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Kai's place is… well, hardly to a lady's tastes. He lives in Hell's Kitchen in a one-room dump he's tried to make nice. The walls are painted in gorgeous, psychedelic murals. Paintings hang here and there, also expertly done, and sculptures on bookshelves also serve to brighten the place. The furniture is old, though, save for a nice new couch, and there's a nice new television. The door is new, with a secure lock. Little by little, someone with more means than Kai is attempting to make this squalor livable.
Kai is sprawled on the nice new couch with a copy of Ginsberg's Howl. He's in grey gym shorts and a singlet, and a fan rattles in the open window. Wedged in at his side is a little brown dog who hasn't left his side since he returned.
*
Amora arrives through the closest mirror to Kai, which was likely the bathroom mirror. She made a face of disgust, and vanished, only to reappear in his living room proper. The Enchantress stood there in all her glory, golden and wicked and beautiful. What Kai had seen of Amora had always been deminished previously, this was an Amora fully powered, and smelling heavily of Asgard's magic. It clung to every inch of her.
Along with the scent of mead and the sweet-sweat of various men that she'd spent the last several hours with.
To put it lightly, Amora had been on a bender. "Where is Loki? He should be near thee, yes? He came to me in a panic stating you'd been taken and I can clearly see you are not. What has occurred?" She glanced around, her hands settling on her hips.
*
Kai startles and sits up, and it makes the dog look up at stare at Amora. It's his job to guard against these things and he was asleep on the job! The little animal starts to bark, hiding behind Kai all the while. Bark bark bark! "Shh, easy, Kevin. It's all right." The dog gives a final bark, then goes back to hiding behind Kai in his shame for falling down on the one job he has in this house.
Kai meanwhile rakes his fingers through his hair and asks, "Milady Amora, to what do I owe the pleasure?" His smile is wan, and the expression leaves him somewhat diminished from his usual sunshine and light. "I haven't seen Loki. I think he might be in Svartlheim, but I don't know if that's truth or rumor."
Around his shoulders, there is a glimmer of silver netting etched into his skin, looking like tattoos whose inking won't be invented for decades. "I was gone, and I'll be returning soon." He purses his lips, then admits, "I died, Lady Amora, killed by the dark elves' wolves. My reprieve from Niflheim is brief."
*
Amora made her way over, picking carefully and with a sway of her hips.. and stumbling until she sank down onto the couch beside Kai. Tears burst abruptly from her eyes at the news as if she was overly wrought and could not stand the thought of yet another death.. Or she was horribly drunk. Possibly both. She threw her arms around Kai, pulling him close, not so much as blinking at the hound that barked.
"I shall go to Hela. I planned to go already. My beloved was not Thor, but was Thor.. but Thor remembers it not! And he turned me away." She sobbed, clinging to the elf.
"I sought Loki to aid me in this. Hela desires his soul as she does Thor's. His sliver tongue might yet b-be useful!" She sniffled.
"Tis not fair! I saved Thor, I nursed him to health and saw him safe and he turn away from me whence he is returned to Asgard proper!"
*
The dog lays down again, gazing up at Amora with big brown eyes. His tail wags hopefully. He's definitely all bark and no bite. Kai hugs Amora closely. "Sweet lady, you do me too much honor with your tears." Tears spring to his own eyes, causing them to glimmer like moonlight on water.
Despite his own grief, he draws back to look at Amora with dismay at her news. "That's terrible," he says. "He was so smitten with you, it has to be a momentary lapse." He hugs her again, stroking her golden hair while taking care not to make a mess of it. "He'll come to his senses," he says quietly. "And if he doesn't, he was never worthy of you."
For a moment, all he does is hold the lady, letting tears slide down his cheeks as she sobs. "I've been charged to take Loki back to Niflheim. They'd have me be the source of his downfall."
*
Amora needed someone to hold her while she cried, it was what had been lacking in her night's vaunted pleasures in Asgard. It had been what she'd sought all along, and what Thor had missed entirely in her pleas. The Enchantress so desperately needed someone to hold her and pat her back and tell her everything would be alright. It was simple, but utterly lacking in her life otherwise.
