"That's not a snake," she decided. She wasn't quite sure if she'd said it out loud or not, but the glances her way as she thought it told her she probably did. It couldn't be a snake - not a real one. Not a true one. No real snake would eat cotton candy, nor interact as though it were human with other humans. Even a familiar would behave in a more serpentine manner. No, this creature was something different altogether. A shapeshifter? Skinwalker? Demon? Angel? Hard to know, even with her sight.
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
The moment Viper spoke, the three each had very visible reactions to the comment. Thor very slowly--and somewhat guiltily--raised his head out of Loki's pocket. Loki stiffened considerably. Sam looked like a deer caught in headlights. Loki wanted to give Thor another angry look, but was far too terrified to do so.
"They're not human," Sam hissed.
"Except maybe that girl," Loki quietly replied, giving a nod in the direction of the girl who had emerged from the funhouse. "Do you have any weapons on you?"
Sam shook their head ever so slightly. "The only thing I have on me right now is this expired cotton candy. You?"
"My arsenal is me and Thor," he replied. Which wasn't much, especially when he was getting this hot and Thor was still trying to digest his latest snack. He wiped the sweat off of his forehead with his sleeve. He needed to cool down, but he couldn't risk shifting in such a close proximity to Sam. "If we say we're from Perseus, they'll kill us in a heartbeat."
Sam took a nervous bite out of the cotton candy. "This is just great, then. How else can we explain why your best friend is a highly intelligent snake?" Their eyes met for the briefest of seconds, and it was then that understanding simultaneously dawned on them.
"We'll lie. Just change up a few details, and we should be good," Sam decided.
"Sounds like a plan to me," Loki whispered back, then turned to look at the group assembled--and, more specifically, at Viper. "I might have been omitting some details when I said that Thor was a special snake. He was the pet of a witch, and she cast some spells on him that improved his intelligence. The witch left him behind after...after..."
"After she suddenly had to move!" Sam helpfully interjected. Thor frantically nodded in agreement. "Loki wanted to go chat with her about very magical thingies, but she was gone when he got there. He found Thor instead. Right, Thor?"
She came forward, her eyes dimly glowing underneath her hood as she leaned in towards them, voice hardly above a dangerous whisper.. "Darlings," she said, "I've been doing this a very long time. And I know a snake when I see one. Lies, too, for that matter. You should be rather careful about what you say. We do have rather keen hearing, after all, more than you obviously anticipated. I don't know what 'Perseus' is. I don't really care. If you want to pretend like that thing's some witch's familiar, too, that's fine, but don't believe we buy it for a moment."
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
"Thor isn't a thing," Loki growled, bristling with annoyance at what Viper said. He angrily wiped the newly formed sweat off of his forehead. "He's my friend, and he-"
He paused, then slowly glanced between the woman and the snake in his pocket. What was she talking about? Thor had been the witch's familiar. The lie hadn't been about that--it had been the story leading up the witch leaving him behind. He was the reason she had left in such a hurry; Celeste had told her that he was on his way, and then he and Shadow had arrived at her home right after she had finished hurriedly escaping. He had found Thor, cowering away from him as he and Shadow searched for the witch inside the building.
When he looked down at Thor, he saw that his friend had hidden himself in his pocket. Which was bizarre, considering that he only did something like that when he was truly scared. "Thor?" he asked, trying to coax his best friend out by sticking his finger inside the pocket.
There was a small, sharp pain, and he quickly withdrew his hand out with a swear as two tiny droplets of blood began to form around the bite marks. "He-He bit me," Loki managed to get out, looking at Sam with wide eyes. He glanced back down at his pocket. Was it just him, or was the snake shivering? "Thor, why did you just bite me? Are you feeling okay? You're not acting like yourself-"
"Loki," Sam suddenly interrupted, their voice surprisingly cold and emotionless. Perseus's resident shapeshifter raised his head. The cool look on their face didn't feel right, and Loki felt himself grow stiff as he waited for them to continue. "What is the job of Perseus?"
"To be as evil as possible?" he jokingly replied.
Sam gave him a look with their one visible eye.
"The real job, Loki," they said. "The one you signed up for."
Loki glanced at the other people present, then adopted a serious and cold tone of his own. "To eradicate any nonhumans--partial or full--and to be wary of those who wield magic or have been touched by it. If necessary, they will be dealt with as well."
"Do the math," Sam said. "You found Thor in a pile of clothes in the darkest part of the room. Why would a snake be so far away from the light, and where was everything a person would need to care for a snake?"
Loki glanced down at his pocket, his heart dropping from his chest all the way down to his pristine shoes. Thor continued to shiver away, terrified now that he had been found out. Thor had never been a magical snake. He had been a magical person turned snake, and that meant it was Loki's job to kill him.
All it took was the words "eradicate any non-humans" to turn the assassin from neutral to hostile in an instant. The moment of hesitation between the so-called friends was all the Viper needed to strike. It was why she'd earned that name, after all - an ambush predator fast as lightning. They wouldn't even know what hit them.
