Ebora's Curse

Chapter 1

He had not intended to stay with the villagers. It had just happened.

It had been about a month after Loki had fled Asgard. He had taken his chance, as a guard opened his cell to bring him his meal. The man had not paid attention for a split second. Loki took his chance, slammed his elbow into the unprotected patch between armour and helmet and the guard slumped to the ground unconscious. Loki unburdened him of his weapons and before anyone had noticed the contretemps he vanished.

It was the very moment he vanished, that he noticed something had gone wrong. Even now, he could not tell what it had been; maybe his lacking use of magic over the past year, maybe the surprise of an unexpected opportunity or simply the impact of his spell. No matter what it had been, it had sent him spinning through the space of time and places and crashed him into unknown ground. Quite literally.

Loki found himself lying on dry, earthy ground. His head was spinning slightly from the sensation of his journey and he waited until it had eased, before he stood up.

He stood on a clearing. It was huge, with wild, high-grown grass, surrounded by high, old trees with thick trunks and knotted branches, their green crowns standing over the clearing like a huge canopy. On the ground the impact of his crash was quite visible. It was not a huge crater, like Thor had left it when he fell, but his body had dug a deep hole in the meadow, where the ground had stopped him.

This was no place he knew. It was unfamiliar from the sight of the high, knotted trees and the smell of rich, dark soil in the air to the undeniable intensity of nature.

Suddenly he heard a scream. Loki turned and saw a little girl that came running through the trees. She could have been no older than seven or eight, dressed in a simple linen dress, her naked feet drumming upon the forest floor, her eyes wide with panic.

"Help", she screamed.

Then, Loki saw why; behind her came a monstrous creature breaking through the trees. He had never seen anything like it. It was at least twice as high as Loki himself, with foul, black skin, stinging, red eyes and paws as big as Loki's head, its jaws fitted with long, sharp fangs. The rest of its body seemed to be covered with some kind of strange shadows. It was as though they had a life of their own, billowing over it in black swathes. It chased after the girl in blind wrath, breaking down every plant and tree in its way as though they were mere branchlets.

The next things happened fast; the girl tripped and fell to the ground, letting out a bloodcurdling scream as she cowered eye-to-eye with the ogreish creature. Loki never thought about what he did next; he grabbed the dagger he had stolen from the guard and threw it at the monster, as it readied for the jump. It dug into the right shoulder. The monster let out a furious scream like none the trickster had ever heard, shrill and expended and spun around to attack him instead.

As it came charging towards him, fangs bared, pulling the swathes after it, Loki snapped his fingers and conjured a red, hot ball of fire to throw it at his attacker. But the flames washed over his face without any effect. The monster kept dashing towards him, only more enraged by his new attack. In the last second Loki jumped aside and in one quick motion pulled the stolen sword and bore it deep into its flank. The animal reared and gave another shrill, pained cry. Loki pulled at the hilt, but suddenly the shadows wrapped around his wrist and forearm and shot a searing pain through his body. Loki felt panic rise in his chest as they seemed to crawl farther up his arm. From so close he saw that the shadows which he had at first thought to be part of the creature itself really ate into its flesh like a parasite, leaving the skin black and foul.

Loki stared at his arm seeing equal stains appear on his skin, sending another wave of stabbing pain through his body. The shadows pulled at his arm as if to try and pull him into the monster itself. Loki leaned against it, trying to free himself. It did not work, not even as he let go of the hilt, so he made one last attempt to get free, grabbing the hilt and drove the blade in even deeper. The creature gave a shrill wail rearing once more and all of a sudden the shadows let go of his hand and forearm springing back as if pained.

Loki jumped back just in time as the massive torso fell to one side. The monster was still alive, its flanks moving up and down in a rapid, irregular rhythm. It was strange, but as he watched it drawing its last breathes he felt something close to pity, the closest he had felt in years (despite for himself possibly), for the wild and proud creature before him.

