#✦ atreus ✦ || verse . to fulfill a promise of one gone before

[stardustedstories]

@riiese clicked the ❤️ for a starter!

Atreus had been traveling for a little while, looking for the other giants. He'd known it was something he'd had to do on his own, but that didn't mean he didn't miss his father and the friends they'd made, especially recently. Truth be told, Atreus had very much wished that his father could have come with him….., but he had to do this himself. He knew it with all of his being.

The boy had heard rumours that there were strange beings in the mountains, that if you looked just right, you could see a huge face, especially if you'd hurt yourself or were in some danger, and he knew that he had to go check it out. It could be an actual giant giant, after all, and he couldn't just let this opportunity pass him by.

He'd asked a few locals about the rumours, and he'd made his way to the place they'd mentioned, heart beating rapidly in his chest. What if they were only rumours? Or what if it was something entirely different and not another giant? He had to know.

"Hello?" he called out, hoping that there would be an answer.

[storiedhistories]

When Atreus was familiar with an area, he was very light on his feet, always knowing where to step to make the least amount of sound. But he was in a new place, and that meant that it was more difficult for him to navigate as seamlessly as he could back home, and he stumbled slightly, foot catching on a rock he hadn't fully realized was crumbling.

If he'd been back this way already, he should have recognized something by now, but he's beginning to think he really is lost. A frown slips onto his face; he'd mastered bear and wolf, but he was still working on bird forms, even now. They just didn't come to him as easily as some others, though if he was lost, he might have to give it another try, just to get his bearings. He should be able to manage that; he just needed to practice more.

Atreus could practically hear his father's voice, telling him that he needed to always be prepared, and that included making sure his shapeshifting was as well-practiced as the rest of his skills. He needed to hone it, like a muscle, the way he'd done with his archery.

He was just about to take to the sky for a few moments, to get his bearings when he heard a voice resonate in the air around him. Atreus' bow is in his hands in an instant, arrow knocked, though not yet drawn.

The Jotunn glanced around, finding the woman as she seemingly exited a cave, drawing closer to him.

"I'm not looking for a fight," he called back, though he was certainly prepared for one if it came down to it. "I'm just looking for answers."

The sharp, shrieking sound of the whetstone dragging over a blade was a familiar comfort to her, even as what few comforts she had before had been ripped from her fingers. Nichang was bitter, which she thought was her right -- and no one dared to tell her otherwise, not of the few people she saw on her rare trips down the mountainside. No, she supposed the tales of what she was ( demon, witch, monster ) travelled to them long before she ever would, lead them to their own preconceived notions.

She couldn't be bothered to correct them.

Rarely did she leave the mountain, and rarer still did someone make their way up to her home amidst the clouds. So when she hears the sound of rock crumbling beneath less than steady footwork, she makes no great rush to rise from where she kneels with her sword. It may have simply been an animal, or perhaps some fool who did not know where he walked. The steps grow closer, and with an irritated growl in the back of her throat, the witch rises to her feet with her blade in hand.

"Go back." Her voice is amplified by the walls of the cavern, echoing and giving the illusion of her voice coming from multiple places at once. The boy looks lost, which is to her advantage. Perhaps he does not know where he wanders, but ignorance was no excuse for going where you were not wanted. "There is nothing for you here, unless you come seeking battle."

Drawing closer then, she exits the cave to stare down at him, narrowing her eyes at the face she sees: he is young, and his face makes it clear that he is not from this province -- nor any close by, she can safely guess. His clothing is equally as unusual. His face, while still youthful in the corners of the eyes and mouth, is marred with scars that reveal his life may be more battlewrought than other children his age.

White hair whips about her face in the cold mountain air, never quite seeming to move naturally with the wind. As if it had a mind all its own, moving over her face as if to conceal her from the stranger. "...and given you carry a weapon, this does not seem far from possible."

[storiedhistories]

@calledkore asked: “did you find what you were looking for?” / for atreus uwu

More Random Dialogue Prompts // Accepting  

Atreus (or should he be using Loki on his travels? Perhaps in other places he would be Loki, but in his father's homeland, it felt only right to use the name his father had given him) had not expected his search for the rest of the giants to lead him back to Greece.  And yet, here he was, the place his father had come from.  That was still a full story that he needed to ask his father to tell him, but that would have to wait until he went home.

He had thought that one of the giants was here, but he'd had yet to find them, something that frustrated him.  Atreus knew full well that his journey wasn't going to be EASY, but he'd expected to find SOME sort of clue as to where he needed to go.

The young god let out a little sigh, adjusting the bow on his back as he tried to figure out where to go from here.

But before he could do much more, a voice called out behind him.  He turned in the direction it had come from, wary, but not yet drawing his bow.

"Not yet," he replied to the question.  "But I haven't had a chance to look that much," Atreus admitted.  The young man hesitated for a moment, then decided to ask, just in case this woman might know something.  "Have you seen anything around here that might have a different sort of writing on it?"  It was the best starting place he had, while he was still figuring out the writing of his father's native tongue.

[stardustedstories]

His attention is very quickly drawn to the birds as they take off, but had there been something else moving, beyond them? Before they'd scattered on the wind? Had there been movement? His sharpshooter's eyes focus on the spot he thought he'd noticed, and for a moment, Atreus thinks that he might have imagined the movement. At least until he hears the sound coming from the same direction.

But it's the voice that truly shows he had seen something, that perhaps the rumours were more than just tall tales told in awed voices around a campfire.

A grin slips onto his face as he looks up at the approximate location he thinks the voice is coming from.

"I'm Loki," he responds, choosing to use the name his mother's people would know him by. Because if his eyes were telling the truth, then he had certainly discovered a giant. Whether or not he was one of his kin remained to be seen, but for now…, he was still very excited to have found him.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," he adds, suddenly realizing he wasn't sure what he should say to anyone he met on his quest. He couldn't just come right out with I'm Loki, and I'm here to bring you back home now that it's safe, could he? No, he would have to ease into that, and hope the giants he found believed him.

In the distance not so far from Atreus, perhaps a minute or two of walking, there a sharp breath, either of wind or a very large being, and a cacophony of feathers and sqawks as several dozen birds — crows, mostly — suddenly took off over the trees and into the sky to other perches. Hidden amongst the trunks and the branches had been a quick movement of something massive right before the birds flew off, and a sound could be heard, rhythmic, quick, like that of a quickly-beating, gigantic heart. These may have appeared to another traveler like the coincidental sights of a fatigue-addled mind, but it would be the voice that responded to the boy's call that would have made it undoubtedly very real.

"Who is there?"

The voice was unfathomably deep, like a bottomless lake, and yet, not overwhelming nor loud. The branches and leaves rustled gently, though it was impossible to know whether that was a mere coincidental wind blowing through, or if the voice caused them to move as such.