They get to the first camp much like he remembers from before. Soldiers are desperately pushing the demons back, and he can see Varric and Solas in the middle doing what they do best.

He ignores the throng of fighters and lifts his fist up to the rift, feeling the edges of the tear slam shut, stitching close under the anchors pull. The demons waver and disintegrate under the soldiers crashing into him.

There's a relieved silence for a minute, before Varric starts clapping. Tarien smiles and takes a dramatic bow. The milling soldiers fade into the background and then its just him and his new-old companions.

"Interesting. It appears that I was correct, the mark does have a connection to the rifts." Solas says, coming up to stand besides him. Tarien has to stop himself from just decking the other elf. A mantra starts in head.

Can't punch him can't punch him can't punch him I'm trying to be sneaky here can't punch him.

"Which means it could be able to close the breach itself." Cassandra says. "Although it does bring up the question on how you knew what to do in the first place."

Tarien shrugs.

"Instinct?" He says, not all that concerned. A snort from behind him has him turning.

"Good to know, and here I thought we would be ass deep in demons forever, but it looks like your shiny magic hand comes with an instruction manual." Varric says, putting away his crossbow.

"Which reminds me, Seeker, the amount of magic necessary for a casting this large would require an immense amount of power. Far out of the reach of any mage." Solas puts in.

Tarien pats his knees, reminds himself that murder this soon into his return is inadvisable, and shifts farther away from Solas as a reminder.

"And I'm not a mage, so no worries there." He says. This gets him a considering look from both Solas and Cassandra, and he opens his palms to show the sword calluses there.

"Plain ol' sharp weapons guy. Don't got a lick of magic in my blood. Well, unless you count my sister, who once almost burned down the whole aravel, but I had nothing to do with that." Tarien says. Varric laughs.

"Somehow I have the feeling there's more to that story." He says, and Tarien winks at him.

"Well, whatever the case we should keep moving. We need to meet up with the rest of the forces and shut down that breach." Cassandra prompts, already moving away towards the rest of the path. The others follow her, but Tarien stops to make sure to pilfer some loot and find a decent sword.

When Cassandra sees him with the weapon she scowls, but he only winks at her and saunters towards the demons in the distance.

Time to get to work.

Varric has had his share of improbable quests, death-defying stunts and mysterious magic, but this really has to take the cake. He shoots another demon and watches as the elf with the mark punches another one in the face, ignoring his stolen sword completely.

Varric feels almost nostalgic. It's like being with Hawke again.

But that's the thing; it took time for Hawke to get how she is, punching demon's in the face and all. And here comes this elf, tripping out of fade rifts and just magically knowing how to close them. Varric has written, and lived, enough stories to know there's more going on then just "instinct".

And then there's the fact that he just doesn't seem to give a single shit about what's going on. All smiles and shrugs and casual saunter. Some of that appears to be a defence mechanism, especially in face of the Lady Seekers disapproval, but some of it is genuine. He really just doesn't care.

Varric shoot's the last wraith in it's misshapen head and starts his interrogation.

"So how did you end up at the conclave anyways?" He asks the elf, sidling up to him as he starts rummaging around and collecting things. At some point they had ended up with the elf leading them, for no real reason that Varric could see. He wasn't going to point it out.

"For the same reason most of the clan elves were there." He says, sending a wry smile Varric's way.

He hums and nods. A spy then. Although it's odd that they would send a fighter and not a thief.

"And did you do it?" Varric asks, watching Cassandra get progressively more frustrated by the slow pace as the elf continues picking elfroot and not walking towards the forward camp.

"What? Blow up the conclave? No, or at least I don't remember it." The elf responds, finally standing up and heading towards the path. Varric snorts.

"There's where you went wrong. Should have made up a story." He says. Cassandra snorts.

"That is what you would say." She says in disgust. Varric ignores her.

"Naw, I've never been good at lying. I would have ended up blurting out something ridiculous like, I don't know, I'm actually a time traveling cult leader or something." The elf says as they crest the snow-covered hill.

Varric laughs.

"I'll keep that in mind if we ever play cards. Always up for winning some more money." He says. Next to him he can barely hear a quiet snort from Solas. He feels his eyebrows rise. Was that a laugh?

They get to the forward camp relatively early, and here too Tarien sees changes. It's less built up for one, and there's more people milling around. Quite a few of them are seriously injured, and haven't been carted back down to the healers yet. Last time they probably died before they could get there.

