Laufey frowned.
"Sorry, father. She took me by surprise, and was completely veiled the entire time." Byleister apologized, bowing his head.
"Nevermind. At least we know she was back, and which direction she went." he dismissed, eyeing the spaced, slightly broken trail left in the snow. She'd been moving on all fours, something only witches did any more. Laufey remembered watching Skadi during the hunt with Helblindi— Fast, agile and fierce, pouncing on the wild fa they'd been tracking and tearing it's throat open like a wolf, the long-legged all-fours bounding of hers had far outrun all his warriors.
This witch was heading for Vimur.
And she apparently was very displeased with the idea of being found.
Geirrodr had a confused look on his face, and his first daughter stood next to him with an equally concerned look.
"What is it?" Laufey asked.
"Gjalp. I mean... Milord, if you don't mind my asking..." Greip turned a timid eye towards him. "... What exactly is it that you think she has?"
Loki coughed, spitting up lungfuls of water. Gjalp froze the water on her skin and flexed it off.
"... I suppose you better make a fire to warm up." she sighed in mild annoyance.
"What's with... that... attitude...?" Loki panted.
"We jotun can't tolerate fire well, drift-brain! It's already muggy and gross-feeling in this cave, a fire'll make it next to intolerable!" she snapped, stalking over to and crouching at the cave-mouth. "But it'll be bad if you get sick, so I don't have much of a choice!"
Loki was quiet, carefully pulling up dead bloodmoss and using his magic to light it on fire.
"... That phrase, drift-brain... what does it mean? I get that it's an insult, but..."
"Dumb, useless idiot. Pretty much, when a warrior dies, we'll scrape up his guts and brains from the snow so he's complete for the funeral. The insult has it's roots in the fact that certain warriors, such as traitors or the like, would be left, and their brains would get lost in a snow-drift." Gjalp explained, staring into the fog across Vimur.
As the heat of the dried-moss fire started to reach Gjalp, she put off more frostbite magic, creating a thin white film of crystals on her skin as blue wisps drifted into the air. The smell was... dizzying. Not in a sickening way, but a... drowsy one. Gjalp sidled more onto the ledge, letting the wind whip snowflakes against her cheek. The sky had clouded over and was dropping snowflakes down, and the cool sharpness of it all cleared her head.
"This smell... it's like the incense healers on Asgard burn. Only... stronger." Loki commented with a slight cough, waving a bit to clear the smoke some.
"Then the incense is probably derived from some weird bloodmoss derivative that you weirdos came up with after stealing some authentic stuff from us. I don't know squat about burning the stuff, but we occasionally mix it into teas. Helps children sleep. Greip forced that stuff down my throat so many times as a youngling." Gjalp declared, holding out a hand and creating patterns in the frost coating her skin. "Put it out! Your waving and shit is annoying, you're warm an' dry enough, yeah! Just use magic, you're powerful enough!"
Loki obeyed, coughing. Holding her breath, Gjalp stood up and jumped over him, to the back of the cave. Thrusting her palm out, she uttered a spell. A blast of wind pushed most of the heavy smoke out of the cave. Traces of the smell lingered, but not as cloyingly as before.
"Ugh. Note to self, don't burn bloodmoss. And that was dead stuff. Live stuff must be twenty times as strong." Gjalp muttered, putting off more of her magic. She almost lashed out when Loki touched her arm.
Blue crept over his skin, freezing the remaining water that was clinging to him, and he brushed it off. Gjalp waited patiently for him to finish before directing him to lie down in the sand again.
It was time for another go at that spell.