Here's that thing about the gods again, back for a second chapter
[spoiler]
Even if Lalli did have a language in common with Emil, he isn't sure how he would describe what he saw. The whole of last night (which was nearly an eternity, with Reynir happily talking his ear off about sheep), he had about a dozen descriptions teetering on the tip of his tongue. He could have told Reynir, if only he had been certain that Reynir would understand what he was talking about.
It was more of a sensation, than a thing to be seen. The sensation of deep dread, unlike any he had experienced since moving to Keuruu. The dread came in a humanoid form, sure, but when Lalli gathered his courage and managed to look at it, the thing he saw could not be mistaken for human by even the most innocent child.
For one thing, the woman he saw wore only half her flesh. The rest of her was bare, shining bone. She stood, unashamed of her either form of her nakedness, and stared at him with a single socket and a single cold, blue eye.
He became aware of her sometime after the spirits had entered his mage-space. That, in itself, was terrifying. Having whatever those disgusting, warped things were enter his mind was like having his spine plucked out of him, vertebrae by vertebrae. Lalli had barely become conscious of being free from the invaders - possibly due to a glowing angry owl that was either Onni or someone who looked and sounded and felt exactly like him- when the dread came to him.
He took his time collecting his strength, not at all prepared or eager to see what was behind him.
He turned, he saw the woman, and the two of them stood in front of each other for the longest time.
Lalli spoke first. He had to.
"You're not one of mine."
One of his gods. It is easy to look at a god and know you are looking at a god. Everyone who has ever seen a god before knows it is impossible to mistake them for anything else.
"No," her voice was not a real voice- it was made out of the noises shadows make when they first fall to the ground, and the death rattle of a warrior whose body is so full of arrows that they outnumber the bones "I am not. But you are one of mine. There are so few of you left, we have agreed to share."
That sent a horrible chill through him, and he longed to see his family. To see them alive and breathing in front of him, in the place of this half-woman.
He thought it best to get straight to the point "What do you want from me?"
"Nothing that is not already mine. Your life is mine- as are the lives of all who do not die in battle, armed, brave. Do not worry. I am no longer a god of suffering. I think you'll find the after-life a pleasant place to be. At least, easier on your nerves than this world."
It was then that he knew she was lying. Not about who she was. Lalli had no trouble at all believing she was a god made to walk among the dead and collect them in their droves, but what caught her out was the way she spoke of him. 'This world', not 'the world you have just left' or 'the other world'. It was 'this world' and Lalli knew he was being tricked.
His eyes must have flashed with fear or anger (he isn't sure which it would have been) and in the same instant, she knew that he knew.
"Wait." is all she got out before Lalli tore out of his space.
He didn't look back. He didn't search for his luonto or check for trolls before tearing out into the open space between spaces. He just scented the nearest space (Reynir,of course, since he was sleeping about five feet away from Lalli) and dove into it without waiting for permission. On the bright side, Reynir is not an experienced mage and has no idea how blasted rude it is to dive straight into someone's head without first asking. Which is probably why Lalli keeps catching him straying way too close for comfort to his own boundaries.
Lalli knew he was going to have to do something about the encounter when he got up that morning. Firstly, he had managed to actually be scared straight out of a coma. He only had to stretch his back to feel his luonto had crept back where it belonged, sometime between him losing consciousness in the dream world and regaining it in the corporeal. Not only did Lalli get frightened out of his coma, but his luonto got scared straight back into him. That isn't supposed to happen.
Secondly, he saw her again.
Naked as she had been inside his space, and giving no indication at all that she felt the cold. Her arms were limp at her sides. Her black hair was still in the winds that rocked the tank's exterior. The same blue-eye-empty-socket stare was on him.
Lalli glanced at Tuuri and made his decision; Sigrun and Mikkel would stay. If that foreign god wanted to go for his cousin, she could go through Sigrun and Mikkel. It was not the best defense. But it was the only thing he could think of.
Reynir and Emil were coming with him. Reynir, because Lalli knew he was going to need another magical presence, however useless Reynir might actually prove to be. Emil, because Lalli knew he wasn't going to be able to set foot outside the tank today without Emil at his side.
He just hopes he hasn't lead them into something he cannot fight back, or scare off, or, if worst comes to worst, evade, by standing absolutely still and staying completely silent.
