1344/Tiny teeth are still sharp

Tiny teeth are still sharp
Date of Scene:	24 April 2020
Location:	Hell's Gate
Synopsis:	Loki and Sif encounter and capture a Shadow critter in metropolis.
Cast of Characters:	Loki, Sif

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Loki has posed:
At 501 (and a half) Hill street ... Loki isn't home. The gargoyle at the door looks dourly at Sif but only rolls over away from her, forcing her to step over him if she wants to go inside. It isn't locked: but that's not strange, it's not locked against Sif: she can come and go into the home as she pleases.

This time, though, on entry, the magical hummingbird cheep-cheeps, and moves to draw her attention to a swirling surface of liquid in a low, broad bowl. It perches there and cheeps again.

Sif has posed:
"Yes, I understand entirely." It's some form of commisceration with the gargoyle. Having only recently returned to Asgard from collecting up the necessary list of tomes requested by Loki, Sif still wears her silvery armor overtop the red leather padding beneath. Faithfully, her sword is at her hip. As she enters the abode, she lets out a sigh of relief.

"Lo -- " There goes the hummingbird from its tuck against her throat with a quick arcing zip across the expanse of the main room. Sif closes the door, still carefully holding her collection of books, and manages to track the small twinkling bird over to what she assumes to be a scrying bowl. "But a minute," she counsels the enchanted bird. The tomes are set aside on a work table before she walks over, frowning deeply. "Loki?" she asks yet again, peering down at the circling liquid.

Loki has posed:
The bird fluffs tiny teal wings and darts directly at the bowl in a froth of golden spray: magic, pure magic, plumes up and out of the bowl as the surface steadies again. On the surface, now, as Sif looks, is Loki: as if she were looking through a window into another place. He's seated some dozen feet away on the edge of a concrete rooftop edge. The little hummingird zips to him and alights on his wrist, which gets a glance down from the mage, and then emerald eyes turn towards Sif and her window looking in: as if he were also looking out.

Loki gestures, and stands, shapeshifting in the same moment into a raven, and with a burst of motion, flies directly at the bowl: and seconds later is bursting up out of it in a thrust of golden sparkling spray.

Sif has posed:
Sif, having been leaning in to look closely at the liquid, pulls her head back as the hummingbird divebombs straight into the bowl. She blinks and briefly looks down at herself, as if the magic liquid might have back-splashed onto her armor, but for naught and good.

A greeting wave of hand follows when Loki looks in her direction. "Hello, my -- " Her boots roll her quickly away from the bowl as she realizes what the raven is about to do. Fountaining magic glitters like liquid sunlight upon his arrival through the bowl itself. Both hands are held up in warding against the magical spray and her smile is startled, but pleasantly so. "I am ever impressed, Loki," smiles the Goddess.

Loki has posed:
Loki perches on the edge of the bowl, glistening sleek raven-feathers glossy with an ultramarine blue and purple, iridescence like a bubble on oil beautiful and shining in the magical feathers. "Take a look," Loki's amused voice suggests to her, as he hops aside just a bit, and angles his raven's beak towards the surface of the bowl again.

A look down into the bowl shows nothing at first, but Loki wouldn't just have her stare at nothing...

Then, some tendrils of black start to ease from the shadows along the edge of the building, odd feelers that blur with the shadows, then separate into forms, just like the monster Sif had fought weeks ago.

Sif has posed:
"Something else other than yourself?" A compliment off-handedly offered to the raven-guised mage even as Sif steps forward again towards the bowl. As she leans in, she offers out her knuckles in case he wishes to bunt his head or lean into them -- she learned long ago that the ravens of Asgard were feline-like in nature and ever has she been mindful about them and Loki both.

Her brows meet. A brief glance to the bird before she returns her attention to the shimmering surface. When the first tendril appears, her jaw sets. "Were you tempting them?" she asks quietly, not looking away from the eerie creatures and their search.

Loki has posed:
The creatures seem to orient on the window into their rooftop, starting to inch towards it. Loki doesn't seem overly concerned either way. "What do you think?" Loki asks slyly. That's a non-answer, and more common than it used to be: it's a way to not lie when he might normally lie, that dodge! But with the geas on him, lies are out.

"I want one," he adds, with a flick of his tail. He doesn't do anything with Sif's knuckles, beyond to eye them, and the eye /her/: full Asgardian intelligence there, far beyond animal. He's focused and determined to get something he wants; a dangerous thing on Loki at times, though at least it isn't immediately harmful to anyone. Just perhaps to shadow blobs. "Come help if you like, crush the extras," Loki suggests, as if she might help him attack a fish in a barrel. Easy peasy. "Touch the surface and it'll port you." He flicks his wings, expectant, and dives back through the bowl, re-emerging into the other side and turning invisible. The shadowy monsters pause, as if seeking. There are three there, blobs of shadow and fang. One is large, like a big dog, while the other two are smaller, more like large cats in scale...

