He truly doesn’t ever intend for the magicians to seek him out. His intentions are always to further the doing of chaos (to cause destruction to beautiful lives, to make the child scream over their dead family, to feel the seeping darkness of evil between his bones, to sense the oncoming shadows in every breath, to see the fire flame up alongside that pretty house with the white picket fence, to watch kingdoms fall from the pressure of darkness and destruction). He won’t admit he isn’t showy (mostly because he is showy and he knows it), but the trickster doesn’t always mean for the magicians to find him.

His first interaction with such a magician was the great one himself. The magician everyone knows about (the one told from stories, the one murmured about to children in order to scare them into staying close, the one who has traveled far and long and wide and yet still finds his way back to their homelands – Carnage) was summoned by the pink Valley queen and he had been there (nothing more than a lanky colt barely a year old, with enough pride and courage to get him easily into a high position in a kingdom where the dangerous and cunning lived). In the end, the trickster ended up with broken forelegs which were sloppily sewn back together (and now his front knees are awkwardly bowlegged and criss-crossed with the scars to prove a magician’s handiwork) and his once clear blue eye poisoned by the dark blackness of the magician’s mark.

His second came from a magician who considered herself good. The magician who was, perhaps, one of the only ones on the good side at the time (from the Deserts, with wisdom beyond her years and a heart worthy enough to carry the sun – Morphine) but her dark side was pulled out when she met the trickster’s presence. He didn’t receive anything quite so physically injuring from her compared to the first magician, but his tricks did expand after a mental duel with the likes of the good magician.

And finally, the golden queen herself (the one he had attacked while he was surrounded by both friends and enemies, the queen with the magic given to her by the good magician, the queen with the strange accent and golden body – Yael). Their grudges for each other were always hidden behind the scenes but still kept nonetheless alive. Although she did nothing to him (except for keep him locked away within the realms of her kingdom) his interactions with her still remain.

The magicians find him whether he wishes them to or not. When the black mare flashes into the space beside him, he doesn’t startle. The mysterious portals between reality and fantasy (between time traveling and syrupy time; between here and there; between darkness and light; between good and evil; between sleeping and waking) are things he knows about – and has just experienced. After living surrounded by magic for so long, the trickster is accustomed to the sudden disappearance or sudden arrival of bodies. Instead, one ear merely flicks in her direction and he nonchalantly works his jaw against the mouthful of grass in his mouth.

It isn’t hard for him to smell the magic on her (or notice the way her body is effortlessly decorated and primed for perfection) and he knows instantly what – or who – she is. Nonetheless, he isn’t scared off by her presence. And when she knows his name, he rolls his shoulders in an easy motion of casualness. Before he can say anything, they are moving through time again. They stand still but the grass grows and dies and is covered by snow and grows again right under his hooves. Suns and moons rise and fall, stars twinkle in and out of his vision, the lighting of the days move through morning and noon and afternoon and evening and nighttime too quickly for him to count.

They are caught in a bubble of chaos and he soaks in the feeling of his lover purring against his skin. He relishes in the way time flows around them as if they are eternally trapped in a warping of nothing and everything and something. And when it stops (and when they are normal again; and when it is as if they never left; and when chaos fades away and leaves him whispering to come back soon) his head slowly twists in her direction.

She has captured his curiosity, at least.

“I’m sure you already know what I think of it,” he says smugly, tenor voice twittering out in that charismatic tune. And indeed his feelings radiate out (a rush of euphoria, that heart-pounding feeling of adrenaline, the lustful calling of his heart to chaos, the heavy feeling in his chest like he cannot get enough air, the dangerous tightrope between want and addiction); he has never been one to keep things contained. In fact, she could feel everything brimming behind the front of his mind – he is an oyster she is free to explore.

And he smiles, then, a smile full of chaotic excitement and charming smirks. “I’d introduce myself, but you know who I am.” His shoulders roll into that casual shrug again, bruised eyes (blue and black in the right, blue and white in the left) scanning over her face. “How can I help you?”

