The cackle from above her head was so unexpected that she shoved away from the tree and glared upwards. A large raven cocked it's head at her and croaked again, meaningfully.
"What do you want?" Heida snapped, irritably; fearfully. She was now wroth with herself and becoming more frightened by the minute. Afraid for Frida, and afraid for herself as well.
"What do you want?" came an eldritch voice in answer. It emanated not from the crow, but from ... all around her, like a vague echoing whisper. But it was not a mirrored echo. Her own rhetorical query had been modified in intonation and posed, instead, to her.
She swallowed nervously, peering at the raven, at first disbelieving the idea that it was the bird that spake so clearly. She knew that birds were capable of mimicry, but they did not converse as mortals did; did not imbue their responses with so much meaning. Surely she was imagining the glittering intelligence in its black eyes. Nevertheless, somehow she understood that it was the raven; and it was awaiting her reply.
"I want to find Frida," said she, despite her misgivings.
"This way." It therewith leapt from the bough.
She gasped as the raven took flight, its wings beating noisily in the silence of the forest. And then the wings paused mid flight, catching the glint of silver moonlight on its stygian plumage as it glided through the trees like specter. She followed it without knowing why she did, yet she understood inherently that she ought to.
"Here." A flutter of wings to her right. "There." Flapping ensued ahead of her and she increased her pace to keep up. "This way." And then, suddenly, there was nothing and the forest was once more deafening in its silence.
Where has it gone? Heida stepped carefully over the fallen leaves and gnarled roots. Her eyes climbed the length of the towering ash nearby, it's boughs immense and stretched overhead, scouring the loftiest limbs searching for her erstwhile guide.
Had her eyes not been trained overhead, she'd have seen the fissure in the earth that appeared beside a hollow yew; directly whither her feet were wandering.
"There," said the voice out of nowhere, coming just when she thought it had abandoned her indefinitely.
"Where?" she asked the forest spirit.
"There!" it cried again, in its half-caw, strangely alarmed by something.
The warning, however, for warning it had been, came too late, for she perceived its dismay even as her foot slipped the very next second. She hurtled down into that void in the earth that had lain like a waiting maw into the underworld; it swallowed her up instantly.
Her nails were useless as she clawed blindly and desperately at the rock, tumbling down the pit for, what seemed like, a terrifying eternity before she hit the ground with devastating force.
She was senseless only a moment, and she knew it could have only been a moment that she had lain unconscious because the small shaft of moonlight that peered down through the slit in the cavern's high, stalagmite-riddled dome was still sputtering with shadows as leaves and dust floated down atop her head.
Heida pushed herself to standing, but her ankle instantly buckled under her just as soon as she rested her weight onto it. With a frustrated and terrified cry she tried again; and again. Hot tears bled across her face as she sobbed into the darkness. Once her misery was somewhat spent, she began hobbling awkwardly along the walls.
Her eyesight was normally keen even in darkness, but surely even the nocturnal creatures needed some ambient light by which to see by ... down here in Niflheim. Howbeit, there were no stars and ... no moon. She gasped in horror! Niflheim! No, it couldn't be!
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Curse Of Blood: Gods & Monsters
WerewolfIt never bodes well when a prince of Asgard takes an interest in a mortal. Not for Aila. Not when that god is Loki, the infamous father of monsters. To love such a god is as improvident as it is dire. Curse Of Blood: Gods & Monsters is a dark, ro...