Then it gave one last sound equal to a sigh and died. Loki watched in some sort of disgusted fascination, how the body festered within seconds, leaving only bones in the middle of the clearing. The black swathes left the body the very moment it decayed, dispersing into all directions, seemingly eager to leave the clearing. Loki jumped aside as one of the swathes shot into his direction, eager not to touch it and it disappeared into the forest.

The girl still sat on the ground and stared into his direction, eyes wide. Loki slowly walked over to her. "Are you alright," he asked.

The girl nodded tentatively, not taking her eyes of him.

"You are hurt," he said and knelt down beside her to inspect an ugly cut on her shin.

"You are too," she retorted, pointing at his right hand.

Loki beheld it. She was right; his hand and the lower part of his forearm were covered by those rotten, black stains the shadow-like swathes had left on him. He looked up again and saw that the little girl was still staring at him in some kind of fearful awe.

"I am not going to do you harm you know," he told her matter-of-factly and tore a piece of fabric from his tunic to bind the wound. He didn't tell her because he felt overly fond of the child, but more because it just wouldn't make any sense to harm her.

She kept staring.

"Done," Loki said when he had finished binding the wound. He rose, but the sudden pain that shot through his arm, made him sink back down with a stifled moan.

"That needs to be treated," the little girl said, as he stared at his arm. It felt as though the rotten flesh bore deeper and deeper into his hand. "I can bring you to our village"

His first impulse was to refuse, but he was somewhere foreign and had no plan what to do next and if the people in this village really were able to treat his hand, he would be a fool to deny them. So he agreed. He thought about picking up the sword, in case they might face any other of such creatures, but when he went to pick it up, only the hilt was left.

Loki led the way through the thick forest, following the girl's instructions. She insisted on walking behind him, never quite losing the look of awe on her face. They only walked for a few minutes before a few houses appeared through the trees. If that was what you could call them.

They were small, timbered of wood and held hardly more than two rooms, if at all and the straw with which the roofs were tiled already began to mould. The village was small; it had about two dozen houses, a few stables for cattle and chickens and a well.

Once they had arrived the girl ran ahead, down the small path that was lined by the houses to a particularly small one. "Mother! Mother," she shouted. "Come quick! You will never believe this!"

A few of the villagers who were out, looked at the girl startled and when they saw Loki walking behind her they eyed him suspiciously. He did not bother to give them as much as a fleeting glance.

A woman in her late thirties opened the door of the small, sordid hut. "Jorun! Where were you? I have been worried sick," she scolded, hands put to her hips and eyed the girl sternly. But Jorun did not care much for her mother's scolding. "You will never believe this," she repeated excitedly.

"What," her mother asked sourly.

"I was out, playing in the woods, when suddenly she came and-"

"What?!" The woman went pale. "She?!" She hugged her daughter tightly as if she was glad she was still alive. "Jorun are you alright?!"

"Yes, yes," the girl said from under her mother's tight embrace. "But that is not the point!"

"Then what is?"

"She is dead!"

Her mother stared at her once more, speechless.

"He killed her," Jorun said and pointed at Loki, who stood a few feet away on the path, watching the two.

The woman stared back at her. "Is this true?"

She nodded fiercely. "Yes!"

Now other villagers, who had heard them talking, approached. "What are you saying girl?"

"He killed her," Jorun repeated. "He killed Ebora!"

A small cluster of people had gathered around them and all stared at Loki in fearful admiration.

"Thank you," Jorun's mother said suddenly and walked over to him to hug him tightly.

Loki, taken aback by the sudden embrace, stiffened.

"Where," a man asked.

"Not far from here," Jorun said. "On the great clearing"

"Show us," he demanded breathlessly.

And so, Loki found himself heading back to the clearing, followed by half the village. He felt them staring at him with that same fearful awe the girl had. He was not sure if to feel annoyed or amused by it.

