Chapter 65: Unraveling Magic
They figured that there will be no dark alley right now because it was 5.30 pm. Loki made both of them invisible as soon as they stepped out of the building. They were strolling down an almost empty path, walking on the sidewalk and passing various shops.
'I am so excited! I can't wait till we leave Earth!' said an invisible Nevaeh, startling a seven year old who looked around wildly. Nevaeh clapped a hand over her mouth as the kid started crying. Loki burst out in hysterical laughter, scaring the kid even further. The kid ran screamingly, tears splashing behind his head and entered a home which was not far away. Nevaeh silently hoped it to be the kid's actual house instead of a stranger's.
'Thanks a lot!' Nevaeh snapped, slapping Loki's arm and steering him ahead. They turned around a corner and Loki teleported both of them back to Vanaheim. Nevaeh watched the same stretch of compound which had the huge doors far ahead of them. A slight rustle in the adjacent woods made her glance about. 'Did you hear that?' she asked.
Loki didn't even hear her. He was staring at his mystical masterpiece with a thin frown over his face. The main element of his art was missing. Loki grabbed her hand and started walking ahead. Nevaeh gasped as soon as she realised that all of the people were standing exactly where they had been the moment they'd left Vanaheim, as if their departure had compelled them to come to a standstill. Most of the people in sight were clustered around the edge of the lake, where they were sharing a laugh before they left while the others were scattered around the compound. They were standing in their respective spots with blank expressions and rigid, pole-like postures. Loki halted in front of them.
'I don't see Thor,' Loki said, gesturing a hand towards all the people. Nevaeh looked around. The cow Thor was preparing to milk was still standing there but the illusion of Thor was nowhere to be seen.
'Is that why we rushed ahead?' Nevaeh scoffed. 'Why does it matter?'
'Because, I didn't make him disappear!' Loki said. His eyes widened a little. He turned around cautiously. His narrowed eyes flickered around in a complete circle, analysing everything behind the woods and under the forest.
'You are behaving oddly,' Nevaeh said. He was analysing their surroundings as though he were expecting a wild gorilla to jump out of the bushes any second.
All the people; the kids, common-looking individuals, the guards, elderly people, and warriors, all standing about in a frozen manner, were making Nevaeh incredibly uncomfortable. Loki was still staring at the distant woods with wolf-like eyes and a sharp smack on the back of his head brought him back to his actual location.
'Loki, move it! We have to join my parents for dinner!' Nevaeh said, withdrawing her fist.
'Why don't you try and hit me after you state your purpose for doing the same?' Loki snapped.
'Okay, move it!' she said. SMACK! She hit him again on the head and chuckled, shrugging a little. He grabbed her neck and pulled her beneath while laughing. Loki took her a little away from the gathered illusions and towards the huge gates protecting the temple within, so that they were standing at an equal distance between them.
'Behold, and watch,' Loki gestured Nevaeh to give him a little room. She shifted away from him and backed away several steps.
'Show me your magic, babe! Show me what you got!' yelled Nevaeh, clapping her hands and cheering for Loki. He chuckled a little, but immediately took in a huge breath and closed his eyes just to open them again with a serious expression on his face, as though getting into character.
He lifted a finger. Nevaeh jumped a little as the rigid, unmoving people suddenly continued their activities as if it were some bizarre real life movie and Loki's finger was the resume button of a TV remote. Loki chuckled, gesturing an arm towards everyone.
As though he'd non-verbally ordered them to march, all of them came walking towards them to stand neatly in front of Loki in straight lines; the children, the guards, the young warriors and locals, the middle aged settlers, the elderly. They clustered in front of him, not even putting one foot out of their respective lines.
Nevaeh went towards them and stopped near the kids. She figured all of them were illusions that he so callously creates from time to time. Extending a finger, she prodded the cheek of the little girl who'd greeted Loki with ecstatic happiness, expecting her finger to pass through her. But she felt her skin instead. 'Loki! What the hell?' Nevaeh said loudly. 'These aren't illusions! Are these real people? What did you do to them?' She was so confused. After their time together, thinking that Loki might compel an entire village for their purpose, not just the men, but the women and the children, too, wasn't that big a stretch.
Loki chuckled at her expression. 'These aren't real people.'
'But I can feel them!' she snapped, now prodding another kid. 'Hair! Skin! Blood! These are people!'
'Not people,' Loki corrected her. 'Would you please step away from them and drop that worried face? You are kind of killing my fun.'
Nevaeh did as she was told, mostly because she wanted answers and arguing wasn't going to provide her with the same. Loki cleared his throat and stared at the not-people ahead. 'KNEEL!' he bellowed.
Instantly, everyone kneeled on the grassy ground, their head bowed in absolute obedience. Nevaeh was speechless. She stared at the purely ecstatic expression on Loki's face clearly getting a lot of satisfaction by this. She waited for him to make them stand up again and do some other things, but he merely stood there, soaking in the view of innumerable kneeling people in front of him. 'Umm, Loki?'
'Isn't this marvellous?' Loki chortled. 'I used to do this all the time when I was a kid. This sure brings back memories,' he said nostalgically. Nevaeh wondered how a kid Loki had some borderline twisted hobbies, and made a mental note of enquiring about the same sometime later.
'They still look like people to me,' Nevaeh said.
'God, you are no fun,' Loki snapped. 'They aren't people!' He waved a hand. Their kneeling bodies twisted in green smoke, and they all vanished, leaving behind multi-coloured rocks on the floor in their respective spots. 'See? Not people.'
Nevaeh couldn't understand what had just happened. 'What – huh – what was that?'
'I have this ability,' Loki said, 'wherein I can grant temporary powers to inanimate objects. I bewitched those rocks to look like people. I could've made illusions, but I wasn't sure if your parents might or might not shake hands with everyone around them. I couldn't risk it,' he shrugged.
