deceived, by illusion

[purposeful_glory]

Sigyn goes on hanging around the Three and Thor and Loki. Fandral, charmed in spite of her vocal disgruntlement, doesn't go so far as to kick him out of bed for her embarrassment, let alone insist on kicking him out of their practices; Hogun is too quiet to bother objecting if she harbors negative opinions; Volstagg is put off but not enough to throw her weight behind her objections. Thor considers his fighting respectable enough, and Loki doesn't mind the addition at all.

Loki wants to be queen one day and has not neglected learning to talk to people, learning the names of important sorts - but she has neglected assembling close friends (why should she do such a thing when she can tell them so little about herself?), and piggybacks on Thor's. So she is invited along when Thor decides she wants to go hunting for giant aurochs and thereby enjoy the supposedly superior flavor of fresh-killed beef one has personally killed.

And when Sigyn asks if he can come, well, nobody contradicts Thor when she says "Very well," even though this follows a longish pause.

Aurochs, come out, come out, wherever you are.

Comments

[purposeful_glory]

She has thought through this possibility with Thor. For Thor she'd bear the likely publicization and the inevitable scorn. She has not thought it through with Sigyn.

He's breathing, isn't he? He made a gesture. If that was a gesture. Come on, be going to live without help -

[thevictorious]

Maybe he'll live without help. Maybe he won't. His crushed legs will definitely need the attention of a healer at some point, and it had better be a good one.

He's still coughing. Some blood comes up. That's never a good sign. Internal damage - maybe a punctured lung.

She'd better not take too much longer to decide.

[purposeful_glory]

"I will have your silence," she snarls, and then she puts her hand on his forehead and he is healed.

[thevictorious]

He coughs one more time; reflects for a moment; and says, "Well. Who knew being swallowed by a landwurm could be so uneventful."

[purposeful_glory]

She snorts. She pulls one of his knives out of the walls of the wurm's esophagus and hands it to him.

[thevictorious]

"Thank you," he says. "If you are ever considering being swallowed by a monster, I have to say I recommend against it. If it'd had me another minute, who knows what could've happened. As it is, I may have to sit out the rest of this hunting expedition."

[purposeful_glory]

"Yes, I imagine so. I'm not in much of a hunting mood anymore either. Let's drag its head to the others," suggests Loki.

[thevictorious]

"Let's," he agrees.

His impression of a person injured enough to be slightly impaired but not enough to worry about permanent damage is impeccable. In the process of getting the head wrapped up to carry - it takes the pair of them working together to lift it - he acquires enough miscellaneous cuts to explain all the blood.

[purposeful_glory]

Loki may have briefly had a concussion, but she really wasn't bloodied, and there's plenty of plant debris in her hair and mud on her outfit.

It's a heavy head, but they can haul it. Drag. Drag. Draaaag.

"Sister!"

[einridi]

"...Is that a landwurm?"

[purposeful_glory]

"It was. Now it is a head."

[einridi]

"So I see! What a tale that must make."

[thevictorious]

"Oh, not such an exciting one," says Sigyn. "I put my sword in its eye. It swallowed me. She stabbed its other eye and retrieved me from its interior, somewhat the worse for the experience but still, as you can see, entirely undigested."

[einridi]

...This is not the sort of tale-telling Thor is used to, but it is undeniably vivid in its imagery. And there indeed is Sigyn's sword, still stuck in the beast's eye.

"You are a warrior," she declares.

[purposeful_glory]

"He is indeed."

[einridi]

She shakes her head in amazement. "I can hardly credit it. A landwurm!"

[thevictorious]

"I've fought one before," he says. "Smaller. Disguised as a snowbank. I had a longer sword then. It didn't eat me."

[einridi]

Thor laughs.

[purposeful_glory]

"But we've somewhat lost our taste for aurochs in fighting this one."

[einridi]

"Ah well," shrugs Thor. "We haven't found any. I wonder if Hogun and Volstagg have had better luck."

[purposeful_glory]

"Maybe. Should we stay with the head while you look for them? I wouldn't like to find a pack of jackals gnawing on the trophy."

[einridi]

"Aye, do. Come, Fandral."

Fandral casts a confused glance back at Sigyn as she follows Thor.

[purposeful_glory]

"Fandral," Loki says, when they're out of earshot, "cannot a bit decide what she makes of this."

[thevictorious]

"I see that," Sigyn agrees cheerfully.

Even with no one else around, he doesn't drop the pretense of mild-to-moderate injury; he moves with a touch of stiffness that contrasts his usual efficient fluidity.

[purposeful_glory]

Loki peers at him out of the corner of her eye - is something wrong with her spell or is he just method acting? - but doesn't remark on it.