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.”
♔—- As time passed on Asgard and Loki grew older, it became more and more evident that they either didn’t belong there, or they just didn’t want to be there in general. A mixture of both, really. Asgard was a difficult place to manage for even the most normal of Aesir, but Loki was anything but normal. From the intense raw nature of what seemed to be endless magic, to the way Loki identified themselves and refused to meet any Asgardian norm, it painted a target on them, one that was easy to see and easier still to hit.
They wouldn’t go as far as to say the entire realm treated them poorly—though many days certainly did feel that way—but existing on Asgard was difficult for a number of reasons. Every day, they had to fight for the respect that simply should have come with their title as Prince of Asgard. Every day, they were pitted against their own brother, belittled for their use of magic to get ahead, and constantly put into a position where they had to prove themselves over and over again.
Not to mention, fingers always jammed Loki’s way when anything went array. Everything was blamed on them, they were accused of anything that that went wrong, and more often than not, they were guilty until they proved themselves innocent. Being told you were wrong, or you were doing wrong, over and over again, when you knew you weren’t, wore on a person after a time. Demonized, berated, and talked down to, Loki rarely saw this sort of behavior cast at their elder brother, never saw friends or acquaintances held to this completely unrealistic standard.
Loki was just... too different, deviated from the norm too much, and it made people uncomfortable.
A fact that Loki needed to accept and acknowledge, but that understanding made it no less difficult. In truth, there were still days after centuries upon centuries of being alive that Loki still questioned if they weren’t simply made wrong. Perhaps their peers were correct? Perhaps there was something broken inside of them that made it impossible for them to behave the way they were meant to. Self-doubt rooted itself to Loki’s very core and breaking free of its grip was no simple task, but they managed as well as to be expected.
Odin, though? The self-proclaimed All-father, protector of the Nine Realms, and King of Asgard, father of Thor and Loki, husband of Frigga... He was the real strain that kept Loki from actually feeling like Asgard could ever be a home. Odin tied a metaphorical collar around Loki’s neck and squeezed it so tightly that breathing proved to be a particularly challenging task. Gods above and below, he was choking the life out of his child and he showed no remorse for it.
Odin feared Loki’s magic. Every day, Loki’s power grew and developed to new heights with no signs of slowing down. Loki’s children, for some reason or another, posed a huge threat to the All-father, and Odin would do absolutely anything to keep Loki and their kin not only under control but at any beacon call. Of course, the storyteller’s skillset was far too useful for Odin to simply sweep under the rug and pretend like it didn’t exist at all, but allowing it to roam free with no restrictions or hold? Absolutely not. Odin did everything in his power to keep Loki under control and submissive, like a tamed lion, only listening to his master.
That dynamic didn’t really work, though, did it? Loki wasn’t a controllable beast that Odin could simply use when he wished and put back on the shelf for next time. The more restrictions that existed and the more Odin attempted to cage Loki, the more Loki pulled away, not only from the All-father, but from all of Asgard itself. One couldn’t hope to survive while being pulled around like a dog, expected to fight when told to, but otherwise left in a cage.
Odin used Loki, abused Loki, and stripped Loki of everything that made a person thrive. Gods, he even stole Loki’s children away from them and refused to let Loki see them or, in Fenrir’s case, even know where he was. And Loki didn’t even know the full extent of everything that Odin had done to them over the course of their lifetime.
Many times, Loki simply thought about leaving. Clearly, Asgard was not a home, and while many people on Asgard did truly love them, there were many more who didn’t. Would Asgard miss them? Yeah, probably, when they found themselves in a world of trouble that only Loki could probably reason out of and protect them from, sure, but they only liked what Loki could do for them, not Loki themselves.
Loki could be happier leaving, though, right? Who cares what happens to Asgard? Sadly, Loki actually did care... Loki loved Asgard overall and turning their back on the entire realm was something they weren’t sure they could actually do. As much as they knew that it might very well be better for them personally, turning their back on the place their grew up, a place that had the potential to be so much better than it was, that was filled with so much life and so much love... It couldn’t possibly be all bad.