Lokii

the tricky god of chaos

The prospect of having his own magic is something he has rarely wondered about. He is rather content with his tricks and storms (things that are familiar to him, things he has lived with for many years, things he has mastered to the point of needing something else to occupy himself) and magic is foreign when it comes to him using it as his own. There is power in magic, more power than he has ever had, and power can cause chaos and destruction and all the things he desires to cause.

However, having his own magic is something he has rarely considered, except on small occasions. He does wonder how he would be with his own brand of magic. He certainly wouldn’t be serving of the side of goodness and light and happiness; but would he serve darkness and chaos and destruction and his lovers, or would he serve only himself? The whisperings of curiosity often peak at the edge of his thoughtful mind whenever he comes across a magician, but when her voice rings out; he forces his thoughts back to her.

Her words pique at his interest even further and his bruised eyes latch on to her shifting eyes. “Sounds like my kind of party,” he says smoothly, calculating expression glancing over hers. He’s rather good at reading facial expressions (at dissecting their tiniest tells like the best of the poker players, at listening for the hidden catches in their words and volumes and accents, at finding the small things that give a sneak peek of how they tick) and he uses such talents now, keeping a causal look over his face even though he knows she can feel his emotions and thoughts and shifting memories.

“I wouldn’t know, really. When I was last there, things seemed to be going wonderfully. But now that I’m a couple weeks in the future, there could have been a war for all I know.” He chuckles to himself, ears flopping leisurely as if his home becoming completely demolished by war was something he almost wanted to see. And in truth, maybe he did. War meant chaos and chaos meant destruction and destruction meant death and all four of those things are things he loves.

He shrugs his sloped shoulders casually. “Congratulations, by the way.” He didn’t really keep up very much with the recording of the Deserts’ competition, but he did find out enough to know who the winners were. And then he licks his lips slowly and patiently, waiting to find out just what she has in mind for him.

Lokii

the tricky god of chaos

It is a weird thing to be understood. All these years, no one understood him (they underestimated or overestimated him, they scoffed at him for not understanding, they shook their fingers and put him in time-out). He has lived his entire life knowing he will disappoint or let down or be judged or laughed at – but he has come to accept it. And when he senses her understanding, it is a dramatic shock to him mentally. He tries to shrug it off (forcing in and out deep, silent breaths; turning his mind away from the matter; allowing his eyes to scan the surroundings slowly) but he knows she is finely attuned to his every thoughts, sense, emotion, and memory and she is reading everything.

He doesn’t try to hide anything (she must know everything about him, already; pulling memories and thoughts on him from various places in the minds of the Beqannians – and he hopes she’s stumbled across Quark’s heartache from his own doing – like they are newsletters about him), but he does force his mind to switch tracks as quickly as possible. She accepts his congratulations and the small smile at the corners of her lips makes him wonder how much she has actually been congratulated.

Their conversation dies, but he doesn’t put effort to work it back up. The river of voices in the meadow takes over, flowing between the empty spaces between them. He is content to wait until she proposes her true reason behind being here (because knows she has a purpose as to meeting him, he knows she is not here by chance, he knows there is something brimming so electrically behind her magical mind) and merely observes the scenery around him until she speaks again.

She asks him what he wants, suddenly, and he almost laughs. It’s a silly question – a simple question, but silly nonetheless. She might be able to guess what he wants (the history written on his body, the angular sharpness of his devilish cheeks, the blood metaphorically splattered on his hooves, the glint of darkness and death and evil in his eyes) but to ask him the question is amusing to him. It always amuses him that magicians ask questions to their victims when they already know the answer, when they can just peel it away between the layers of thoughts and emotions and memories and events and wishes in their minds.

