☪ Day 1 of The Green ⛿ Flung out from the area around Dexter
Ikol and Kate go in search of a Gator, but find there might be another
threat.
⚠
None!
The mud squelched under foot. It made Loki’s face pull into a grimace as he tried to negotiate both the noise and the sensation. There were surely better things to be doing, but he reminded himself that there were three Lokis now and one of them needed to give a damn enough about their smallest member, even if finding him meant merely checking in to see if he was comfortable in this overgrown edition of Derleth.
For all Loki knew, his gator counterpart was probably bathing in some pit of muck with a toothy grin.
Meanwhile: his boots had been removed (and loaned, albeit with some resistance to the loanee) and pants rolled up. Mud… mud was between toes in a way that was not spa-like, nor dignified. The bearing weight of a Frost Giant meant there wasn’t a singular chance he could have tread atop it. He couldn’t fathom any creature enjoying this locale.
It behooved Loki to throw his arms out and note precisely this consideration on his mind: “Do you know, he’s probably lounging, mud up to the eyeballs.” He flattened a hand and brought it to his cheek right below his green (and greener in this light) eyes. “Happy as anything. Up to here with mud. We should all be so lucky as to be contented laying about in a pool of slop.”
He sighed, then looked at Lucky, who was valiantly leading the charge. “Or as happy at Lucky when he’s on the scent…”
Maybe Kate had never waded through this much mud, but she had been so tempted to throw these damn boots at him. For one, he was much heavier than he looked which meant that he might get stuck in this way more than she might.
But it was the gesture that Kate ultimately recognized and that left her eventually agreeing to the damn boots. She had boots. Maybe they didn't walk on top of mud, but he wasn't even wearing shoes, and she kind of felt bad about it. What if something bit him? Or tried to pull a Galaxy Wars and a tentacle snagged around him and jerked him under? How would Kate help then?
She'd just have to trust that whatever it was, wasn't strong enough to pull a frost giant down. (Paranoia!)
Lucky's tail wasn't completely covered in mud, but he was definitely going to need a bath when this was over. She kept him on his leash, however, so that he couldn't run off without her. He didn't particularly like the leash, but he understood it.
"The simple pleasures of animal life. Do you ever wish that you were a dog or a cat? Living a life of luxury, taken care of by someone else?"
“Well, strictly speaking as a shapeshifter, I have been both cat and dog,” Loki started. He tugged one pant leg higher, since the mud line was starting to notch higher on his calves. All told, he was still more than a fair bit vain when it came to appearances and he was trying his best to prevent a mess, rather than have to contend with one after this was over. It was a losing battle.
“Being taken care of by someone else? Not as much. It would depend, wouldn’t it? Would I be me, full wits and facilities? If so, no. If I was genuinely dog- or cat-brained, then sure. Why not? I would answer to Mittens, claw at curtains, and wake everyone in the early morning hours just for the fun of it.” He stepped over a fallen log. “What about you? Is a lack of thumbs a dealbreaker? No bow and arrow.”
The swamp just east of Dexter was thick and ambling. A best effort to stay in the shallow part was being made, but the algae and long marsh grasses were deceptive. Some steps forward were into deeper water. At this rate, Gator was probably going to launch at him from below just because his brand of mischief usually played out in that way: bitey.
Kate rolled her eyes at his strictly speaking, because of course he'd been a cat and a dog. Probably other things too. Sometimes she wanted to punch people with powers, but that might lead to her villain origin and she wasn't willing to do that. Punching bad guys, on the other hand, that was okay.
"Okay, I clearly meant if you were just a cat or a dog, and not Loki, god of semantics, trying to ruin a thing by overexplaining it." She stuck out her tongue from her vantage point which was… much higher than he was. "I'd be a bird, though, for the record. I got turned into a giant one and that was actually pretty fun."
She reached out her hand to him. "I don't suppose the boots would work if I held your hand, huh? You know what we should have done? You should have worn them, and you should have given me a piggyback ride. Hindsight."
Lucky gave a small bark and then tried to take off running. Running was not happening with Loki stuck in the muck the way he was, so she held onto the leash with a soft, "Lucky, stay." He didn't like it, but he did as she said.