Especially now that Donald was absent in her life.
Her tears, now that she was restored to her proper magical state and had taken deep of Asgard's ambient magics, were tinted a rose-gold color, and rolled down her cheeks.
"I did not think he would forget the months we spent together. That he would not remember." She wailed, "I was so happy with him." She sniffled, rubbing at her eyes as he stroked her hair.
Only after several long moments did she calm down enough, to register the rest of what Kai had said. "So they will drag you back if you fail to do so? What magics is this? I have my full powers, access to Asgard. I can be of use to you, my darling."
*
Kai closes his eyes, and he buries his face in her hair. He too has been in sore need of comfort. Bucky has tried, but the soldier's guilt has weighed on Kai. The blameless lady is a balm. He nods to her question and says, "They'll take me back either way, but if I go without him, I'm at their mercy. If I stop looking, they'll take me back, so I seek him out. If I find him, I pray for his capriciousness. If he left me, moved on, had a happy life, I wouldn't care what they did to me."
He draws back so he can study her face, and he smiles tremulously, wiping away a rose-gold tear with the pad of his thumb. "You're kind, my lady. If you could appeal to Hela, I'd be so grateful, but please take care you don't borrow trouble on my behalf. I've had a good life. It's not worth risking yours."
*
Amora smiled, and it was a such a sad and aching smile that it was a small wonder that she was sung about in by the skalds. A weak laugh followed as she summoned up a handkerchief to dab at her nose. "No one thinks me kind." She laughed again a brittle sound. "No one says that about me in Asgard. I am thought of as bad as Loki. I have spent the last year trapped here on Midgard.. and now that Asgard is open to me? I find it.. empty." She inhaled a shaking breath.
"I want Thor to love me," And new tears trickled down her cheeks as she sniffled and broke down into more tears. "Why doesn't he love me? I don't understand. I saved him. I did everything I was supposed to do. The fortunes told me not to force my hands, to let things go and I would find happiness. I cannot accept that I was only to be happy for those months. I was s-supposed to be his Queen." She sobbed again, rubbing at her eyes. Somehow, despite her tears her skin did not turn red nor puffy. It would seem, she even cried beautifully.
"If Donald was a separate spirit, he shall be in Hela's realms. I cannot believe it though. For I thought he was Thor simply made mortal. I know not anymore what to do. Thor spurned me from his bed and turned me away." She shook her head, and another handkerchief was summoned out of thin air and held out toward Kai.
"Hela is a heinous witch, even more so than I. If she can let thee go it shalt only be for something she desires. Either of the Princes souls, or some other ill thing. But if all is as I fear? Then there is a great deal that I may be willing to do without risking my own soul."
*
"You've always been kind to me," Kai says, "and if the worst happens, the memory of that kindness will sustain me." That beat kid mannerism has taken a back seat these past few days, leaving a proper elf in its place, or at least an elf trying to remember how to be proper. "And remember," he adds with a small, crooked smile, "I adore their villain Loki."
He purses his lips and smoothes a lock of her hair. "He doesn't remember, that's all." He takes the handkerchief and dabs his eyes. His tears are crystalline, and his eyes, while red-rimmed, are luminous from them. He offers it back sheepishly, and he says, "If Donald is a separate spirit, he's probably so lost and confused. The poor man. But if he's part of Thor, then that means somewhere deep down Thor still remembers."
He shakes his head then, and he says, "If I'm offered a choice, I won't trade one of the Princes for my life. One I admire and the other I adore." He bites his lower lip, then admits, "Lady Amora, Bucky Barnes is intent on freeing me. I don't know his plan, but if you speak to him, perhaps you won't be accidentally working at opposing purposes."
*
A smile, warm and utterly amused at his comment about his love for Loki bloomed on her features. "Aye, and he and I have been friends since we were children." A sigh, "He was the only boy to join the school of magic. And I was the best besides him, so." She shrugged, and dragged her hands through her hair.
