Edderkopp - Drider!Loki

Seventeen

We managed to trek a further distance than I had anticipated before the sun started to set and we had to consider stopping to hanker down for the night.

I couldn't decipher how long it had been since we had lost the edge of the ditch we were following, so instead we deigned to following in Thor's path, silently letting him guide us in the confidence that he knew to keep us in a straight line.

Loki and I had managed to catch up with Thor, though he kept silent and barely gave us a look as he trained his eyes forward.

My stomach churned at his silent, I hated upsetting people at the best of times but now, when things were already so uncertain, the last thing any of us needed was to be filled with doubt like they had been back there.

A couple of times, Thor disappeared into the canopy of tree trunks and we lost sight of him before managing to catch up again, but each time I worried that he would divert from the straight path we were taking and simply leave us behind.

Although I had only known him for a couple of days, this unrelenting foul mood seemed unlike the usually bubbly naga but I didn't wish to hound and instead opted to give him time and space.

I was talking with Loki about having to stop soon and possibilities of where to go when Thor disappeared on us again, the branches of the tree wall in front of us rustling as he passed through.

There was a moment of silence, everything seeming normal and unimpressive before a loud yell came through the foliage and had birds fluttering away from their perches.

My breath caught in my throat and we both shared an equally panicked look before rushing through the canopy.

I'm not sure what Loki was imagining, but I was picturing Thor to at best be tangled up in a collection of roots or vines and at worst to be inconveniently injured, leading us to having to postpone our trip and find somewhere to hunker down for the foreseeable future.

I did not expect to see him raised high up on his tail beside a large tree with severely exposed roots that perched on the edge of a surprise cliff, one of the only ones in a suddenly clear area, hands on his hips as he glared towards a large cliffside that cut off our route forward.

Trailing the edge with my eyes only lead to a conclusion that to follow the edge would instead lead us around into eventually doubling back on ourselves, the jagged edges curving around before disappearing back into the trees, except diagonally to our right, which offered another cliffside and more expansive forest to explore.

Unfortunately, it looked as though the bridge that had once been there, as dictated by the chipped posts with frayed pieces of knotted rope still attach, had been taken down or sabotaged sometime in the past, though it was hard to say whether it was recent or a long while ago.

"This is just great!" Thor yelled, throwing his arms up.

Loki moved up beside me as I stopped just a couple of steps back from Thor's right, his towering presence creating a deeper shadow over me.

"Well," the drider said in a sigh, "this is rather inconvenient."

"Inconvenient?" Thor roared, rearing around to us, his expression nothing short of livid.

Above us, the sky darkened and a quiet rumble came from the distance.

"This is more than inconvenient, Loki," he hissed. "Here we are, days into a wild goose, days from our homes in the depths of the forest I have not ventured only to find ourselves at a dead end, ruling this worthless and all you can say is that it's 'inconvenient'?"

"You really have taken what the pixies said to heart, as if they know anything."

"And you have taken to trusting a traveller you were thinking to eat!"