At Kate’s tongue-out taunt, Loki fashioned a smirky grin. That sort of grin that came with someone proud of their small, frustrating addition to a conversation because they knew they could push a button. In truth, he had been all varieties of animals, but some came more naturally. At the core of everything, he veered canine. It might be why he also preferred canine company. Lucky included, of course.
“Next time, then. Next time we have to go wading through mud, remind me that the better option is piling you on top and hoping the branches aren’t too low,” he answered. He was, admittedly, in a semi-good mood. Away from the network, away from someone who continued to usurp his delicate patience.
They were coming into a clearing of the marsh, away from the outskirts where boughs of hydrophilic trees skimmed the surface of the standing water. It gave the first unobstructed view of the sickly green sky they’d have in a short while. It made Loki pause, eyes focused on it for a second. He worried his brows and thought for what felt like the fiftieth time that something wasn’t right about it. If this was Derleth and a plausible Void week, then that was his magic.
Meanwhile, Lucky had stopped, sniffing at something in the damp muck. Kate was more focused on the dog's pulling than the sky for the moment; she wasn't sure that these boots would help her if she faceplanted into the swamp. Lucky relished the mud, Kate did not.
"Piggyback. Not on your shoulders," Kate argued. "I could use a machete to get branches out of your way. It'd be fun. I bet I'm super light compared to Thor. You could carry me for hours without getting tired." She did know she was lighter than Thor though, even if they were going by human standards. She didn't know if he could carry her for hours without getting tired. That was all supposition.
But he stopped and she came up beside him and caught the expression. "Hey. It's nothing bad. It's just old magic and Derleth being a butthead about it. You were surprised it even stuck, and judging by this place, it took decades for that to happen."
“You could get a machete and give me a good shearing by mistake, as well,” Loki returned. Distractedly. “And if I got tired of carrying you, we could switch.” He pulled his attention from the sky, but with some trying. Tendrils of shadowy substance seemed to drift across patches, and it was hard to say if there was actual, tangible smoke or if it was merely decaying magic that had been morphed and warped over time.
“It may be nothing bad, but I don’t think it’s anything good either. There’s a place between. It looks like something familiar, but I can’t… place why.” He clicked his tongue as he thought. “A feeling, perhaps. Either that, or this swamp is starting to play tricks. Also feasible.”
He turned to Lucky, making an effort to pull his focus away from pondering if it was possible to have a memory of something that hadn’t happened. It felt like that. And dwelling on it too much was going to invert his good sense, he was sure.
“Have you actually sniffed Gator out, or is this a ploy to splash around in the biggest mud puddle?”
"If I let him go, it will absolutely be a mud puddle or a mutated squirrel or something," she answered, twisting the leash around her wrist. Either of those options sounded like she was going to have to find a way to wash a dog who couldn't sleep anywhere but with her, because there was no way she was letting him climb on the bed for cuddles like this. Lucky never took no for an answer either.
"It's Derleth, and I think the trees are playing pranks." She glanced at one that a wet streak down its front that was she was absolutely sure was Lucky's mark from more than a few yards back. Lucky wasn't currently interested in sniffing trees for a place to relieve himself, so it struck her as a little odd. She pulled off her headband and hung it off a specific branch. It'd reset with her next week if she couldn't find it again, but if that tree somehow moved, she wanted to know for sure. Not just with a hunch.
A noise caught her attention. A rather loud splash that could be an alligator jumping out of the water to catch something. But it could be an alligator that didn't have his own little set of horns too.
Loki narrowed his eyes at the wet tree bark as well. Kate’s headband might work, but there were magical things to be done to help guide them if this was a case of nature being tricksy.
He was about to reply when the splash made him whip his gaze around. By the time he spotted where the water’s surface had been broken, it was merely the ripple left in the wake of whatever it was. Loki turned his attention to Kate, sure that her eagle eyes were much more suited to finding something.
