Menel

by Lalaith Quetzalli

-Post 1.13 TRACKS-. As Skye lay on that cellar, bleeding to death, she did something she hadn't done in years, she called for her mom... and someone answered... When Skye is close to death someone actually hears her call for help, her blood-family. They will do anything to protect her. (Better summary inside) OneShot. Connection with the Thor movies and Avengers.

In the past, a woman risking her life to make sure her greatest treasure is protected; in the present a young woman fighting with all her will to live. In the past a family breaking apart, in the present a lonely child crying for what she's never had. Only when the two come together will they reveal the true sky...

I might just call this, the impossible story; because there's just no way this will ever happen; however, my muse just insisted on this being written, so here it is. I know for a One-Shot it is very, very long, but it was necessary, I just needed to get this fic out before the next episode came out. I hope at least someone will like it (hinthint).

Scenes in italics are the past (first distant, then closer). The rest is the present, though it too advances until we reach the end of AoS 1.13 TRACKS. Goes completely AU after that episode.

Disclaimer: I keep forgetting to write this in my fics nowadays, but it should be obvious, right? I own nothing, except maybe what characters you might not recognize, and the fic itself. I also should point out that this fic is in no way connected to my Nightingale series (though Loki does have an important part here, because I just cannot help myself when it comes to him!).

Menel

By: Lalaith Quetzalli

---

A woman was standing in the shade of a tree, golden skin, a little over five and a half feet tall, with light brown loose curls falling down her shoulders and small honey-brown eyes, she was dressed in a soft green gown long to the ground, with a wide round neckline, bell-like long sleeves and delicate white embroidery in the hem. Around her neck was a gold locket, round, with a design of elaborate knots engraved in the middle, surrounded by a ring of other symbols. It was a family heirloom. Her feet were bare. And her hands... they were poised delicately together, just above her middle, above the swell of her belly...

The wind seemed to change abruptly, if only for an instant, and in the next second the woman was alone no more in that meadow. Standing just a couple of feet away was a man, almost all of six feet tall, with a slim, athletic build, alabaster skin, stormy eyes, short wild, raven hair; dressed in a green tunic, dark leather breeches and equally dark leather boots; all of it half-hidden by a tanned-cloak.

"Serrure..." She whispered in the softest voice, an almost angelic smile on her face.

"Tawariel..." He whispered in the same tone, pushing back the hood and then fully dropping the cloak with a couple of smooth moves.

It looked like he was about to rush her, but before he could the woman, Tawariel, raised a hand in a stopping motion. When she moved the other more fully to her bump, Serrure followed it, understanding the motion in an instant.

"You're..." He was in shock.

"With child." She confirmed. "Your child..."

In the next instant he was holding her, by the hips, much more delicately than he might have, hadn't he known of her condition, then he proceeded to raise her into the air and spin her around; joyful laughter pouring from his mouth, a melody that was doubled when hers joined it.

"You're amazing!" He announced after a while, when he finally set her back on her feet. "The most amazing woman I've ever met. My elven princess..."

"You know I haven't been a princess for the longest time... not Tawariel, just Tawar." She reminded him in an almost chastising tone, but with a smile still on her lips.

"For me you will always be a princess, my Tawariel, the same lady who bewitched me body and soul from the first moment I laid eyes on her." He declared passionately. "And now our joy is to be multiplied, with the addition of a child..." His voice quieted slightly as he added. "I wish I could take you home, to my home I mean. To Asgard... make you my wife, give you the life you deserve... wish I could recognize this child as mine, as is proper..."

"But we cannot, and we both know the reasons why, your father would never approve." She reminded him quietly. "And as wonderful as your mother might be, she cannot change that." She shook her head. "Also, never blame yourself for the life I've had. It is the life I chose, both for you and for myself. And even if the rest of the universe can never know about us, we know, and that's what matters. Our daughter will know who her father is, and that's what will matter..."

"Daughter?" He inquired, interested.

"I've seen hr in my dreams." She informed him. "Though her image is blurry. My precognitive abilities are not the best, of course. Still, I have seen her..."

With a touch to his temple, she shared the image with him: of a girl with sun-kissed skin, waves of light-brown hair falling down her back and doe eyes; the clothes she was wearing were quite different to what the parents could readily identify, either from Alfheim or Asgard, however, that did not actually matter; the child was smiling in the dream-image, with a look that seemed to hide a thousand secrets. She seemed happy, only that mattered.

