Sheets of empty canvas, Untouched Sheets of clay

Were laid spread out before me as her body once did.

All of five horizons revolved around her soul as the Earth to the Sun

Now the air I tasted and breathed had taken a turn.

-"Black" by Pearl Jam

Three days passed.

Three uneventful days.

Three days of restricting himself from knowing her flesh. She told him that he still needed time to heal, but the truth was that it was she who needed time. He respected that, as he understood it. She had given herself to him willingly, and by his side fought the beast that had tried to rip her apart. Facing The Keeper was staring memory in the face. A horrid monstrosity of a memory.

Even after Seagen had been truthful and open with him about what had happened to her at the claws of the creature….

Damn this sentimentality! Loki cursed himself.

He lay back and stretched in his place among the swaying grasses. They were hunting in the prairie where the darkness of this world felt oddly thinner, and waiting for the deer to get closer. Seagen wanted to get as many as she could before the winter sank its icy talons into the land. The deer would be gone and most other edible game with them.

Suddenly, Loki sat up. She hissed and pushed him back, checking to see if the Dove deer had seen. They flicked their tails and shook their feathery antlers as they lazily chewed at the prairie grass.

"Where do they go?" Loki whispered. "You said the game disappeared during the winter, but in your many years here, have you never tried to see where they go."

Seagen looked miffed. "In case you have forgotten this place is full of disgusting creatures who only want to disembowel the living. Besides, I tracked them once, but the tracks ran out, and I barely made it back before night fall…" She bit her lip and turned away.

He immediately understood. Still yet…. "The tracks simply stopped."

"Fresh snow was falling, I should have known it was futile," she murmured.

Loki was looking at the deer with renewed interest. "They must hibernate somewhere. With those dainty hooves, I do not foresee the digging of any dens in their future." He smirked for a moment. "So, unless they fly, they must have somewhere the magick of this world keeps them sustained. There are two of us now. With your herbs and potions, and my power coming back quicker with every day that passes, we could find that place."

Seagen was concentrating on a buck that was slowly starting to venture their way. "I don't know, Loki. Now, shhhhh, I think he hears us."

No sooner had the words left her mouth, then he made a trumpeting, and the herd began to run into the trees, their strange sad keening alerting the entire forest that predators were among them.

"Dammit!" Seagen shouted. She was on her feet in an instant, knocking an arrow back, and tracking a large doe as it ran. Silver eyes shining, she let go, and the doe came down without another sound or kick of its dainty hooves.

"Impressive!" Loki called as they took off across the field to claim their prize. The doe had fallen stone dead, an arrow stopping its heart near instantly.

"May your aim be ever this true." he said softly, as she kneeled down to honor the deer's spirit with a quick said word and touch of hand to forehead and heart.

"I can always hope." She replied.

****************************************)O(*********************************

They sat together near a campfire in what passed for the cottage's yard. The work of cleaning and harvesting the meat was done, the hide stretched, the bones usable for making arrow tips boiled in a pot of water above the fire.

"We need to explore more of this world, Seagen. We will never find a way out if we stay stagnant." Loki said, taking a sip of something that was much like the honeyed mead upon Asgard.

"Perhaps. But this place is my home, Loki," she replied. "It is safe. The only safe place in this hell. We have both seen that from watching your fortress fall."

He shook his head. "You do not know that it is the only safe haven, because you have only been so far. Let's follow the herd, see where they lead."

"You won't let this lie will you?"

He leaned closer to her, his gaze penetrating her right to the core. He lowered his voice. "Never."

Seagen started into the emeralds blazing upon his pale face. She knew he was right, she had been in this world for far to long to only know a small part of it.

"Alright, then. We will do it, but here is much harvesting of herbs to be done. The days will be getting shorter and colder very soon, and I do not wish to be in those woods without an arsenal of ammo."

Loki sipped his drink and looked very pleased that she had agreed. She tried to smile, but it died upon her lips. Finding out what was out there, beyond the valley and enchanted woods, did not appeal to her in the least.

Over the next two days they busied themselves with preparations for their journey. Loki delved into as much magical study as he could, trying to remember incantations from books he had read as a child, mixing his magic with Seagen's potions. After the first initial experiment (in which the table seemed to take on a life of its own and try to mount the bed) she insisted that he take his work outside. A fire or two later, and he had melded their magick quite smoothly.

"Watch," he said, when she came out to investigate the latest pillar of smoke. Loki rolled one of her herbal sachets in his hand, then put it to his lips and softly murmured to it words that she could not understand. The cloth sparkled in his fingers for a moment, and he tossed it to the ground, just as the sparks became flame and another pillar of smoke rose into the air. It billowed for a moment, then became solid and started to take shape.

"What the hell?" Seagen muttered. "What's it-" her voice broke off as the dark mass became a rather nasty looking serpent that snapped its head in her direction.

"Sla'," Loki growled. (Strike)

The snake turned its body toward Seagen, then lifted its head up and struck forward. Seagen stifled a scream as she lifted an arm up and spun out of the snakes reach. She glared at a laughing Loki as the snake dissipated into vapor. "Effectively frightening," she said, spinning on her heel and stomping off.

"Oh, come now. I did not mean to offend!"

