When Destiny Burns, Ep. 1: A Halo and Inheritance Cycle Crossover

Chapter 6. 4 Hope

He opened the door and found himself face-to-face with the elven lady. She had been waiting for him to exit?

Remembering the warning he had received about elves, he placed the sidearm that he had hurriedly pulled out back again and stepped closer to the female, reducing their distance to mere inches.

Her exotic, strangely appealing face was very close to his and he only had to look down a few inches to reach her gaze. She stood taller than six feet, making her as tall as a well-built man. Her face wasn't the only exotic part of her appearance: a leather strap encircled her brow, restraining her long, black hair. Her feminine shape was clad in plan, black leather and a thin sword hung at her hip.

It was pretty obvious that this too as a nonhuman.

Just what had he gotten himself into?

He stared at her and she stared right back at him. Her eyes had a certain demeanor to them...calculating, but not necessarily cold. If she wanted to appear uncaring and cold, she was not doing a very good job. He could see in her eyes that she had been terribly hurt in the past. Physical or mental? It had to be physical, because she withstood his gaze and stared right back at him without faltering. Her willpower had to be very strong, but it wasn't strong enough to completely conceal the demons that she seemed to possess.

The Spartan reached the conclusion that the elven lady was still recovering from some unknown bodily harm. Then, after having stared at her for exactly three seconds since he had exited Ajihad's room, she blinked.

Her hard demeanor flinched; so subtly that it was barely visible and he wasn't even sure if he had seen it right, but he still took the moment to break their contact nonetheless.

He was certain that he could overpower her in combat, whether she possessed magic or not. She wasn't the biggest threat to him.

The other dragon was.

While the Spartan walked down the staircase again, he felt a strange sensation near his right foot. It had been there for a while, but it had intensified over the course of the past few hours. It had grown into a form of discomfort and he did not like that.

'Aeraleth?' He asked the dragon. In this world of elves, dwarves and dragons he felt completely out of his place. He did not belong here, he understood that. 'The only thing that linked him with any of the living beings down here was Aeraleth. Was his life in the UNSC truly over? Would he be stuck in Alagaesia for months? The battlegroup he had come from was the reinforcements. They had been the back-up. And he had no reason to believe that any of the other ships would come to their aid.

No, by the time the UNSC figured out where he was or even what had happened, more than simply a few months would have passed.

He was stuck.

'What is it little soldier?'

He did not know what to do next. Normally, he had a clear goal of what to do. A long-term strategy, multiple tactics or even a back-up plan. Now? The only goal he had was to free the eggs that Galbatorix had in his possession. And that was purely because Aeraleth wanted that to happen; he hadn't seen anything in the empire that justified the existence of the Varden. The only reason he hadn't sided with the empire was because they had attacked the UNSC first –something which the Varden would most likely have also done, had they had the chance.

No. These people were not his allies. 'Where do we go now?'

'Now you rest. You have been walking with an urgal's pace for ten days nonstop, without food and with barely any water.'