"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
His insides crave (his lungs itch, his intestines twitch, his heart jumps) the sweet taste of chaos. There was something about it (perhaps the scream of a woman, or the gurgle of blood in the throat, or the cry of an orphaned child) that brought him the greatest level of joy. There was nothing any woman could do that could bring him greater pleasure than destruction, pain, and havoc.
He’d felt that tingle deep in his gut (something that started out small before spreading throughout his body - a brave wildfire - until it drove him crazy) upon hearing about a kingdom doing the dirty work he loved so preciously. The trickster had been spending the afternoons in the meadow, occasionally striking up a conversation but mostly watching and listening.
He knew the shadowy creatures of the land (the ones with blood on their lips, death in their hearts, and darkness in their eyes) would be up to trouble eventually. He simply had to wait until he heard of it. The whisperings reached his graying ears easily enough (“blood pouring out of the front door” and “I would never take my daughter anywhere near that place” and “his red eyes still give me nightmares”) and it wasn’t long before his scarred body was headed toward the forested land.
The trickster had never been a fan of respecting others. He’d run into his fair share of trouble with that philosophy (when the dark god had snapped his forelegs and sewn them back together in a botched fashion during the first year of his life) and yet he had never seemed to learn. He’d spent many hours talking his way out of trespassing, yet his careless behavior tossed those memories to the wind the moment they were in the past.
So he trespasses yet again (he doesn’t sneak, but walks with his head at a comfortable position and his steps casual). He admires the forest (it seemed close to the Valley, what he might call home) with its dark shadows and tall boulders. He winds between the trunks, dappling sunlight falling on his lightning strikes. Then, the trickster settles himself against the coolness of a smaller boulder and waits patiently for someone to arrive (he knows they will come quickly, they always do).
He’s always on the hunt for eclectic things to add to his collection. He has a place to store them now, here in the autumn lands, where he can play with them and polish them in the privacy of his own space. They are all interesting in their own ways, his subjects, and all have their own quirks and uses that make Sylva the thriving hub of darkness that it’s become.
However he has still to find that protege, that one whose ideas quite match his own. They don’t have to be of his blood, though he would prefer it, they just need to hold the spark. The need for knowledge and letting nothing… NOTHING… Stand in their way to obtain it. Oh he has loyal followers that would follow him to the ends of the earth or at least to their death. Thana, Crevan, Morty, Ouija… They all lacked just one little thing. The need for answers. Their desire for the hunt was through blood and terror. That was just a means to an end.
He craved more than that. More than simply having power, he wants to master it. Master the magic, master the world, master death.
It is in his skeleton form that he finds the trickster beside the boulder. He finds this new figure, his exposed bleached bones, quite amusing. The way it makes children scream in terror. And when he would shift back into the ghostly red-eyed King… Oh how they ran. His true form more terrifying than any skeleton. He was known. He was feared.
With a clack of his bony jaw, he spots the gray man and for a moment he simply observes him. He doesn’t look like much but then, he knows intimately, how looks can deceive. They had often taken him for granted on looks alone. His smaller stature, his pure white skin (and the feathery wings he had once carried) reminiscent of an angel from Heaven. Oh they had all learned what happens when one assumes.
After taking a good hard look at the stallion, he finally approaches him. As he does, he begins to shift back to his true form. It’s a terrifying and ugly transformation. Sinew, veins, pink muscle, raw flesh. They all twist and turn along his skeletal body, fusing and mashing back together. Until, with a snap, the crimson eyes are smoldering back in his sockets and the pale stallion is whole once more. ”Perhaps you haven't heard, Sylva is Invitation Only.” His voice is quiet but seems to ring along the boulders and thick leaves of the forest.
His words may seem confrontational but he’s actually quite curious. For someone to have the balls to brazenly trespass into his kingdom… Well, they were either exceedingly stupid or they had something worth his while. "Where's your invitation?"
He’s been a part of a collection before. He’s been a part of several collections over the years, as a matter of fact. He’s danced before queens and stood in dark holes of timelessness and played along in a spooky game of death. Perhaps the largest collection he’s been a chess piece of is the parade of evil-doers that march through the hallways of Beqanna.
Most of his collections ended rather boring (gathering dust on a shelf above the desk, itching to be used and yet never moving, sitting like a machine gun in an arsenal from a warless world). There had been a time the trickster had ruled out becoming a part of anything again (let him become a bit of a solo artist, no longer just another monkey for the circus act) and he’d spent a portion of his life working under the blanket of darkness with his own cruel intentions.
