"We are getting closer to the rift. You can hear the fighting," Cassandra told her. "When we get up there, stay back until it is safe."
Holli nodded, tired from the trek. Her physical fitness wasn't the best. At school, it was the one class she couldn't excel at. But neither did Ginny Pike, at least.
When they topped the rise, Holli stopped walking. There was a group of people fighting a bunch of demons, a glowing green rift between them. Cassandra ran ahead, muttering a 'stay here' as she passed. As if Holli hadn't already heard her before and agreed.
Holli watched the rift; being this close was making her hand tingle, and she held it out of the cloak so she could see it. The light was the same colour as the rift, a sickening green, like the evil magic in Disney movies.
She looked back to the rift, wondering if the magic—man, did it feel stupid to be calling it that—imbued into her hand was even capable of closing it. And if it was a rift to another world, could one of them lead her back to her own world? Should she be trying to jump through it rather than close it? But demons came from it, so this one probably didn't lead to her world.
"Holli! Quickly!" Cassandra called.
Holli refocused on the battle, realising it had ended and they were waiting for her. Holli jumped down and ran to them, a bald-headed man taking her hand and raising it up to the rift. It felt like something was being pulled out of her through her hand; she could feel it all the way down to her toes. It made her heart pound, made it difficult to breathe. She tried to pull back, and when she did, it felt like something clicked into place, and then the rift exploded into nothing.
Breathing heavily, she looked up to the bald man, opening and closing her fist in an attempt to stop the tingling. She noted his ears were long and pointed, like an elf's, and he was so tall...
She could only stare up at him, unsure what to do or say. There was a sense of calm and peace about the man, soothing her own frayed nerves.
"Are you all right?" He asked gently.
Something about his voice reminded her of the feeling she'd get when she was wrapped up cozily inside while a storm raged outside.
"Y-yeah, I guess."
"Did it hurt?" He took her hand in his, checking over the mark.
"Stung a little, no biggie."
"No biggie?"
"No big deal," she gave a one-shouldered shrug.
"No big deal? If my theories are correct, you hold the key to our salvation."
Her eyes narrowed while she took a moment to pick that apart. She didn't like the sound of that at all.
"Good to know."
Holli looked over to the voice, a little person with a crossbow almost as big as he was. A dwarf and an elf—Christ, she was in her own Lord of the Rings.
"Here I thought we'd be ass-deep in demons forever," he said.
He looked up from where he was adjusting his sleeve, taking her in before smiling and heading towards her.
"Varric Tethras: rogue, storyteller, and occasionally unwelcome tagalong," he greeted.
"Holiday Whitlock: ...Nobody, really."
"If that were ever true, it definitely isn't now," he chuckled.
Holli shivered—mostly from the cold, but a little from his words—and pulled her cloak tighter around her.
"My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions. I'm pleased to see you still live."
"He means, 'I kept that mark—and your bleeding wounds—from killing you while you slept.'"
"So you know about it? Do you know how to remove it? Do you know how I can get home?"
"Solas is an apostate," Cassandra told her, as if that answered that.
"I don't understand what being a heretic has to do with this," Holli replied.
"An apostate is a mage who is not a part of the Circle," Solas informed her.
"What Circle?"
"Where have you been, kid? Rebel Mages, the cruelty and control of the Circles and the Chantry, are all anyone's been talking about these days."
Holli just shrugged, unsure what to say.
"I'm sorry, I do not know how to remove the mark or how to get you home. Much of my time has been spent trying to keep you alive and figure out just how you came to be here."
"Got anything on that? Wouldn't mind an answer to it myself."
"Not yet. The magic involved here is unlike any I have seen," he said, this time talking more to Cassandra than Holli. "Though young Holiday is a mage, I find it difficult to imagine any mage having such power, despite her origins."
"Wait, what? I'm not a mage. That's impossible."
They all looked to her at that. Cassandra with a glaring accusation.
"Mages are everywhere, kid, not that impossible."
"They aren't where I come from. Magic isn't real; mages do not exist," she said firmly. "I can't be one. I've never done anything magical in my life. You must be mistaken."
Solas shook his head, almost with something that looked like sympathy. He offered her his staff.
"Tell me what you feel."
She hesitantly took it, not sure where this was going. She held it a moment; her hands were so cold and numb it was difficult to feel anything.
"It's vibrating, like the wood is... humming... and cold, inside," she frowned down at it.
"That hum you feel is the magic the staff has been imbued with. It is connecting to your magic so you may use it. No one but a mage would feel it."
