Once upon a time, in a land not so far away...
You wake to the feeling of being watched. Of a set of unfamiliar eyes, of warm breath on the back of your neck. A jolt back to the land of the living, and it's gone. No matter how quick you are, how sneaky, the source of the disruption has long since disappeared, so you have no choice but to try and ignore it. To continue on with your day and try to set that moment of strangeness aside.
You eat, drink, speak with others. Perhaps you explore a little. Whatever it is you choose to do for the day, that feeling from the morning won't return. And by the time the sun sets and the moon glows brightly above, you've likely set those moments of strangeness aside. It's not like it's anything new, after all.
It's the same again for the next few days. No better, no worse. Something best ignored, right?
A speck of blood on the doorframe. That wasn't there before, was it?
A snap of twigs in the distance. A crunch of leaves.
Claw marks gouged deeply into the door.
Into the wall above your bed.
Scraps of red fabric, turned darker with blood. Pieces of fur. Of flesh.
Do you run and hide? Do you fight? Whatever you choose, it's definitely time to make sure your body parts aren't scattered next...
...what a horribly big mouth you have.
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Since first waking up on the island, characters have been stuck with that feeling of being watched. It isn't a constant. Isn't more than a few seconds at a time, dotted throughout the day. Investigation has never turned up much, and there's never been any sightings of the cause of it all.
Until now.
Throughout the first half of the week, characters will find themselves suffering from that feeling of being watched on a far more constant basis. Rather than it being a one-off, few seconds occurrence each day, that feeling will last for minutes at a time, and on multiple occasions.
However, it isn't until the fifth day that they'll start stumbling across physical signs of their monitoring. There are claw marks on doors. Spots of blood on the paths outside. A crack of twigs in the forests, or the imprint of bloodied paws in the snow.
Ten days in and those signs start finding their way indoors. Wet footprints, tinged with red. Claw marks in the walls, the floor. Torn sheets and the smell of wet...something. Whatever it is that's been watching you, its finally decided to come and say hello.
Two weeks in and characters will begin to have sightings of the creature, its fur dark and its eyes a glowing yellow. At times it looks like a wolf, prowling in the distance. At other times, it's walking on its hind legs, almost human were it not for the muzzle full of gleaming sharp teeth. Get too close, and it slips away like a shadow, gone between one blink and the next. It decides when to reach out to characters, not the other way round.
It's after characters finally get a good look at the creature that it starts leaving...gifts. Characters will start to find familiar items from their home worlds amidst the mess. The remains of a childhood pet, perhaps. Photographs of loved ones, faces torn almost beyond recognition. It's only once it delivers its final gift that the creature retreats to the trees again: a blood-splattered item of clothing that clearly belongs to the person the character misses the most at the time, alive or dead.
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yay, he decided not go into your mind for now. XD
Not now. Not until he knows whether the man may be useful in any other way. If he doesn't need him, then he can check his memories for clues. For now, Loki doesn't do anything.
Because, yes, a Midgardian is so wary and reserved, even outloud - who the Hel introduces himself with just a surname?
"That's fine. I have no answers, either. Do you have, however, any plans?"
A simple question, really. With thousand different possible meanings. How the stranger may interpret it may be just as telling.
yeah, that would not have ended well...
The question though is not unexpected; what other question can there be? It is, he thinks, at the heart of this entire situation: what now?.
"Exploration," he says with a shrug. "Securing food and shelter are the primary objectives. Then figuring out where, exactly, this is. And why I'm here."
It's all very practically laid out, because Bucky is nothing if not practical. Secure the basic needs of survival first, then sort out the rest of it. He imagines this Loki must have similar aims. "You?"
no subject
"Same thing. I suppose we could do it together, if you wish. After all, if I had any appointments, I'd already be late for them."
Like, he thinks, my appointment with death, after my neck and I think that part of spinal cord, snapped. But he won't say that aloud. This could be funny if he was as suicidal as yonderyear on Bifrost, but. If he could live, he'd live. After all, he's made a promise to his brother. Hmmm...
"Before coming here, I had a small, well, accident, and thought I may die. Accident, or a robber at my and my brother's ship... details, details. I know, I know, I was probably just overdramatic and barely hurt."
Giggles, barely audibly. That's stress, he can't quite help it yet.
"How about you? Did you hit yourself in the head or anything before coming here? I'm trying to determine whether we were teleported here, or perhaps, just crudely taken while unconscious."
no subject
What can it hurt, anyway?
His companion does seem to be fond of talking, though. It's not a negative assessment, more just an observation. Then again, a rock is probably more talkative than Bucky, in all honesty. But perhaps somewhere in his words there might be a clue or two to offer up as to why they're here. It might be a long shot, but it's better than no shot at all.
"Went to sleep. Woke up here." What he doesn't say is that he's pretty sure he would have woken up for anything disturbing his sleep; it's near impossible to sneak up on him. That makes this whole appearance here more than a little disturbing, because how — and how heavily — had he been drugged to not realize his own kidnapping? "Would love to know how it was managed."
no subject
For now, however, what Barnes suggested sounded rational enough: the plan to survive here.
"You seem to have a good head on your shoulders, so, you must have noticed. Somebody's observing us. Unless they're only observing me, which, I suppose, I could feel flattered about, that somebody has taken such an interested in my humble person."
In other words: has Barnes felt that, too? Whatever that was? That upleasant feeling of being under someone's gaze here.
And right after finally not having to deal with Thanos's gaze, too. Loki had the worst luck sometimes.
no subject
"Not just you. We're being watched." Sorry to burst any bubble of feeling special there but Loki isn't the only one aware of eyes on the back of their heads, though the owner of those eyes remains very well hidden. Even so, simply watching isn't an overt threat; the threat part is usually what follows. It's nice to know that Bucky's not alone in it, and makes him relax some of his suspicious about this being some sort of HYDRA trick.
Bucky starts moving again, in the direction he'd started not long ago. Loki is more than welcome to come along; he figures the other man is probably going to read an invitation in the motion.