Beregond was the first to ascend the top step that led to the second level of the building. Once they had secured the barracks, Lord Faramir had directed him and four others to go find the king and see if he needed any assistance.

As he turned the corner to enter the hall that held the sorcerer's quarters, he found the alarming sight of Captain Galdir against the wall, unconscious. He broke into a run and barely registered the other men following. Beregond knelt beside Galdir and was relieved to find him breathing, though the side of his head was bloody where he must have hit it against the wall. But where were the others?

A low murmur between the men and a concerned, "Captain," broke Beregond out of his thoughts. He looked up and followed the other soldiers' eyes towards the wall. It looked like at some point a pair of double doors stood across from where Galdir was now; in its place was a pitch black screen of darkness with seemingly no end. "What madness is this?" another muttered.

"Sorcery," Beregond replied grimly. "You two," he directed at two of the men, "bring the sorcerer with Lord Faramir up here to see if he can break whatever spell this may be. Be quick!" They did not spare so much as a salute but instead took off in a run. As they left, Galdir groaned and blinked rapidly as he came to. "Captain Galdir," he called softly. "Can you hear me?"

A wince and a few more blinks and the other captain was nodding, though he quickly cut off that motion and held his head. "What… happened?"

"I was hoping you could tell me," he said. "What happened to the king and the sorcerers? Are they within the strange abyss before us?"

Galdir appeared confused for a moment, but a couple seconds later, his eyes widened and he quickly sat up, only to hold his head again as he steadied himself. Beregond offered him an arm, but the other waved him off. "That's not— not an abyss. It's not— it's not solid— they're behind it!" He struggled to get to his feet.

"Stay down; I will go to him," Beregond said quickly, and before Galdir had any time to protest (or indeed, Beregond had any time to rethink what he was actually doing), he raised his shield high and charged through—

—only to nearly topple the king over. He managed to change his direction last minute before coming to a halt.

"Sorry!" he heaved. It was then that he actually got a look at his surroundings; Beregond could not help but gape.

A great wall of fire bisected the room. On one side were he and the king, and on the other side were the two sorcerers. Their sorcerer— Strange, he remembered, if only for the outright odd name— was flying, honest-to-the-lords-of-the-West flying, and he held these strange, bright orange ropes in his hand that bound the other sorcerer.

He exhaled slowly. "Does he— does he have the situation in hand?"

"I'm not—" started the king, but he was broken off by a pained cry coming from Strange as the bright ropes suddenly surged with energy, then disappeared completely. The sorcerer dropped from where he flew directly down to the stone floor.

"Give me your shield!" the king demanded, and Beregond immediately handed it over due to the tone of voice alone. By the time he realized what the king planned to do, it was already too late; the captain called out futilely, "My lord, no!" even as Aragorn used the shield as a cover to drive himself straight through the wall of fire.

If anything happened to their king, both Galdir and Lord Faramir were going to kill him.

Aragorn felt an intense heat at his sides the second he was within the flames, but all it took was one long step on his part to cross it and the shield held throughout that time. Once through, he immediately tuned into his surroundings, and he saw Stephen down on the ground with the other sorcerer on top of him. The Easterling's hands were around the doctor's neck.

He reacted instinctively. He drew his knife from its sheath and before their enemy could so much as blink, Aragorn was behind him and the knife was buried within the sorcerer's back. A soft gasp came from his foe, but his hands were still around Stephen's neck; and so the king twisted the blade and the man released his grip as he fell to the side. The wound was mortal; he would expire in several minutes by drowning in his own blood. Unwilling to let even an enemy suffer in such a manner, Aragorn withdrew the blade and quickly ended the man's life.

With that unfortunate but necessary business over, he turned his full attention to Stephen, who remained still. Aragorn grimaced and crawled up to the fallen man. The bruising was already evident around his neck; he laid his ear upon his heart to listen for a beat and feel for his chest to rise and fall.

It took a moment to hear it, but the heartbeat was definitely present. It was, however, difficult to determine any breathing, and that was most important.

Aragorn dragged him upward (the cloak was strangely unmoving) until he was leaning against the near wall then lightly flicked the other man's face. "Stephen, wake up. You need to breathe."

He continued this for the next thirty seconds until the other man flinched, then pulled back as Stephen started coughing violently, harsh breaths interspersing each cough as his body clamored for more air. The sorcerer ended up hunched over on his hands and knees as he recovered.

The Dúnadan remained nearby, a light hand upon Stephen's shoulder as he regained his breath, and took this time to take a look at their surroundings. Sometime in the last couple of minutes the flames bisecting the room in two had flickered out of existence and the black curtain over the doorway had lifted.

