It was dawn. Loki could feel it; feel the hot Patean sun rising and warming the air. He wished it wasn't dawn, the mischievous god had gotten no sleep. He'd spent the night fantasizing about his revenge. He couldn't believe his luck, and despite his instincts telling him not to get too excited, Loki was truly ecstatic. Until he remembered the duty that he owed to Thanos now.
His stomach growled; he hadn't eaten anything in the last 24 hours. Loki fell into a stupor, not exactly asleep, but instead flipping the coin and watching it twirl in the air, reflecting the harsh light like swords reflected the sun. Occasionally, his eyes would blur and cross, but he tried to stay awake. He felt weak. The planet had taken its toll. Sure, Nairi had brought him to his own room with a proper bed and real plumbing, but it was no palace, and he hadn't been allowed outside of it without being called. Nairi had dropped off a book the night before, after he had been returned to his chambers. It was called The Planet of Deception: Patea. He had read it the whole way through, despite it being heavier than a shield and twice as thick. It went in detail describing the history and geography of Patea. Sadly, Loki found it terribly boring.
Loki was about to have flipped the coin fifty seven times when his door open. Loki scrambled up to see the guard from Loki's night in the cell, recognizable only by his threatening-looking staff. He had his hood down this time, and Loki got to see his bearded face. The god was actually quite appalled by the slits on the guard's cheeks and chest. He had never quite seen anything like it.
"Hey, you awake?," the guard was obviously talking about the bags underneath Loki's eyes and their inability to focus on his face. Loki attempted to nod. "All right, good. I'm gonna take you to the armoury, Nairi's goin' to help you find some stuff and you two are going to get some breakfast. After that you two are out of here."
Loki had a few choice words for the amount of contractions that the guard had used in his speech, but he figured it was best not to tell him, the man did have a weapon after all.
The two walked in silence until Loki asked the guard's name. "My name's Faolan Bolton, I'm Sentry Commander." Faolan held out his hand to Loki and smiled. The god found himself liking this man, he was easygoing and happy; so unlike most everyone that Loki knew.
Faolan stopped suddenly and opened the door to their right, leading the two into a cavernous room that had every sort of weapon imaginable hanging from the walls. Guns, swords, longbows, crossbows, blowguns, anything that anyone could ever want. There was even food laid out on a wooden table. Nairi was devouring what looked to be three whole pound of bacon, two apples, one orange, and what looked to be a pig's heart.
"What the hell are you eating?," Loki asked, disgusted with the eating of the entrails.
Faolan closed the door behind him and Loki and walked around the table to sit down next to Nairi, who was kicked back in a chair. "Ha! Tourists. It's a Patean tradition, you're supposed to eat one when you need luck. Nairi's not technically Patean, but she really likes the tradition.
"Well by all means, please share. I'd rather not eat a heart though." Loki said looking at the table of food in the center of the room. Nairi overhanded a banana at him that Loki caught with ease. Faolan tossed a leather pouch filled with liquid at him. Loki scarfed down the banana and opened the pouch. He drank until he realized it wasn't water, it was red wine. "Little early for alcohol, isn't it?" Nairi and Faolan ignored him, so Loki decided to drink; they probably had a reason for it.
"Get some weapons, you're going to need them." Nairi gestured at the wall and loki strode over to it. He couldn't wait to get his hand on some steel. He ran his fingers over knives, swords, guns, and bows. Eventually he decided on hidden knives that were attached to a lightweight gauntlet that wrapped around his arm. He could hide it under his sleeve. As well as that he took a basic longsword. Nairi walked up to him with a black leather sheath and fastened it around his waist. Loki smiled at her, trying to be seductive. Nairi laughed at him and stomped on his feet, clearly not impressed.
"Are you sure you don't want any other weapons?," Nairi asked him, he was pretty underdressed. Loki just nodded.
