"And how do you know I won't just kill you?" He asked.
"Because you need me. Without my survival skills and knowledge, you won't last a week in the Alaskan Bush. Once summer rolls around we can retrieve your precious stone and I'll let you leave, a...
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The first thing I registered when I regained consciousness was how weird my skin felt.
And how weird my bed felt.
And that my bed was breathing.
And that it wasn't a bed at all.
It was a person!
"Aaahh!" My eyes shot open. It was dark, save for a few burning embers in the stove. I was laying with my back against Loki's chest.
Just then, I figured out what made my skin feel weird. I didn't have a shirt on! Everything felt foreign rubbing against me. The only time I was without a shirt was when I took my washcloth bath once a week or so. My clothes were basically another layer of myself, and now that they were gone, everything that rubbed against it was irritating.
But why am I laying in Loki's arms without a shirt? Surely I didn't eat the wrong kind of mushroom and do something stupid...right?
Then I noticed something else, or should I say, felt something else. Loki had his hands placed firmly on the side of my waist. I lifted the quilt, ignoring the shiver that wracked through my body at the cold. Yep, gotta find my shirt.
Koda was laying underneath the thick quilt with his head resting on Loki's leg. When I uncovered him, he raised his head, seemingly examining me. "Hey Koda." I whispered. "What the heck happened huh?" When he heard my voice he immediately stood up, and attacked me with his tongue. He let out small whines of happiness as he coated my face with doggie-slobber.
"Hey Koda, Koda shhh, shhhhh." I tried shushing him. Loki seemed to be asleep and I didn't want to wake him up. "Koda hey, easy dude. Quiet down some."
Finally, once he deemed my face suffeciently covered in kisses, he sat down again and placed his head in my lap, but this time the gesture was purely for affection. There's no way he was going back to sleep any time soon...unfortunately.
"Hey what the...?" I tried to lift Loki's hand off of me, but there was some kind of dark substance that kept it plastered to my waist. It was dry and crumbly. Nevertheless, I managed to peel his hand away with a little more effort, and when I did, I felt like I was hit by a ton a bricks.
There, on the right side of my waist, was the bear bite.
The memories came flooding back. The bear, the fear, the pain, the blood, the pain.
Koda must've done what I told him after all, and ran to get Loki. What a good dog. I placed a hand on his head and scratched his ears, to which he closed his eyes and growled in contentment.
But when I examined the wound area, all I found were scars. White circular scars that ran in a U shape on the side of my waist. They were teeth marks. That bear was huge! The bite stretched almost all the way to my naval!