Her eyes flashed and she lunged forward, both weapons drawn as she struck at Mr. Alias. The shadows enveloped her as she moved, making her form difficult to make out in the dim light.
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
The job had always come with his risks, but Loki usually was so much more careful--there rarely was a need to fight against people. Sam's prediction had been correct. The moment their job was revealed, they had been attacked. It was a miracle, in retrospect, that it hadn't happened sooner. Panic and instinct took over where careful strategy failed. His form shifted in the blink of an eye from adult to teenager, and he just barely managed to get out of the way of the attack. He was almost entirely certain he had managed to avoid it because Viper had been going for someone taller.
As he went to change back into the older of the two forms, he realized with horror that his pocket felt empty. He gave a cry of alarm--his voice jumping an octave as it had an obligatory voice crack--and frantically searched the area for his best friend. It was only when he heard Sam swear a few feet away that he realized that his partner had kidnapped Thor (or whatever his name really was), and that Thor had retaliated with a swift bite to the fingers. The cotton candy lay forgotten on the ground as they tried to restrain the snake.
Loki's eyes widened.
Sam was going to hurt his best friend. Why else would they have suddenly taken him? Loki ignored the attacking woman and turned his attention to his partner, eyes narrowing as he stormed over to them. "Give Thor back," he demanded.
"No," Sam said.
"He's my friend," he said
"He's not human," Sam argued, holding the squirming Thor close to their chest. "You might have been able to get away with keeping him when you thought he was a snake, but you can't ignore that now."
"I'll do whatever I want with him," Loki retorted. "Give him back, Sam, or I might just steal one of Viper's knives."
"I'm not going to turn him over to a murderer!" Sam shouted back. "I was hoping I could keep this up for a little longer, but I can't stand by when you're going to kill Thor!"
Loki stopped dead in his tracks.
"K-Kill Thor?" he repeated. He frowned, looking his partner over. "That's what you were going to do."
"What? No," Sam protested. "I took him from you because you were the one who was going to do the killing. Not me."
"But you work for Perseus?"
"So do you," Sam retorted, their grip on Thor loosening as the snake stopped squirming as much. "I don't honestly believe in that mantra. I'd be the biggest hypocrite in the entire multiverse if I did."
Loki stared.
"I-I might have you beat," he weakly managed to get out.
She came up behind Loki after he evaded her, the shadows working as one with the Viper to attempt to grab him and pin him with her knife to his throat. She didn't want to kill him - not yet. This information was too valuable. Interesting. But he was still a threat to her vessel, the vessel she couldn't afford to lose after the sacrifices she'd made to get it. There was a good chance he'd attempt to shift again in her grasp - this time, she'd be ready to shift the shadows with him.
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
Ravelen watch all this and listened with narrowed eyes.
I hope there is a point to this She thought, confused. Seeing as how Loki had forgotten about her for now, she was reluctant to involve herself. Also, she was still very suspicious of that cottony stuff the "Sam" Person was eating.
"Those moments when your in so deep, it feels easier to just swim down"
"I'm erasing myself from the narrative. Let future historians wonder how Eliza reacted when you broke her heart
Loki had been too caught up in his conversation with Sam to notice Viper swiftly approaching him, and the most he could do when he felt the knife against his throat was widen his eyes and let out a startled cry. He raised a hand up to push the knife away, then thought better of it when he realized just how easily Viper could slit his throat.
"Let me go," he weakly said, trying--and failing--to crane his neck back and get a good look at her.
Sam continued to hold Thor, though the snake was no longer squirming and was just staring at the exchange instead. "Why are you a hypocrite?" his partner asked.
Loki glanced down at the knife, then up at Sam.
"Why are you a hypocrite?" he replied, feeling a bead of sweat roll down the side of his face. Was it because of his magic or his fear?
Sam frowned. "I asked first."
Loki took a deep breath--or, at the very least, tried to--and did his best to ignore the feeling of the metal digging into the very top of his skin. "I'm a faerie," he said. Not the whole truth, but enough of it to hopefully satisfy his partner. "What about you?"
"You'd never believe me," Sam said with a miserable, dismissive wave of their free hand. Then they paused mid-wave and stared at him, and Loki didn't like the look he received in the slightest. "Shoot! I should have...I should have recognized that locket you're wearing. You're Leon Thorne. You're...fifteen years old now, I think? Half faerie, half human. You got the ability to shapeshift from your mom, but your dad's heritage makes it hard for it to work the way it's supposed to."
Loki--or, rather, Leon--stared with a mixture of horror and disbelief at Sam. How had they possibly known that? They looked fairly content with mentioning that piece of information, but he couldn't figure out why they had been so eager to share it in the first place. Better yet, what were they planning on using that information for?
He'd shift back to his normal form if it wasn't for the knife up against his throat, so he instead settled for conveying the terror of a sixteen year old in the voice of a man in his early twenties. "How-How did you know that?"
