homecoming [open]

[sorcerous]

WHO Loki and OPEN
WHERE Around the town, along the road to the town.
WHEN Rebirth Height 17
WHAT Loki has returned D:
NOTES Let me know where you're tagging/whether he's in fox or human-ish form.

His wings tire, after a time, and he drops, lands on the ground and shifts, trotting the rest of the way.

He's in the town, noting the unusually high buildings, the long shadows, before he realizes that he never returned to human form. That he is a fox, dodging among alleys and winding through the streets.

He shifts in the shadow of a building, and his skin feels stretched tight, thin.

It takes him a long moment to remember how to walk.

And then he returns to his lodgings, empty, alone, hardly believing that it has been a bare handful of days since he left.

He does not look for Thor.

Comments

Fox games!

[greatsquirrelhunter]

There was a fox passing the house. Faolan noted this, looking up from his position stretched out and nearly completely hidden in the grass. Foxes were unusual to find inside the city, especially near the forge and nearby slaughterhouses.

Taking a moment to draw himself up, he pounced.

[sorcerous]

The fox darted a few steps away -- a dodge, just barely -- and barked, growled, brutal and vicious.

In that moment, he was animal. Wild, ignorant, neither good nor evil, borne of blood and fight.

[greatsquirrelhunter]

Oh, the fox was scared. Faolan should have played more gently. He lowered himself to the ground and barked softly to it.

[sorcerous]

He was trembling. Heartbeat a dull thrum in a cage of bones.

He panted, and rested his belly against the ground, ears slowly settling from their perked position. Something about this smelled familiar, regardless.

[greatsquirrelhunter]

Poor foxy. Faolan was sorry! Faolan didn't mean to scare the foxy.

He looked around to make sure it was clear, and then turned into a wolf - puppy small and not a threat. He wriggled forward on his belly, whining, and then stopped. With all his focus on the animal, the fact that it smelled like one of his father's was finally occurring to him.

He moved forward faster, wanting to nuzzle and kiss Loki to welcome him home.

[sorcerous]

A little huff-sigh, as Loki put a name to the scent, and he allowed it; he wasn't much bigger than Faolan, in this form, and rather more delicate, as his fox's form was for sneaking, for speed, not for strength.

He took a few padding steps forward and sniffed at Faolan's fur, in greeting.

[greatsquirrelhunter]

And Faolan indeed nuzzled Loki and licked his muzzle, barking a few times.

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura had gotten a bit lost on his walk when he spotted a fox trotting through town as if he lived there. Curious, he went to follow, only to swiftly lose track of it, leaving him standing in the street with a puzzled look when he spotted a familiar face, looking rather worse for wear.

Rather worse for wear...

"Are you all right...?"

[sorcerous]

Loki turned, the wind catching the dirty, disheveled robes around his calves. "That is my business," Loki snapped. "Mind your own." His fingers flexed, and he felt keenly the absence of claw or talon or wing.

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura startled, shrinking back slightly. "I-- I just..." he fumbled, before falling silent, chastised.

[sorcerous]

A scent, on the breeze; Loki's eyes closed, ever-so-briefly.

"Did you follow me?" he asked, disoriented.

[shiromadoushi]

"Eh?" Bakura blinked. "I don't think so. There was a fox..." he explained, not realizing that the fox and the person before him were one and the same. Despite the talk of turning into a snake, he hadn't quite put two and two together.

[sorcerous]

Loki rubbed his forehead. "Thoughtless," he spat. Though he wasn't even truly certain why he was angry. "I was the fox." Wasn't he? It must have been a fox's form.

[shorterinperson]

It wasn't often that one saw foxes running around town. They tended to be shy creatures, only coming out at night and disappearing just as quickly. It took only a touch of her ember pendant for her to realize that there was something strange about the fox that had nothing to do with rabies.

So of course, she followed it.

[sorcerous]

He knew, the moment he was being followed. His instinct, before all other, was to escape unnoticed: and so he abandoned the shadowy fringes where he ran and he curled around the ankle of a shopkeeper, unbalancing him and sending a tray of wares crashing into the dirt.

The shopkeeper shouted, a clamor began, and Loki slipped away, running swift through an alleyway, hopping from stone to brick to thatch and curling low on a roof.

[shorterinperson]

Well that was a dead giveaway. Alanna barely paused long enough to apologize to the shopkeeper for her "pet" before chasing after the thing.

"You'd be better off standing still, you blasted thing," she informed him, only half hoping he could understand. Perhaps the poor creature was under some curse.

[sorcerous]

Loki gave a dismissive bark; the words were clear enough, but he had no need for the advice. He could defend himself perfectly well.

And he was out of her reach, on top of the roof's thatch. She did not pose a threat.

[shorterinperson]

She crossed her arms and glared up at him.

"I'm only trying to help, you know." She huffed. "I can't do a blasted thing from down here."

[sorcerous]

That was pretty much the plan.

He turned away, deliberately (though his ears were still perked) and carefully licked a paw. Grooming in a way that was more catlike than foxlike.

[halfwitch]

Gretel, along with the other orphans, had been shooed away from the monastery when the fire started. Her first thought had been to find Faolan, but that hadn't worked. Without anything fun to do with the rest of her day, she walked around the town pressing her face to windows and loitering in shops. Boredom had long since set in, and just when she was thinking to head back to the monks, she noticed a familiar face.

"Mr. Loki?"

[sorcerous]

He paused. Turned.

"Little sorceress," he greeted, his voice low. Because of his headache, not alleviated by magicks or by conventional remedy. "I see the night's monsters have left you alone."

[halfwitch]

"I haven't seen any monsters here in town." She frowned. "Why? Have you seen some?"

[sorcerous]

"I've caught a rumor or two." Dangers pass, it seemed. "Then again, rumors have called me a monster, so who am I to judge. Have you been practicing your magic?"

[halfwitch]

"Oh." She wanted to say that she didn't think of him as one, but that wasn't the road to go down again. "I have been. Mostly every day."

[sorcerous]

And what have you done?" he asked. -- Finding, to his surprise, that he does care about the answer.