“Out of interest, how ready are you in this moment for a fight if one decides to break out? I’m not wishing for any such thing, but this sort of environment almost begs for something largely and scaly to…” He carried on, unaware that behind and above him the sky was starting to shift. At first it was imperceptible, but shadow and soot and smoke coiled. It wasn’t discernible until a mouth and eyes appeared, at which point the visage opened its mouth and let out a silent scream. “Pop out at us, but this is jump scare territory. I can feel it.”
She wasn't called Hawkeye for nothing. The splash was preceded by a giant, fat rat leaping into the water. It wasn't already soaked and had something in its mouth, and when it disappeared under the water, she wondered if she'd actually seen gills on the side of its ribs or if that had been her imagination. Kate had been about to reply with something of the kind when she realized that the sky was changing into — something.
It took a few moments before it came into view, but the shape was so familiar that she instantly knew that it was going to be the child version of Loki. At least, he looked like the child version of Loki, even if he was the murder weapon. Her mouth slowly fell open as she watched it swirl into clarity and then opened its mouth in a horror-inducing silent scream.
"Not so jump scare, Loki." She couldn't take her eyes off it. "Unless it's going to do something else."
“What?” It was the obvious question, and it took Loki a second to register that Kate was looking beyond and above him. He braced and turned, expecting something large to be looming over his shoulder.
It took another second. His depth of focus had to adjust from near range to far as he towed his sight up to the sky. He clenched his teeth and stared.
“You can see that?” He asked Kate, not breaking his fixed gaze. “You see him?” Usually no one else did.
"Yeah, I saw him. He's up in the sky. I'm not sure why though." Her voice sounded half concerned, half whimsical as if the whimsical side would erase the vision of an unhinged jaw of a small Loki screaming without sound. It made the hair on the back of her neck stand at attention, and even Lucky made a slight whining sound.
She reached the hand that wasn't twisted around Lucky's leash to her back where the Composite Bow was. For all she knew, this could be some sign of something bad to come. "Uh, what does that mean? If both of us can see him? Is he — do you think he's not a manifestation of your guilt anymore?"
What does it mean? Loki watched, as the face’s outline smoothed out and the boundary was lost. The details blended back into the green blanket of the sky.
“If you want the certain answer, I don’t have it.” He continued to look at the place where the visage appeared, but it made no attempt to rematerialize. “The sky was my work, but it was only an illusion. I would think he is as well, but this place has a magic of its own…”
The part of Loki’s mind that had been seeking out his alligator counterpart had entirely let up its grip, fully trying to grasp at what could explain what just happened. For better or worse as they stood in the muck, he was distracted.
“Maybe he was always part of the spell. I didn’t mean to put him there, but…” He sighed, but it was a tense, restricted sigh. No relief came of it. “He was on my mind when I cast it. All the same.”
Kate knew what it was like to live with a shadow over you. Maybe it wasn't quite the same as a literal ghost stalking a person, but her mother's death followed her around. Even finding out that she was undead didn't bring any kind of relief with it. Had Loki put that visage in the sky? Maybe. But he was right about one thing: this place had a magic of its own. She didn't need to be a wizard or scientist to know that weird, magical stuff was going on.
"Do you think it's something to worry about?"
The immediate answer to Kate’s question was silence. It may well have been an answer in itself. Loki gave her a look, his usual air of smugness deflated and something more bemused firmly in place.
“It’s something related to me. Historically, that means yes. Yes, it’s something to worry about. I just don’t know what exactly it is to be worrying about yet.” He shifted his focus from Kate to the muck his legs were planted into. “But for now, I think we’re best served finding small, green Loki. We’re already out here. One problem at a time, aye?”
"Hey."
Before he could make a move out of the spot he was in and away from her, she reached her hand out and planted her hand on his shoulder. It wasn't the most romantic of moves, but it wasn't meant to be. It was meant to be reassuring.
"I know you're used to doing things by yourself and all, but you're not alone this time. You've got me."
He faltered, stopping at Kate’s touch. It wasn’t an embellished statement, but that was never Kate. She spoke plainly and it made it all the more easy to know she was genuine because of it.
“And I love you for that, Kate.” He reached out in turn, a hand gently cupping the side of her face for just a brief moment before they both set forth once more.