A place that gave birth to Asmund and his brother, Gael, Fandral, Egil, Ylva, Alvida, Sigurd, Astrid, and so many others that they genuinely came to love couldn’t be inherently bad.
That mentality kept bringing them back. The belief and hope that things could genuinely be better for them, that without Odin in charge, changes for the better could be made... Though, watching Thor grow up to be just like their father had definitely dampened Loki’s hope for a better tomorrow on Asgard, they could not bring themselves to completely turn their back and give up hope entirely.
It would have been so much easier to say ‘good-fucking-day, catch you next century,’ but Loki never left for more than a few weeks, maybe a few months at a time. On very rare occasions, Loki found themselves losing track of time and not returning for a year or two, but for beings that lived for thousands of years, that felt more like the blink of an eye.
As they grew older, and Odin’s hold on their leash became tighter and tighter, they realized just how much they needed time off of Asgard. Their solo trips—or trips where they dragged a friend or two—were more and more frequent and they desperately needed to have longer stays away before they felt regenerated and recharged enough to return to their home that wasn’t really a home.
This current trip was meant to be much of the same. They told very few people they were leaving, a practice that became more and more common because as Odin discovered Loki’s desires to disappear, he put more obstacles in place in hopes of stopping their ventures. In truth, Odin really couldn’t. Loki knew ins and outs of Asgard that even the All-father himself didn’t know existed and if Loki couldn’t use a physical exit, they had magic that would definitely allow them to vacate the realm in no more than a few moments. Odin couldn’t actually stop Loki, but not having to deal with his attempts to block the younger prince from leaving certainly made things easier.
Only Asmund and Egil were properly informed, as Loki often interacted with them more than anyone else in Gladsheim. As soon as they disappeared from Heimdall’s sight, Heimdall would know Loki wished to leave and be left alone for a time, and he would hopefully steer Odin away from any attempts to drag him back. Heimdall, perhaps more than anyone, understood why Loki needed to leave and have some time to simply breathe and enjoy life without Odin and the rest of the Aesir breathing down their neck.
They didn’t really have much of a plan. Midgard to see Jörmungandr, but that was really as far as Loki’s formalities went. These trips were often go-with-the-flow sorts of things and that was the non-structured and chaotic lifestyle that Loki so desperately craved, these trips of exploration and self-reflection were the only chance they really got to even spend that sort of time going.
Seeing their son was an exciting prospect, though. The only one of their children they got to see on a regular basis was Sleipnir, and because Odin wanted everyone to believe that he had no relation to Loki and that he was little more than an impressive warhorse, getting to spend quality time with him was difficult. Not impossible, but difficult, nevertheless. Jor, though? Jor was really the only one Loki could easily get to, as Hel was usually trapped in Helheim, and getting to the Realm of the Dead was a challenge in and of itself, and Loki didn’t even know where Fenrir was... Odin had gone so far out of his way to hide Fenrir from the rest of the world, every time Loki got too close, Odin would move him again.
Why Fenrir, specifically, they weren’t sure. Why did Odin fear him so much more? They felt like they would dread the answer, but it was something that needed to be uncovered. A challenge for another day.
For now, making their way to Midgard to hug their giant noodle son was all they could really think about. The sweet relief of being free of Asgard for just a little while and catching up with one of their favorite people in all the Nine had them racing from the passageway to passageway. Portal conjuring was still a tricky thing for them, not impossible, but long distances of travel could be unstable and difficult to maintain, so unless Loki absolutely had to, they attempted to travel through the branches of Yggdrasil through hidden passages and portals that most didn’t even know existed. It took longer than creating their own path and it took longer than the Bifrost, but it was safer.
So they thought, anyway...
