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“Good morning!”
The greeting alone is enough to halt Minato mid-step. He knows what he’ll see, even before he turns – so he doesn’t. He simply lowers his foot back to the floor, and watches with a slow blue gaze as the ends of thick, braided tendrils begin to float past him. He hears, more than feels, the clink of gold chains against his sharp, bone-white jaw. When he tilts his head back, he finds exactly who he expected floating above him – bright golden eyes and a smile too pleased to mean anything good. “We don’t have that here,” Minato reminds him, eyes sliding away and over the dark scape of the underworld.
“Ah, but you are looking especially radiant today,” the Trickster claims, guiding Minato’s attention back with the tips of his claws scraping gently over his cheeks. “I had mistaken you for the sun.”
If he had a nose, he would snort. Luckily, he has a voice, and it’s dripping with sarcasm, “Must be the lack of sleep. It gives me that extra glow.” He quiets for a moment, waiting for the purpose of this visit. His shoulders fall slightly when he’s given nothing but blatant staring, the golden glow of the other’s eyes falling appreciatively over every part of him, as if seeing Minato for the first time rather than what could easily be the hundredth. “What do you want, Loki?”
A small shift in his expression, something like petulance, and he huffs as his hooves gently clack to stand on the ground. Not all that different from floating above him, Minato still has to keep his head tilted back to see his face. “Must you use the same name those idiot mortals do?”
Minato’s head tilts in a manner that implies amusement, though the only hint of it on his face is the faint glimmer in his eyes. “Right…what was it?” He touches the side of a curled finger to his jaw, tapping thoughtfully. “Gawa…Kichi…”
“Haha…” the Trickster laughs, but it’s a hollow little noise. The smile is struggling as his eyes lower to their feet. “Have you forgotten me so easily, Minato?”
Of course not, but it’s fun to make him sweat a little. Minato chuckles, a soft sound that vibrates the bones in his chest, “How could I, Goro?” In his second hand, he holds his staff, and now uses it to spear the height difference between them, pointing its end at Goro’s nose. “When you’re constantly here to remind me of your existence by getting in the way of my work?”
At the use of his true name, Goro nearly trills with delight. He meets the end of Minato’s staff, booping it gently with his nose. “Would that work happen to be assisting one awfully corrupt politician across your dark and lovely ocean?”
Slowly, Minato turns his attention from Goro to the vast body of water beside them, its surface calm and waiting, smooth as glass, like an endless black mirror. When his attention comes back, it brings a note of exasperation to his tone. “The way you ask gives me the distinct feeling that you had something to do with that.”
Goro closes his eyes, holds his arms out in an innocent shrug. Minato knows better than to believe there is anything innocent about it. “A wayward crow happened to startle him into tripping a balcony and plummeting to his – well-deserved – demise. Could happen to anyone.”
Yeah. Not buying that. “You’re shifting into crows now? Seems less flashy than your usual taste for transformation.”
Goro smiles, slow and oddly warm, as the clawed ends of his fingers parse the curtain of Minato’s bangs. “Perhaps I was inspired…” His hand lingers for a moment, its heat radiating against him, and then draws back. The sweeping tendrils of Goro's hair bounce slightly when he huffs, “He was a loathsome creature, taking advantage of the weak and powerless to climb the ranks, stuffing his own pockets with their suffering.” Then, abruptly, he brightens and hops off the ground, hands splaying with excitement. “Are you impressed?”
“No,” Minato tells him, flat and immediate. He isn’t angry, but it’s bothersome, and he has no qualms about expressing his annoyance. “His retribution was to come in its own time. You’re meddling in things that have nothing to do with you, and you want praise?”
Minato can see the sparkles fade from those eyes. Goro’s brows curl up as a small frown mars his lips. For all the imposing characteristics Goro posseses – the massive, curved horns, the sharp angles of his body and its spiraling pattern that leaves Minato as confused as the cheerful manner Goro uses to interact with him does – for all of that, the way he looks at Minato now almost seems childlike. Goro stares with a little frown and wide golden eyes, the softness of his cheeks delicately framed by his hair such a contrast to the the rest of him - dizzying angles and curved knife-edges. A body that allows nothing too close. “Yes,” Goro replies, light and honest and hopeful, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “I want your praise.”
The sincerity of it catches Minato off guard. Honesty is the very last thing one could expect from a Trickster, should you be stupid enough to expect it at all. He stares back, equally wide-eyed, and then suddenly puffs out a soft laugh, “Fool…”
Minato raises his hand. Hesitates. Then delicately traces his black fingers along the jutting edge of Akechi’s shoulder, through the fur of his mane and up the slope of his neck, finally settling at the soft curve of his cheek. The tips of his fingers begin to dissipate from the heat, a twinge of discomfort, separating like smoke. Goro closes his eyes and leans into his cold palm, and Minato sighs, “You don’t have to go so far for that.”