(She’s red and brilliant and full of power. This is before she’d succumbed to something bubbly pink and shriveling and self-harming. This is before she left the throne in a cloud of disappearance in the middle of a war. This is when she was thriving and brimming with ideas and abilities and prosperity. And he had come to her because he had wanted to be her right-hand man. Her accomplice. He wanted to be something powerful and accomplished and wonderful and feared and dangerous. And she could give it to him.

“Alright, what is it that you want?” Her eyes relay an expression of boredom – she does not think he can do much, but she will be proven wrong soon later. And his answer is one that he remembers for a long time – one that echoes in his mind when he must remind himself of why he is here, of what makes his toes curl and his lips smirk and his bruised eyes bruised.

“I want to be the unknown assassin, the very thing children whisper about at night and mothers croon terrifying stories about. I want to be the thing that everyone judges, but no one knows will kill them just when they think their life is perfect.” In those words, in those moments, in those sentences, he became something he wasn’t and something he would never be and something he would always be. Even with his one clear blue eye and one blue and white eye, even with his yearling body and lean haunches and sharp cheekbones and practiced tricks, there could almost be a hint of all the things to come in his being. And she had granted that, and much more.)

He raises his chin to look at her, bruised eyes swirling with memories and thoughts. Here he is, given the chance to become anything he wants, and he cannot come up with an answer. His eyes flare with mingled thoughtfulness and indecisiveness.

And then, he combines the past with the future. “I want to be the very thing children whisper about at night and mothers croon terrifying stories about. I want to be a bringer of chaos and destruction and death and mischief.” He knows there is more he can say, but he also knows she can already feel it brimming beneath the curtains of his mind. He shrugs his shoulders. “As for what you want to do with that information, I’ll leave that up to your magical imagination.” He grins haughtily, sharp cheekbones sliding up into a charismatic smile.

While she is seductive and snakelike and velvety, he is charming and showy and explosive.

Although they are different and although they are the same, they work together in perfection. And he knows it.

Lokii

the tricky god of chaos

He decides he likes her (he likes the way she is a wolf hiding among the sheep; he likes the snake-like charm in her swirling eyes; he likes the way her voice purrs out like an enchanter of his desires) and it makes him thoughtful. The trickster often finds those he likes, but rarely those who like him. He often walks the world with the sharp gazes of those who don’t understand or appreciate him following him. Her gaze isn’t sharp (at least sharp in the manner of anger and hurt and disgust and pointed knives aimed toward his chest) and it draws him in.

Although he is great and tricky and unlovable, there is still an inkling of that little boy deep inside just yearning for someone to care about him.

There is a roar in his ears, suddenly, like the entirety of the world is running away and leaving them behind. Turning his bruised eyes (blue and white, blue and black, both mixed with a concoction of curiosity and mischief) toward the world around them, he senses the impending seal crash over their heads. They are hiding in a chamber of secrecy, now (and his lips dance into a charismatic smirk upon finally reaching the main event).

And then her voice is in his mind, velvet smooth bouncing against the folds of his brain and against the back of his eyelids. He’s performed the trick before (casting his own voice into the mind of another, although the trick is a sensory illusion and his voice never came across just perfect – because he is not a master of magic, but of illusions, and he can never seem to reach seamless perfection) so it doesn’t startle him, but then his eyes are seeing images of the future. Fire and chaos and destruction and things that should not come from the mind of a light kingdom’s queen and yet they do.

His smile increasingly grows.

Her proposition reminds him of the Jungle’s secret service (and he pictures the golden-eyed warrior’s scarred and burned chest) but it doesn’t scare him. It thrills him, terrifies him in the way that a suicide might terrify a murderer, sends chills down his spine. His lips curl into a ruthless, excited smile. The sandstorms around his ankles begin to grow, snaking around his forelegs and growing in size in response to his adrenaline.

“You’re not exactly the light-hearted queenie everyone thinks you are, eh? That’s sexy.”

And then, “Count me in, queenie.”

Lokii

the tricky god of chaos