Inactive - Chapter 12 The Book Of Greed

Rykar stood behind Loki with a look of bewilderment plastered across his face as he watched his brother separate the wolf from the net despite his continuous protests. The net was the only thing which gave them an upper hand and Loki was willingly throwing that advantage away.

Edging away from the scene, he watched from a distance as the wolf struggled to its feet. The vicious attack that he had been expecting, never came. After the wolf was freed, its first course of action was to stretch out its bruised muscles before rubbing fondly against Loki’s side.

“You have to be shitting me.” Low murmurs could be heard from behind Loki. Rykar’s jaw may as well have hit the floor from the amount of shock he was in. His head was fully tilted to the side, hanging loosely from his neck as the display of affection played out before him.

The change had happened too quickly, not even allowing enough time for the adrenaline to leave his system. It had gone from attacking the bush, to Loki being attacked by a wolf. Only to have the wolf trapped and battered before it changes sides, becoming all lovey dovey with Loki?!

And all it took was some ‘Do we have a deal?’ b*llshit that there’s no way a wild wolf should have understood?!?

‘Surely, I’m missing something here.’ Racking his brain, the only thing that didn’t add up was the movement within Loki’s tattoo and the appearance of the book. Despite only being able to see it from behind, it was unlike any of the books that Rykar had seen left on the shelf within the tree. The scene of the dark pages and grey cover materialising from thin are was still fresh in his mind as he began looking own at his own bare arm, inspecting his own tattoo for any weird changes.

Nothing.

There were absolutely no changes to himself. Even Loki’s tattoo showed none of the strange movements that it had previously, despite the book which was still siting within his hand serving as proof of what had occurred.

“So… are you going to tell me when you became a walking bookshelf or are you still planning to keep it to yourself? I mean yeah, I hid the net from you for a little while but I think this and that are kinda… different?” Rykar questioned his brother as he cautiously made his way over only after coming to the conclusion that the wolf was no longer hostile.

Hearing his brothers voice once again, Loki was finally woken up from his trance-like state as he looked from the book, to the wolf and then back again. “Would you believe me if I said I don’t have a clue what’s going on?” He paused for a moment before continuing, “While you were beating down the wolf… I felt like it started beg- no, more like it started offering itself to me.

“Then it was like a connection opened up between us, I can still feel it now. It’s like there’s a warm stream flowing from it into me… I can’t really explain haha. To be honest it hardly even felt like I was doing it. It all just… happened” Loki replied with uncertainty in his voice. His answer was filled with obscurity but there was no better explanation he could give.

Twisting the book in his hands, the hard cover presented itself to him along with complex grey symbols which danced across it. That wasn’t a metaphor. As Loki and Rykar watched, an uncountable number of symbols literally danced across the dark grey leather, coming together to form intricate shapes before dispersing once again only to reform later on and repeating the cycle.

“The Book of Greed” Loki muttered in a low voice as his fingers stroked the rough surface of the book.

“Huh?” Rykar looked up in confusion, “You’re telling me you can read that?” Neither of the twins had been taught to read or had even seen symbols before they found the tree, yet he could hear a certain degree of certainty in Loki’s voice.

“Yeah… well to be honest, it’s more like I can feel them? Let’s just say I can understand it although I can’t read it. I guess its because its mine?” Loki’s reply was just as much of a question as it was a statement.

“Err, okayyy…” Rykar let it slide as he watched on while Loki opened up the cover to reveal the first page. Taking up a quarter of the page, there was a life-like image of the wolf drawn onto the black page in what seemed to be a light grey ink. It seemed so realistic that it might come to life at any point like the symbols along the cover.

Besides this, there were a handful of symbols which took up the top right section of the page, leaving the majority of the space blank. “Any feelings coming from this?” Rykar asked suspiciously.

“Well… it’s basically the deal we made earlier. The conditions are that the wolf belongs to me and has become my possession. In exchange, we spare its life. It’s also in effect now, it must be because we made the deal and followed through.” Pausing for a moment, Loki went on to explain as best he could. In reality, he hardly understood the symbols himself. He could only draft a vague comprehension of their meaning through some unknown means.

As he skimmed through the rest of the pages, they all turned out blank. There were no instructions or clues anywhere else within the book, leaving the twins lost once again.

“Let me check!” Curiosity for the best of Rykar as he reached out and took the book from his brothers hands before he could protest. Holding onto the book for a moment, excitement welled up as though he had found a new toy, completely disregarding the wolf which was sat just a metre away.

As he began turning it over in his hands however, the once solid book dispersed into a puff of smoke before wafting back towards Loki and converging within his arm. Not a single trace of the book was left behind.

Unless you count the wolf that was sitting there, blankly staring at the two with an arrow still lodged in its behind.

“What the f*ck man, of course you would break it after two seconds!” Loki complained while inspecting his arm worriedly.

“Its cool, its just gone back in. you got it out before, just do it again.” Rykar said dismissively as though everything was in control. “Remember, you said that you did it on feeling. Stop poking your arm and focus, try and get back to the feeling of pulling it out of yourself, it’s a part of you.” Despite sounding confident, cold sweat was forming on Rykar’s back at the thought of breaking his brother’s new-found ability.

“Ok, ok. But I swear to god, this better work.” Loki finally began calming down. Taking a deep breath, he shut his eyes and attempted to recreate the feeling. Delving into himself, the mural of chains connecting and twisting began to take shape. Rather than feeing as though he was trying to draw the book out of himself, he began to feel as though he was pulling everything into himself. He desired not to be a link within the chain, but to be the hand at the end which held everything within its grasp.

“See, I told you its no big deal. You always get mad over nothing” Hearing Rykars voice once again, Loki opened his eyes once again and looked suspiciously at him before looking at his hands and finding the book of Greed sitting there once again.

The lightness of the book really was baffling. Despite it appearing in his hand, he hadn’t even felt the weight of it. While thinking of how uncomfortable the weightlessness of the book was, he grew surprised once again as the weight suddenly increased, becoming comparable to a normal book of its size.

The realism made him feel much more comfortable while holding it as it sat firmly in his palm.

“So, what are we going to do about this?” Rykar gestured towards the wolf which was still laying on the ground ahead of them.

“What do you mean? I just told you, its mine. Of course its coming back with us” Loki hardly offered an explanation as he took a few steps towards the wolf before crouching down to inspect its wound.

The wound had looked impressive from afar but it really wasn’t a big deal now that he was looking at it from up close. The arrow had gone in at a slanted angle so it went under the skin and a little of the flesh but it was hardly deep. Pulling it out, the wolf yelped while shivering in pain but that was all. Even the bleeding had only lasted a few minutes before coming to a halt.

Unfortunately, neither of the twins had any experience in first aid besides washing and wrapping a clean cloth around a wound so they left the wolf to its own devices. After laying and licking at the cut for a little while, even the wolf seemed to realise that it was nothing to strain itself over.

Situation resolved, neither of the twins had any desire to carry on their hunt. Turning around, they began to make their way back to the tree while picking up some of the usual fruits on the way back but were pleasantly surprised when the wolf stopped them with a bark.

Running back towards the brush that it had originally been crouched in, it pulled out the remains of a rabbit it had been eating before the rude interruption and presented it to the twins.

As Rykar looked over the body in disgust at first, his eyes soon lit up as he realised that, apart from one of the legs that had been partially eaten, the body was actually still intact!

The hunt for meat was a success! Neither of the twins could wait as they skipped back while picking up twigs and branches in order to start a fire.

“Hmm, I think I’ll call It Rykar.”

“Go ahead. I dare you.”