The handkerchief that Kai passed back, vanished into a puff of green smoke. "He gave himself to the Norns to save me. For an apple to heal my malaise." She grimaced, her lips turning downwards with a frown.
"He was Thor, so I thought that Thor would remember all. That I loved him because he was Thor.. but now I know not. Thor said that I should not.. not seek a replacement." She waved her hand, and a goblet of fine smelling mead appeared in her hand. She had been drinking all night, but now that she had access to Asgard and her powers? Why not. "Do you want some?" She asked after a moment.
"And I-I.. I love Thor. I have for centuries. But he spurns me each time. I would not turn him over to Hela.. but I would do a great deal if she had what I desired. Not that she would not double cross me. She hates me as I her. We do not get along in the least." Another pause followed.
"Who is this Bucky? Is he a warrior?"
*
Kai smiles, a smile tinged with sorrow to hear of Loki's boyhood. Just the little details of who he is, and how well Kai can imagine a black-haired child of rare talent, how precocious he must have been. The smile fades, and he says, "Perhaps Thor doubts himself. Perhaps he's a fool who doesn't see what's obvious before him, that no other woman can hold a candle to you."
He nods as the mead is offered. "Please," he says. "I could use a good bender." He absently pets the little dog at his side, and the animal wags his tail, still cleaved to his master's side. "If he's worth your love, he'll come to his senses," Kai says. "If he doesn't, then save that precious heart of yours for someone who is. It's a big universe, and he's not the only Prince in it. But I hope he realizes what he's got in you.
"As for Bucky, he's a warrior through and through. He won't leave this alone either. The dark elves changed him, turned him into one of their wolves. He blames himself for killing me, but it wasn't his fault." He shakes his head. "It really wasn't his fault. He doesn't see it that way."
*
Amora smiles and with a wave of her hand, another goblet of solid gold ringed in runes appears. It too smells heavily of sweet mead of Asgard's make. "I have seen Thor through the centuries. I have been his lover, his enemy and his friend through it all." She sipped heavily of her mead and leaned back against the couch, her curvy figure sinking back to press comfortably against the elf's side.
"And he has tossed me aside again and again for others. Jane Foster the mortal, Lady Sif, Princess Crystalia.." She sighed heavily and took another gulp of her mead. "Tis an insult! None thought him possibly alive but me! I alone held out hope. I alone tracked him down and found him. I alone saved him and protected him and set him on the path to renew himself to return to Asgard. And this is my thanks? Restored to my rightful place in Asgard with my magics. Alone. Rejected and spurned." She sniffled again.
"I can love no other than he! He alone is immune completely to my spells, my enchantments, my charms and beauty. No other has ever been truly immune to me, save him. How can I know that any other creature would truly love me and not simply be it my spells or charms?" She shook her head.
"I deserve to be his Queen and nothing less." She mumbled.
And then she glanced back to the elf, running her hands over his hair, her magic twisting it into perfect beaded braids as she did so. "I shalt find this warrior of yours then."
*
"But lady," Kai says, raising his mead to her, "for all his dalliances, it's you he returns to." He takes a good, long drink. His blood alcohol level has been dangerously low since he returned. The silver netting at his shoulders shimmers when he moves, just beneath the skin. "So you will seek this Donald, and if he doesn't exist, find a way to woo Thor back to you? In the meantime, maybe it will give the knucklehead a chance to see what's before him and stop fighting the inevitable."
He raises his goblet again. "I will tell this warrior you intend to seek out Hela. He might come seeking you. He's worn to Odin, and our natures aren't a mystery to him." He shakes his head. "What did I do, Lady Amora, to become so blessed to be surrounded by such excellent people?"