Holli shook her head and shoved the staff at him. "No," she said again. "The mark must have done something to me."
"That is not how it works."
"I'm from another world; there's a hole in the sky, and my hand glows with magic. None of this is meant to be how it works." Her voice was tinged with something bordering on hysteria.
Varric chuckled. "She's got you there. Well, shall we press on? Hole in the sky to close, demons to slay."
"Absolutely not," Cassandra said. "Your help is appreciated, Varric." She sounded like she was chewing glass as she said it. "But—"
"Have you been in the valley lately, Seeker? Your soldiers aren't in control anymore. You need me. The kid doesn't look like much of a fighter; the more people protecting her, the better. She dies; we're all dead."
Christ, that was a fuck ton of pressure; she didn't like that at all.
Cassandra let out a grunt of disgust before turning away from him, deciding the fight with him must not have been worth it.
"We must get to the forward camp quickly."
She stalked off, obviously expecting to be followed. Solas did so; Holli was reluctant. She wanted to hover by the burning rubble and try to get some feeling back into her fingers.
"Well, shall we?" Varric looked up at her with a smile that seemed far too carefree given the situation.
"I don't think there's much of a choice," she muttered, falling into step beside him.
-
Holli tried to hide how out of breath the trek through the valley and up the mountains was making her. God, physical fitness was never her strength. The other three around her, walking and doing all the fighting, were absolutely fine, walking, talking, and breathing as if this were nothing more than a Sunday stroll. Cassandra, with her armour and shield and sword swinging, didn't seem the least bit bothered by it.
One good thing about the exertion, she supposed, was that it was keeping her warm enough to not go fetal on the ground to curl up and die from the cold.
Varric kept making conversation, nothing too heavy, small talk mostly, trying to keep things light. Replying to him made it really hard to hide how unfit she was.
Varric chuckled, stopping in his tracks. "Do you need us to stop, kid? Take a breather?"
Holli stopped as well, hands on hips, trying to discreetly catch her breath. "Not at... all," she puffed out. "Why do you...ask?"
Varric laughed again. "You're painful to watch."
"Try being... the one dying." She raised her face to the sky, trying to find the best position to allow the most oxygen.
"It's not much farther; you can rest a moment when we get there. Just at the top of this hill."
"You mean mountain."
"No, I really don't," Cassandra replied, giving her the side eye.
Holli followed the trio. Her school shoes were not made for climbing rocky, snowy mountains. She hoped she wasn't going to get frostbite. As they neared the top, they could hear the sound of battle, and the mark on Holli's hand started to tingle the closer they got. Another rift? Which meant the fighting must have been against demons.
"When we get up there, stay back and try not to draw their notice."
Holli nodded. There wasn't much else she could do.
When they got up there, the three fighters entered the fray while Holli half hid behind a tree. The demons were preoccupied with the soldiers, so she watched the rift. She hadn't really gotten a good look at the last one. The mark on her hand was beyond tingling now; it felt burning cold and pulled her towards the rift. What was the range on it, she wondered?
She reached out, trying to replicate what happened with the first rift. She felt the pull, but not the connection. Surveying the fight, she decided she could creep a bit closer through the trees. They didn't go all the way to the rift, but they did go closer than she was now.
Darting from tree to bush to tree, she shuffled as close as she could; behind each bit of cover, she would try again, hoping to get an idea of distance. It was at the last tree she finally connected with the rift. From this distance it nearly pulled her off her feet. With everything in her, she pulled back, trying to remember how it felt the first time so she could do it again, maybe even with a bit more ease. But that first time had happened so fast, and she had been too thrown to really pay attention and analyse.
The rift seemed to explode outward, but-
"Fuck..."
It hadn't closed. It looked different, but it was still there. However, the demons around them had collapsed; they looked disoriented. They weren't attacking anyway, and the warriors took advantage of that, striking them down.
"Close it now!" Solas called to her.
Holli tried again; it felt different this time, less... aggressive might be the right word, like the rift wasn't fighting back as hard. This time, when the light died, the rift was gone.
"It didn't close the first time I tried," she said, gauging the metres between her and where the rift had hovered. Six or seven maybe.
"I suspect it cannot while the demons that came through it are still here," Solas told her. "Come."
She followed him through the gates to the camp. It had been set up on a bridge. Given what happened to her and Cassandra on a bridge earlier, this didn't seem smart. And it was a much farther drop from what she could see.
There were some people surrounding a small campfire, and she longed to join them for its warmth, but the glares and suspicion they cast her way made her think twice.
Up ahead she could see Leliana talking with a man in a stupid hat with a sour look on his face.
