Chapter 32 Sus

"Oi, she's finally awake," Gareth said.

Sure kidnapper, pretend she was just napping.

The small girl tugged hard on my necklace, but I didn't move.

"Hey, let go," I said.

"Mom?" she said, still waking up.

"No I'm not your mom, now let go," I said, grabbing her hand and trying to pry the fingers off without accidentally breaking them.

"That's a very odd seed, I can feel a very potent magical presence from it," Riviera said. "Can I see it?"

"What? No. Get this kid off me."

"She's about yer age," Gareth said, pulling her away.

"Well I don't go around calling random people mom."

"We need to go before we draw any more unwanted attention," Finn said. "Can one of you grab him?"

WTF?!

"Ayo, no, mister Finn I'm flattered, but I don't swing that way, also I think that's illegal anyways."

He just stared flatly at me for a moment then began walking away. I turned to Riviera because I'd rather be carried by the beautiful Elven woman, but I was quickly thrown over Gareth's shoulder, and they began to jog through the streets. Well for them it looked like a leisurely jog, but for me it was a blur of motion.

In only a few minutes we had reached a manor that consisted of several towers interlinked by walkways with a larger tower in the middle. The Twilight Manor was the home base of the Loki Familia, and it sat in the northernmost part of the city, opposite of the Freya Familia's own base.

A beautiful garden with plenty of herbs decorated the front, I recogized some and salivated at the thought of stealing some of the rare seeds. What use did a dungeon crawling Familia have with them anyways. I'm sure they wouldn't mind me taking a few after wrongfully kidnapping me.

Speaking of.

"I wonder how far deep you'll bury me in this garden once you're done. At least I'll be feeding the plants."

"We arn't gonna kill ya," Gareth said.

Ok, no reason for them to lie now that I'm stuck in their home base, that also meant that they probably didn't have any bad intentions for Aiz either, which was a relief.

"No! Let me go! I need to find mom and dad! They need help!" Aiz yelled.

I hadn't been able to hear before because of the rushing wind but she had woken up completely and was now fighting with Gareth. Deciding I could take care of myself he dropped me roughly on the ground.

"Oi lass, stop yer yellin' it's okay now."

"Let! Me! Go!" She yelled elbowing Gareth roughly, though it did nothing to him.

"Gareth, you and Riveria take her to a room, and grab Loki while you're out there, I'm sure she can help us out."

They left with the struggling girl, I had expected her to be more quiet. From her like two panels in the manga she seemed like the shy type. Obviously she had some history shit going on so maybe that was the cause. Either way I just watched as she was pulled away yelling at the top of her lungs.

"Sit down please young man," Finn said.

"Ok bro, I just gotta say, this is sus as hell. I get it, being gay can be difficult, finding a partner, ostracization, all that, but you don't need to go after 7 year olds."

Finn pinched his brow. "I'm not gay and also not a pedo, please sit kid."

"Fine, fine, but I'm watching you."

We sat at a table not far into the castle, a few others looked at me oddly while going about their daily routine.

Finn sat me down and talked to me for a few minutes, covering his bases in telling me that they were in fact not kidnapping a girl in a random alley.

"Ok ok Finn, captain Finn? Mister Finn?"

"Just Finn."

"Sweet, I get it, but why bring me here, even if I did say anything you could just ignore it as slander like I'm sure you get all the time."

"Well you could say I didn't want to leave a bad impression on a random kid, we are suppose to be beacons of bravery and justice after all, but I just had an odd feeling about you."

"Ok bro, stop, this is why I thought you were gay, you don't just go up to a kid kidnap him and say you had an odd feeling about him."

"Fine fine, I uh, something about you didn't feel right."

"Thank you, at least make it seem like I'm suspicious instead of delectable."

Finn scrunched up his nose when I said that.

"Well Kova Nact of the Hephaestus Familia I'm sorry if we inconvenienced you so. I hope none of your shopping errands were ruined because of us."

That wasn't ominous at all. I looked down at the bags that carried the gifts that I had gotten for the people I cared about and shrugged.

"No biggie, I'm just glad to see that you're not actually terrible people in disguise."

"It's good we alleviated those fears."

I awkwardly tapped my knees then stood.

"Well-"

"Finn, that new girl you dragged in is being a bit of- oh my who is this?"

I turned to see a tomboyish woman with vermillion red hair and squinted eyes. She had a weird half tube top half hoodie thing going on for a shirt and short shorts on. I knew her from descriptions I have gotten, and seeing the goddess with my own eyes proved that she was as flat as the rumors said.

Flat is justice, but there wasn't even a hint of breast on her. I still had a suspicion that she could actually be a man in disguise and used her tomboyish looks to fool everyone. Of course I wasn't going to bring that up in her home.

"I should go."

"This is Kova from the Hephaestus Familia, we invited him over after a misunderstanding," Finn said, trying to keep me there. His weird spider sense may have been going off still.

"Hmm," Her smile grew wide and her eyes opened slightly. "You know boy, it's kind of rude to think you can trick the goddess of trickery right?"

She had seen through my super coat immediately. There had been times before when I had walked past a deity and they hadn't even glanced at me, but apparently Loki could see through it.

Shit, need a distraction.

" I don't care what the other Deities say, there's nothing wrong with cross dressing Loki, you do you."

"What?!" She yelled frozen in place.

I ran out the front door.