*
Skali knew where Kai lived. Not only did she also share a territory with the Moonling, but his scent was easy enough to follow when the fancy finally took her. Today it did, the front door's handle turning to admit the varg without any effort to introduce herself, the scent of wolf still thick on her skin as she ducked around the corner and moved towards the kitchen without even bothering to note if anyone was home. Opening the fridge, she made a show of rifling through it before realizing a bit belatedly that the apartment was occupied. Or maybe she had known to begin with and simply didn't care.
Magnus moved calmly through the door that had been left open, the massive shepherd ignoring the small brown dog with a regal attitude even as he moved to fold into that perfectly obedient sit at his mistress' feet. In sharp contrast, she sprawled against the counter and grumbled something about, 'Of course you don't have any beer.' Pulling a flask from the inside of her jacket, she regarded Amora with a slightly inconvenienced expression twitching her lips even as she waited to be greeted. Or not. Maybe she would steal the pepper. She needed some and didn't feel like running to the store.
*
Amora shifted on the couch, her hand rising to brush against his shoulder, her gaze narrowing faintly at the silver netting. Yet she was too drunk, too well into her cups to make heads or tails out of the magic doubtlessly involved. Kai's words brought a miserable tremble to her lips, "I desire not to be his mistress," She started, closing her eyes. "I want to be his Queen. Which seems beyond me for some strange reason! I can gain his bed if I truly try, aye.. but ugh," She pressed the heel of her hand against those gemstone green eyes.
"Tis not fair!" She repeated again hotly.
The golden goblet in her hand sloshed with mead that was continuously filled from some other source. "I shalt do my best to woo Thor regardless.. Spirit or not! Hela's realm is truly treacherous and I shall only go for ye and.. Donald.. if he in truth even existed.. for he was but a mortal shall or mortal mind watching Thor's body? I know it not. Tis a .. a.. I know not." She shrugged and downed another gulp of her mead.
Just as Skali came waltzing into the apartment and Amora finally, in her drunken, miserable stupor eyed her. "Kai. There is a your step-grandchild standing in your apartment."
*
Kai looks up at Skali and Magnus stride into his home. He blinks a few times, and it's the kind of strangeness he just sort of lets wash over him. Kevin on the other hand utters a single whimpering bark, then hides behind Kai, squirreling himself between the elf and the back of the couch, worming his way under a blanket. Just his tail can be seen, tucked between his hind feet. Kai looks to the dog and shakes his head. His brave protector, who is routinely beaten up by cats.
"Er, hello, Skali," Kai says. "Won't you come in? I apologize about the beer situation. Last night there was a desperate need for it. Won't you sit down and make yourself at home?" He gets to his feet and the lump in the blanket whimpers. "I'll see if my stash of whiskey survived my absence." He drinks from his goblet and ambles into the kitchen. Visible around the lines of his singlet are the branches of an ash tree tattooed in dark brown on his back.
"It's all right, Lady Amora," Kai says. "We're friends." The whiskey bottle is found, deposited next to Skali, and the elf returns to the couch. "He is young, yet," the elf in late adolescence tells Amora. "What I mean to say is there's time, and there will be time, to get him to see what the rest of us already know. It's frustrating, but it's not futile."
*
Skali casually strolls towards the quivering blanket huddle on the couch, settling beside the bundle with a soft little coo in the tongue of Asgard that spoke especially to the sensibilities of canines in tone and sweetness. She kicked up a boot to begin peeling off the leather, betraying two sweat soaked socks that she also peeled off as she wriggled into the cushions. A side glance at Amora's tear-stained features, and the wolfling smiled prettily, the teeth just a bit more tipped than they should have been given how much time she had spent in her true form recently. The eyes glinted as gold as the liquor deposited beside her.
"It may shock you, but I make a rather pleasant friend."
Opening the pack that she had set down at her feet, she pulled out some twine wrapped parchment and held it out to Kai in exchange for the whiskey bottle,
"Brought you caribou. It needs to be cooked. But it's fresh."
The Alsatian huffed at Kai and settled across Skali's smelly socks with a disgruntled exhale.
