#Otunn

[stragglewort]

Days of Our Othron -- “In the Swamps of Shaskil”

Photo Property of New York Public Library, digital collections; “Cypress swamps. Fla.” - 1890

        Otunn cried out to the swamp, tearing away at the tendrils of mud that pulled him to the ground. His eyes were crusted over with muck and his head spun in pain and confusion. It was more than enough for him to handle on it's own. But all his panic magnified when something, something, grabbed him from behind – Its grip cold and metallic with mats of tangled fur about halfway up its measure. He couldn’t tell, though, if what had cuffed itself around his neck was the arm of something vaguely human-shaped or just the finger of some significantly larger beast.

        He tried to call out against it, but a stiffly unpleasant hand covered his mouth –

        “Ddmyt foozrr.” It hissed into his ear in a sharp, coldly harsh sort of way. “Vvio oozra’m boozy.”

        Those sounds, those words! He knew those words! At least a more awake, safely reasonable version of him did. Though, at that very moment it might as well have been complete gibberish. He pried at the thing’s grip, scratching and kicking, but whatever series of events led to his being there left him wholly and utterly strengthless. It was only when his muddy, fuzzed thoughts darkened and grew silent that he realized he wasn’t breathing. With a sharp inhale that was cut all-to-quickly short, it dawned that the creature wasn’t mauling, tearing, or ripping him apart as most monsters were prone to do – but strangling him.

        “Oii –!“ He sputtered with no clue over what exactly he was trying to say. “Oii – oiimaos! Mercy!” He coughed, mindlessly. The cry was involuntary and the words, common-tongue or otherwise meant nothing to him. But the unfaltering grip the creature had around his throat jolted like it’d been startled, and in one swift motion it threw him back to the ground. At its feet, peering through the crust of the mud caked over his face he could’ve sworn the monster was humanoid. They murmured to the forest, bitterly and confused – sounds he couldn’t quite catch in succumbing to his breathless exhaustion.

…

          “Lvvao, Maaloe. You must be careful, I can’t begin to explain –“ A man started, this nasty twinge of frustration in his voice. He shifted between arguments of common-tongue and exclamations of the sharp, quick language the creature spoke. As fluent as that implied him to be, something about his voice didn’t sit quite well with the language.

        “Vle! Oik am’bai eem!?” The shrill, annoyed cut of a young woman’s argument shot quietly back at him. She was pacing around in short, irritated circles.  

        “Of course I do! And you’d do well to show some manner.” He implored.

        “Manner!” She scoffed, mimicking and (dare it be said) almost mocking him. Rounding out her voice in an irritated, overly-enunciated sort of way.

        “Of all people for you to be angry over, he’s got to be the least of ‘em –“ the man said, motioning to the stranger they’d dragged out of the swamp. He was about to continue with the argument before out of the corner of his eye he saw the figure of a very shabby, poor looking fellow trying to crane himself up from his bedroll. Otunn found the effort needed to get up off the ground was more than his arms or legs were willing to give. Trying to move struck this pang of nauseous aching through his stomach. He was rightly stuck for a moment, planted firmly on a bedroll that smelled faintly of sweat and grass. The mud had been cleaned up off his face, he was warm (comparatively so), and as far as he could tell? He wasn’t dead.

        The two weren’t sure how long he’d been awake, and in all honesty, he wasn’t too sure himself. So, there he sat, staring, trying to force his eyes to focus on their faces – on their figures – trying to place a name or something useful.

        The first and largest of the two was a gruff looking gentleman. He had a square, broad chin lined by a loosely braided chestnut beard that barely hung past the length of his neck. Though he was quite a muscularly large and imposing sort of person – he had an undeniably gentle face that wasn’t keen to intimidate.

        Unlike the second figure.

        Though she was much shorter and thinner, the metal and fur-lined armor she wore filled out her form. Even in the blurriness of his own vision, Otunn could make out the malicious, frustrated scowl that stabbed into him – only him – like daggers. Though the two were arguing, he assumed it wasn’t their own company that caused so much conflict.

        “I - Sorry if I’m intruding.” He stuttered. The girl met it with a scoff, but the man got up – giving this face of pleasant pity.

        “Can’t imagine you can intrude on a swamp, friend. By the looks of it, the swamp intruded on you.” He motioned to Otunn’s clothes. Now that he wasn’t sinking in the mud, he was plastered in it. “What in the good land’s name is the likes of you doing all the way out here?”

        Otunn gave him an odd, confused look. “…The likes of me?” His head was still swimming, whatever had sent him into the swamp had left him with a good wallop – he barely remembered his own name.

        “I’ve heard well enough about you – can’t imagine your sorts being the foresting type.”

        He laughed, heartily, trying to keep a pleasant light on the situation. But either because of his friend’s unwillingness to play nice or Otunn’s unfaltering confusion, he found it rather hard to keep the joke going. “You’re… not sure what’s happening, are you?” He huffed, slowly, and bit his bottom lip. It was small tick he’d picked up that showed itself when he went deeply into thought.

        “I –“ Otunn groaned a second. He’d tried to get up and succeeded to some extent, balanced against shaking, wobbling legs. The man stayed closed, afraid he’d tumble headfirst into the dim fire. “No, I can’t say I do.” Otunn hesitated as the world started to come into a better view. “Who are you?” His anxiety spiked with his vision, the man seemed trustworthy enough, but he wasn’t yet in the state to be trusting anyone. He was in a camp, no-doubt, out in what smelled like some sort of bog. He couldn’t explain why, but the thought of being in a swamp scared him. All that subconscious know-how he was too beaten-up to get a hold of still shined through in spouts here-or-there –  

        And for some wildly inexplicable reason, it told him the monster, stranger, and possibly bandit-filled bog was nothing but trouble.

        “Brutus.” The man started, out of courtesy. “Brutus Faefellow – pack and sword for hire.” He finished, quietly – his face had gone softer than before, and his smile fell into a line of worry as he moved to offer help to the wobbling man. “And you’re Otunn Toav’eimm, or Outnd as the folk around here like to say it. Are you not?”  

        “Yes… I believe I am.” He answered, after some thought. “How could you possibly know that?”

        “You’re still all out of it, aren’t you?” He shook his head. “‘Course I’d know who you are, can’t imagine a single well-read brute that wouldn’t.”

        “…Why exactly would that be?” his voice dropped to a nervous whisper. There were spouts of memory here or there, (and in due-time he imagined it would all clear up and he’d be back into his own) but at that very moment he was barred well enough from any good, coherent thought.  

        Brutus laughed, a half of it out of pity, and another out of some absurdity he seemed to be the only one understanding. “It’s hard to miss the face of the man that practically runs the kingdom. Even if you don’t live in the walls of it!”.

[keikuri]

alex isn't a demigod, she's a demi-otunn. loki in the mythos isn't technically a god, but a giant, and therefore alex should be bigger than magnus. in this essay i will-