Time for the fourth story in the 100 SSSS-fics challenge, and the prompt for this one was "Dark". Naturally it resulted in a Lalli-story!
Night fell quickly in Denmark. Not always quickly enough, and it could be outdrawn when the story so demanded, and sure it wasn't bright as day one second and then pitch black the next, but night still fell pretty fast. Night was the time of day he worked the best.
Lalli climbed over a eroded car, slid under a fallen pillar, quickly ran through a half burned down building. He stopped only when he felt a disturbance in the force or heard a sound.
This time his eyes fell on a pack of dogs. He crouched behind a couple of torn down garbage cans, observed them for a while. Their eyes were clear and he continued mapping out the area. They trusted him and he couldn't let them down.
He jumped over a fence, slid down into a trench, but quickly got up again and continued. He turned left, left, left, starting to head back, then turned right to cover more ground. It was still a couple of hours left until sunrise, there was still time to scout ahead.
Copenhagen laid silent this night. Often he had found some traces of trolls, but this night there wasn't any, only the occasional animal. For some reason this made him feel uneasy. He stopped for a while, looking around an extra time just to be sure he hadn't missed anything. Still nothing, only darkness and stillness.
Lalli continued running, then abrupty stopped. There wasn't just darkness and stillness. How had he missed it? He looked around, tried to spot what had attracted his attention, but he couldn't see anything. He shivered. He never shivered. Lalli crouched behind a car, peeked through the window. Something moved in the darkness. He could see the movements, but he couldn't see what it was.
Would he dare venture closer? He wasn't sure. He only knew he couldn't stay there.
Then it stopped. Lalli tensed his muscles, got ready to run. It crept closer, closer, he could sense something. This was one of those things, but it was so much more than the ones he saw before. Would a spell chase it away, would they be safe if he just returned to the cat-tank? He did not know how these things worked.
Lalli ran. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and the thing as possible. He didn't trust it. He took a few more turns, tried to scout as much area as he could without getting close to the thing out in the dark. A couple houses with books, no trolls, and he took another turn, went back to the cat-tank. It was getting lighter, sun was already rising. He scratched on the door, waited for them to open.
He knew the process by now, let the large cookie-giver cover him with the weird substance. The crazy-lady asked him things, quicker than his cousin was able to translate.
"No trolls, just a weird spirit."
Tuuri nodded, explained it to the crazy lady. The messy Swede laughed at him again, pulled his fingers through Lalli's hair. Lalli slipped away, hurried after his cousin to the front of the cat-tank to show her on the map where they could walk. Sigrun leaned over his shoulder as he pointed out the way and Tuuri translated what he said as quickly as possible.
"He saw some deer here, no trolls, books here and here and maybe here. And he says to avoid this place."
"Why?"
"He says he saw some type of spirit there, not like the ones he saw in that other place. But if you want to go there I guess you could, he says there wasn't any other obstacles there..."
Lalli looked at them, decided that they didn't need him anymore and went to the bed, grabbing a blanket and laying down beneath Tuuri's bed. The messy person looked at him and Lalli stared back, waiting for the other to turn away. The crazy lady called for him and the Swede hurried away, and Lalli closed his eyes, let the sleep take him.
Night would soon fall again and then they would need him to do what he did best.