'So, these were pebble-people?' Nevaeh said, her confused face breaking out in shocked laughter. 'How – how can you even do that?' She picked up one of the rocks; they looked normal. 'That's bizarre, Loki! That's brilliantly bizarre! You – you are amazing!'
'Why, thank you,' Loki blushed. He was expecting more kisses for his incredible feat, but he decided to settle for compliments at the moment, thinking there was still much more to show her.
Loki turned towards the metal gates and the surrounding wall-compound and closed his eyes.
He stretched out both his arms in front of him with his palms pointing straight towards the direction of the enormous door. Nevaeh quickly glanced at the metal wall-like-door and back at Loki who was now moving his hand slowly in an upward motion as though he were lifting something incredibly heavy.
The metal surface flickered. Beneath the wall, right at its bottom, a small wave of ripples erupted over the surface. Loki was cautiously raising his hands and the ripples circulated throughout the wall, making it palely translucent. The metal surface evaporated in a smoke of green exposing the vast temple within. Nevaeh gasped loudly, after which Loki opened his eyes with a thin smile.
'Are you telling me, there was no compound? No doors? No wall?' Nevaeh hushed through a still-open mouth.
'There was no wall,' Loki repeated and he chuckled as he saw her disbelieving face.
He walked ahead and took her by the hand to move a little closer to the now-exposed temple. Meanwhile, Nevaeh was analysing Loki's palm. She placed it on her own, eyeing it with a frown. 'What are you doing?' Loki asked.
'I am just looking,' Nevaeh said hastily, once again locking her hand into his and walking next to him. She was staring at Loki constantly by tilting her head above.
'That look, do not drop it, ever,' Loki said in a pleased voice, halting next to the fountain.
'The compound was an illusion, then?' Nevaeh said in awe. 'It looked so real. How do you do all of that?'
Loki was about to tell her that he was a natural in creating illusions ever since he was a kid, when Nevaeh rested a foot over the fountain's edge with the intention of leaning over it. Her foot went right through it and she tumbled on her bottom.
Loki cackled loudly. His laughter echoed shrilly inside the adjacent hallway.
'So what, there is no fountain either?' Nevaeh grunted as he laughingly gave her a hand to help her up, little tears forming at the end of his eyes due to his hysteria. 'Shut up, it's not funny!' snapped a slightly red Nevaeh, looking annoyed for a moment.
She ran a hand through the water of the fountain and it went right through it. She immediately scoffed. 'I can hear the water, Loki! I can hear the fountain! What the – you are a witch!' Nevaeh said, now chuckling along with him.
'No, I am a God – goddamned – good person – with abilities,' Loki stammered. He cursed under his breath. At times of boasting, he had the unforgivable habit of turning so frantic and whippy that it caused him to let things slip from the tip of his silver tongue.
'Of course, you are a good person, Loki! Why would you say that?' she said warmly.
Loki shrugged her question off and nodded at the corridors which further blossomed into the temple's internal structure. Nevaeh excitedly turned around to watch Loki once again close his eyes, silently wishing that she should've brought popcorn.
Loki murmured something under his breath and opened his eyes. He began rotating his palm in circles. The air was instantly filled with a faint whistle.
The corridor of the temple vanished in a thin shimmer of green, revealing an open, battered chamber. The sky-long pillars were slowly dissolving, leaving only two opposite ones behind.
The entire structure gleamed green, enveloping the walls, the tunnel, dormitories of countless chambers. Nevaeh's mouth was as wide open as the piece of land they were standing upon. The very places where she had previously stepped foot on were vanishing right in front of her eyes in a glint of green. Nevaeh squinted as their surroundings dazzled a piercing emerald for a whole second before everything turned dark. She blinked her eyes several times before realising that it was still light out, and the darkness in front of her eyes was due to the absence of the shiny light from Loki's spells.
Nevaeh opened her eyes properly and failed horribly at stifling a sharp gasp.
They were standing in front of a partially wrecked dome-like structure which was battered with broken marble and had damp moss sticking on its edges. The cathedral looked as if it had been torn apart by a fifty feet monster. It looked like it had been abandoned centuries ago.
Everything she had seen; the fountain, the cambers, the fireplaces, the pillars, the balconies, the upper-floor-indoor-sun-proof-battle field, everything was gone. The pots of flowers, the indoor gardens of the temple, the trees next to the sitting stone chairs, the lively birds and their chirps, the top-floor library, everything had disappeared. Nevaeh walked ahead and touched a wall of the dome, her hand feeling the cold, damp stone against her palm. The walls of the temple had an ancient, richly-rustic look before. It had paintings and designs carved over it – minuscule details which no one could've even thought of noticing.
'Loki – you – you magnificent boy! How?!' shrilled Nevaeh, retrieving her hand from the wall and not pausing for an answer. She jumped on him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He smiled widely as she kissed him all over his face, not even sparing his chin.
'You – are – brilliant!' she said in between her kisses.
'See, now this is why I claim to have the best ideas. Like the brilliant one of showing you this event,' Loki said and kissed her on the lips. They were entwined together for a few minutes, their lips glued together. 'I can't wait to live with you, love,' whispered Loki and rested his head on her neck.
Nevaeh was about to respond in a similar manner, when Loki suddenly dropped her on her feet.
Everything happened so quickly – Nevaeh whipped out her wand and turned to look behind her, readying her wand-arm. At the same time Loki's blissful composure transformed into an angrily alert one. Within the blink of a second, before Nevaeh could even flick her wand, Loki pulled her behind him and draped his suddenly-materialised cape in front of them, just in the nick of time. A loud boom erupted as though something had hit his cape squarely in the front...
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone