December 5, 2016

I thank everyone for your kind reviews. I appreciate it. Also, to the reviewer who left the statement that it takes concentration to follow, thank you. That was what I was hoping for, something just as fluid as time and a little difficult to follow. I write most of the time how I believe someone to think, and that is usually not easy to follow as it is often disjointed.

Unfortunately, I do not believe that the chapters will get much longer, as this does not pay the bills. Nor will it be edited or prewritten. I don't save any of these to my computer. They go from word to the website and promptly closed out of.

Anyways, here is a glimpse into Loki with his father. I am placing Loki about a year older from the last chapter, six Migardian years.

-/-

Loki is long since used to visiting the infirmary in the castle.

His mother spent much of her time there, helping with pregnancies and childbirth. All of Asgard is welcome to seek medical attention from the magic within the walls.

Loki, however, spent only brief trips in the past. Mainly, his visits were due to the injuries he and Thor often suffered from fighting with one another. This time, though, he had awoken with a fever, eyes blurry and throat parched. Thor had gone for their mother, and Loki had been brought for the first time to recover overnight in the infirmary of the castle.

It had been several days now, and he found himself bored. While not well enough to venture back into his normal routine of roughhousing and lessons with Thor, he is coherent enough to realize that lying in bed watching the healers work magic was not very entertaining when he could not ask questions. Sadly, it is even more boring when he has slept most of the day and is awake when no one else is during the night.

Still, he stays in his bed as he promised his mother.

Across the room catches his attention, where an elderly woman lie in bed with her hands folded across her torso.

A charcoal mist was slowly starting to form, taking shape until the figure of a man stood beside her bed, a hooded cloak flowing around him like water. The mist, however, stays around him, slowly forming the shape of a tall man with the fair features prominent to Aesir. The man sits on the bedside, his hand overlapped with the mist of the mirage of the figure overlapping him.

The elderly woman opens her eyes, blinking slowly as she catches sight of the figure sitting beside her and the weight on her hands. Her eyes water, crinkling at the edges as a smile slowly touches upon her lips. She reaches upwards, cupping the cheek of the mist mirage.

Loki could not hear what was being said, but both the mist and the woman were talking in low voices, and for some odd reason, his mind was not telling him to call for help. He felt unexplainably warm, and perhaps more importantly in his mind, he was no longer bored. His eyes widen as the cloaked figure turns in his direction, staring at him for several moments before the figure reaches down to his hand where a jeweled ring sat. As he rubs it, turning it around, the mist separates from him as he stands, and the cloaked figure begins to move towards Loki as the mirage fades.

"What are you doing?"

The question is not the first Loki had wanted to ask, but his inherent curiosity that thrived upon knowledge and chaos and good fun slipped before his thoughts.

"I am a guide, of a sorts."

The voice is melodic, almost like a song in a language that Loki did not know, but understands. As he speaks, the figure moves to sit perched on the edge of Loki's own bed, turning his head to look back at the woman and her mirage.

"I am a judge and balance. Life and death. But, at the moment, what you truly wish to know, is who I am. I am referred to as Hallow."

Loki's brows furrow in concentration. "Do you like to be called that?"

A small, raspy laugh sounds from the figure still looking at the woman.

"I prefer it to many of the alternatives. Do you like to be called Loki?"

The child thinks about it for several moments. "I believe so. Mother and Thor usually call me 'my heart' or 'brother.' Sometimes, I prefer those."

The figure hums, watching as the woman seems to become a mirage herself, a smile on her face as she slowly fades away. Loki inhales sharply, taking in the figure more seriously now.

"Death!" he whispers. Hallow cups his hands in front of him as the mist slowly floats back to him and forms a small charcoal ball of mist that looked like a flame with a face above his palms. The figure turns to him then, holding his hands out to show the mist creature to him.

"That is by one name I am called," the figure answers. Loki reaches out hesitantly, figures brushing over the small flame that makes a cooing noise and leans up into his touch affectionately. Loki pulls his fingers back.

"It's cold!" exclaims Loki, looking with interest at the small flame, which had now separate arms and was trying to reach back for Loki. The child obliges, stroking a finger on top it. Loki peers up beneath dark lashes, almost seeming to remember his thoughts. "But, why are you talking to me, if you are death?"

"Death is not just one thing or person. It is many things. It is the balance that for one that enters the realms, one must be lost. It is knowing who is ready to move on and who needs guidance," Hallow pauses, his own fingers stroking over the black mist. "But, for now, the intricateness of what I do matters little. Perhaps, if I meet you again in the future, I will explain more."

Loki pauses, as his mother often gave him that line. When he was older or more mature or after he accomplished this or that. But, he understood the reasoning. Instead, he turns his attention to the knowledge available to him now. "What is this?"