"There," Jorun said as they stood on the clearing and pointed at the huge skeleton, which was the only prove that Loki had fought the creature at all. The villagers let out shouts and gasps of surprise.

"So it is really true," the man who had demanded to see the remains whispered. "I cannot believe it"

"How did it happen?"

All eyes lay on Loki expectantly. He said nothing and left it to the girl to tell the story. She obviously enjoyed standing in the centre of attention, accentuating her story with wild gestures and a surprising variety of sounds.

The villagers were entranced with her story. "And then he threw a ball of fire at her," she said and spread her arms to show them the size of it. "You have magic," a woman asked delighted.

"He has," Jorun answered in his stead. The people were excited.

Loki was irritated. He felt like some very exotic attraction which needed to be beheld. Then suddenly the sting in his right returned more intense than before. He repressed a moan, grabbing his forearm as his vision blurred. Distantly he sensed how Jorun's mother hurried to his side. "Are you alright?" Then she saw the black stains on his hand and her eyes widened. "He is injured! We need to bring him to my mother!" That was the last thing he heard before his world turned black.

He woke on a simple straw tick on the ground in a dimly lit room. He felt exhausted as though he had to recover from a serious fever. When he turned his head to examine the room he saw that he was not alone.

Half a dozen people sat gathered around his bed and watched him anxiously. The little girl kneeled right beside his bed with a wet cloth in her hand and a small, water-filled bowl beside her. "You're awake!" She smiled happily. Behind her, leaning against the wall, kneeled her mother along with a few other people from the village. She looked genuinely relieved, when she saw that he was awake. At the feet of his bed sat an old woman. She smiled when Loki sat up to have a better view around the room. "Careful young man, you are still weak" She smiled innocently, but there was a sharp twinkle in her eyes.

"Who are you?" Loki did not care to hide the suspicion in his tone.

"I could ask you the same, since you are the stranger who came to my village, but I guess it would not be fitting to ask that the man who saved the life of my granddaughter. I am Rannveig, the leader of this village and this-" She motioned towards the girl's mother "-is my daughter Astryd and my granddaughter Jorun" She motioned to the little girl.

Jorun smiled happily. "We took care of you, while you were sick"

"You had a terrible fever," Astryd told him. "You were out for three days. Jorun hardly ever left your side"

When Loki didn't say anything, Rannveig continued. "It is impressive how you managed to kill Ebora and even more impressive how you managed to survive the touch of her mark"

Loki lifted a questioning eyebrow.

"Ebora is a goddess. She was one of the four guardians of the great forest"

"Was?"

"Until a hunter killed one of her daughters. Seized with grief she decided to conduct a war against all men, but the other three refused her. Blinded by her wrath she swore to kill every man she could. She attacked villages, killing every, man, woman and child she could find. The men lived in terror of her, until the other gods put a curse upon her. She should either learn forgiveness or spent the rest of her existence, being eaten by her grief until it would one day mean her end"

"The swathes…"

The old woman nodded. "It was the curse. Once Ebora was a wolf"

Loki said nothing. What he had seen of her had little resemblance to a wolf.

"What you saw of her recently was what the curse made of her," Rannveig said, as though she had read his thoughts. "I have tried to heal you, but I fear to cure you from a curse of the gods is beyond my healing skill"

Loki looked at his hand. If his eyes were not deceiving him the stains had grown.

"I fear the curse will eat into your flesh, the stains will grow and consume more and more of your skin. I can slow it down but…"

Loki swallowed. "In the end I will die"

Yes I was inspired by Princess Mononoke, but I hope this isn't too obvious. I promise my story will not copy the movie and I really hope you will continue to read. I am really keen to know what you think so please review if you want, both positve and negative criticism are wanted and welcome :)

I am also thankful to know about grammar or spelling mistakes as well, since english is not my first language :) Thanks!

Oh and disclaimer; as in every fanfiction of mine I only own my OC's and the story! I hope you liked it :)