Following Hagrid's footsteps Loki asked, "Why're you carrying a lamp?"
"It gets quite dark in the forest."
"Even during the day?"
"Ye' even during the day.", Hagrid said as he continued walking down the trail while carrying a large hay bale in one hand over his shoulder and a stick with a lantern attached to its end in his other hand. His crossbow hung with a long rope on his waist.
As Loki stepped into the forest he began to see various magical animals all rushing about, either moving into their homes or sometimes burrowing right where they stood.
"Ye' see those green grass stalk-like figures moving around on the trees?"
"Yes." Loki nodded since although they were almost invisible because of how well they blended in with the trees, Loki's night vision plus the lamp in Hagrid's hand allowed him to clearly see the little creatures.
"Bowtruckles. That's what they're called. They only come out when someone familiar to them shows up, or when you have honey, that's their favourite."
"Are they hiding from me then?"
"Must be, since they're quite lively when I'm around."
"Do you have any honey?" Loki asked wondering if he could make friends with such fantastic creatures.
'Hmm…I wonder what'll happen if one of them drinks a beyonder potion.'
'Is Hagrid a beyonder too by the way? He should be right?'
"Not right now, but I'll bring some next time."
"What does a Diricawl look like?" Loki asked Hagrid since he needed a drop of blood from the creature and Hagrid said they lived in the forest earlier.
"They're little birds, don't wander away from their nests usually, and have a great sense of danger precognition that allows them to teleport away when they sense something wrong."
"Have you ever seen one?"
"I hav' seen the birthing of a new one just a few days ago another one's 'bout to hatch today, we could visit it when we return from the Unicorns' home."
"Sure." Loki nodded wondering if he could get the Diricawl's blood somehow.
As they walked deeper into the forest Hagrid pointed out several creatures for Loki to see, from mundane ones like rabbits and snakes to magical ones like Dugbog.
A Dugbog is an alligator-like creature that looks like a dead log while it is stationary since it has groups of mushrooms growing on top of it which it uses to attract other animals in the pond to prey on.
Hearing the clear *Neighing* of horses in the distance, Loki soon realised where they had arrived, "Are we here?"
"Yeh', they're just over this hill."
Climbing a little hill that looked like a hobbit hut Loki was finally able to see what Hagrid could.
An open field with loads of what appeared to be white horses that had a horn poking out their head grazing or playing became visible.
It seemed like the first *neigh* that Loki and Hagrid heard was a call to warn the other Unicorns that someone else was coming into their territory which caused all the white Unicorns to look up in warning while the golden ones mindlessly pranced about behind them.
Seeing Hagrid though, a Unicorn close by gave out a short *neigh* which allowed all the others to relax and slowly begin moving towards him.
As the Unicorns came close enough they bowed in Hagrid's direction but once they noticed Loki they slowly walked up to him and began to smell him while the other older horses began to eat the large Hay bales that looked comically small like cardboard boxes from Hagrid's shoulders.
Loki stood still since Hagrid hadn't allowed him to interact with the Unicorn yet and allowed the fancy horses to do whatever they were doing.
After a while, a young golden foal breached the encirclement and pranced into Loki bumping his stomach with the small hard bump on his forehead where his horn was growing.
"Ha! He likes you." Hagrid said with a short nod that allowed Loki to move by himself.
Taking advantage of the opportunity Loki immediately hugged the young foal and started to scratch it on its neck while it happily snorted on his shoulders.
Soon the foal lightly bit Loki's hand and started to drag him away into the field where its other friends were.
Soon while Hagrid was looking after the older white Unicorns, the younger ones were all playing with Loki and Fang, all of whom looked comically small in front of the larger Unicorns.
"Ha! I caught you!" Loki said with pride as he sat on a Unicorn foal.
But just as he was about to tease the Unicorn something sharp collected his robes on its end and picked him up to place him on the ground.
"Woah!!" Loki stumbled but after balancing, he found that an adult Unicorn had set him on the ground.
"What happened?" Loki asked worried that he'd done something wrong.
The Unicorn nodded in the direction behind him and caused Loki to turn away where he noticed Hagrid calling him.
"Goodbye, friends!" Loki said waving his hands for the foals who jumped with a soft *neigh* indicating how they enjoyed their time with him.
"Am I in trouble?" Loki asked arriving near Hagrid. "Sorry, I was just too lost having fun."
"Nah' don' worry 'bout it. Let's go, we've to leave if you want to catch the Diricawl hatching." Hagrid said with a soft smile.
Stepping through the forest with Hagrid once again, Loki found himself reminiscing the time he spent with the foals.
"You're missing the Unicorns?"
"Yeah, a bit."
"Ev'ryone does, Unicorns have the ability to calm the souls of those present by thei' side, so once you move away, yer body misses them."
"I didn't know that!" Loki exclaimed surprised at the new information.
"Not many know. Even their blood protects you from curses. But gathering blood from a unicorn by force curses the person using it so it's quite hard to come across some of it. Not even I'm allowed to harvest their blood."
Speaking to each other the rest of the way about magical animals, Loki and Hagrid finally arrived under a tree.
"Oh, it's hatching already!" Hagrid said as he spotted the nest and the two little Diricawls who were protecting the eggs.
"I can't see!" Loki complained since he was a lot shorter than Hagrid.
Hagrid quickly picked Loki with one hand and put him on his shoulder.
"Bette'?"
"Yeah!" Loki exclaimed softly and watched the small blue egg hatching.
A small black beak first poked through the hard shell and then it slowly crumpled under the repeated assaults of the chick inside.
The two Diricawls that had their guards raised against Loki and Hagrid soon relaxed when they saw the two doing nothing but watching.
The egg slowly broke down and by the end only a small, little ugly, featherless, covered in some blood, chick remained.
*Chirp* *Chirp*
*Huurrrr* *Huurrrr*
The chick tweeted and its mother calmly cleaned it up by plucking away any bits and pieces of the shell that remained stuck to its body.
Through the celebrations, Loki calmly extended his hand and smoothly postured his fingers to steal a few pieces of the blood covered shell and retreated before anyone realised what had happened.
Hagrid and Loki left the forest after that and once they reached Hagrid's hut Loki exclaimed, "That was the best trip ever! You've got to allow me to go on more of those Hagrid!"
"Haha! Fine, I'll let you know when I go to the Forbidden Forest the next time on." Hagrid nodded and patted Loki's shoulder almost dislocating it.
"Thank you! Truly!"
With a short thanks, Loki left back to go to the castle, where once inside Loki immediately rushed to a washroom, found himself a cubicle and performed a sacrifice ritual to himself.
What he sacrificed this time, was not money or even gems like he usually did, but pieces of an eggshell, they were precious pieces since they held the drop of blood of a newborn Diricawl.
"Got it!" Loki whispered as he stared at the drop of blood on the piece of shell on his table.
'I guess Sunny can become a Midnight Poet now.'
'Raising his sequence is important for me too…' Loki thought as he looked at the ritual required for him to become a Sequence 5 Dream Stealer. 'Appearing in the dream of a thousand people at once.'
'This is going to be complicated…well at least I have some time to work on it.'