Sif has posed:
"Lo -- "

Never she mind, there he goes. Sif takes a moment to center herself and to come up with a basic plan of attack. It means drawing Brumeoalfold from its scabbard and readying herself before she reaches to touch fingertip to the shimmering liquid showing the creeping shadow-blobs.

A brief, rude yank of self from one place to another and the champagne-bubble-velvet caress of the magical liquid is felt before the Goddess arrives on the far side of the bowl's surface. Immediately, rather than give the alien creatures a chance, she moves into action. Her blade swings in a sweeping arc aimed to grant herself firstly space if not contact and then along the diagonal, at the largest blob.

Loki has posed:
Oh look, a target. The shadows open their jaws, but no sound actually comes out. It's bizarre, it's like Sif entered into a place full of cotton and muffled lack of city sounds. She'll see, not hear, the flutter of the raven back behind her as Loki orients, a slight flash of dark blue magic from him sliding out along the ground. It causes the blob to get stuck where it is, lurching to collapse forward partially as it tried to dart forward under Sif's attack, but couldn't do it. Her sword cuts hard and clean, slicing open the largest of the shadow monsters, though the head of it still twists to try to bite ather knee, even as she cuts that big slice off of it!

The other two shadows ignore their cut companion, but seem to be staying back with their mouths agape as if soundlessly screaming at her.

Sif has posed:
The motion of wings in her peripheral vision has the Valkyrie acting all the more certain -- foolhardy? -- for knowing she has the Mage of Asgard at her back. She braces for the impact of the hypersonic waves, but none come. A portion of her mind is occupied with wondering precisely what method has been enacted to cease their effects; the majority of it is compensating for the lunge of the larger shadow creature's mouth full of its rows of gleaming teeth.

It's not a solid impact -- not the full mouth of a great white shark closing upon her leg -- but the teeth manage a brief grip above her knee above the top of her shin-guards. Sif yells and brings the sword around at the creature's neck, no doubt earning herself a respite from the grip. Blood is bright where it spatters as she takes a defensive step back, sword still gleaming and smudged alike.

"Loki, it -- cold, it left behind cold," she grits out as the best description she can manage in the moment, adrenaline and centuries of battle-training overiding the worst of the frostbite chill left from the creature's life-draining bite.

Loki has posed:
Loki ignores (or doesn't hear) Sif's comment about the creature being cold, but shifts out of raven immediately as she's bitten. He pulls a necklace from his neck with a jerk of motion as he whips into his humanoid form, draws his other hand across it, and unleashes a wave of freezing air, calling the ice magic out of the object in a swirl of focus.

Ice pelts the two creatures in the back, entrapping and encasing them, but he doesn't touch the one on Sif at first with that particular wave of magic: it's too close to her, and he won't freeze his ally.

But it's all right, because Sif is slicing through the fangs and neck of the shadowy monster that bit her, as Loki's second move of ice brings up jagged ice spikes up from below, spearing it, in a rage-filled reaction as it harmed Sif. The top of the head swirls and collapses to the side at Sif's blow as it is caught between their combined effort, still writhing, as it attempts to heal itself with the life it sapped from Sif.

Sif has posed:
In those eternal lingering moments between beats of the heart, cast of magic, glint of sunlight off her sword, Sif tests her weight on the wounded leg. Balance isn't optimal, but if she can just land one more if not two more mortal blows to the thing, it will be for Loki to either entrap or manipulate to his whims.

Inhaling an entire lungful of air, crisp to the tongue and tasting of ambient ice crystals from the chilling magic, she moves again. Placing weight sends electrical spikes up into her hip and down into her knee. Brumeoalfold cleaves into the flailing creature from what could be its sternum and up through the side of its neck. On the cat-like jink to one side in a thrust off her good foot, the sword comes across the opposite side for a slash along the horizon of the creature's shoulder. She lands and has to roll for the collapse of her leg. Coming to a stop in a flurry of settling dark hair and the ringing glance of one shin-guard against the roof, Sif pants and bares teeth, attempting to force herself to her feet properly.