"Ah, here they come." His voice dripped venom as he glared at her too.
"Chancellor Roderick, this is—" Leliana began.
"I know who she is," he spat, cutting her off. "As Grand Chancellor of the Chantry, I hereby order you to take this criminal to Val Royeaux to face execution."
Holli felt her stomach churn, nausea making her want to throw up. He wanted to execute her!? She subconsciously shifted further behind Cassandra, and she noticed Varric step between her and Roderick as well, Solas tensing up beside her as if ready for a fight.
"'Order me?'" The absolute revulsion in her tone would have amused Holli at any other time. "You are a glorified clerk. A bureaucrat!"
"And you are a thug, but a thug who supposedly serves the Chantry!"
Had they always disliked each other, or was this asshole just good at rubbing people the wrong way?
"We serve the Most Holy, Chancellor, as you well know."
Religion was a scary thing in this world too, she supposed. Was there anywhere it didn't kill people?
"Justinia is dead. We must elect a replacement and obey her orders on the matter! Call a retreat, Seeker; our position here is hopeless."
"We can stop this before it's too late."
"How? You won't survive long enough to reach the temple, even with all your soldiers."
"We must get to the temple," she pressed.
"No. Listen to me. Abandon this now before more lives are lost."
The Breach flared up, the sound deafening. Holli could feel it in her hand, the cold burn, and she hissed at the pain, biting on her tongue as she doubled over and cradled her hand against her stomach. The glow was so bright it could be seen easily through her cloak. Her hand kept sparking, whatever was happening lasting longer than the other times. Everyone was staring at her, Solas and Varric concerned, Roderick suspicious, and the two women blank-faced.
It was getting worse. With everything going on, she had forgotten this was killing her too. As insane as it sounded to her, execution was actually the least of her worries. She probably wouldn't survive long enough for one.
Cassandra must have suspected the same, turning towards Leliana.
"Leliana, bring everyone left in the valley. Everyone."
Holli, Solas, and Varric followed Cassandra as she pressed on, ignoring the parting jab from the Chancellor about consequences.
-
Solas watched the girl, had been watching the girl since she joined them at the rift.
She was a bit of an enigma. He was well aware other worlds existed, inaccessible even by Eluvian. So just how had she appeared? Why had a rift opened for her? And how was she connected to the anchor?
The moment the explosion had happened, he was on his way. When he'd heard tell of a survivor, he'd wanted to see them immediately. He had not been expecting a child barely clinging to life.
Adan had been having trouble; his potions and tinctures just weren't enough. Solas had been able to heal her, removing the small metal objects that caused the damage in the first place; they were like nothing he'd seen. But then the mark on her hand was also killing her. He'd had to call on magics he'd not used in millennia to save her.
It was during his attempts to stop the spread he had realised she was a mage. He could feel her own magic, trying to fight the damage, but it was so weak, depleted. Even after days of unconsciousness, her magic had barely recovered, which in itself was odd. He was not at full strength himself since waking. He'd feared his own magic might not be enough. Thankfully, he had managed, surprisingly with the help of her own. Her magic was unlike what he was accustomed to. He wasn't sure if it had a mind of its own or if it merely acted upon her unconscious desire to be saved, to live.
Eventually he had reached a point where she would not die without him, so he was better able to study the rifts and their connection to the mark on her hand and put some distance between them, giving her own magic time to settle and recover.
He was glad to see she could close rifts, and he was certain it would work on the Breach. His concern was whether or not they had the power to do it. Though the Anchor was powerful, it was being wielded by a child, a depleted mage who didn't even realise she had magic until he'd told her.
He just didn't understand how she came to be there, how she was the one with the Anchor, and what happened to Corypheus. He believed her that she didn't know anything. Much as she tried to keep herself under control, every now and then he could see in her eyes the poor girl was drowning, lost, and confused.
Though he was livid the Anchor had ended up on this inept and ignorant child, he could hardly blame her. He suspected something else was at play here; he just didn't know what or why they would drag her into it.
When they had time, he would like to question her, find out more about her circumstances leading up to the explosion.
She suddenly slipped on a rock, and he grabbed her arm, keeping her from falling.
"Thank you," she mumbled, her cheeks colouring further in embarrassment. They were already red from the cold.
He cast a quick spell her way, something to help her bear the cold because clearly she was not coping well with it.
"This should help," he said.
He saw her body sag with relief a moment, the tension draining just a little. Her teeth even stopped chattering. She gave him a smile brimming with gratitude.
The cold really must have been bothering her.