The shelves and items upon them that had caught fire, however, were still burning. Beregond was currently moving as many non-burning items near the flames out of reach of the fire to try and limit its spread. About fifteen feet away from that was the soldier that had lost consciousness earlier; it seemed he was just now conscious and busy regathering himself, for he called out to Beregond, "I will assist you— I just need… need one moment."

"I almost have this done; do not worry! Catch your breath," was the captain's answer. They were quite fortunate that the building was made of stone, else it would have overwhelmed the room much more quickly. Currently, as the captain had indicated, the situation was well under control.

The king turned back to Stephen; the sorcerer was sitting on his knees now, carefully feeling around his throat and slowly moving his neck back and forth. When they made eye contact, Aragorn asked, "Are you all right?"

"I don't think my hyoid bone is broken," he rasped in return. "I count that as a win." His eyes settled on the dead sorcerer and a strange look entered his gaze before he turned away.

Aragorn pressed his lips together. "He was killing you."

Stephen nodded. "I know," he murmured. "Don't blame you." He did not look at the body again; rather he stood up and carefully made his way to a chair some distance away from the small fire and from the last scene of battle. There he collapsed, and Aragorn left him alone to recover for the time being.

He made his way to Beregond and received a quick update from him, as well as news about Galdir. That led Aragorn to the now-open hallway and to his captain's side. The other man was partially conscious, but it was clear he was having a difficult time remaining awake.

"It's me," Aragorn said in greeting as he knelt beside him. "You need not worry; the battle is won."

Galdir blinked sluggishly. "Good," he mumbled. "I should…" He tried to get up, but both his own head and Aragorn's steady hand kept him sitting down.

"You should sit here and do nothing," he retorted softly. "You are surely concussed and need to rest. We are well seen to; Faramir is managing fine below and Beregond is here with me. Others should be here within the next couple minutes."

He lightly pushed against Aragorn's hand, but there was no strength within the movement and he leaned back against the wall with a soft moan. "Casualties?" he asked after a moment.

"None up here," he answered. "I do not know about Faramir's group. Beregond did not seem concerned, so it is my hope that the casualties are low."

"Hopefully," his captain murmured in return. Aragorn could see that his pupils were two rather distinct sizes just as his eyes closed.

"You can rest, but I'm afraid you cannot sleep yet," said the king. "Not for a few hours. You are definitely concussed."

Galdir murmured something not completely intelligible in return. For now he decided to wait with his captain to keep him awake until the others came to find them.

Stephen watched from the corner as Wong thoroughly impressed the gathering— now made up of about ten men, Aragorn, Faramir, and their captains included— as he drew moisture from the outside air with a simple transportation spell and enlarged its quantity with a not-as-simple multiplication spell to complete douse out the fire within a minute.

No one had moved the dead sorcerer yet, and Stephen was doing his best not to look at him. Moving from the room entirely would draw unwanted attention, however, and so he instead remained still and did his best to pretend he was a piece of furniture.

It wasn't that he blamed Aragorn for killing the sorcerer, not in the slightest. He didn't blame Aragorn for killing soldiers while they were escaping, after all. No, rather he was annoyed with himself.

Manipulating light wasn't terribly complicated and it was a spell he more than had the knowledge base to perform. It was rather that he hadn't seen the need to learn it yet; there were so many other things to study to help upkeep the Sanctum and its wards, never mind all the practice of new defensive and offensive maneuvers for his new role in life. There simply wasn't time to sit down and learn anything but what was required for his job throughout his first month as the Master of the New York Sanctum.

And because he hadn't taken the damned time to learn a simple spell, the fight lasted several minutes longer than it should have. He hadn't dared to go on the offensive with the eldritch whips and rather decided to light himself up with shields to play as bait, just so the others could have some sort of point of reference. And if that sorcerer had been able to see in the dark, they had to have some sort of light source to have any chance at winning.

But that tactic ate at precious time as the others fought elsewhere in the fortress. And in those precious minutes, two of Aragorn's men had died downstairs subduing other soldiers in the compound and another one of them very likely needed to have his arm amputated, from what he heard Faramir say. And it apparently would have been a lot worse without Wong's rather useful assistance. At least one of them was useful.

And he couldn't even help there with the healing. He was a doctor, but just how much time had he spent looking into healing magic? Little to none. He had looked extensively in his first weeks at Kamar-Taj, but when he could find nothing that could aid him, he instead concentrated on the books he was assigned and never picked it up again; he was only considering looking into it again when Dormammu happened.

He was so fucking useless.

"Stop it."

