Written to: Turn Around - PoetLab
Sturmfrei: Literally, "stormfree." The freedom of not being watched by a parent or a superior; being alone at a place and having the ability to do what you want.
Modi personally thinks his mama is being quite unfair. No cakes or cookies before bedtime, nothing with sugar or Modi would be staying up the whole night and that wouldn't be good, now would it? Modi harrumphs to himself, rolls his eyes as he does a mock imitation of his Mama for his and Jory's amusement. The baby snake was not fond of the imposed rules, either, and certainly thought he should be able to have eggs before bed; Loki had told him absolutely not, it would impede his digestion.
But, at the present moment, Loki is nowhere to be seen, and the entire castle is quiet with the hush of sleep.
Jory crooks his tail, latches it through the bars of Modi's crib, letting the door swing open and allowing Modi to toddle out. Modi grabs Jory and lets the baby snake drape himself over his shoulders as they venture down the dark hallways together, in search of cake and eggs. From Jory's rather limited experience of the world, it made sense that cake and eggs should be located in the same space, and he directs Modi down the corridors with little flicks of his tail towards the kitchen and its pantries.
Upon entering the kitchens, Modi spies a platter of honeycakes for the next morning sitting on a counter, and runs eagerly over to it, dropping Jory on the floor in the process. He clambers onto a sack of flower (which is, apparently, already open, and he sinks all the way into it, coming up floundering and spitting out white powder, making Jory sneeze) in his quest for the cakes.
Jory hisses in Modi's general direction before going off to cold storage to find eggs for himself. The blonde buffoon was free to go as he liked, and as far as Jory was concerned, his sibling was of no further concern to him.
Loki sneaks into the kitchen an hour or so later, when he is assured the rest of the castle is already fast asleep and no one can possibly begrudge him the honeycakes he spotted the cooks making earlier that evening.
He nearly runs into the kitchen in glee, before stopping dead in his tracks at the apparition that greets him: A little boy wraith, all dusty white, stuffing honeycakes into his mouth, a hungry ghost.
Loki gapes at the spirit in fear before slapping himself, the sound sharp and ricocheting through the kitchen. The boy looks up at him, smiles through a mouthful of pastry, and screeches something at him, and that is the last thing Loki hears before he falls over in a dead faint.
The cooks come into the kitchen tomorrow before the break of dawn to find Loki lying face down on the stone floors, the back of his dark green nightshirt covered with impossibly small, impossibly white footprints.
The head cook rouses him with a glass of cold water, halfheartedly admonishing him about eating during all hours of the night, and refusing to believe Loki's protests about ghosts and vengeful, honeycake-eating spirits as she herds him back to bed.