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Loki is stuck to the crab's shell by one foot and a knee, the rest were buffered by the treasures there. "Kai! Are you…*cough* OK?" Its both terrifying and hilarious because that glitter shit is going to be in his cracks FOREVER. "UGH…I am…" He starts taking offhis pants and shoe to get free of the glue on the crab while he sincerely regrets getting on it in the first place.
*
The indigo glitter staining Kai like an octopus' ink has a definite briny smell and all the signs of bioluminescence. It sticks to his clothes, it sinks into his body, and it crusts his hair as much as his face and throat. The light elf may discover bleach doesn't eradicate craft herpes as much as he would like.
Loki, meanwhile, has all the majesty of an Asgardian god offering a counterproposal to the mighty ultramarine crustacean. The sticky nacreous finish is thicker than a shellac stain on wood planks, and hardens fairly quickly. If his hands get in it, the manual dexterity he enjoys is next to nil. On the other hand, he can tear free of his pants and regret the day he wore Spidey-whities. Crabs don't judge.
Lambert's sudden departure after his proposal brings an eyestalk tracking him, one of those bright green orbs on him. The other is busy watching Loki, and the man's antics are viewed as any intelligent being might. Clicking escalates in frequency and ferocity: "WAIT. THOSE ARE MINE. NO TAKE MY SHINIES. BAD! THOSE ARE MINE!" The fact its back is in fact partly covered by a beachhouse, striped awnings and all, makes for treacherous sloped footing. The crustacean scuttles around back and forth in an effort to escape this unwanted rider, heaving and flexing and bending up and down. "MY TWO LEGS GIVES ME THESE, NOT YOURS."
*
Through the scattered wreckage and great big legs of his betrothed — wedded? — scampering and crashing about the terrace, Lambert has a run ahead of him. A rush, as it happens, through the archway he spotted the chef through. Inside are heaps of tables thrown over and abandoned meals, but follow his nose, the satyr-son will find his way into the kitchen. It looks like any kitchen of a casual, popular restaurant with all stations abandoned. The chef band isn't going down with the ship. Bowls are overturned, pots bubbling, the floor a mess of flour and fallen cutlery. Some people are just /slobs/ running for their life.
*
ROLL: Loki +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 14
*
ROLL: Lindon +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 10
*
"I'm all right! Be careful!" Kai calls up to Loki, though he stops running down the pier toward the restaurant. He wipes at his eyes, and when he sneezes, a puff of glitter explodes from his face. "I don't like this!" he declares to the universe at large. He's not having a great day, people. His friend is dead, now he's got glitter in all the crevices. It taste like the pier smells. Bleh! "Bertie, control your spouse!" He spits out another puff of glitter. It's everywhere. Once he can at least see, he make goes back to looking for the ring.
*
ROLL: Rogue +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 10
*
Lambert does one of the most important things he has ever done in his life - he carefully turns off the gas under a pot so that it does not burn. "Control it? MARRY IT?! Get the ring? HEADBUTT IT? CAN YOU GUYS MAKE UP YOUR MIND!" He is on his belly now, in the kitchen, trying to see where the ring might have rolled. And he reaches out for a piece of fallen cake, because no man is expected to deal with low blood sugar at a time like this "Ahhhhhhhthisissowrong-"
*
"I'm NOT TAK-" Loki starts to yell. Then he remembers that yelling insults and high brow insinuations really probably isn't going to work in this instance and some of his…silvertongued banter may be better. Standing precariously and looking for a safe place to jump off, he says in a soothing tone, "Oh wondrous decapod, I am filled with regret at having stepped upon your glittering mound of peerless treasure. I saw your majesty too close, dangling from that hook in your claw, and lost my grip upon it. Now, all I seek is respite from this twinkling tor, with my feet firmly upon the sand, where I may admire you in all your glory." And he bows a little, with his bare, pale legs, and one shoe, shirt tails helping him to not incur too many child-offender charges with the fleeing locals.
*
The search around the terrace makes apparent that a great waste of seafood, cocktail sauce, and buttery dips has occurred. Oh, the travesty. Shadows thrown by the crab's great shell also presumably makes searching hard, given the lost power pole cut the lights on the terrace. Kai is searching on hands and knees at this rate, if he wants to find anything. And he'll come up with a full loaf of bread buttered in rosemary, but no ring. Nor does he manage to be crushed by a giant leg of a house-sized coconut crab. Shouting may be good! It helps the concerned being figure out where he is.
"BE NICE TO SHINY GIVER. PRECIOUS IS MY SHINY TWO-LEGS. MINE!" Yes, the idea of marriage is possibly understood at least as Kai and Loki were able to convey it, and the chittering, noisy beast sounding like a broken tornado siren is most insistent. "SHIIIIINY? WHERE ARE YOU?"
The search is involved, another pincer stuffed in the second archway. Screams of a very human nature mark that is a favourite hiding place, and several people go flying out onto the street. Some ran there. Some were helped along.
It still has the lamppost in its pincer. So far no one has been gratuitously impaled, and the bioluminescence patterns are mostly blue. Minus those surreal green eye-stalks. One is still on the struggling Asgardian. It slows its restless surging around. "OH. YES, TAKE YOU TOO." It plants the lamppost six feet through bare concrete effortlessly at a 75' angle, and reaches back with that great huge claw. It's kind of gentle about it, all said and done, but Loki is hoiked off at the expense of boots, possibly pants, and now an interdimensional betrothal possibly witnessed by Heimdall with a raised eyebrow (and Odin with comparative laughter such he might fall on Mimir in the well. "More SHINY for me! DOWN FOR YOU, NEED MY SHINY TOO."
*
ROLL: Lindon +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 19
*
"Oi! That one's mine!" Kai calls back as he paws around for the ring, leaving glitter in his wake. They're dealing with an interdimensional crab looking for mates and a shiny. Sod the closet. He continues to paw around the floor of the cafe, making his way toward the kitchen. "This isn't my fault for once," he murmurs to himself. Gotta keep an eye on the positives.
*
Thank God Lambert has no idea what the chittering means. Actually, he probably has no idea what any of this means. He pushes things aside in the kitchen, a whole stuffed snapper, a discarded apron. Search, search…wait. Why _have_ the Asgardians got him looking for this ring? How the heck…Lambert sits up on his heels for a moment. Why would it even want such a tiny piece of jewelry? What the? But Loki and Kai are not as terrified as he is, which means they maybe know more about what is actually happening? Lambert rolls on his side and he reaches under the hot oven, fingers scrabbling around the back. Clink? "Keep her busy!" he calls out. Yeah. Somehow.
*
ROLL: Loki +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 11
*
"I am…ah…unfortunately…already another being's treasure. Ah-ha-…eh…" Loki makes a tentative, uncertain sound as he's lifted up with a pincher, pale legs dangling. "Set me down, or I cannot guarantee what my mate will do. Brutal affair. Killed the last two crustaceans that came my way…I am no good for you at all…I'm too jealous, and I cannot cook very well…" Like every dude trying to get out of an accidental engagement ever.
*
The crab hopefully feels about, clacker tossing plates and breaking chairs, all with a decided purpose in mind. It patpats down a pile of cushions and then promptly marches back a half step. Excitable as the crustacean is, it has a purpose. "SHINY." Its emphatic demand is yet chittered in that fractal noise.
Lambert's efforts delve him something he was seeking about, and the delight of marinara or lump crab fashion up another discovery on part of Kai. The glitter everywhere is just going to continue to be a problem even after a bath, perhaps. It was glittering in the Hudson River, and that's practically the Phlegethon.
*
Kai sits up. "Ah ha!" He holds up a ring. A ring whose gem has been pried off. "Damn it!" He looks up at the crab. What's it going to take to get rid of this thing!? "We should get Doctor Strange," he says. "This is officially too cocked up for us to deal with." He gets up and makes his way toward the kitchen. "The waiter took the stone," he tells Lambert, plunking the ring down beside the satyr-kin. "I need to look for a phone."
*
"It does not care!" Loki puts his hands on the pincher, growing more concerned that he might be…god-napped. "Put a piece of glass in it!" He insists as he tests what it would take to get out of its grasp more forcefully.
*
Lambert squeaks, retrieving something, and he pulls out something from behind the oven, and stands, in time to see Kai "It's okay I've got the -" Catseye Alexandrite Ring. He holds it up to Kai, uncertainly "Wait - you've got. Okay. We've got - we've got leverage - you guys can understand that thing, right? Why…why don't you go and tell it that we'll give it these if it goes away - wait." He peers around Kai to spot the crab and half-naked Loki and he blinks. Several times.
*
The crab carefully, oh so carefully, puts down the pincer-clad Loki on the ground. In all the excitement, it probably forgot he was there. Believe it or not, he might be second fiddle to the satyr or the elf or a particularly delicious slice of chocolate cake that wasn't summarily smash. The heaving crustacean dance ends by setting him on a portion of the wall facing the river, safer than being there next to a living electrical wire of the power line it brought down. Then it hopefully dances left and right, standing up on its back legs and possibly prepared to climb up the brick walls enfolding the terrace. Well, it would be rude to overshadow one's groom by literally standing on top of them. Hims. Thems.
Happy clacketies follow. Hopeful chittering becomes an ebullient roil of noise, and it all translates into the simple certainty of excitement. A new SHINY!
Barbara whispers behind her table, "I have never seen anything so wonderful in my life. Oh yes, Anton, I will marry you!"
Anton combs the fork out of his hair and looks like he's ready to scream until she flings her arms around them and things happen.
*
Kai pauses in his search for a phone, then he takes the rings and says, "I didn't listen when my grandmother was trying to teach me diplomacy," he tells Lambert, then pats him on the head and walks back out to where the crustacean is. "Hello!" he calls to the crab, and he waves an arm, the one whose hand is holding the rings. "I've got a deal for you, man," he says. "I'll give you these gorgeous rings, so shiny, in exchange for these two betrotheds. Then you go back to where you came from and we'll call it good, dig me?"
*
Loki is placed on a perch and he looks noticably more at ease. Hands free, from here, he can be free if he needs to. He nods to Kai, waving a little, assuring him that he's fine, whatever they are planning, and /meanwhile/, he is looking for a way to just kill the boistrous creature before it gets engaged to half the populace. Those loose live wires have potential. He tries to gauge if they are long enough to reach the crab if he were to pull on them.
*
"But _where_ does it come from?" says Lambert from the kitchen, in the voice of one for whom a giant crab is just a bridge too far. Patting him on the head is like petting a woolly sheep - a soft one, that uses shampoo. But still? Not entirely human. Lambert's eyes, already goat-slotted, have gone just wide and bewildered "Grandfather _said_ America was odd," he says worriedly "He said it wasn't the right kind of place for a young satyr to go to - people are all weird about sexuality here. But he didn't explain that it was because of sexually acquired crabs - I mean, not like _this_." He peers out behind Kai "…that thing is so _shiny_!"
*
ROLL: Rogue +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 13
*
The mighty crustacean being puts both eyes directly on the rings and, honestly, it doesn't give much thought to just about anything. The wires would have trouble stringing over the wall and given the spilled water that ran off its carapace, there could be a chance Loki electrocutes his most beloved elf and Lambert. Or any other humans around. The crab nonetheless snippity snips and carefully lowers its pincers to the ground, resting them on the collapsed slant of a table far too weak to hold up against it. A squeak-click of agreement for Lambert: It is shiny. Then it cautiously nudges the satyr with a pincer edge, not enough to really shove him that far, perhaps an inch or two. Really, how is that little ring going to end up stuck to it?
"SHINY PLEASE FOR ME? ONE SHINY, GREEN, HARD ROCK SHINY FOR ME? TWO LEGS HAS SHINY." It is asking as nicely as it can, while its eyes are gleaming, and the whole thing is about as formal as it can ask. It doesn't give a whit about the other rings, that said.
*
ROLL: Loki +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 14
*
Kai watches as the crab nudges Lambert toward him. Just… for once, there is something in this universe that can out-weird the elf. And he's not even high! Is he? He spits out another gobbet of glitter. Is this stuff hallucinogenic? "…" He looks at the rings in his hand, then to the crab, then to Lambert. "…" A look to Loki. Is Loki seeing this? Ooh, pantsless Loki. Wait. Kai has questions. He arches a brow. The world seems to have slowed down to this one moment in his life that he will never, ever be able to explain. He swallows. Then he says, "Do you, Lambert Petropolous, take this crab…"
*
"SHINY?" asks the crab again, hopefully.
*
Loki hisses from above once he catches a magical glimpse of the object in Kai's hand. He jumps down from his perch cracking the pavement bits that aren't cracked already. "Do not give it that one." There's something about him…something very not Serrure. Much more Loki. Playing a bit of a game. Always its a dangerous one. But, he has an alternative, trying to rush to the cash register to get American dubloons…aka…a handful of quarters.
*
"SHINY, PLEASE." Reasonable crab is reasonable.
*
Lambert stumbles. He is a very dense creature, with a head like stone, but this is a…sort of. God-monster. So even though it is being gentle, Lambert has trouble staying upright. He _looks_ at Kai, at that comment, and then he says "I have no idea what it's saying, but do _not_ marry me to this thing. Hundreds of cheerleaders, America-wide, will be disappointed!" As Loki hisses, and…breaks the concrete, Lambert's ears sink into an expression of caprine fear "Uhhh -" Look. He has no idea who Loki is. He has no idea who the crab is. But both of them are _way_ stronger than he is "Meeple," squeaks Lambert as he says to Kai "Just hand me the shiny for it! And it can go - it's not…it can't stay here!"
*
The non-crab-god, Loki, comes back with a double handful of quarters and dimes, glittering like little silver drachmas. He jiggles and waves the double handful. "This is much better, so much /more/…do you not think?" He's definitely trying to budge in front of Kai, trying to cover him up in the vision of the crab, so that the other shinies are forgotten. "Get some more.And we can save your ring." he whispers, kinda loud and urgently. Aint Lambert's ring he's trying to save.
*
Kai honestly at this point doesn't know what to do, so he stands there. Though when Loki tells him not to give that one ring over, Kai closes his hand into a fist. Okay. Not giving rings. He's not quite in shock? But he's close. Still. Don't give ring. That he can manage. The rings go in his pocket. Out of sight, out of holy matrimony to a giant sea bug. Lucky Lambert.