"That's all I've seen clearly." Tawariel informed him. "I know not why she's wearing such clothes, or where she is..."

"It doesn't matter, we'll have time to find out all those details." Serrure assured her. "All that matters is that we're having a happy, beautiful little girl. Identical to her mother..."

"Wish she had your eyes." She whispered, caressing his face. "I do love your eyes, the changing colors, they're like the ever changing skies, from clear, to clouded to a raging storm..."

"She will be a copy of her gorgeous mother, and that is enough for me." He insisted.

Then he proceeded to prove just how happy he was by kissing her breathless.

xXx

In a S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy in the United Kingdom, a tall brunette with light brown eyes stood in front of what was known as the Wall of Valor. A marble wall that included the name of every S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent in history that had fallen in the line of duty; for an outsider it would seem that she was like any other wannabe-Agent, or even a Rookie, taking in the piece of history the memorial represented; however, her eyes were actually fixed on one single name: Agent L. Avery; a name that meant so much to her, she could hardly put it into words.

One thing kept running through her mind right then, the words that Agent Coulson, the Senior Agent and Leader of the Special Team she worked with as a Consultant, had been with for months. She had betrayed him at some point, putting her desire, her need for answers concerning her own past above her wish for friends and a family, above the love that was growing in her for the mismatched members of the Team. Yet he had forgiven her, and with time she'd managed to make amends, to make things right.

Earlier that day he had revealed to her what he'd found out, the truth about her past; and despite of her old self-assurances, it been worse than anything she could have imagined, in some ways; in others... in others it was amazing, breath-taking... to know that so many people had fought, had died to protect her. While the deaths themselves were certainly a tragedy, especially those of civilians; knowing that people, all who had never known her, some who weren't even fighters, had done all they could to keep her safe... it awed and humbled her at the same time.

She had a family, maybe not the family she'd expected, dreamt of, or even hoped for in a corner of her mind. But somehow it was much better. It was a family where blood did not matter; where the bonds went beyond that, were formed from much more than that. She remembered the words Coulson had said, when he'd shattered her reality, thoroughly destroyed everything she had once believed about the world, and her place in it; yet, at the same time, she also remembered the words she herself had said in answer; when her heart had finally stopped thudding and her brain cleared enough to at least half process her new reality:

"No, my story does not end it, it starts here, it started here..." She whispered. "I... for the longest time I've believed that no family wanted me, that I wasn't enough; I thought that even my parents hadn't loved me. And now... now I found out it wasn't about the families, or that I wasn't good, or enough, or loved, it was all about my safety. Those families might not have been able to keep me, but that doesn't matter either, because I've always had a family, one that's been protecting me for as long as I've lived; who's always looked after me. That's S.H.I.E.L.D., S.H.I.E.L.D. is my family, and it always will be..."

xXx

Tawar was pacing that morning, from one side of the clearing to the other; though she stopped every few minutes to rest. The swell of her belly was more pronounced, showing she was more than halfway through her pregnancy by that point.

Serrure appeared in the clearing at some point during her pacing; he was about to rush her and kiss her, wanting to feel the life growing beneath his beloved's skin; and then he noticed the tension in her every muscle.

"What is wrong?" He asked quietly, worried.

Tawar reacted to the sound of someone else in the clearing with her instinctively, spinning around sharply, one arm going around her belly, protectively, while with the other she wielded a silver dagger. It was the last part that shocked Serrure the most; his beloved was not a fighter, had never been, she actually abhorred violence above all else, to see her holding a weapon, even one as beautiful as the delicate silver dagger on her hand, seemed completely wrong.

"Melamin (My love)?" He called, using her language so as to set her at ease. "Lle tyava quel (Do you feel well)?"

"Aye..." She eventually calmed down, switching to Common Tongue. "You just surprised me."

"I could tell." He murmured, taking the dagger from her slowly and going to embrace her. "What has happened to make you decide to take a weapon. You hate violence..."

"I may hate a lot of things, but that does not mean I wouldn't fight to protect what I love." Tawar assured him, melting into his arms.

"I believe you." He assured her. "But what has made you believe this is necessary."

"Your father knows about me, and about the child..." She revealed quietly, sadly.

"What?!" He was shocked. "That's not possible! I've taken every precaution..."

