When Kiirion heard the cry, he looked up, his eyes wide and alert. He looked to Loki before starting into a run. If someone was hurt, he was probably the most equipped to help, so he hurried.
Alex was rather close to the cry of a woman. He dismissed it for a second but thought that he'd at least check it out. He went to the spot but remained hidden on top of a tree. He saw Kiirion and Loki come running from afar.
Tallulah heard the scream and darted through the water toward it. She wasn't colored for camouflage, but, thankfully, this disgusting bog water was more than sufficient to hide her vibrant fins.
When she reached the source of the noise, she surfaced, only letting her eyes peek up at what was happening above.
Even though Kiirion was much taller than him, Loki had the blood of gods coursing through his veins - it wasn't hard to catch up right as Kiirion reached the source of the sound. He was sure Alex, wherever he was, had followed, too, and he could just barely see Tallulah peeking out above the water.
Loki wasn't sure what he had expected to see, but it wasn't what he ended up seeing. There was a woman in the swamp, trudging her way out from the very edge of a small pool. Mud clung to her boots and the very bottom of her pants.
All Loki had to do was see the long line in the mud leading up to the little pool of water, the broken branch in her hand, and the tree with the broken branch right beside the water to put the pieces together.
She had slipped.
"Oh," the woman said, dropping the stick and briefly fixing her ponytail. "I wasn't expecting to see other people here - no wonder everything is so quiet."
Spoiler! :
The woman, by the way, looks like the one down below - minus the wings and the crown. Those were just added for a stylistic effect, but honestly have nothing to do with who she is.
Alex jumped down from the tree from which he was watching the scene. He had been the first to get there. Nobody was going to notice or acknowledge that.
"Don't tell me you screamed just because you fell."
Kiirion looked the woman up and down, scanning for injuries. She might’ve been in the same situation as them - suddenly thrown into tue swamp when she stepped into a body of water.
"I'm okay," the woman was quick to reassure them. The tone could have come across as desperate, but Loki didn't feel like she was lying about her health.
The woman took a final step out of the water, shaking a little bit of the mud off of her feet - even though most of it still clung to her. "I'm sorry for worrying you with the noise I made. Noise travels well in this swamp, and I have a tendency to make little noises like that when I'm taken by surprise."
She gave them a sheepish smile.
"I'm Max," she offered. "If you don't mind me asking, what are you doing here?"
"By the way you speak about the swamp, you strike me as a resident or someone who's been here for a while. I'm Alex. Nice-" He hesitated a little and continued, "Nice to meet you. I've been here for a short time. I'm stuck here. I fell into a lake, and now I'm here."
Tallulah slunk through the water, approaching the newcomer. As the girl - Max, a lovely name - stepped onto the shore, Tallulah entered the shallow water and pulled her top half into the mud, laying propped up on her elbows.
She nodded a greeting and tilted her head, examining Max.
"We all got here by touching water to some extent," Kiirion added, looking Max up and down to assess if she was telling the truth about not being hurt. It seemed so.
"That's about the only connection we have to this place. We're not from here. Are you?"
Loki was going to answer Max's question, but everyone beat him to it before he could - and Kiirion asking her a question effectively shut him out of that part of the conversation.
He crossed his arms.
Max shook her head.
"I'm not from here," she said. "I visit here, sometimes, but it's not where I live."
Her gaze traveled to the water.
"I'm sorry that you ended up here," she said, letting out a tired little sigh. "I can't stop the swamp from moving - it must have found its way to you."
Loki stared. The swamp could move? He hadn't heard of any kind of magic like that before. "I think you have something wrong," Loki argued. "I didn't see a swamp before ending up here - I was near a stream."
Max gave a tiny smile as she looked away from the pool.
"The swamp doesn't move," she said. "Its water does. It must have ended up in some body of water near you - and gotten startled when you fell in. When it came back, it accidentally brought you with it."
"Magic," Max said. "I'm not sure I can explain the specifics of it, but it allows the water to travel to different realities, worlds and even times. The water doesn't like to be stagnant. It likes to move."
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