*
A disgusted look crossed Amora's features, her lips peeling back as she eyed Skali over the rim of her goblet. "I am not shocked, you are of Loki's blood and he makes a more pleasant friend than foe." She muttered and took another long gulp of her mead. "We have met before, Kai. Tis nothing new." She hooked a golden eyebrow upwards. Skali, for her part would smell upon the Enchantress the heady scents of magic, or Asgard and of mead and men upon Amora. The Enchantress had been restored and her power lingered in the lines of her skin to her shapely calves.
"In regards to Thor… tis what has been said before. However I fear that he will make a mistake and marry another before over long. He's been betrothed to three other women in the past decade. A terrible streak and none of them me. Tis unnecessarily cruel."
*
Kevin the dog peeks up at Skali as she speaks to him. Those big brown puppy eyes are gentle and somewhat apologetic, as though he knows on some level he is just a small, harmless dog who gets beaten up by cats. Kai takes the caribou with a, "Thank you, truly. It'll make a fine dinner." Back to the kitchen to put it the fridge.
"It's too bad you feel as bound to him as I do to Loki," he tells Amora as he reclaims his seat, taking a moment to pet Kevin. Kevin squirms closer to him and lays his chin upon Kai's leg. Kai was gone, and pupper isn't letting him get away again. "I would say give him a few days, and in that time create breathtaking prose in praise of him. With dignity, of course, never groveling."
*
Skali refills her flask before placing the remainder of the bottle down besides Kai's ankle and leaning back on the couch. Sampling from the battered metal container, she listened to the two converse before interjecting her own opinion, completely unrequested.
"Bound? A curious word."
The varg capped her flask again before reaching up to run a hand through thick brunette hair and then continuing with whiskey thick on her tongue,
"Nothing is owed in a bonded pair. Not among our kind at least. It is earned. Whatever you have done to earn their affection, redouble it. And when another threatens such loyalty, kill the pretender."
A slow tilt of her head marked just how confused she was that this was so difficult to comprehend for the other two.
*
Amora paused, considering both Kai and Skali in turn over the goblet. "Thor does not care for poetry. That would be Loki who appreciates the fine turn of a tongue and clever word. Thor couldn't appreciate poetry or skalds or songs unless they sing his praises or that of a mighty battle." She drawled, leaning back on her seat with a heavy sigh.
"I have tried a sampling of men and women across the realms. None can match him. He is peerless. A God among Gods. A golden prince. A proper warrior and.." She made a soft sound at the back of her throat. A worthy lover." She downed the rest of her drink and it too refilled.
Then green eyes lifted toward Skali, "I have done such things in the past, there are no other pretenders to his affections. Not currently." Sif had suddenly disappeared soon after being found and decrying Amora's worth to the sky. How odd that..
"I saved him, returned him to his proper place.. and he has rejected me. He'd rather a cold bed than my presence." Her lips peeled back into a silent snarl.
*
Kai says wryly, "Ah, but men like Thor do love to have their egos stroked. The words don't have to be too intricate." His gaze goes distant, and he murmurs somewhat to himself, "I should write Loki breathtaking prose before I go." His gaze swivels to Skali, and with a tight smile, he says, "Oh, he has me, body and soul." That declaration brings a spark of light to the elf's eyes, a glint of his former self.
"He's lost his memories," Kai reminds. "He doesn't know any better, but that doesn't mean he won't come around." He sighs quietly. "One might argue there's a curse involved with loving someone so perfect in your esteem no one can ever replace them."
*
Skali shrugs as if the pain of the enchantress broke against her casual diffidence and made no remarkable impact,
"Then let him sleep alone. If your presence does not hold value for him, then perhaps you are not his equal. Perhaps nobody is. Then he will spend a life parsing apart inadequate lovers and friendships characterized by shortcomings. It is hard to compare to the love of the hunt or of battle."
What did she know though? She could not claim the experience of Amora nor the purity of intentions that Kai possessed in his affections. Skali was what Skali always was; consistently savage and intractably wild.
