*****

"Ah, Riveria! Finn told me back in the manor that you had something important to do in the marketplace so I thought I'd join. Also, I brought Ais with me." Loki, the Goddess head of the Loki familia, has revealed herself.

Riveria turned around to greet the new arrival, with a frown on her face, of course. There stood Goddess Loki, head of the Loki familia, and her current bodyguard, Ais Wallenstein, standing just a step behind her.

Ais waved a hand, "Welcome back."

Riveria gave a nod in return before turning to look at Loki once again. "Do you have any business with me, Lady Loki? I am quite busy so I would appreciate it if you hurry."

"No, none at all." Loki waved her hand in dismissal, "Like I said, I just wanted to tag along."

She paused and turned toward the direction of the bird.

"Been meaning to ask but… who let the monster in?" She said, her finger darting toward the flaming bird.

Ais has been meaning to ask as well, and she was also wondering why it hasn't been killed or captured yet.

"It's a companion of someone that you don't have to know," Riveria plainly said, "Now, if you don't have anything else to say to me, please go somewhere else, I'm busy."

The goddess looked at her for a moment before grinning mischievously, "You're tryna hide something, ain't ya?"

To this statement, Riveria couldn't help but frown. There it is, her Goddess' signature grin.

When Riveria was just about to try to divert the goddess' attention to another thing, she felt a tug on her coat, the cause of which was the strange girl in a huge cloak. Her small hand pointed toward a tomato vendor.

"Just the best timing," Riveria thought before walking up to the vendor and paying for whatever the tomato the girl took, watching her walk up to another vendor in her peripheral vision, the bird closely following behind her.

"What are ya doin', Riveria?" Loki asked, watching her child pay on someone else's behalf, before turning to look in that someone's direction.

"Being a wallet to someone we have bothered, Lady Loki. Now, if you could please leave and don't bother us so we could speed this up and be done with it." Roveria said.

The goddess approached the cloaked person, "Nah, my guts are tellin' me this is gon' be interesting, so I'm stayin'." She said as she walked around the flaming bird and then around the huge bag and stood in front of the cloaked person, Ais following closely behind.

Riveria could only frown in frustration, this just became annoying.

The girl's shopping has been going smoothly so far, she even got herself some tomatoes, which she didn't have. On her way to a stand selling bell peppers, she was stopped by some redheaded guy accompanied by a blond girl. She attempted to go around them to get to the bell peppers, but the redhead kept standing in her way with a grin on his face.

Frowning in annoyance, the girl contemplated if she should blow this redhead away. "What's wrong with this guy?"  She muttered loudly, not expecting him to understand, and jumped over the both of them with the help of her magic.

Loki ignored the rude misunderstanding regarding her appearance in favor of focusing on the stunt the girl(she assume from her voice) just pulled.

Finally away from the annoying redhead, the girl ignored the looks she got and proceeded to pack up a bunch of bell peppers before turning to the elf, who is already a few steps beside her, coin pouch on hand.

She turned to continue shopping for other things only to flinch back when she almost bumped into the redheaded guy(blondie standing next to him), making her frown in annoyance before trying to go around her.

"Now now, don't be like that," Loki wrapped her right arm around the girl's cloaked head, stopping her in her tracks. The bird screeched just loud enough to warn her to get away from the girl. This action made Riveria frown in caution in case her goddess does anything that will anger the bird, as well as the girl.

"What is it now!? Don't bother me!" The girl thought in annoyance. She was just about to raise her hand to blow the man away when she realized something crucial…

"You…" She looked at the man in disbelief, "I understand you..?"

Her heart was pounding loudly within her chest as she impatiently waited for the man's words, her hands trembling in anticipation and fright.

Loki looked at her with a confused frown as she finally answers her, "Of course I can, I'm a goddess."

Her eyes widened after hearing the confirmation, her trembling hands covering her mouth as she struggled to keep it in place. The girl didn't know what to make of this information. She was happy that she can finally converse with someone but at the same time, she was afraid of doing so. She hasn't spoken with anyone in five years, and the thought of suddenly speaking with someone has made her freeze in place.

He seemed friendly, with a carefree demeanor. But for the girl, the words of the stranger were enough to send her anxiety spiraling. Her mind conjured up a thousand worst-case scenarios, each one more terrifying than the last.

Her head was suddenly full of thoughts and her heart was flooded with anxiety. 

"W-what do I say, should I greet him? But how!? Should I say hello!? But what if he gets mad that someone like me spoke to him!? What do I do!?" Such thoughts dreaded her and filled her with even more anxiety, she was so grateful for her cloak that none of them could see her face at this moment, meaning she didn't have to make eye contact.