Sometimes, they took the wrong path, sure, and sometimes, they found themselves in a realm they’d never planned on visiting or, on very rare occasion, didn’t even know existed, but as Loki made their way across one of Yggdrasil’s branches, something pulled on them violently. An unseen force wrapped itself around them, squeezing the air from their lungs in a similar fashion to Jörmungandr coiling himself around his mother and hugging tight. The poor serpent didn’t realize just how large he’d gotten or how strong he was, but this force? It didn’t really seem to care that it could be causing severe damage.
Loki kept moving forward, desperately attempting to pull out of this thing’s hold, but every time Loki took a few steps, the grip around them tightened, making each step harder than the last. They couldn’t breathe, couldn’t really reach for anything, and while they’re magic pushed itself out in an attempt to bubble around them for protection, it had little effect on whatever held the God down.
The pressure finally brought Loki to their knees, unable to stand and barely able to keep their eyes open, the realm between realms blurred and any details that should have been easily identifiable faded away. An unpleasant sensation wafted through them as their body rearranged itself cell-by-cell. Not painful, exactly, as Loki was so used to shapeshifting that they absolutely understood what it felt like to change everything about themselves, but when they were forced to do so by an outside influence rather than making the conscious decision? Their body resisted the change as much as it could, but ultimately, whatever had to hold over the poor, lost traveler won out.
Thankfully, Loki was unconscious by the time they were spat out of the sky, their shape a form they would not recognize if they were to open their eyes and look properly. Decorative horns in a beautiful shade of medium brown, ridged and detailed, curved from beneath their hair, which was longer and fuller now than it had been before, nearly hitting their hip. A breathtaking shade of cobalt covered every inch of their body, and lighter blue markings ran the length of their arms, legs, and torso. Some more decorative markings decorated the back of their palms and their forehead, and had their eyes been opened, they would have been a striking and almost haunting ruby color that seemed to glow in the dark.
Some splotches of their new flesh appeared more purple than blue, though, especially around their cheeks and chest. Any area where heat rose up within them took on a violet hue, indicating some sort of reaction beneath the surface, in this case, a fever breaking out as Loki’s Jotun form had a much more difficult time regulating changing temperatures, especially ones as drastic as falling through what Loki would eventually learn was called the Fade.
Hours passed, and the Jotun did not wake. Their fall was rough enough to make those around them wonder if they would wake up at all and how long that would actually take, but at long last, after the sun had set, risen, and set again, Loki’s eyes finally began to flutter.
“Mmnn...” they groaned quietly, struggling to open and keep their eyes open for any length of time that would allow them to process what happened or where they were. Any light hitting their pupils hurt, and slowly, as if every move they made caused them discomfort, an arm finally came to rest over their eyes, shielding them from any intrusive sources of light.
“Asmund?” Loki called, voice cracked and broken from dehydration and discomfort. It was a safe assumption that they were with their healer friend. If something happened to them on the battlefield or something had attacked them, Asmund would have been the first person to be called in. They didn’t quite remember leaving Asgard. So much of what happened before the Fade took them was fuzzy. “Asmund, are you there?” they called, louder this time, though they instantly regretted it. That only made their throat ache more.
Frustrated when Asmund didn’t answer, they finally moved to push themselves up, squinting as they did in attempts to let their eyes adjust enough to fully open. They noted just how heavy their head felt, though, and as they moved to sit, their newly formed horns knocked against something at the head of the bed they were resting in.
“Ow!” they hissed. “What the Hel—”
Both hands were on their horns in an instance and very suddenly, their eyes were wide open. “What...” they murmured, voice softer and devoid of frustration now. Confusion seemed to take its place as fingers gingerly caressed the length of both horns. Loki wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with the sensation of this added height and weight, but the horns usually came in the form of a helmet, not real horns...
Nearby rustling—something, or someone big approaching—had Loki’s head snapping up. “H-hello? Is someone there?”
