

He’s had dreams like this. Sometimes it’s Medivh, sometimes Llane. Sometimes it’s Callan. Sometimes it’s all of them, strolling across a courtyard in warm yellow sunshine, like they’ve never been gone.

       (He can never catch up to them.)

The dreams are always warm, nostalgic, even if they’re bittersweet. The reality is cold, horror rising in his veins at the implications, the possibilities. The upward hitch of his lips is trembling, fragile.

    “Old friend --”

“You would prefer tomorrow instead?” The Mage asked dryly as he spread his hands before a section of wall, testing the bindings, the faint blue glow about them so pale as to be nearly indistinguishable from the other shadows within the cell. He was restrained here, diminished, and it was nothing that would put any practitioner of the Art into a jocund mood.

“If they wished real violence, they would have likely already attempted it. As well I doubt they hold us for anything we know… we have not been put to a single question.” Pacing to the opposite wall, he carefully repeated the procedure, dark brows furrowing slightly as it remained unresponsive. “Nor anything we possess… what relics of mine that hold power still reside in the Tower, I would not chance them on the road. And though your sword is undoubtedly fine, I cannot see them going to the danger of capturing us for such a thing.”

More likely, they were being held simply to keep them from the peace talks they had planned to attend in less than a week’s time… no cage would hold them for long, but it could be long enough. And without Lothar’s galvanizing presence, without Khadgar’s voice of reason, it was almost certain to crumble as had all the others.

Glancing back where the other man had taken his post at the door, he exhaled slowly, attempting with only minor success to keep his frustration in check. It was as if they had woven these wards particularly with himself in mind. If he could not find the key, they may very well starve here with none to know their fate.

“Are you well?” Though Lothar was not likely to admit if he were not, the Mage knew his memories of being caged in the not so recent past were less than pleasant. “You need not stand guard while I work… one of us might as well get some rest.”

“I’d prefer to be doing it myself,” comes his retort. He turns to watch Khadgar for a moment, and he doesn’t miss the creased frustration between the young mage’s brows. No luck that way, then. He turns back to the corridor, desperate to catch sight or sound of someone. The cell is well-made, strong. He half suspects that the only weak point will be those that made it.

“There are plenty who would hold us for our names alone.”

He doesn’t relish the thought, still, that it is his name at the head of the alliance. He is a soldier, not a politician, and even less a king. He still chafes at the role that he has ended with. Were it not for Khadgar’s reasoned words and occasional restraining hand, he’s sure that by now he would have started some other war.

“Still, my fine sword will end in someone’s skull, regardless of their intentions.” He does not suffer lightly fools who would take it from him. He feels empty without it, for all that it wouldn’t do much good, in here.

“Can’t you tell?” He finally gives up on his pointless vigil, turns to lean against the door with his arms folded against his chest. “I’m having a wonderful evening. All this peace and quiet is doing me a world of good, I’m sure.” 

           (Dry as the Burning Steppes.)

A markedly skeptical expression spoke more eloquently than Khadgar likely ever could.

    “Oh, of course. And the instances where my terrible decision-making skills involved rescuing you… those would be explained away how, exactly?” Arguing would serve no purpose, he knew too well. Particularly here, trapped in an unfamiliar cell as they were, but it was a habit between them… something nearly comforting in its series of rituals.

“There has to be some flaw in their defenses. Some weakness… no ward ever made is perfect.” Though his own, he was realist enough to admit, were nearly so. But these had been forged by something alien to him, and navigating their intricacies would take time they likely did not have. 

“Bad luck, I imagine.”

It’s in his nature to antagonise. Even here, now -- trapped as they are. Perhaps even more so; a way to burn off some of the tension creeping up his spine. Fingers curl, desperate for the familiar heft of blade, and frustrated by their lack of weapons. Of any sort of weapons.

    “You’re really sort of the child who cried wolf when it comes to terrible ideas. To you, they all are. I stopped listening to the inevitably dire warnings shortly after we met.”

    “ -- only about your ideas, actually.”

Call him distrustful; people do. Khadgar is young, still, and no matter how many ideas he may prove to be far from terrible, he cannot change that for years yet. 

And besides: a firm opposition is healthy. Keeps the ego in check.