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Characters: Olinda and you!
Open? Yep!
Where: The Two-Faced Forest
When: The 18th of Rebirth's Height, day
What: Olinda be unicorning it up.
Warnings: None.

[ Far from the calamities of spinning wheels and sleeping prince(sses), there's a unicorn foraging in the Two-Faced Forest. The bag Kori had gifted her hangs loosely around her neck.

Bother her, y/n? ]

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"Someone with no interest in keeping a house that will hold up under a storm."

Sif runs her fingers along the flowers in the garden. They too are fake. The daffodils are crystalline and sugar spun. The lilacs seem to be made of a very thin form of licorice.

"It may be hours before we come across the next homestead. My name should bring us hospitality, though the water here may be as strange as the garden."

"Your name?" she prompts, attention drawn to the sugary flowers. It would be rude to nibble on them, of course, but what could one expect when their home was made of confectionery?

And there were so many other flowers. Surely a petal or two would not be missed.

Well! That settled that.

Flower tasting commence!

"My name. Prince -- are you mad," she hisses, moments short of ringing the bell.

"We are in a land full of curses and tricks, and yet you eat spun sugar growing out of the ground? Shall I find you a toad to kiss, next?"

Sundrop lifts her head, still chewing, completely undisturbed by Sif's chiding. Then she cocks her head. "Kissing toads? What has that got to do with anything?"

"I'm only saying -- it's a strange land. Exercise..."

She takes a breath, for perspective. She is in the company of a unicorn, who is eating candy that seems to grow out of the ground.

"Do what you like. It makes no difference to me."

She knocks on the door to the house, and is surprised that she doesn't break through it. There is no answer, but smells from inside the house indicate a burning hearth.

"If they are not here, they shall return soon enough."

Exercise caution. A bit of self-restraint, won't you? Honestly.

Sundrop could hear Moonsong finish the sentence for Sif. Heaving a sigh, the unicorn turns her head away, as if the owner might conveniently show up any moment now.

Her ears twitch, catching something the sounds like scratching from within the house. She takes one step forward, then another, head turning to deciper its source.

"Someone is there. Or something," she says, forehead crinkling in something akin to a frown. "It sounds...hurried."

“Perhaps the owner wants to clean up before opening the door.”

Which could be perfectly benign. Sif sometimes opened the door to her own lodgings tardily, in order to hide messes in her closet. But things in this place were rarely benign – the same could be said for the things Sif hid in her closet.

“You have a good ear. Make use of it now.”

She frowns, and knocks on the door one last time.

“By order of the King, you will open this door or I will break it down.”

The King's title was all the child inside needed. "Help!" he bellows, not so old that puberty had deepened his voice. "Please, help me! I'll be eaten!"

That was all that Sif needed to kick the door open, though she didn't rush in immediately. It wouldn’t be the first time someone mimicked a child’s voice in order to lure travelers into a trap.

“Hold!”

"Help!" he cries again, and there's a rattling noise -- the boy is shaking the door of cage he's locked in, brass in color. It sits in a corner of the kitchen, just a few steps past the entrance way.

Within arms reach of the cage is the edge of a small wooden table. Atop it lies a key, one that spelled freedom if the boy could simply reach it. That is what the scratching noise had been -- vying for the key, clawing wood instead.

"Help, before he returns!"

She walks in, hand at her sword in case it is a particularly elaborate trap. She picks the key off of the table and hands it to the boy.

“How long have you been trapped thus?”

It was a tight fit, but Sundrop manages to fit through the entrance way, though she cannot enter the kitchen all the way. Still, she's in enough to gape at the caged boy, and then to gape at Sif for questioning him without freeing him.

The boy stares at Sif for a moment, then takes the key. "Th-Three days," he says, fumbling to insert it properly from behind the bars.

"Why not help him?" Sundrop asks, agitated.

He looks up at the second voice. Noticing the unicorn, he squeaks and nearly drops the key.

She looks at the horse, exasperated.