Loki has posed:
The shadow beast, torn asunder by Sif's well placed slashes of magical sword, is reduced to a mushy, stickly splatter of lumped debris. Loki draws the ice up from the ground, freezing the remains amidst the cold, and then with a weird wash, suddenly sound returns to the rooftop. Distant odd echoes of bell-like sounds filter in to their Asgardian hearing, but they are far away, and the creatures still 'alive' on the roof flex inside the large icy shapes summoned forth. Loki slips the pendant away, rubbing his wrist and fingers that were clenched around the magical object, and moves towards Sif.

"Let me look, Sif," Loki requests, his tone cold, arrogant, irritable: but it isn't at /her/. Loki just is too distracted by her injury to properly act protective, so it's just coming out as snarling.

Sif has posed:
There's a quick, toothy smile on the Valkyrie's part as she watches the creature meet its doom in the sudden rise of ice around it. Her attention flickers to the other smaller, now only so troublesome shadow-blobs, but only for a short time. Even as she's making her way to her feet completely, heavily leaned to her good leg, Loki's voice reaches her.

True shock flickers across her face even as she realizes that the ambience of the city has fallen in around them once more to replace the weirdly distorted silence of earlier. Her glacier-pale eyes meet and hold his.

"Loki, its bite had some power to it. It is cold rather than heated," she explains, tone flat and weirdly distant in the manner of one speaking overtop the need to react to the pain. Her battle-leathers are torn as visible insult to injury as she rests only her booted toe of the hurt leg on the rooftop.

Loki has posed:
Loki moves over, angling his gaze down over her injury, then more specifically over her face, meeting her eyes as she looks at him. He gets closer to her, in a way that may seem overly watchful and focused: he's judging the injury for himself. "I'll fix it when we get back. I'm still too /limited/," Loki says resentfully, flicking his hands once, as if sensing invisible shackles on his wrists: but he does draw one hand up near where he's branded. His magic is limited, he's stuck with his objects and rituals.

He shifts gears, though, and nods towards the frozen shadow blobs. "Did you want one?" Loki asks, sly.

Sif has posed:
Sif nods, swallowing down the need to utter sound at the lingering pins-and-needles around the bite site. Her attention slides to the trapped creatures encased in ice like some horrid rediscovery from epochs past. Her eyes narrow.

"I thought you wished one for yourself? I am...content without one for now. I find more delight in engaging them in battle than attempting to claim them otherwise." Her voice is still enviously even as she watches them attempt to shift within and not make progress. "You have the means to keep one captive, I presume?" Her free hand not involved in keeping the enchanted sword from damaging the rooftop makes a small blind gesture towards him even as she shifts her weight further off the leg.

Loki has posed:
"Of course I do," Loki answers, amused. He isn't offended by her question, there's a pleasure and a laugh in it from him. "Crush the other, then," Loki offers to her as if giving her a wonderful present. He moves towards the creature on the left in a saunter. "/Also/ would be a lot easier with full magic, but even with a fraction of my power: trivial," Loki brags, with a sniff.

Now near the left frozen creature, he draws a pattern of magic around the spot, withdraws a different small item with sleight of hand from a sleeve, and, with that, magically pulls the whole of the frozen creature into it. He palms the item just as easily, and orients to see Sif's progress in her smushing.

Sif has posed:
When Loki turns, he'll see the tail end of a vicious set of swings meant to bring both the chunk of ice and the creature within to shards and shriveling shreds of shadow. A final vertical blow brings Brumeoalfold down as a falling star upon the last chunk to bring the shadow-blob to wisping away into nothingness.

"And so be it," snaps Sif even as she takes a stumbling step back. Another droplet or three of blood is left upon the rooftop before she hisses and scowls down at the bite wound.

Loki has posed:
The distant sounds, the vibrations, move and howl elsewhere in the city. Loki looks out and away, but seems disinterested. Instead, he moves to Sif, and offers his arm to her, while gesturing to that strange portal-like opening in the air, pulling it towards them. "Let's head back, and take care of that dreadful bite, now that they'd appropriately paid for it," Loki suggests. He doesn't push for it, he'll wait for her to lay her hand on his arm before actually enacting the magical porting, though. His eyes move to the flecks of her blood on the roof, but he doesn't say anything about it.

Sif has posed:
If Sif had ever felt the need to spit upon something, it was temptingly now upon the oily puddle left upon the rooftop. Still, all she does is lift her chin and twist her nose in obvious disdain, an expression honed in Asgardian Court. Brumeoalfold is carefully held to one side, not yet cleaned of shadowy ichor -- yet another thing to address back at the abode.

"Please." Agreement as to Loki's suggestion comes alongside the grip of her free palm around his bicep; it's firm and proof of the Valkyrie using him as a manner of cementing herself against the pain.