"I think it is possible that he knew about me all along." She explained him. "It's just... as long as I wasn't a threat to his power, he was leaving me alone. Now..."

"You're still no threat to him." He insisted.

"You know his delusions better than most. The things he's come to believe... the thing he's done to your other children..." She shook her head repeatedly. "I will not allow that kind of tragic fate to befall any child of mine."

"You have a plan..." It wasn't a question.

"I'm leaving." She announced, backtracking after seeing his desolate expression. "Not you, I mean this place. I cannot stay here, not when he could come for me, for s at any moment. I need to depart before I enter my last trimester, by then it will be too dangerous for my baby to travel. I was just waiting for your visit, so you would know."

"How are you planning to leave? And where to?"

"I don't know where exactly just yet, though it obviously will be another realm." Tawar told him honestly. "As to how... Lady Thenidiel owed me a favor..."

"The Lady Thenidiel..." He repeated in complete shock. "Alfheim's most powerful spellweaver owed you a favor?"

"As you know, I am no sorceress myself." She elaborated. "I may no longer be a princess, but she hasn't forgotten a time when I gave her my help when she needed it. She knew I needed her now, without me even having to look for her. She brought this." She showed him what looked like a piece of glass. "She says it's a teleportation spell, with enough power to break into another realm. Because it has her signature they won't connect it to me, and if anyone ever asks, she will tell them it was part of an experiment that she chose not to pursue, as it didn't work right. It also will leave no trace so, even if somehow, someone were to suspect the truth, they still wouldn't be able to track me down."

"It is an amazing favor." He admitted. "So, where have you planned on going?"

"Well, Asgard is out for obvious reasons, same as the Realms of the Dead, that of Demons, Svartalfheim, Jotunheim and Nidavellir." She enlisted. "I might be able to hide out in Vanaheim, I can hide my elven features easy enough. However, it's so close to Asgard that... well, I don't know."

"Which only leaves one place." He cut to the chase. "Midgard. If you hide your elven features you will be able to pass for human too, and everyone in Asgard thinks so little of mortals they will never think of looking for you there."

She nodded, he was right.

"You must leave tomorrow." He informed her. "For your own safety, and the baby's, the sooner the better."

"You're not coming with me, are you?" She was sad, but understood why.

"I need to find out who knows about you and how much they know, then do what I can to destroy any evidence they might have, especially of our child." He informed her. "I will join you in Midgard once I'm done there. Even if it takes me a while, I will join you."

"How?" She didn't want to sound so hopeless, but her pregnancy was affecting her moods, sending her from one end to the other abruptly. "Midgard is such a big Realm...

"I will always find you, I promise you." He assured her, brushing her tears away

"I believe you." She nodded, doing her best to smile for him. "I trust you."

"I love you." He replied.

"Amin mella le..." She whispered back in her own language.

xXx

The twenty-four-year-old, brunette, doe eyed consultant and (technically) student to Level 7 Agent Grant Ward dropped onto her bunk heavily. Taking a couple of minutes just to regulate her breathing and try and wait for her muscles to stop burning. She was so completely exhausted... she'd been training so much in the last week, more than ever before in her life; even more than everything her Superior Office already insisted on having her do since beginning her training months before.

Hardly anyone understood why she was doing it, why she pushed herself so hard; FitzSimmons had actually tried to get her to slow down a bit, least she drop dead from exhaustion; even her SO had told her she shouldn't push herself so hard, there was no need for her to burn herself out before she was ready. May didn't say a thing, nor did Coulson, but then again, they understood why she did it; or at least, if they did not understand, at least they knew her reasons and respected them, respected her to make them.

After a while she felt well enough to sit up, her back against the wall; she pulled her laptop to her and turned it on. It felt so well to be able to use electronics, surf the web, and especially hack once again, without all devices going nuts on her whenever she touched them. She was so glad AC had taken that bracelet off her!

It wasn't even the ability to once again handle electronics, not really (though that helped, made her feel useful once again). No, it was the fact that by taking the bracelet off AC was showing he had forgiven her, she'd regained his trust. There were times after her screw up with Miles when she was afraid that day would never come. And ever since she'd gotten to know Agent Coulson, truly know him, she knew his trust and friendship were precious, and she wanted to have them (she got her priorities mixed up at some point, but managed to atone).