Hopefully at least a few of them are saved this time. They are going to need as many people as possible in the coming months.

He slows as soon as he sees Leliana and the chancellor up ahead and silently groans to himself. He had been hoping that the changed timeline would mean he wouldn't have had to deal with the man.

As soon as the chancellor sees them he goes to yell, but Tarien interrupts before he has to listen to the same spiel again.

"So!" He says loudly over the other man's spluttering. "What's the plan to get rid of that giant hole in the sky? You know, the one killing a bunch of people and spewing out demons like it's a Friday night at the Hanged Man?"

He can feel Varric startle besides him.

"You've been to the Hanged Man?" He asks curiously. Tarien snorts.

"I've heard the stories." He says wryly. The Chancellor is getting progressively more red, and he finally seems to have recovered over being interrupted.

"You! You did this!" He yells. Tarien blinks and completely ignores him. He turns towards Leliana.

"Right, you look like you're in charge here. What's the plan?" He says, to which Leliana smiles and Cassandra coughs.

"The way ahead is filled with demons. I suggest we take the mountain path, I have a team of scouts in the area that should be able to help with any opposition you find." Leliana says, turning and effectively cutting out the chancellor completely.

The man sputters and slams his hands on the table. Tarien waves a hand in his direction and doesn't take his eyes off of the spymaster.

"Shh, mister cult priest person. Important demon destruction planning going on." Tarien says, to Varric's laughter.

Cassandra tries to look disapproving, but tellingly doesn't turn to include the man either.

"I still think the forward path would be a better option. We haven't heard from the scouts in a day and it's impossible to say what's over the mountain. Plus we would only have a small force able to go." She says. Tarien nods his head.

"Well, why can't we do both?" He asks. At both of their confused looks he explains.

"We can take the mountain path while you ready the troops for a forward charge, find your missing scouts, come back down, and go with the charge. Redundant, but then everyone gets saved." He says.

Cassandra shakes her head.

"That will take too long. The more we wait the more people out there are getting killed, we should charge–"

"With what forces? Most of them are still back at Haven, or on route." Leliana interrupts. "We can do as he says and by the time they come back down we just might have the men to make it possible."

Cassandra purses her lips. In the background the chancellor still looks like he is about to have a stroke.

"Alright. But you'll be the one to tell Cullen about this detour." She finally says to Leliana, who looks smug. Tarien smiles.

"For someone who supposedly can't lie, you sure have a way with words." Varric says.

"Indeed." Solas puts in.

He laughs.

They find the scouts, and a small rift. Cassandra looks a lot happier with their decision when they learn that the scouts might not have made it otherwise. They send the scouts on a head to be in waiting for the rest of the force and go back.

The climb down the mountain is just as annoying as the climb up. Tarien bemoans his weaker limbs and wishes he still had his dragon killer physique. Some things don't follow you back in time though, and the body is one of them. A good thing too, because otherwise he wouldn't have the anchor still.

He cringes at himself a little at the thought. No doubt he would be dead right now, since his only use really is his ability to close rifts. Although he does have to ask himself why everyone seems to be following his lead in that case.

It's not like he knows the area.

He thumps down off the last latter and clears the bottom for the others, before turning his attention down the path. In the distance he can just make out the camp, and in the middle of it the fur cape of its commander. The amount of soldiers milling about has increased quite a lot too, although a lot of them appear to be rather poorly equipped.

Hopefully equipped enough for a Pride demon fight.

"Ach, finally. I don't know how you do it barefoot Chuckles, but I am not a dwarf that likes the cold." Varric says, trailing behind. Solas hums.

"Well I can tell you it's not an elf thing." Tarien says, waving his own frost covered hands.

"Heat spells." Solas says smugly. Tarien stops and turns wide eyes his way.

"You can do that?" He asks incredulously. "Damn, now I wish I was the one that inherited the ability to light things on fire."

"But the demons." Cassandra says wryly, overtaking them and starting down the path.

Tarien jogs to catch up with her.

"But then I could just launch a fireball at their face." He says excitedly.

"I don't think it works that way." Varric chuckles.

"Indeed. And then you would have to deal with, ah, how did you say it, the 'cult priest people'. " Solas says. Tarien wrinkles his nose.

"True."