But (despite all the carelessness in his heart) he grew restless. He craved something more than crushing the bones of helpless orphans, something more than forcing a delicate doe to watch her worst nightmares come alive, something more than experimenting carefully on the living raccoon. It was entertaining, but there was nothing like being an important piece in a larger plan.
The dappled sunlight warms where it lands on his back as he waits. He stirs a mixture of sand and dirt between his legs as he waits (allowing the grit to pull itself together into a small swirling kitten of a tornado that purrs against his scarred cannon bones). It isn’t long before he senses something approaching, but when his mismatched gaze lands, it isn’t on a natural horse.
The clattering of bones catches his attention before his eyes catch sight. It’s a haughty sound, especially in contrast with the quiet of winter (the harsh cry of a crow in the distance, the delicate whisper of a bitter breeze through the blood-stained leaves, then the jaunting laughter of marrow and calcium rubbing along one another). The skeleton appears and the trickster watches with mild amusement.
To any other, the vision might be uncomfortable (terrifying, even) but the jokester is curious. His swirling eyes (one touched by the twisted finger of flaw, the other touched by the starry wrath of an angry god) peer closer and he finds himself taking a few steps forward. Suddenly, tendon marries to bone and raw, bloodied flesh covers it.
A pale man stands before the trickster where a skeleton had just stood. He’s even more interested. A warm glow of satisfaction curls deep in his chest. This is exactly what he’s been looking for. The trickster’s eyelids pull closer to one another at the sentence that opens their conversation. He hadn’t heard about the invitation policy, but he didn’t give two shits either way.
Rather than answer the ivory stud’s question outright, the trickster decides to do what he does best - trick. His metaphorical fingers twist into the delicate ridges of the mind and a shiver of pleasure curls down his spine in delight. It’s an ironic replica of the first time he had wooed royalty (just before his first birthday, in the shadows of the Valley, to the pink queen who called him ‘protege’ thereafter) and a mischievous smirk crosses his grayed mouth.
He doesn’t aim to scare the wraith (not in the way he had caused the dark woman to shudder and cry in the forest), but rather to flex his muscles. The trickster didn’t need to know if he was good enough to be a gang member of the elite (he’d been in plenty of those already), he just had to show why he was.
And so the trickster allows the world around the once-skeleton to melt like paper. The trees become alight with that dangerous glow, but there is no flame to be seen. Then suddenly their limbs are curling into themselves (dark branches twisting unnaturally as though they are in heavy pain) and the leaves lose their shape and the colors drip like crayons melted to paper. It happens quickly, almost too quickly to comprehend for the pale king, and then within the time of a blink he is somewhere different.
He is a wolf, racing through a forest (the sights are unfamiliar and the scents are alien, but his paws know exactly what track to follow and his body is at ease with the scenery) during the depths of night. His fur is ivory, akin to the coat he wears daily, and there is a she-wolf twisting beside him. She is the color of a deep blue on the cusp of gray (a replica of the navy consort he had heard of) and her canine eyes lock to his with a wild look of hunger.
The world swirls again, and suddenly he is elsewhere. There is a rhythmic machinery song in the background, and the world is harsh and sterile and pale. Everything is sharp edges, metallic instruments, and fluorescent light bulbs. He has new limbs (pale paws with delicate, well-kept fingers) that grasp a surgical tool with strange gloves. Among the bitter colors (white and gray and cream and stark blue) there is a splash of flesh and blood, lain out for the man to see and touch. His patient is alive, his screams silenced by fatigue and overwhelming, uninhibited agony. His ribs poke through the perfect incision, covered in their delicate mixture of sinewy muscle and frothy blood.
It’s a perfect picture that once again is whisked away to another dimension. He is himself (his own four-legged pale body) but he is walking among the stars. There is nothing but darkness and silent, twinkling lights that are billions of miles away. He is alone, his feet make no sound, his lungs do not breathe. He remains here, in this place, longer than the other visions. It might feel as though he walks for days - weeks even - when the reality of time is only a matter of minutes.
With the next, final step, he is put back in his homeland.
“I’m Lokii.”
LOKII
Sorry this is a fricking novel, I got a little carried away. Let me know if you don't like anything/if you want me to edit stuff because I'm happy to <3
