It is twilight when he arrives (the sky painted hues of lavender and apricot and rose and navy), stepping across the border without so much as a twitch of his ears. He’s never paid mind to the laws of a kingdom (not with his pink queen so long ago, not with the dragon-queen so long ago, not with the magician-queen so long ago) and he certainly doesn’t plan on starting now. The only thing they could truly do to him is force him out of the kingdom (and even then he will simply fade into their shadows and go find some other poor soul to torture), a thought which makes him chuckle aloud.

Two slender sandstorms twirl around him, tinted in varying shades of pink and deep red from their cargo (said luggage being two sisterly hearts, now shed of blood and vessels). They’ve been traveling all day (the trickster with his two hearts) yet the storms have maintained their shape, expertly crafted by the shadowy, slender, metaphorical fingers of the trickster. As he slips under the shade of the forest, an audible sigh leaves his lungs (these shadows bring nostalgia to his mind with thoughts of the Valley). Although he spent a minimal amount of time in these woods with the white-ghost as king, there is familiarity in the thickness of the trees and undergrowth and shadow.

If they’re good Sylvans, they will know he is here (thus he doesn’t call out, content to lean his left hip against a wide boulder). His bruised eyes scan the undergrowth, watching as the world gradually gets darker while the sun is suffocated by the horizon. He’s due for a dip in some cool water (the thick layers of dried blood are itching at his skin now, but he’s too hell-bent on meeting this baby-evil to bother with a good bath) and so another, careless yet annoyed, sigh drips from his throat.

He’s never been best-suited for the ranks of a kingdom (they’ve always rubbed at his shoulders and hips like an uncomfortable jacket, blistering and reddening his skin until he wants to scream). Perhaps the only kingdom he’s served (and even then it wasn’t serving the kingdom, but serving the queen who sat atop it) is the Valley, but it is long gone. His time in the Sylvan forest with the white-king hardly counted as service (nor did he consider himself serving, rather looking for an opportunity to pleasure chaos) and he had been there for only fleeting moments in the first place.

Yet he doesn’t wonder why his hooves take him here. Perhaps it is the call of chaos (whispers sweet against his skin, calling him deeper into the darkness) or perhaps it is the call of boredom (clawing at the insides of his mind, drawing blood from the force of its dirty talons) or perhaps he is just curious (the least likely of the three, yet still possible). Nor does he wonder why he is covered in princess-blood with princess-hearts swaddled in the cradles of his storms.

He does, however, wonder why anyone would follow a king with a bright-red bunny tail plastered to his nose (or why anyone would follow a king who could burrow himself into a rabbit’s hole to match that nose). Despite the fact that he’s in a supposedly-evil kingdom (trespassing on the kingdom’s territory, nonetheless) and despite the fact that he might or might not be here to stir up more shit, he laughs. His tenor voice drips with wild amusement and it takes him a moment before he can control his laughter enough to speak.

“Oh” — a chuckle — “my” — another reckless laugh — “god, they actually listen to you?” The trickster heaves a big sigh, feeling the sickening emptiness that often accompanies a good laugh. “No wonder you’re fucked up; your momma must have hated you.” His bruised eyes (blue and white, blue and black) dance with unbidden mischief before his metaphorical fingers release their grip on the sandstorms.

Two sandy hearts (bled of color and life, yet it is still just as obvious what they are) drop before the clown-king’s feet. The trickster hadn’t managed to catch the girls’ names before he’d murdered them (first mercilessly bashed the elder until her body became a pulpy, disregarded mass of blood and tissue and bone, the second slowly pulled and pinched apart while drifting through a mind-sky) but he knows who they were, at least. “Princesses of Ischia, may they rest in peace.” The end is just for his own amusement, yet no laughter trails from his mouth this time.

“The name’s Lokii.”

“Loyalty means shit in our business, baby.”

He’s been around the block enough times to know (with the war of dragons swarming the skies and lightning slicing limbs off and pink queens disappearing into the great wide nothingness) that when you deal with the craftsmen of the devil’s work, you should never rely on loyalty. It will always come back to kick you in the ass and anyone who believes such things (loyalty or trust or faith) will recognize their error in some fashion.

Regardless of loyalty or religion, his gifts (the two sister-hearts, sandy and free of blood and pulse) are well received. A smirk drips across the trickster’s mouth as easily as rain falling when the clouds are thick, twitching at the corners of his gray lips and darkening his bruised eyes. Despite his age, his angular face is still handsome beyond his years and the smirk only further enhances those features (he’d say he ages like wine, if he knew what wine was).

The clown-king says a name (“... Brennen… ” amid laughter just as humored as his own had been moments before) that pricks at the corners of the trickster’s memories. He chuckles along with the pony, but it is for his own reasons (how ironic that he would murder the children of a stallion who saw the days of the kingdoms of old, just as he had) and he is easily able to rein it in when a spotted boy slips away from the shadows.

His question causes a smile to fall across the trickster’s face (a smile dripping in mingled amusement and darkness). “Well, boy, it comes with decades of practice.” His bruised gaze looks over the colt again, this time slightly more critical. “I can teach you, if you want.” His own techniques were taught (partially by self-teaching and partially by Infection, a monster whose name has faded with the times) and then mastered over the years, perfected under the shade of the forests and in the darkness of the night.

His fingers (slippery and shadowy and slender) prod gently at the colt’s mind. If he gives into the nearly invisible pressure at the back of his skull, an image will flash in his mind’s eye (brief but so tangible it is as if he is actually living it). The metallic taste of blood is in his mouth, but it tastes nearly as good as the freshest grass. His hooves and chest too, are slathered in the maroon of the liquid and a perfectly-dissected heart lies before him. It’s still beating, bright red in the emerald grass, although there is no other body to be found.

As the boy is re-oriented back into reality (assuming his tender, young mind slipped into the fantasy the trickster pushed upon him), the silvery trickster turns his chilly gaze back upon the clown-king. He’d offered him payment in return for the gifts, but his scarred, angular shoulders roll into a casual shrug. “You’re the king in these parts; you decide what to do with me.”