Sam froze. "I, uh, have my ways-Oh multiverse, that's Auryon and Apophis." Their skin turned another shade of pale, and they hesitantly began to approach Viper and Leon. "Leon, you're going to want to get away from that knife."
He gave them a look.
"Oh, right," Sam slowly said. "You can't really do that, can you?"
He went to nod, only to once again remember that there was a knife against his throat.
"Okay, then," his partner said. "We, uh, need to get this misunderstanding taken care of. Viper, could you please put down the knife? Leon doesn't actually want to eradicate nonhumans. He just wants to...find his mom, I'm guessing?"
Leon was torn between wanting to thank Sam for the help, and wanted to panic even more at how much they seemed to know about his life. "Perseus is great at gathering information, so they'd be his best shot at finding out what happened to her." They met his terrified gaze. "She's in the Fae realm, by the way. You might want to switch what information you're looking for."
"H-how-"
"So will you let him go?" Sam hopefully asked, completely cutting him off as they looked expectantly at Viper.
"I will," she said, eyes alight. She was having fun. "But maybe not just yet. After all, she...I...we haven't fed in too long." A wolfish smile danced across her lips as she reveled in her power.
Then something rather peculiar occurred.
Her eyes flickered along with the shadows and she jerked, like a glitch in a game, phasing in and out of that demonic form she'd taken on. She dropped her knife and fell back, releasing Loki as the flickering became faster. Without warning, her form solidified, turning fully human in appearance - no glowing nor shadows nor sharpened teeth - and she doubled over, some kind if internal war occurring within.
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
Leon let out a startled cry as something suddenly jerked onto his leg, and felt himself get pulled to the ground by whatever that something was the moment that Viper doubled over. He could hear Sam's labored breathing behind him, accompanied by a soft, worried hiss from Thor. And then he had the smart idea to look at what exactly had grabbed onto him, only to regret it seconds later when he saw the skeletal hand that had burst out of the ground.
He screamed.
He tried to break out of the hand's grip, but he didn't even have a chance to--the rest of the skeleton burst from the ground, dragging him back up to his feet and over to his partner. "Oh," Sam weakly said. "That's nice. I didn't expect to do that."
Leon squirmed helplessly in its arms. "S-Sam," he whispered. "Are you-are you controlling the skeleton?"
"Kind of?" Sam said. They were swaying a bit now, their gaze struggling to focus on Viper and instead drifting between the people surrounding Viper. "I guess you could say it's me. But a lot of is instinct, too--it's been awhile since I've tried making some skeletons. This one's missing a rib or two, but I think it turned out fairly decent-"
"Sam," Leon whispered, manly voice high with terror. "Are you-Are you a necromancer? Is that your thing?"
They took an unsteady breath. "No. Well, yes, I guess, but this isn't an actual skeleton. It's just a bunch of minerals that I made look like a skeleton. That's all bones are, after all."
Auryon hit the dirt right about then, falling to her knees. She was dimly aware of voices and of a skeleton but it was fuzzy through the shroud over her mind that was Apophis. She let out a shaking breath as she struggled to reorient herself. Separating her mind from her demon's so abruptly - and against Apophis' will - left her confused, dazed, and slow to react.
As the pain ebbed she managed to push herself unsteadily to her feet, taking in the scene. A blurry skeleton holding what sounded like a surprised Alias and a sheepish Sam. Her ears were ringing and the noises were too dim and slurred for her to make out any words.
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
Leon glanced wildly between Viper and Sam, the former now lying on the dirt and the latter looking like they were about to join her. The pseudo-skeleton continued to tightly hold onto him despite Sam appearing to grow increasingly weaker. "Why is your not-skeleton holding me, then?" Leon managed to get out, letting out what sounded suspiciously like a whimper as said skeleton pulled him closer to its chest.
"I got scared. I thought Apophis was going to hurt you, and then Auryon decided to take over, so I think we might just be alright-" They staggered into the skeleton, Thor giving a startled hiss as they nearly dropped him. "I think some of it is returning."
"It?" Leon nervously.
"It," Sam confirmed. The not-skeleton suddenly rested its skull on Leon's shoulder, and it took all of his self-control to not let the startled cry turn into a full blown scream. "My magic. I wonder...I wonder if I can get Thor back to normal...I should wait until more of it comes back, but it's not right for someone to be stuck as something they're not..."
The words began to make sense as the ringing faded.
"-might be able to get Thor back to normal," Sam was saying. "I should wait until more of it comes back, but it's not right for someone to be stuck as something they're not..."
She knew she should help. After all, she had nearly killed them but a moment ago - and she was pretty certain she could shift him out. She could change the form of snakes, so why not a shifted human? It'd take some adaptation but it should be doable.
Wordlessly, she reached her hand into her belt and pulled out her flute, clicking it together.
"Put Thor down," she said. "I think I can change him but if I screw it up I don't want him in your hands."
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
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