Red Eye Whirring
Three-pronged claws pierce earth as the creature turns toward us, with its wings fully extended, and hovering low to the ground. Tufts of light brown fur brush against the edges of metal scales that ripple with every movement, and the scales cover nearly half the creature’s body and head—save for two, long horns protruding from its forehead, and curling toward its backside.
Icy terror steeps within my limbs as a red, metallic eye whirs back and forth between us, and the creature lowers its head menacingly as it stalks toward us. Meanwhile, Loki jerks his left hand out beside me, while a sharp, gleaming dagger instantly materializes in it. The creature immediately snaps toward the movement, and bucks its head forward with a blood-curdling screech.
With a quick, calculative glance at the creature’s wings, Loki takes off toward it, kicking up dust with every step. The creature turns as he gets close, and its right wing slices through the air—sending a ring of forceful wind out into the space. Loki leaps over the wing effortlessly, turning mid-air, while the air that burst forth from it hits me like a wall, and sends me tumbling back against the ground.
With a swift landing just beside the creature’s body, Loki grabs hold of the creature’s shoulder bone and and hauls himself onto its back—while I haul myself back onto my feet.
My arms swing about me clumsily as I rise to my feet and stumble backward, wincing as the rough surface of a rock clashes sharply against my spine—the prelude to what I’m sure will be a big, beautiful bruise.
I straighten up against the rock as my attention jumps back to the creature thrashing violently, with Loki on its back, bucking its head in an effort to impale him. With one sharp movement, he grabs the creature’s left horn and lunges toward its neck, using the the momentum to drives the dagger deep into the creature’s skull. I cringe as the beast whines painfully for a moment, and slowly drops to the ground with a heavy thump.
Still pressing against the rock, my chest heaves as I stare intently at the metal eye, and watch its bright red glow fade with lifelessness. Meanwhile, Loki’s eyes dart about the corpse briskly—searching for signs of movement—until finally, his lips thin relaxedly, and he slowly draws the bloodied dagger from the creature’s skull.
A nervous gasp escapes my throat as it flinches one last time, and I prop a shaking hand onto the rock to steady my quaking limbs. Loki drops to the ground with a thud as I sink to my knees, and place a hand over my tightening chest. His footsteps are heavy against the loose soil, and… shit, I’m struggling to control my breath.
Shit, shit… The racing heartbeat, the hyperventilation… I know what’s happening—and now’s just about the worst time for it to crop back up, after years of control and management.
My breathing grows more labored by the minute, while thoughts and images spin inside my head, and spiral into a buzzing little ball of tension inside my breathless chest.
I start looking around for something I can touch, something I can smell, something I can taste… But the thoughts don’t focus. I can’t bring to mind the sensations, and every surface I look at—the dirt, the rocks, even Loki’s leather boots—they’re all just meaningless surfaces that do nothing to stop what’s coming.
Loki’s steps slide to a stop in the sand next to me, and at this point, my hands are getting too weak to grasp the rock firmly.
“Oh, dear… Please don’t tell me you’re going to faint.” Loki’s wry voice trails off into the distance, and my vision begins to fade.
The rough edges of the rock slide against my palm as my knees finally collapse from underneath me, and the last thing I hear is an exasperated groan, before sinking down to my side and fading out of consciousness.
***
I’m falling. I can’t tell where I am or where I fell from, but I know I’m moving through the darkness all around me. I hear something too, something coming up behind me, and I turn my head slowly in its direction. I hardly have a moment to react before a pair of red, whirring eyes come flying toward me. Claws rip into my flesh as I scream, and—
“N—,” I inhale sharply as my eyes bolt open.
My skin tickles from a bead of sweat running down my hairline, cooling my face amidst the chilly breeze passing over me as I lay motionless—peering at the starry sky that’s opened up before me. I blink a few times, feeling my body temperature rise as my senses slowly waken. A dim light flickers to my left, and my hair sifts between the grains of sand as I turn over onto my side, curled along the edge of a small fire pit.
With a flash of gleaming light, I look up into the translucent tips of the flames, where a pair of pale, blue eyes peer back at me amusedly.
“Welcome back,” Loki says wryly, flipping his clean dagger in the air.
I furrow a brow as I glance around the little camp, trying to piece it all together as I prop my elbows against the dirt, and lift myself up. A cold, evening breeze brushes against the top of my neck, and it suddenly occurs to me that my neck is now the only area of skin still exposed to the elements.
I roll my eyes downward slowly, to see my long, light curls tumbling over a suit of dark green leather that leaves nothing revealed—save for the small notch at the top of my neck.
I turn back to Loki. “What is this?” I say hoarsely, pinching the cape draped over my curves.
He shakes his head slightly. “It's the only reason you’ve survived the cold—think of it as a gift,” he says in a soft, sarcastic tone. “I worked very hard on it while you were indisposed.”
My face sinks into a stoney glare. “What does that mean?” I mumble quietly.
“It means…” he sighs, leaning forward as he waves a hand in the air. A sudden flurry of threads and fabrics brush against my arm, and I blink surprisedly as a portion of the suit covering my right arm fades, and re-appears again. “I made it.”
I turn back to him with lips slightly parted, staring for a moment before nodding slightly.
“Okay,” I murmur. “Thank you...”
“Nothing to thank me for,” he says matter-of-factly, leaning back against the rock with legs extended, and one ankle resting atop the other. “I’ve simply decided that I need you alive.”