The mocking smile in his voice made her roll her eyes and then laugh. "What did I expect from a Trickster?"

"Come back and I will show you," Loki teased. When she did not move as he'd hoped she would, he pulled another sachet from his pocket.

Her eyebrow quirked with interest. "Alright, you've got my attention. That's one of my protection poppets."

Loki nodded. "I think when you see what I have done, you will be making many more of them." He suddenly threw the bundle into the air and with a snap of his fingers it exploded into vibrant blue and purple light. The protective barrier was instantly around them, a glowing pentacle under their feet, its walls of indigo etched with strange runes. It glowed strong and sure; Seagen could feel its power humming through her skin, muscles, bones….it was old magick, the kind that she had only heard about in books and stories.

She looked wide eyed all around. "It's amazing," she breathed.

"I am glad you approve," Loki said teasingly. With a flick of his hand the shield came down.

Even though he was mocking what she had said to him just days before, Seagen could hear the pleasure in his voice. He truly was glad that she liked what he had done. She wondered what he had been like as a boy, seeking approval from his parents, his teachers, friends…and as he got older perhaps from his lovers. The thought of others in his bed pained her heart a bit, and she immediately dismissed it.

He was already trying out another spell, focused and intent on turning a smudge stick into a blade of some kind. Seagen sat down upon the ground and watched him a soft smile upon her face as he worked.

***************************************)O(************************************

"The days are growing shorter," Seagen murmured. "The snow will be here soon. I'd say a week, maybe two."

Loki looked up from his place by the crackling hearth, where he sat reading Stephan's journal. They had worked tirelessly for days on their arsenal, and both had admitted to each other that the way her herbal folk magick and his high Asgardian magick worked together so seamlessly was very impressive. She had given him the journal and asked that he read it thoroughly before their foray into the wilderness. When he touched it, his skin prickled. The leather was worn and cracked, the pages brittle…and inside, even more interesting than words, was Energy. Dark Energy. Loki had nearly swooned when his fingers closed around the binding. There was something here Seagen had never realized. This book had been touched by something evil. Something wicked.

When the initial shock had worn away, he had begun to read its pages, and was finding it most interesting, learning about this odd man whose book she treated so reverently, almost as if it were a holy tome. Many of the incantations she used were here, the rest he assumed she had learned from her White Witch Grandmother. There was much useful information about herbs and plants of this world, and tales about the Harpy Sisters, the Succubus, and the Undead. The book seemed to stop rather abruptly, as if the man who wrote it had either died quite suddenly…

Or found a way out quite suddenly.

Seagen stood before the table, her back to him. She had been steeping herbs to make medicines, and the bottles she was now filling were scattered across the table before her. She seemed to be talking more to herself than to him.

His eyes glittered as he ran them over her backside. "Is that so, min ganske pet?" Perhaps it was the magick that he could sense oozing out of the pages that he was fingering so softly, stroking them as if they were a thing alive. Perhaps it as just because he needed her again…it had been too long…

"What was that you just called me?" She interrupted his thoughts.

"What makes you think I was calling you anything?" He replied innocently.

Seagen turned to him and arched an eyebrow. "I know you and your endearments…what was it?"

His smile broadened. "My little pet."

"Oh am I now?" She said, honestly wanting an answer. "You see me as your pet?"

"I see you as many things." Loki stood. A flick of his hands swept the bottles and bundles of plants to the side.

Seagen turned to look at the table. "I was working on that," she managed rather weakly.

"These terms of endearment are rather inconsequential." He had come to stand before her and was now slowly circling her. "I speak them because they all fit you. Pet, little one, darling, my dear…all these names are only substitutions for one."

"Which is?" Seagen's mouth was dry. He circled her again, stopping behind her.

With the grace of a predator, Loki leaned forward and pressed his lips to her ear. "Mine."

Seagen was aware of a low moaning sound, but it took her a moment to realize that it was her own throat betraying her lust with such a pitiful noise. She tried to move away from him, to seek respite from the strange desires that were building up in her body, in her mind.

Loki caught her upper arm in his iron grasp. "There is a darkness in you, Seagen," he murmured, his words falling around her like the silky petals of a rose. "We are alone here, you and I. I am the only satisfaction that you can have from the darkest, most devilish desires that stir within your heart. I can give you what you crave, if you will only submit to me as you did before. Invite me in to your dark world, Seagen. I want to know your sin." He pressed himself against her backside, his lips dancing across the shell of her ear as he spoke slowly and intimately, telling her what she had suspected about herself for far too long….

She truly was made to be ruled by him.

"Loki," she groaned.

"That's it," he replied. "This night you will say my name many times, the way it was meant to be said."

Murmured phrases and a flick of the wrist…her clothing lay at her feet, as her skin felt the caress of crisp air. A gasp as she was found herself suddenly bent over the table and bound to it. Ropes formed out of thin air and snaked across the table like living things, twining around her wrists and ankles, pulling her legs wide apart. She was nude, and very vulnerable, spread out before him in this way with no hope of covering herself. It both frightened and aroused her.

The smooth leather of his attire was cold against her bare back as he pressed his chest to her. "I mean to have you, Seagen. Do you want that?"

She whispered a barely audible, "Yes."

"Good girl."