Elsewhere [boyxboy]

*Chapter Nine*

I pulled back on the reins, turning my horse around to watch as first Dom, then Ana and Adrian, and finally Loki all burst through the Threshold's counterpart on this side, trying to get a hold of their excitable mounts before looking around themselves curiously. Loki took a deep, slow breath and let it out, closing his eyes and smiling. He never liked to be away from Elsewhere for long.

'Well?' Dom was looking at Adrian, openly smirking. 'Convinced?'

'That Nota drugged me?' Adrian asked archly. 'Yes.' Ana laughed at him and slapped him on the back of the shoulder; Dom rolled his eyes and ignored him.

'So?' Loki asked quietly, pulling his horse up beside mine and smiling, his eyes shining. 'How does it feel to be back?'

I found I couldn't answer. It felt like far too much to put into words, but Loki just nodded understandingly and turned to address the others.

'We need to get back to the Citadel. It shouldn't take longer than a day. We'll find a place to camp tonight and set out at sunrise. You all need to be very careful and remain with either Nota or I at all times. Everybody here can identify you as human and it would be dangerous for you to be separated from us. This is very important, understood?'

They all nodded grudgingly; I don't think they'd been intending on striking off on their own but taking orders from Loki rankled almost as much for them as it did for me.

We set off once again through the trees on the Elsewhere side of the Threshold, keeping close to the stream as usual. Once we were close enough to its banks I jumped down from my horse and scooped a couple of handfuls of mud from the ground, rubbing it into my face and across any other exposed skin.

'What the fuck are you doing?' Adrian demanded, clearly thinking my insanity had graduated from delusions to sitting-in-a-cell-rubbing-faeces-on-myself nuts.

'Clever,' Loki murmured to me as I ignored Adrian; he knew I was obscuring my face such that I wouldn't be recognised in the event we came across anybody else on our journey. The woods in Elsewhere are alive with hunting and fishing in peacetime and are home to soldiers, rebels, bandits, and cowards in times of war; we couldn't risk encountering a citizen of Elsewhere who would undoubtedly know my face.

Loki found a place to make camp after an hour or two of steady progress; it was dark already and we went about setting up our tents in the moonlight that trickled through the leaves of the trees.

'I really will have to keep watch tonight,' Loki warned me quietly as the others got ready for bed. It wasn't raining nor was it particularly cold, but I still found myself looking for excuses to get him into my tent. My rational brain knew he was right; despite the fact that we were finally home, I was in a lot more danger in these woods than I had been in the ones in England and the only sensible choice was to have him keep guard.

'I'll stay up with you a while,' I decided instead, adding, 'just an hour,' when he looked like he was about to argue. The others said their goodnights and we settled onto a log around the waning fire; after a couple of minutes of silence he took my hand and laced his fingers through mine without looking at or speaking to me. It felt more like home than anything else that day.

Exhaustion and the excitement of the return must have caught up with me sooner than I realised, because I fell asleep there, my head tipping over to lean on Loki's shoulder. Somehow I ended up on the ground near the fire, the most un-princely I've ever been, sleeping with my face pressed into the detritus on the forest floor, closer to Elsewhere's heart than I had been in over a year, reconnecting with my homeland, letting its essence fill my head and heart.

I was sitting up rapidly and grabbing for Loki's bow and sheath of arrows before my brain had even fully awoken; I opened my eyes to find I was already aiming it squarely at the diminutive figure holding a gleaming silver blade to Loki's throat.