Noxious [DenNor]

15.

"I don't want to be here."

"Well, that's not a very positive attitude to have. Try to think of this as an adventure!"

"You tricked me into going hiking with you. Who does that?"

"I didn't trick you into anything. That was all Norge."

"Way to throw me under the bus, Dane."

Evening broadened across the dense, Finnish timberland in an icy wash of blues and greys as three lone travelers trekked in a bickering procession up the side of a mountain. Mathias wasn't sure how long they had been at it, but if the cramps in his legs were any indicator, it had been a while. The sun was well on its way down, leaving them minimal light to work with.

In spite of the aching of his legs, a painful reminder of how little he had been working out lately, Mathias managed to keep a pretty steady pace a few feet behind Lukas, who moved, as always, like a ghost across ice. The only sign that the nimble Norwegian may have been the slightest bit weary was the occasional huff. And, for all Denmark knew, those might very well have been nothing more than one of his usual sighs of exasperation

"Are we there yet?" Emil, who trudged along several feet behind, groaned.

"Actually," began Lukas, slowing to a stop. He upturned his face to the distant treetops, and upon following his gaze, Mathias was met by the sight of what appeared to be a wide, stone pillar erected from the ground perhaps thirty meters ahead. "we are. C'mon."

Encouraged by the sight of their destination, Mathias gathered enough willpower to powerwalk forward so that he was moving in stride with Lukas. "So?"

"The word 'so' isn't a complete question, I'm afraid."

Denmark rubbed the calloused palms of his hands together, warming them as he furthered his prior inquiry. "So what are we supposed to do up here? What's supposed to happen? Will it hurt? Do we have to sacrifice Icey?"

"Excuse you?" came Iceland's indignant voice from behind. "Sacrifice?"

Lukas rolled his eyes. "No one is going to be sacrificed. What's going to happen is... Well, it's... actually kind of complicated. There's a tomb here, and-"

"Sweet! We get to excavate a corpse?!" Mathias butt in.

Again, Emil's increasingly concerned voice piped up. "We have to dig up a grave? Jesus, Norway, what are you dragging me into?"

"No, and no. Will you stop interrupting me?" Lukas cut them both a brief, irritable glance.

"Yeah. Undskyld." Guiltily, Mathias clamped his mouth shut.

"What's going to happen is this. I'm going to open up this tomb. Only, it isn't a tomb. That's just what England, Romania, and I started calling it when we had to... take care of a situation in the past. All you need to know is that this place is really more like a- Well, a wormhole. To different realities."

Denmark scratched the top of his head. "I'm... not following." Was this what Lukas did in his freetime? If so, Mathias really needed to start keeping a closer eye on him. He knew the Norwegian was into freaky-deaky things like trolls and goblins and whatnot. But wormholes to other realities? That sounded just probable enough to get him thrown into a loony-bin.

Stopping before the pillar, Lukas only sighed. "No, I didn't think you would. Now stand back, both of you. I can't exactly help you if you get swallowed whole by the ground."

"Norge, what exactly-" he began, apprehension flaring up across his expression. The glare Lukas shot him at that moment was enough to both shut him up, and make him obey. So, with Emil soldiering along at his side, he took a few paces back and watched as Lukas unzipped his blue bag and began pulling out what appeared to be small, shiny stones.