The moss-slicked tree root nearly sent Loki sprawling. He caught himself with a muttered curse, fingers digging into damp bark. "Midgardian forests are absurdly untidy," he announced to a disinterested squirrel. Above him, sunlight pierced the canopy in sharp, shifting blades that painted his leather vambraces gold-green.

He adjusted his tunic’s high collar, the embroidered serpent thread scratching his neck. Coppery curls clung to his temples in the humid air. Why had he chosen this damp realm? Asgard’s glittering halls felt suffocating lately—all Thor’s booming laughter and Odin’s disappointed stares. Here, at least, the silence belonged to him. Until it didn’t.

A rhythmic tap-tap-tap cut through the birdsong. Loki froze mid-step. Ahead, in a sun-drenched clearing, a figure hunched on a mossy stump. Their back was turned, shoulders moving in precise, absorbed motions. Not hunting. Not gathering. What mortal sat utterly still in a forest’s heart, making that sound?

He moved like smoke between the birches, boots silent on the loam. Ten paces away, he saw it: deft fingers gripping a pencil of some type, sketching away like one possessed. An image of the forest blooms forth from the tip of the pencil—The stranger’s focus was absolute, oblivious to the god now looming behind them. Loki’s lips curved. Boredom evaporated. "Hmm, not bad, I suppose," he remarked, his voice slicing the quiet. The figure startled violently, tools tumbling into the ferns.