Stephen was so deep within his own head that he had not noticed Wong's silent approach until the man spoke. His head shot up and he glared at his colleague. "Don't do that," he rasped. "It's rude to sneak up on people like that."

Wong ignored him. "Stop sulking."

"I'm not sulking."

"You've avoided looking at the dead sorcerer the entire time I've been here."

Stephen gestured to his throat. "I'm resting. He nearly strangled me to death."

Wong leaned on the wall adjacent to him, his eyes scanning the movement around the room. "So what is it? Annoyed that the sorcerer got one up over you?"

He pressed his lips into a thin line at the question and did not answer. As the silence between them grew, he could feel Wong's gaze settle upon him, though he kept his own eyes on a bit of charred shelving on the far wall.

What conclusions Wong came to concerning his recalcitrance Stephen was not sure, but his colleague's tone was more unreadable than usual when he said, "We will speak over events when the other Masters are debriefed. In the meantime, try not to lose this again." Stephen finally looked over, and within Wong's hand was a sling-ring. His sling-ring.

"I didn't lose it," he muttered softly as he took it back.

"I'm sure," said Wong, and for reasons unknown to Stephen, he felt himself slowly relax within his colleague's— friend's— presence as the work about them continued.

About two hours later they all reconvened again. The soldiers within the fortress that remained after the fighting were disarmed with some of them going into cells and the rest being permitted to remain in their quarters, though under guard. Soldiers from both sides that required medical care were seen by Aragorn's medic and the man himself (which Stephen greatly approved). Stephen declined a more thorough examination (as they lacked the very useful technology the Metro provided) but gladly took several cups of tea to soothe his aching throat.

He was currently enjoying said cup of tea while Wong was engrossed with his own task. After the two of them had helped with the triage efforts, they spent some time looking for anything magical within the sorcerer's large room. It had taken about half an hour for them to find a rather curious idol, about five inches tall and made of some sort of dark grey stone, that had an unusual energy about it. Wong had immediately called dibs to study it, so Stephen was left to wait for the others to finish their tasks so he could ask them if they could have it.

Aragorn and Faramir arrived to the room Stephen and Wong had claimed as their own alongside both of their captains and another four soldiers. All of them were carrying several loose pieces of paper and parchment, several scrolls, and dozens of books; they all appeared to be from the sorcerer's room, if the faint, smoky smell was anything to go by.

"Did you find your sword?" Stephen asked.

"I did, yes, amongst other curious trinkets," Aragorn said. "I heard you have found something of interest, as well." He set his pile of loose papers and scrolls down on the large table. The others followed his lead before leaving the room, and soon only Aragorn and Faramir remained.

Stephen nodded his chin towards Wong and the statuette in front of him. "That idol has some sort of magical properties, though we're still determining what sort." As the two men caught sight of the idol, they both frowned, causing him to frown as well. "What?"

"That idol is a common representation of the Dark Lord Sauron, vanquished about thirty years ago," Faramir replied. "Such items are fell and corrupt; I have not seen one in a very long time."

"Then you wouldn't mind us taking it off your hands, would you?" he asked.

"On the contrary, you would be doing us a favour," replied Aragorn. "The stone they are often carved from is very difficult to destroy, which would be its fate if it remained with us."

"I'll warn Wong about potential dark magic, though that would explain why he's taking his time with it; it's potentially a type of dark energy that doesn't exist in our universe." He really wanted to get his hands on it to take a more proper look, but for now he would content himself to the large pile of books and papers in front of him. With that thought in mind, Stephen picked up one of the papers— then immediately frowned at the completely foreign alphabet. "I don't recognize this language at all."

"That's Rhunic," Aragorn said after a quick glance. "It looks like these correspondences are primarily in Rhunic and other, more localized Eastern languages. It does look like this one is written in Common, however." He handed over a scroll to Stephen.

The sorcerer continued to frown as he saw a completely foreign alphabet on what part of the scroll visible; he opened it up further only to view more of the strange script. "This is unlike any language I know— and I know several languages. Wong? Do you recognize this?"

Wong drew himself out of his study at the sound of his name. He spared Stephen a frown for the interruption, then answered, "I doubt we'll recognize any of these languages; this universe is not one that contains an Earth similar to our own, and so none of Earth's languages will likely be here."

Stephen blinked at him. "We're speaking English," he pointed out.

"We are," he said, "but they," he gestured to Aragorn and Faramir, "are not."

"What do you mean they're not speaking English?" He turned and caught a brief glimpse of identical looks of bemusement from the two natives, then looked back to Wong with a frown. "I've seen them speaking for hours. It's definitely English."

