Lords of Shadow

Brewing Storm

Loki had his head down and didn't dare move it. His breaths came painfully slowly, not enough to fill the oxygen his body's activities created.

He could hear the fast-paced steps; he could see figures whizz by, although his peripheral vision censored them with nebulosity.

Loki was lying in grass, face down, hoping to wait out the search. After killing the two militants, Loki had tried to curve to the side and avoid the eventual cavalry, but the militants had been too systematic in their approach.

He ran, and they didn't, but yet, he was cornered now, betting his survival on hide and seek.

The grasses were high, but the recent rainfall had washed them down, making the task of spotting him much easier, but still...

---

Loki groggily stirred, unable to realise what was going on for a moment. He was strangely nervous and soaked in sweat despite the cool weather. Pieces of grass and dirt clung to his face, itching his skin so badly.

Then it hit him.

In the middle of his dilemma, where he was one movement away from finding out if he could truly die...he had slept off.

"What a wonderful way to go out," he thought aloud, slightly amused at the whole sick situation.

But why? Did they really believe that he was the killer? A child – or teen rather? If they did, that was either complete foolishness or insecurity that needed a book written about it.

But it was the truth.

He stood from the ground and took a cautious look. What greeted him was an empty scenery, and that was scary enough.

Loki traced his steps back to a tree, behind which he had hidden the crossbows and anything he could get off the dead militants in such a short time.

With that, he began his journey.

Loki had only been to the forest twice, except for the horror expedition trip. Then he had been twelve and afraid, clinging to the leg of the man he had thought to be his uncle.

"Wonder what happened to Uncle Edy, probably rotting in prison."

So he didn't know his way around, but following the deep footprints, he found his way to the forest's exit in about twenty minutes.

In between Yharnam and the forest was a sparsely populated land, devoid of plant life, and almost desert-like. It wasn't much of a problem to traverse, with its plain-like topography.

But if the night met him still on his journey, it wouldn't bode well for him. Entire Halos have been lost on this path, found dead at some point or not at all.

Reports say terrible sandworms live underground here; rumors say even worse. And he was a bit superstitious, so his ideas were just as unsettling.

With a deep breath, he took his leg out of the grass and into the wilderness after, trudging forward under light from a sun that had already begun its descent.

Three hours on a speedy ATV, probably double on foot. And with a sack weighing thirty percent of his body weight.

This would either test his limits and shape him, or break him in the worst of ways.

---

Loki thought he would be panting by now; he thought his legs would be dreading the next step, and his mind would be held together on the task ahead by a thread. But none of that happened.

In fact, nothing happened. He already knew exhaustion was a type of pain, and the wasp would absorb it if it surfaced and channel it to him as energy.

He began with exhaustion, and then the fatigue was turned into the fuel for the next step, instantly disappearing as the wasp buzzed. Then he took the next step, and the pain energy from the last helped him take the next, and just like that.

But this way, he felt nothing. The sensation of his foot hitting the ground grew distant, and his own breath quieted down to a mere hum in his chest.

He felt alien to himself, and struggled to understand that he was still walking, until he stopped.

Loki suddenly fell, unable to get up even when there was no cause. For a moment he was confused, and still was after the moment was up.

What voodoo was keeping him on the ground?

As it turns out, it was his own ignorance. Since he hadn't felt pain back when he had been shot in his knee, he had continued to use the leg without caution, worsening it in the process, until he could use it no longer.

Then what now?

If he waited for it to heal, no doubt the night would fall on him. And several more nights to come. And if it did, he would either become an eyewitness to confirm or deny the rumors, or the next victim.

There was a solution, though, but even with no one watching, he felt ashamed to try. Alas, fear didn't care about shame, and neither did the wasp.

His shadow wiggled its stinger menacingly, almost threatening Loki to move or else. Loki gulped and pushed himself up, then began to crawl.

Yes, that was his genius plan, to crawl ninety-eight miles on foot. And it might be a wonder as to how an ATV took a whole three hours for this distance, but the answer was that vehicles were a pretty new thing and not as optimised as older products like lighters.

It was easier said than done. To crawl, he had to move on his knees, and one of his knees wasn't in good shape at all. So that left him either trying to do it on one foot, or disregarding carefulness and using both, since crawling didn't need an upright knee.

He chose the latter more often, because he had less sand than he wanted in the hourglass, and had to race against the sun.

Four hours into his journey, he hadn't caught even the vaguest outline of Yharnem's borders, and needless to say, he should have.

The birds that came to the forest to feed were already heading back to the city, since they wanted to eat and not be eaten.

Loki looked up at them, disgruntled. "Show-offs..."

He could probably fly too, if he had a better shadow. As if hearing his thoughts, the wasp moved ahead, leaving him to catch up with haste.

"Hey, wait up! I didn't mean it... Okay, I did mean it, but that doesn't mean you aren't appreciated. Okay, that's what it means, but you can't leave me like this.

Technically you can, but you're bound to my soul. My pain is your pain."

Shadows didn't have ears, so the wasp didn't hear, or just chose to ignore the unlucky teen who had gotten an embodiment of prideful character instead of a loyal shadow.

Loki crawled forward, because even distance did not break the bond and did not release him from the cage he had walked into willingly.

Soon, he noticed the winds that stirred and turned back to behold heavy clouds.

A storm was coming...!