Thirteen -
Matantei Loki Ragnarok, Yamino
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His shoulder hit the doorframe on the way out. Loki's eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

When the mess had been dealt with, the rest of tea cleared away, and Fenrir shooed out into the backyard, Loki cleared his throat. Yamino looked up at him, questioningly. Loki considered his son for a moment, then folded his hands together on his desk. "Yamino-kun."

"Ah. Loki-sama?"

"What is it that you are not telling me?"

"I--" Yamino laughed, a soft embarrassed sound, and ducked his head. "--oh dear. Is it that noticeable?"

"You knocked the teacup off the table. You hit your shoulder on the doorframe. Yesterday you hit your head on the underside of the kitchen counter, and unless I am gravely mistaken, that is a knife cut on the ball of your thumb. You were never clumsy, not like this. Yamino-kun, what is going on?"

"Ah." Yamino hesitated, then looked back up. "Loki-sama. I..." He trailed off. Suddenly and with great formality, Yamino clasped his hands together in front of his chest and bowed over them. "Loki-sama! If it is not too much trouble I would like to request a day off!"

"A day off?" Loki frowned slightly. "You've never asked for a day off before. What..." He trailed off there and looked, really looked, at his son. The little lines that bracketed his mouth were slightly deeper, and Yamino had grown crow's feet at the corners of his eyes, which had an odd dull sheen he'd never seen before... "Ah," he breathed. "I see. Or, more to the point, you don't see."

"No, Loki-sama. Not very well," Yamino admitted.

"Fine, fine," Loki said irritably, dismissing the whole situation with a wave of his hand. "Take tomorrow off."

"You'll be all right?" Yamino pushed up his spectacles, now distinctly nervous. "I realize it's a terrible imposition to leave you on your own--"

"Yamino-kun." Loki narrowed his eyes. Yamino meeped and shut up. "I think I'm perfectly capable of surviving without you for twenty-four hours."

"Y-yes, Loki-sama."

=====

Early the next morning a extraordinarily tall and slender man, no longer young, disembarked from a cab at a location that was miles away from anything except the sea. He politely thanked the openly dubious driver and, a moment later, nearly tripped over the curb. Still, there was no harm done, and after a flurry of apologies and protests the cabby hesitantly accepted his fare (and his extraordinarily generous tip) and drove away. He needs his prescription checked, the cabby thought to himself, watching the man dwindle to a reasonable size in his rearview mirror.

The man watched him go, then turned around and headed towards the lulling sound of the water.

=====

"Daddy! Daddy! What's screaming, Daddy?"
"This--unh--infernal plastic box on the wall--rgh--it doesn't like smoke, apparently--"
reet! reet! reet! reet!
"Be quiet, you box!--Fenrir."
"'a'y?"
"If you think you can make off with my toast while I am distracted, I urge you to think again."

=====

Ten minutes later all that was left of the man was a pile of neatly-folded clothes, wrapped carefully in a plastic bag to preserve them from the dampness and set high on a rock overlooking the sea.

It was to be a day of extraordinarily high tides.

=====

"This is good, Daddy!"
"..."
"See, we don't need Brother after all! We'll be just fine on our own!"
"... Fenrir, Yamino-kun made this and left it in the refrigerator."
"... oh."

=====

The coral reef was thousands and thousand of years old, home to a billion tiny sea-creatures. Its prodigious size and sharp edges had caught his eye almost a thousand years ago, and ever since then he'd always returned, looping once about Australia before snaking out across the Pacific. His midsection touched the tip of South America, and his tail wove carefully through the scattering of tiny islands before brushing lazily against Africa and ending, eventually, coiled and tucked into the Indian Ocean.

The world-girdling snake bumped his dull snout against the coral reef. The reef shuddered, but held, except for a few tiny outcroppings, which shattered like glass. The ocean was suddenly alive with the silverings of a thousand thousand terrified fish; the snake ignored them as a man might ignore dust particles and scraped his snout against the reef again, seeking to scratch an age-old itch. His eyes were cloudy and opaque.

Five minutes later dead scaley skin was starting to peel away from his snout, revealing the gleam of new green scales, almost black at this depth.

=====

"Oh, Loki-kun, it's all right! Come on, Narugami-kun is working at that new curry restaurant in the shopping district, we can all go there for dinner instead!"
"... I don't like curry."
"Don't be silly, Loki-kun! Come on..."
"Mayura--"
"No no no! No arguing!"

=====

Stretched out along the sea floor, the snake closed his newly gleaming black eyes and undulated gently, shrugging off his miles-long skin a few tortuous feet at a time, scraping it off against the sides of continents, adding his own stresses to the planet's tectonic plates.

All over the world the waves were high and aggravated and choppy, a surfer's dream and a sailor's nightmare; the high waves tended to run in slow cycles, five minutes of high water, five minutes of normal.

Seismographs all over the world were registering low and constant earthquakes. Animals fretted and bit at each other. Tons of sand were washed into the sea by the pounding waves, devaluing beachfront property all over the world. Ice broke from the polar icecaps in great sheets, the snake's shedding of its skin giving birth to icebergs in its wake.

=====

"..."
"..."
"..."
"... this doesn't taste good either, does it."
"No, Daddy."
"Ice cream?"
"Yay Daddy!"

=====

After twelve hours, the waves calmed, leaving the seas high but otherwise normal. The seismographs stopped clattering as abruptly as they'd started, leaving scientists scratching their heads and searching for answers; formerly irritated animals laid down and slept, calm again.

An hour after that the seas dropped back to their normal level--almost. Water all over the world ran an inch or so higher than before, as if something huge had left, and something else, something not quite so enormous, had been left behind.

=====

Loki woke the next morning to the welcome sound of Yamino clattering about in the kitchen, and Fenrir yelping with glee. "Brother! Brother! Brother! More!"

When he eventually stumped downstairs in his bathrobe breakfast was already waiting, and it was unburnt and excellent, and Yamino darted about the kitchen as if he were ten years younger, hopping over Fenrir with alacrity to make Loki his (wonderful) morning tea. Loki--not a morning god by any means--grunted and ate, swinging his slippered feet under the table.

Yamino beamed and fed Fenrir until the poor dog gave up and waddled off to lay down and digest, his little belly as round and tight as a drumhead. Loki's teacup barely emptied before Yamino was right there to fill it up again, and after breakfast Loki was awake enough to say, "... Yamino-kun."

Yamino looked up. His face was clear and unlined and touched lightly with color, and his eyes--the skin around them smooth again--were bright and clear, gleaming behind his little spectacles. "Yes, Loki-sama?"

Loki studied his son's face with something like approval, then turned to his newspaper, with its headline: MINOR EARTHQUAKES, HIGH TIDES REPORTED WORLDWIDE--SCIENTISTS BAFFLED. "More tea, please, Yamino-kun."

"Yes!"