Wong looked exasperated. "When you portal into a different dimension with a sling-ring, it helps serve as a universal translator with any words that can be directly translated."

"I didn't understand what the guys in this fortress were shouting about in their own language," Stephen pointed out.

"It tends to pick up the most widespread language of the world the gateway is being created for," Wong answered. "Sometimes it will pick up two or three languages. Whatever they were speaking is not particularly widespread, so it wasn't picked up by the sling-ring."

"I guess you did call your language common," Stephen muttered with another glance at Aragorn, then looked again to Wong with another frown. "But no, that still doesn't make sense. If they're actually speaking another language, their mouths would be moving differently from the sounds."

Wong gave him a bit of a look. "Going through the sling-ring's portal applies a visual illusion for the dimension's visitors, as well."

"Seriously? Why?"

His lips didn't twitch, but Stephen thought he saw something in Wong's eyes. "Any sorcerer visiting another dimension using the gateway's powers as a translator would look like a badly dubbed movie without the visual illusion. According to old records, locals of other dimension often would not take kindly to the strange disconnect between their lips and the sound."

"In other words, they freaked out."

"More or less. Apparently it became annoying enough that someone developed the magic to eliminate that problem, about twelve hundred years ago if I remember right."

He made a face. "It would have been nice if they could have included translating written words with the visual spellwork."

Wong didn't say anything to that, and Stephen huffed softly before looking back at Aragorn and Faramir. "Sorry. Well, it seems I won't be any help with any of this."

"It is well," Faramir answered. "That explanation was most interesting, though it seemed that not all words, as you described, 'translated'. I suppose we do not have those words in our lexicon."

"I'll have to look further into the spellwork behind it," Stephen told him. "I imagine that there may be a way to make it even more useful by allowing translations of more than one language, definitely a translation element in reading, and perhaps—"

"As interesting as that all is," Wong interrupted dryly, "we have been here much longer than planned and I believe you were going to see the medics in Kamar-Taj, Strange."

Stephen made a face. "Probably should, yes."

"You did tell me you would," Aragorn said, raising his brows.

"Yes, yes, I remember," he replied, waving his hand towards him. "And I will."

Wong picked up the dark idol and dipped his head politely to Aragorn and Faramir. "It was a pleasure working with you."

"Thank you for your assistance," Aragorn answered. "Should you ever have need of Gondor's aid, you will have it."

He inclined his head again, then glanced towards Stephen. "Don't take too long." With that, he created a portal into the foyer of the New York Sanctum and strode through it. It lingered open after he left their sight.

Stephen exhaled at the sight of the portal, then stood up and looked at the two of them. "To be quite honest, I can't think of any reason as to why I would need to return to this dimension again."

Faramir nodded his understanding, and Aragorn said, "Regardless, should you cross this way again, you will be more than welcome in Gondor and Minas Tirith, the capital, as long as I am king."

"I'll keep that in mind," he said, half-smiling. "Despite the circumstances we were thrown in, I'm glad I was able to meet you, Aragorn, Faramir."

"I am glad to have known you, and I will always be grateful for what you have done for Aragorn not only as his Steward, but as his friend," said Faramir.

"Likewise," Aragorn added. "Though much of the experience was unpleasant, I will treasure the brief time I was able to get to know you."

"If there is a next time, it would be great if there was less fighting involved," was Stephen's wry answer. He looked over his shoulder and exhaled once more. "I can feel Wong's glare from here. Take care of yourselves."

"Farewell," answered Aragorn, and Faramir lifted his hand in silent goodbye. Stephen nodded to them, then turned around and stepped through; and then the golden sparks shrunk into themselves until they were nothing but small golden particles of light dissipating into the air.

Ahhhhh my goodness it's done. My first Stephen Strange fic ever. And now he's all I can write about.

If there's ever a direct sequel to this story, it's not coming out anytime soon. Rather the next crossover in this series, with Doctor Strange/BBC Sherlock, is about 80% complete, with 5 of 6 illustrations completed (though this website won't allow me to embed those here; those will have to be seen on AO3 or my tumblr). But I also learned my lesson with this story and that one is not coming out until it's actually completed. I have several other MCU fics centering around Stephen currently being worked on now, as well.

When it comes to LOTR, it's all I wrote for 15 years (8 years in fanfic and 7 years in RP), so I am taking what is perhaps a well-deserved break from my main fandom to play with Stephen and the MCU. I still have several ideas for LOTR stories that I would love to do in the future, but I do not see anything LOTR-related coming out for the remainder of this year. I'm not yet sure about 2020.

If you want to keep tabs on my work, both writing and art, you can follow me at aelaer on tumblr.