Loki has posed:
There's a quirk of Loki's brows at her, a pause in what was going to just be the usual transport, to check her face once more. There's a little window there, that she actually surprised Loki a little bit -- that she let him see her pain, through the tension on his bicep. Vulnerability from Sif? Rare. Very rare.

Loki merely pulls the portal in, after that catch of his gaze, though, bringing them back and away from the Metropolis rooftop. Once they reappear back at his home, he shuts the portal with a firm gesture.

The hummingbird beeps at Sif as they both arrive, darting to attempt to settle back into her hair. Loki removes the magical prison with the shadow critter right away, and adds it to his wall of artifacts. The magics there will contain any seep. "Rack the sword, let's get your injury tended first, or are you fine?"

Sif has posed:
Back through the Looking Glass they go in another brisk wash of effervescent magic. Sif looks up from minding her steps when she hears the high-pitched beep of the bejeweled bird and once it's tucked to her pulse, she reaches to very gently rub a fingerpad at the back of its head in greeting. Her murmurings to the little construct are interrupted when she looks over at Loki.

He'll likely see her struggle on her face before she simply nods. "The sword cannot be swung with true power if I am harmed as such. The wound ruined my balance." This sings of bone-deep complaint; the Goddess is more concerned of her prowess than her person. She limps to briefly set Brumeoalfold aside before she makes to peel back the torn battle-leathers herself. A fine quivering runs through her and she covers with a mostly even comment of, "Tsk -- it could have been much worse, I am agile yet."

And white around the mouth after her fingers accidentally brush one of the life-sapped teeth gouges.

Loki has posed:
"I don't generally heal without my /spells/, give me a minute," Loki says, off-put as usual with needing to complain about his magic not being at his full beck and call. He goes to the tomes she brought him, fingers nimble down the spines as he sorts through for the one he wants. He pulls it, looking through it, and then moves off into the second roof of the abode, well aware Sif can manage on her own while he prepares.

Not long afterward, he returns, though, with a light blue tinged liquid in a vial. He opens it, adds something from his other hand, and then offers it to her with a showy flare of both hands. It's a manner she's seen a number of times, when he's pleased with himself. "Two sips," Loki clarifies. Not the whole bottle.

Sif has posed:
"Of course," the dark-haired Goddess murmurs as she finds a chair and very carefully settles down in it. Pride might fuss, but sanity reminds her that gravity in combination with unsteady knees is rather embarrassing if not painful. When Loki returns with his vial, he'll find Sif again whispering little nothings to the bejeweled hummingbird. She looks up at the concotion in question and faintly smiles.

"You do work wonders, Loki." With care does she take the vial from him and sips only twice at it -- not the whole bottle. Her tongue tips her upper lip and she makes a brief scrunching of face at the feeling of it wending down into her body. Squiggly. Still, not more than a few heartbeats later, she can feel it beginning to work at numbing the wound site above her knee. "Truly, you are wonderful," she murmurs to the Mage as she offers back the vial as well as a hand for a brief squeeze of his fingers.

Loki has posed:
"More often than not," Loki answers, regal in his bearing, with something that isn't exactly arrogant, but neither is it humble. He appreciates attention - just about always - and he's allowing her to compliment him. Loki returns the stopper to the bottle, taking it back, and briefly smiles as she touches his hand. There's a sparkle of electricity in his gaze, but he draws away - sort of playfully - but only to go purify her sword before it drips shadow monster guts on his expensive carpets. He's purified it before, and the method is the same this time. It gives her time to let the magical potion work, anyway, to warm away the effects on her leg.

Sif has posed:
For the sparkle, a twinkle in ice-blue and the small, true smile of Lady Sif, she of perpetual Courtly chill.

The Valkyrie rests an arm on the table as she sits there, wounded leg partially extended, and watches Loki at his work. Her eyes wander as she observes how the water cleanses the bright surface of the sword of inky ichor. Relief fills her to see it once more without the greasy pall.

At one point, rather soon, she realizes that the wound feels warm and lively rather than chilled and sans feeling. This comes, of course, with the double-edging of FEELING the wound in greater detail. Thankfully, this period of time in which she closes her eyes and thins her lips is brief. At her neck, the hummingbird softly beeps. Once the pain melts away, she can be heard to let out a short sigh.

"Good," she murmurs, moving the leg into clearer view of the light and fussing with the torn leathers. It seems the damage itself is closed up, but man, what a mess around the site. "I do not believe a simple darning will save these breeches." She's grumpy about this; they were a favored pair.