“That’s … amazing,” she breathed, pausing as she picked her way down the sand, barefoot. The wind swirled her short skirts around her knees and yanked wisps loose from her braid. She slipped closer, one hand lifted as if to touch it, green eyes huge.
“So beautiful.”
The horse twisted into a savage lion, snarling soundlessly at the girl, before collapsing back into the ocean, Loki’s concentration lost immediately. His hands dropped back to his sides.
“You again” was his only reply. She had been the one who had gotten on his nerves, pressing him for answers, assuming she could tell his emotions. He pushed the resulting irritation from the memory back down.
She just laughed at the transformation, reaching hands out into the spray. Out here, on all the boundary lines and the juxtaposition of all four elements, even the twinge of his dislike couldn’t bother her long. “Yes, me again.”
“I thought I had made my dislike of you quite clear,” he stated, the calmness transforming into something else, bristling with not-quite hostility, yet lacking in any warmth or kindness. The air crackled subtly around him, a warning to her: get too close, she would be harmed, and badly.
“It’s a free beach,” she said peaceably, wading a few steps out into the waves. “If it makes you feel better you can make more water animals to attack me.” She looked over her shoulder and grinned, almost daring him to take offense at her good mood.