I peer at him intently for a moment, as a large curl falls over my face in the breeze.
“Let me guess,” I mutter in a low voice. “To find the stone?”
Loki’s brow rises slightly as he stares back—like he's feigning approval for my suggested cooperation, and mocking it at the same time.
“Well fine,” I say earnestly. “You can have it—I just want to go home. Get me out of here, and... Hell, I’ll throw in a bow on top.”
The corners of his mouth twist downward as he lifts both hands up in a contented gesture, with the gleaming dagger in his right hand—intentionally placed, I’m sure. “Excellent,” he says, tilting his head back. “Then we have an accord—quicker than I thought it’d come.”
I shrug. “Were you expecting a lot of pushback?”
His grin stretches further with a light chuckle. “You really don’t know who I am, do you?” he says in a low voice, glancing at me with a raised brow.
I narrow my brows suspiciously. “No?” I say in a low voice. “Other than what you told me—is there more to it?”
Loki eyes me for a moment, and his lips thin thoughtfully into a straight line. “Hm,” he pauses for a moment, and a quick decision flashes across his expression as he looks away with a wry grin. “Midgardian apes—never fail to entertain.”
I cock my head to the side - positive I’ve just been insulted, but not quite sure I understood the nature of the insult. “Keep talking," I say, rolling my eyes sarcastically to the ground. "I'm liking you more and more by the minute.”
In the corner of my eye, I see Loki look down at me. “Is that any way to address your superiors?” he asks wryly.
My brows shoot up sharply as I stare down at the ground, before trailing my eyes back up to him with an amused grin. “Yeah," I say slowly, shaking my head. "I don’t care who or what you think you are—other than the whole... 'Norse god' thing, which I guess is pretty cool, but anyways—all I care about is going home.”
I hold his gaze for a moment, before he casts his eyes down to the fire pit. “Yes, I’ve given that some thought as well—for the both of us,” he says in a low voice, as the smile slowly fades as thoughts begin to form in his expression. “My understanding is that no one escorted you through the bifrost, and you weren’t present in physical form on Asgard. Then a voice led you to the only other conduit in the universe that could materialize your boy. What I haven't quite reasoned yet, is why."
I look down at the fire, letting my face sink relaxedly into the memory. “Well the first time I heard it was in my room. I woke up and saw something… I couldn’t make it out clearly, but I think it was the stone. And it said something about ‘returning to it,’ at the ‘edge of creation.’”
Loki’s eyes turn upward to the sky, and circle around us observantly. “Well," his throat bobs with the quiet mumble. "That answers another question—you weren't the one that brought us here.”
“What do you mean?”
“The tesseract,” he looks down at me. “The item you were led to—it houses the space stone, which can transport a person from one end of the universe to another—but it requires a will to draw upon.”
“So…” I pause. "You’re saying that the stone has a conscious will, and it manipulated the tesseract?”
Loki nods, “That’s right.”
I exhale sharply, “Okay… So where do we go from here?”
“There,” he gestures in the direction behind me. “This place isn't barren, and we need a lead—so we need to find someone that can provide it for us.”
“How do you know there’re actual ‘people’ here?” I say, thinking back to the creature we’d encountered earlier. “That thing from before… I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“Nor have I,” he responds solemnly. “But while you were asleep, I went and had a look around. We appear to have landed in a trade route—and trade routes lead to cities, where there will like be some kind of populace. We’ll follow that in the morning, and see where it leads.”
I open my mouth—then pause for a moment, as doubt seeps into my chest.
Loki frowns. “What?”
I look up at him—at the absence of genuine care in his eyes—and sigh heavily.
“I’m just thinking,” I say.
“Well, do tell,” he says, in a soft, apathetic tone.
I look up at him. “Why do you care?”
His shoulder rises with a shrug. “I'm curious—you must have something interesting to say.”
I pause.
“It’s nothing we haven’t talked about already,” I say in a low voice, and shrug. “I just wish there was a more of a plan. It feels like we’re leaving a lot of it up to chance, and the idea of casual space travel isn’t exactly… conceivable,” I say earnestly. “At least, not where I’m from.”
His brow flinches thoughtfully, as he looks down into the fire. “On that point, I can only offer you this,” he turns his gaze back up to me. “If it were easy, everyone would do it.”
I peer at him for a moment, not knowing whether to nod, agree, or disagree—so I sigh heavily and look up into the sky, trying clear my head. Getting some rest would be fantastic, but I’m not sure that’s possible.
“Yeah,” I mumble. “I think that’s more applicable to getting sleep right now…”
“If you want my advice, go on and try—and rest easy,” he says as a flash of metal flips in the air above his hand. I look over and hear the dirt beside him sift, as he plunges the dagger into it. “No harm will come to either of us.”
“You sure about that?” I raise a brow. "Not even from you?"
Loki’s eyes narrow approvingly. “You’re certainly wise to be distrustful,” he tilts his head slightly. “But for now, you may simply 'trust' that it’s not in my best interest to let you die.”
His eyes are piercing, and pale enough to be colored red by the fire. He holds my gaze intently for a moment, like he’s reading past the stillness of my expression.
I shrug. "Fine," I say tightly, waving a finger in his direction. "But just so you know, I sleep with one eye open."
I turn away quickly, and with a heavy sigh, I lower my hands onto the ground and turn over to the left—lowering myself down into a comfortable position. It takes a moment to settle into the sand, moments more to shove my brain into silence.