Nairi decided that she would lead by example. She walked over to the wall and pulled down a break action shot gun and slung that around her back as well as a long bow. She as always had her handcrafted hookswords and concealed knives. Not hidden in her sleeves, as Loki's were, but hidden in her tan jacket. "You may want to change," Nairi told him, "That'll be hot, and it's not very good camoflauge." Nairi was talking about Loki's green and black get-up, which, while undeniably fabulous, was incredibly impractical. "I'll be okay," he told her, trying to be reassuring.
"Okay then, we're all ready. Let's go."
Faolan, Nairi, and Loki all walked down the hall together, Nairi and Faolan in the front talking about something in Patean, not the English that they'd been speaking before; Loki in the back, feeling a little dejected. They reached the stables – a bright and open room filled with many horses. "Pick one," Nairi told Loki. He instantly zeroed in on her Buckskin. He was reached out to touch her.
"What do you think you're doing?" Nairi walked over and stood between him and the horse.
"I'm getting a horse like you told me to," Loki reached for the horse again. Nairi slapped his hand away, agitated.
"That's my horse. You'll take that one." She pointed to a black Andalusian. It was a large horse, and Loki knew it wouldn't be nearly as fast as Nairi's, but it'd do.
"Where's the saddle?" Loki asked looking around the stall.
"We don't use saddles, only for incredibly long journeys. We only have to travel about twenty miles," Nairi answered. Loki walked over to the horse. The horse whinnied, its eyes wide and scared. Loki walked closer and the horse moved back. He reached for it and the horse reared up and kicked its front legs.
"Damn it! What did you do?" Nairi ran over to the horse, grabbed its mane and began to make shushing sounds.
"I didn't do anything. It kept backing away from me. I swear." Loki retreated from the stall and sat on a hay bale. Nairi continued to calm the horse by slowly putting the bit in its mouth and wrap the bridle around its head.
"He's easily frightened. Come slowly to him and don't do anything stupid. And be careful mounting him." Nairi grabbed his arm and pulled him into the stall then grabbed her horse.
Before the two left, Loki watched Nairi bid farewell to Faolan with a long kiss on the lips. He didn't suppose that was a tradition too? Judging from the way they looked at eachother, he suspected it wasn't.
Once the two were done, they jumped up onto the horses and they rode out of the compound together. The air was freezing but the sun was beating down on them, threatening to turn the cold air to sweltering. Loki felt his nose stinging. His ears went numb.
"You ready?," Nairi asked, "we'll stop a few times to let the horses rest, but then we have to keep going."
Loki nodded at her, excited to taste freedom. Nairi whipped the rains and yelled and her horse took off. Loki followed suit and soon he had caught up to her. They were in a light gallop, but the air that blew against them made them feel like they were going a million miles faster.
As the day dragged on and Nairi and Loki dragged their horses on, it became hot. So hot in fact, that Nairi was not able to touch the hard-packed sand without burning herself. During one of the breaks Nairi and Loki let their horses graze in a tiny patch of grass that grew behind a boulder that had a tiny spring bubbling up from underneath it, no doubt stemmed from the Oasis.
They only stayed there for so long though before they were forced to move on. The only had three more miles to go after the end of the third break.
Nairi and Loki covered the last stretch of ground very quickly, reaching the camp at at least twenty miles an hour.
The entrance to the cave that the rebels slept in was a hundred yard away from them. They were separated by a mass of boulders. It was still probably two o'clock and the two had plenty of time to kill.
"You look tired," Nairi told Loki as he looped the reins around a weird looking rock formation. Nairi didn't bother tying her horse up, it always stayed very close to her.
"I'm very tired," he answered. Nairi looked at him. The bags underneath his eyes had gotten worse and his head was lolling around on his neck like it was stuck there with tape. "Well, we're attacking them at night, probably at one-ish in the morning. How about this, it's a little after two, we'll make our plan at ten tonight. You sleep for four hours and then I wake you up and I sleep for four hours. That sound good?," Nairi asked.
Loki nodded, all he could think about was sleep.
"Thank you," he said before he collapsed to the ground and fell into a wonderfully quiet sleep.