“I am. But if someone were to set out a trap for ‘heroes’ this would be the way to go about it.” She turns back to the boy.

Then, softly: “No one is going to hurt you. I have no fear of one that would take a child.”

Fear enough to keep your distance, she thinks with a snort. Ah, but was she not the same? Fearful of giving away Olinda, otherwise why not take her form and let the boy out herself?

The boy scrambles out of the cage as soon as the lock is undone, straight into Sif's personal space. She looked strong and steady, two things that would provide protection.

"He left to find--"

Sundrop's ears perk up. "Someone is coming."

The boy's sentence withers away into another squeak.

Sure enough, there comes from the perimeter an offended cry, then angry stomping. "What in the blazes is a horse doing in my house?!" shrieks the goblin, not yet seeing the Asgardian or the boy.

The sight of them would be delayed. Sundrop kicks on instinct, sending the ugly thing back into the entrance way. She hurries to back up and out, allowing Sif and the boy full view of a very insulted, very mad goblin.

He howls in indignation at the sight of the boy freed. "How dare you touch my dinner!"

Any discomfort that Sif may have felt at the boy’s encroaching presence – she is not good with children, and she never has been – is quickly swept aside as the goblin enters.

Dinner. Even Sif must curl her nose at the prospect. She pushes the boy behind her, and brandishes her sword fully.

“I am certain that children are not a lawful food source in this land. Surrender now and face trial or I shall split your belly open where you stand. On the off chance that last night's dinner is undigested.”

The goblin gives her a healthy, and quite derisive, snort. "Trial? By who, lady knight? The kingdom is but a rumbling of bumbling fools!"

With that out of the way, he points a knobbly claw at Sif. "And they do not teach their subjects manners, either! Get out of here, servant of an idiot!"

The sword goes to his throat.

“I am the servant of Odin Allfather, ruler of Asgard, whose boots you are not fit to lick.”

She would kill him, here and now, and not regret it at all. Only – the families. They may want word of their children’s fate.

“How many children have you held in this manner? How many have you killed?”

The goblin freezes up immediately, then chuckles nervously at her question.

"Only one, lady knight, and he is right there," he answers, and it is the truth. Well, to her first question. "This house is brand new, you see."

Spent a fortune on contracting that witch, he did, and for what! The grand opening's feast would never be if this Odinservant and unicorn had their way.

"I am your Prince."

She says it the same way she might claim to be his god, which would be a more apt statement. She notices that he does not answer the second question.

"Unicorn? Which would be kinder -- me splitting his belly open, or you crushing his head until it is no taller than a piece of paper?"

It's an intimidation tactic.

Probably.

He shrieks, a confirmation that whether or not her words were simply a tactic or threat, they had accomplished their goal.

Sundrop shakes her head, unhappy with her inclusion. "The sword would bring a swifter death," she says, though she wishes this wasn't up for discussion. The goblin ought to die, she knows, but she is loathe to deliver death outside of a skirmish.

She is too afraid.

"Indeed it would. Boy, go outside."

It would not do for a child to see this -- she is fairly certain that she may soon have to send the unicorn out as well. Her eyes are on the goblin, still.

"You will answer my questions, or my companion will grant you a most unkind death. Do you understand?"

The boy wastes no time in skedaddling out of there, lingering on the property, though he can't help but peer in once in a while. (He's still a boy, after all.)

"I- I understand, Lady Prince," the goblin says, voice quivering with honest fear.

Sundrop backs up again, out of the house this time, and rests on the porch. She can still charge straight in if something goes wrong, but she'd rather be as far from their exchange as possible.

[ ooc: Sorry I've been so damn slow with this! Would you like to figure out how this ends? I'd a mind to have the goblic do some smoke magic in an escape attempt. Whether he escapes, is caught, or is killed -- s'all good to me. ]

[Dude! I am SO SORRY -- I went back to read through this tag for a log that I'm in now, and hadn't realized that I dropped it.

I am fine with an escape attempt! Sif was going to try and pry information out of him first -- do you think he would have given up info on the Witch building it?]

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