*
Amora huffed, "I desire him and him alone, as I always have. He shall be King of Asgard, the shining beacon of all the Nine Realms. He alone is the one equal to the Enchantress and my beauty, my power. All others are meaningless conquests." She sighed, a mournful sort of manner as she gazed at her goblet's contents.
"And aye, Thor adores to hear tales of his battle, of his heroics. I am well aware." She murmured, sipping at her mead. "The Thunderer holds my heart as sure as if he stole it himself." She shook her head as she propped her chin up with her hand, crossing her legs as she sprawled back and eyed Skali.
"He said he admired me and respected me." She spat, "I want him to desire me. Love me. Why is that so much to ask?"
*
Skali rolls back her shoulders and smiles sadly, unscrewing the cap of her flask to take another swig in response to the question before responding in her own good time.
"You ask for everything you could possibly desire from Fate herself and then wonder why it is too much? What would be the point of living if you were happy? Immortality is a long time to spend content."
There's a roguish wink before she glances to Kai with a lingering flick of her tongue over her lips before continuing,
"Why do you think your lover sows discord with every sweep of his fingertips? Somebody must keep the scales balanced. It is the natural way of things. Perfect beauty has no place at the arm of brute strength, they are two different edges of cruelty that do not complement each other no matter how you attempt to forge them into the same blade."
*
"Lady Amora," Kai says, "Perhaps that's what Thor needs right now. He's had a terrible shock, coming back to himself. It's glorious and we should of course celebrate his return, but it's got to be jarring. Show him your kindness. Be his friend. Maybe what he needs right now is a companion whose beauty lies within. I know you possess it in abundance, regardless of what Asgard thinks."
He glances to Skali and grins. More mead goes down the hatch, and the more he drinks, the less dead he feels. "I love that he plays tricks on me, that he's vulgar and capricious. It's an endless game of chase with no winners or losers. I'm not very clever. He always bests me." He sighs, lovelorn. The elf has it badly.
*
Thus Skali was in a room with two love-lorn beings, both well on their way to being drunk if not already there in Amora's case. She'd gone on a bender and had hoped to find Loki, trusting him to keep the fire her hurt and anger alive with the insults and pranks that Kai so loved. She snorted at the elf's descriptions and she shook her head. "I desire nothing more than to be happy. I have done naught but worked toward that goal for centuries. I shall not rest 'till all is mine.." Her lips pursed into a thin line. "I am the most beautiful of all the realms. Why should I not be the Queen? The golden Queen for a golden realm and King? Tis natural that we be together."
Another gulp her mead followed, "I know not why you enjoy Loki's coarse language." She muttered dryly and rolled her eyes. "And space? I am giving him space for this shock of his return. He claims he was dead prior. That he has no memory. Aye, a shock, but tis a shock to me! Just the other night he was in my arms and my beloved. And now he looks at me as if I were a snake. Unable and unwilling to be trusted!"
*
Skali smirks as her eyes sparkle at the edges with mischief, a learned habit of creating strife where it likely was unnecessarily due. Yet the wolfling had no great affection for over complicated emotions, be they human or divine in origin,
"Or perhaps you make a better foe than a friend. Perhaps he would prefer combat to affection and emotional drivel. No offense, but it has been a brief respite from ripping apart large ungulates on the tundra and I am already exhausted by both of you."
A little shrug, another swig of whiskey, and she sighed happily by the burn down her throat. A bare foot moved to rub Magnus' head where he lay in a half-hearted effort to 'pet' the dog.
*
Amora curled up on the couch, now far too drunk to safely teleport home. Especially with her cup of never ending mead. "Thor understands battle. He is good at battle. He is however, a bit slow when it comes to matters of the heart. He is not known for his brains after all.." She drawled, sipping heavily at her mead as she pressed her head against Kai's shoulder. The goblet vanishing as it slipped from her grasp. No spill!
"He does not seek me as a foe. Merely.. yet another woman to .. to.." She yawned, and started to fall asleep where she sat.