Loki looked at the hidden face of the girl, beads of sweat were going down her chin. Just from a glance at this, Loki could understand what the girl was feeling. So she did what any decent person would do to help.

Bother her more.

Who can blame her? She's the goddess of mischief for a reason, and teasing a cute girl was one of the things she enjoys.

"What's wrong? Are you not going to say anything, hm?" She leaned closer toward the girl, making her visibly flinch.

Dozens of scenarios played in the girl's mind as her breathing became ragged, some are good while most are bad, none of which did she have the courage to act upon.

Meanwhile, Riveria was looking at the two of them with a wary expression, while Ais was intently looking at the clearly distressed monster bird, her hand resting on the hilt of her weapon in case it strikes.

"Hey, say something," Loki presses on, trying to make the girl speak up. The girl starts stuttering, unable to form any coherent sentences.

Loki watched the girl with amusement before she comes up with a not-so-polite idea. "If you don't talk, I'll pull your hood down, you know?" She said in a mischievous tone, her free hand slowly reaching for the girl's hood.

"What!? You can't do that! You can't do that! You can't do that!" The girl watched in horror as the hand of the goddess slowly crept to her hood.

She looked at it like it was a disease, with every inch it came closer, the more beads of sweat flowed down the sides of her face. Panic surged through the girl's veins like an electric shock. She froze, her body paralyzed by fear. The world around her blurred as her thoughts raced, afraid of her face possibly being exposed to anyone who knew of it.

As his hand touched her hood, her face contorted into that of absolute terror. Emotions of dread and thoughts of the worst filled the entirety of her heart and mind as the redhead's hand slowly pulled down her hood, she was overwhelmed to the bone her mana flared and burst out of her body in the form of a powerful gust of wind, pushing anything near her away.

The wind affected most of the stands and vendors, their merchandise littered the ground while barrels and crates were broken, stand roofs were flipped over, and even her huge bag was flung away, its shoulder straps torn and ripped. The gust of wind settled down as her mana calmed down, she looked around in fright at what she had just done, her mind racing from one thought to another, unable to notice that her hood was pulled down by the wind. Her red eye glowed brightly as it held within a flickering and deformed three-pointed star.

The goddess flew into a wall after being hit by her wind point-blank, while Ais, along with Riveria, was pushed back by her wind over a few meters, and powerless passersby that were affected were grunting on the ground, clutching onto their parts that ached from being injured. The bird was also flung away, and it had to take the air in order to avoid any damage to the surroundings with its huge body.

The girl's breathing became even more frantic and tears started running down her face. This wasn't the first time her magic went out of control, but that was always away from anyone and anything. As her different colored eyes took in the view of the once peaceful street, her heart pounded harder as she was filled with pain and guilt. She wanted to apologize, but she was frozen in place, afraid of what might happen next. She flinched when a person shouted, their angry pained voice clearly directed at her.

She turned to look at the person as if it was a necessity. Her eyes laid upon an angry man standing over his broken-down stand, and another one joined, hurling their complaints toward her, and then another, and another, until there were over a dozen people shouting curses at her.

Even more tears poured down the girl's eyes as the people shouted at her louder than the last. This was different from when bandits would shout at her. Those were just threatening, these shouts were complaints and insults, it was a different kind of hostility. Looks of disapproval and hate, judging looks directed right at her. Something that the girl couldn't handle.

Riveria watched the scene while Ais checked up on Lokie. "This has gone out of control, and all of it is because I didn't stop Loki from misbehaving…" Guilt filled her as she watched the girl look around in fright as people shouted blames at her.

Soon, guards came to the scene to assess the situation and clean it up. Upon seeing the bird monster, they assumed that it caused this commotion and surrounded it in order to subjugate it. The bird looked at them before it opened its wings, it hovered in place for a few moments, looking at the distressed girl, before it flew high above the clouds and left the city, going unnoticed by the girl. The guards grunted in frustration as they watched the monster escape.

The girl frantically looked around, hoping that something, anything, could help her out of this situation. Upon finding nothing, all the girl could think of was to escape from that area. Without her controlling it, her mana flared and lifted her off the ground in response to her desire to escape.

"Abhi..?"

But before her magic could lift her away from the area, a familiar word, and voice selectfully made it to her sensitive ears.

To her absolute horror, her body moved on its own and turned toward the owner of the voice. Standing behind the angry mob was a familiar-looking female maid, it was…

*****

SORAhasGONE

Loki underestimated how bad Abhi's mental state was at that moment after learning someone could understand her. Sucks, doesn't it?

Just so you know, when a person is anxious and panics, they tend to think of the worst-case scenario. For Abhi, that can't be more true. It's called catastrophizing.

I forgot to add this in! This story is now crossposted in Royal Road here!