Hallow seems pleased with the question, as he straightens slightly. "Do you like it? I made them many years ago, for when I needed to be in several places at once."

"What does it do?"

"It is a channel to the dead, first and foremost. Those who live or begin to move on cannot see me, but it helps them to have something to guide them. It makes their souls at peace," Loki begins to notice the sentences are short and choppy, thoughts almost disjointed, but relating. "The mist that you see forever surrounding me forms to show the shape that the dying wish. For those who welcome death, it greets them like an old friend. For those who don't… well, they see exactly what they believe death to look like." Hallow pauses for a moment staring at the still body of the woman briefly. "She welcomed death, and as such, the mist shifted to show her deceased husband. The afterimage of him appearing to guide her towards him."

"Is there any exceptions? I mean, I can see you. I am alive," starts Loki, only to get cut off by a pale hand raising. His eyes catch sight of that ring again.

"Children, who have not fully understood what death means to be afraid or cautious, see me as you see me now. However, child, you are an exception. But, that is for a later time."

Loki almost wants to protest, but this is a being who was life and death. Instead, he turns back to the mist cradled in his hands, now passed over. "So, what else does it do, since it is 'first and foremost' a channel to the dead?"

"Ah, you listen," praises Hallow, voice melodic and prideful. Loki involuntarily beams at the praise. "Sometimes, one separates from me. It cannot find their way back. You see, they have only one fear. People."

"What? Why? They channel the dead. Certainly they encounter people all the time?"

"Anything that has enough of a mind to think past that of an animal frightens them. They channel the dead constantly and are thus exposed to how people think. How both wonderful and selfish people can be, whether Aesir, Migardian, Jotun, or Centaur," begins Hallow, running a finger over the ball of mist again.

"Oh… what is it called?"

"Many years from now, the Migardians call them boggarts. They are creatures who like to hide away from people if they accidently stray from me, so they hide in closets and cupboards and under beds. And, if someone should accidently discover them before I can find them, they attempt to scare them away by channeling what they fear."

"That is really smart," praises Loki, making the little ball of mist preen. Its self-preservation is truly noteworthy. "Do you create creatures often? What are they?"

"Only sometimes," Hallow confirms, getting an eager look from the child. "There is one called a demiguise, whom I created with the ability to turn invisibility and have a brief foresight of the future. It is white and apelike, and when it gives its hair freely turns in a cloak such as this, that camouflages the wearer to invisibility themselves."

"So, if you took off the cloak, people could see you?" asks the child, concluding what he already knows.

"No, not quite," answers the figure, amused. "I create beings and gift them with a talent a possess. Some beings that I create wish to gift me something in return… Like this, for example."

Hallow reaches beneath his hood and pulls a feather from beneath, letting it rest in Loki's fingertips as Hallow draws the boggart back to himself.

"This is from a horse that can only been seen by those who have seen death."

Hallow then pulls a long twig from his sleeve, placing it gently on Loki's palms.

"This was gifted by a canine, that when it crosses your path foretells death in the future."

The figure pauses, taking the feather and stick away from the child and reaching within his robe again to pull out a bracelet that was braided together with strands of thread that seemed to glow silver.

"This is from a horse with a single horn upon its head, whose blood freely given could give you life and forcibly taken curse you. It is a symbol of beauty and good fortune."

Hallow slips the band onto the child's wrist. Loki stares at it, admiring the strands. His intelligent eyes look upwards.

"So, does that mean seeing you foretells death, and that those who have seen death can only see you, and that blood freely given gifts and forcibly taken curses?"

The words are fast and crammed together in order to get them out in one breathe, and Hallow cannot help the fond, single laugh that escapes him.

"Yes, they are each gifted with something of my own," confirms Hallow. "You can only see me if you are close to, dead, or have come back from the dead. My blood does gift those I choose, and curses those who take it selfishly. And, by what you have seen, I believe do foretell the arrival of death, just as I can foretell the arrival of birth."

"And, since the boggarts can shapeshift?" continues Loki, excitedly.

Instead of a verbal answer, another Loki is sitting in front of him, a carbon copy.

"Wow! Can I learn to do that?" murmurs the child.

The duplicate vanishes to the cloaked figure again.

"Perhaps."

With that mysterious statement, the figure disappears once again in a fine black mist.

Loki, unfortunately, is left sitting on his bed with far too many questions and no way to answer them.

He falls back to a lying position, staring at the ceiling as the quiet boredom overcomes him again.

-/-

I kind of wanted Hallow to have a calming presence, like the phrase death welcomes you like an old friend. I also thought it would be fun to have an outline for how Loki will learn shapeshifting and how he will gain his silvertongue.

Let me know your thoughts, and thanks in advance for your comments. I appreciate it if you let me know any questions or suggestions.