*
Kai grimaces and says, "Being dead changes you. If he's truly back, hopefully he'll regain a sense of the man he was." He purses his lips, and he lays a hand on Amora's back, then draws her into a one-armed hug, offering a silvery-netted shoulder. "It's not fair to you," he agrees quietly. "After all you've done for him."
A small smile plays upon his lips though, despite himself. "I'm not as refined as you are, Lady," he says. "It gets my blood pumping when he says such things. It means his passion is running hot." He sighs wistfully. Just what anyone wants to know about their grandpa.
He settles Amora on the couch and tucks her in with a blanket, positioning a pillow under her golden head. To Skali, he says, "Poor thing. She'll be better after a nap, I think."
*
Skali wrinkles her nose at the display, stealing the goblet that had been whisked out of Amora's weakening grasp and downing it before tucking her flask away once more.
"I doubt that."
She remarked in regards to Kai's opinion about Amora's wellbeing.
"So close to what she desired, only to have it unravel in her own hands? Unfortunate to see something so beautiful in such a pitiful state. Though I warned her."
Skali set down the goblet, turning luminous golden eyes upon Kai and continuing in an equally disappointed tone,
"I warned you too. You are looking"
Not poor, precisely. Not exactly unwell. Her nose filled with his scent, trying to place where she had inhaled it before and her frown deepened,
"It seems overcomplicated."
*
"Ah, what's wrong with me isn't because of anything Loki has done," Kai says. He gathers up his little dog and relocates to a beanbag chair so Amora can stretch out. Kevin whimpers and curls up at Kai's side, the little coward. In the dog's defense, he is tiny in a big world. Kai ruffles his ears to soothe him. That gets a little tail wag.
Kai thinks about how to put this. Over complicated doesn't even begin to describe it. "I was taken in the Wild Hunt," he says. "Tortured by dark elves and killed by a good friend transformed into a wolf too riddled with bloodlust to know what he was doing."
He finishes off his mead as well before Amora's magics can dissipate and take it away. "I'm back on loan from Niflheim, but not for long. They want Loki, and as long as I seek him, I can stay. I'm not sure how I feel about finding him."
*
Skali frowns at his story, Magnus' ear twitching in time with the expression as if they both shared a similar opinion on the matter.
"A conundrum. You find him, you go back. You don't find him, you are separated forever. What if someone else were to find him?"
The offer was given even as she pulled back on her shoes, making motions to begin readying to leave him alone with a depressed and soon-to-be hung over goddess.
*
"I go back either way," Kai says. "If I find him and he goes with me, we're together forever, but in hell. If he rejects me, or I can't find him, I go back and am probably punished for failure, but he gets to live." He sighs and rakes a hand through his hair. "Of course I want to be with him, but not like that.
Kevin whines, and Kai pets him again. The dog has no idea what's going on, but he's wolf enough to sense something isn't right when his master sighs like that. As Kai pets the dog, he thinks, and he says, "If someone else were to find him first, I would tell them to explain, and to say that if he decided to stay away, I would be happy knowing he survived no matter what they do to me."
*
Skali inclines her head in a soft recognition of his words before finishing her preparations and snapping her fingers to summon Magnus. The shepherd rose unceremoniously and trotted to the front door, waiting patiently to be let out while his mistress simply met Kai's eyes and responded gently,
"I will see to it that he knows such things. Also-"
The golden gaze rested on Kevin briefly and she murmured with a kindness in her tone,
"I live up the street. Should you need to leave suddenly and have no place for the dog."
Her address was clarified, a few meager directions, and then she opened the front door to let out Magnus, following in his wake if not waylaid further.
*
Kai smiles softly. "Thank you, Skali. You do me a kindness I'll never forget." Kevin watches Magnus, and he squirms til he's on his back, belly exposed. See how submissive he is, big dog? How unthreatening, even in this, what should be his territory?" Kai sighs, and he rubs the dog's chest. Poor Kevin.
"Godspeed," he adds. "If it comes to mind, tell him that I will always love him, in this life and beyond."