Coulson was special to her, the first person to believe in her in a very long time, quite possibly her whole life... she considered him a dear friend, family even... she wondered if that was what having a father felt like... it was nice, more than that, it was amazing!

Agent Coulson found her still sitting there, working on her laptop a few hours later.

"Everything alright in here, Skye?" He asked her with a small smile.

"Peachy, AC." She assured him.

After a few seconds Coulson seemed to realize that Skye wasn't actually typing anything, just looking at something in her laptop.

"Mind telling me what is it you're looking at so intently?" He asked softly.

For all answer she turned the laptop enough for him to see the screen. It was some sort of tourist site, and there were pictures cycling through. When one showed what looked like a small cottage near rice fields Coulson had a good idea what place it was.

"You're researching China?" He asked in an understanding tone.

"More like just looking it up." Skye shrugged. "I'm curious you know, about the place where I was found, where I might have been born... it seems like a nice place for the most part."

"Are you still trying to find your parents?" Coulson inquired. "I haven't found anything else. I would have told you if I had and..."

"It's alright AC, I trust you." She assured him with a soft smile. "And no, I decided not to search for them anymore?"

"Might I ask why?"

"Well, you already proved me once that reality can be worse than my imagination... but this time I cannot help but wonder: were they among all who died in that village, protecting me? Were they already dead by that point? Did they send me away to protect me and then died? Or are they alive and in hiding? What if my search for them puts them in danger? If they've survived this long only to die because I'm looking for them... I would never forgive myself if that were the case." She let out a sigh. "So I would rather stop searching for them and hope that maybe, if by some miracle, they're still alive, the might find their way to me someday..."

"I hope they will, for you Skye." Coulson told her honestly. "I hope you get the family you want, the family that you deserve."

"But I already have that family AC!" She told him with a sudden, bright smile. "It's you, and Agent May, and Robot, and FitzSimmons... you're my family."

Coulson chose not to hold himself back, he embraced her tightly at that.

xXx

A woman's pained cry was closely followed by a baby's cry. There was the rustling of clothes, and after a couple of minutes an old woman, a midwife, placed a flushed-skinned tiny baby, wrapped in a beautiful ivory blanket with green and golden embroidery before the young woman laying on the bed. The woman, with her usually luscious brown hair matted with sweat and honey eyes half-closed in exhaustion reacted instantly, wrapping her arms around her baby.

The midwife said something in a language the new-mother couldn't understand, but then another, a girl, who had been acting as nurse through the whole labor, translated in half-broken Common (or as the humans called the language, English).

"You...have... beautiful baby-girl..." She said.

Tawar nodded, tears beginning to fall from her eyes. She half heard the girl telling her they would leave so she could bond with her child in private. The two women had been so very supportive since finding her lost near their property, with just a small bag of things that did little for her in the new world, and not knowing how to survive in the new one. She had sold most of her jewelry; all but her locket in fact, as it held a personal value, higher than any price someone could offer her for it Still, the money had helped her some, and the midwife and granddaughter had allowed her to stay with them in their small, two room home.

In that moment she was crying, not only at the wonder of the small, beautiful life in her arms, but also in sadness at the absence of her beloved. Serrure had promised to go to her, to find her; yet after almost four months, he still hadn't. She knew how much he loved her, and there was no doubt in her mind that, if he hadn't reached her yet, there must be a reason. Something had gone wrong on his end, very wrong.

She hadn't named her baby yet, she wanted her beloved to be there when she did, but the more time that passed, the more she began to wonder if that day would ever come. She knew that she would have to get on the move soon, for her safety and her daughter's. She couldn't stay in one place for long, not with the risk of certain individuals finding her, people who might wish her, and especially her child, harm.

A day and a half later, in the hour before dawn, Tawar had just finished breast-feeding her daughter when she felt coldness filling her. She might not have been a Sorceress herself, but she still had enough awareness to sense when someone not-human, someone of power, was approaching... and it wasn't her beloved.

"Xiefa!" Tawar called, her voice shooting through two octaves in her nervousness.

Xiefa, the midwife's teenage granddaughter, rushed into the room not long afterwards. There was a question already on her lips, probably if the baby needed changing again, as she'd been helping Tawar with that while the new-mother recovered enough strength to move.

"Xiefa..." Tawar interrupted her in her most serious voice. "How far is the closest town?"

"Six hours on foot at good speed." The girl told her promptly.

"Can you make it?" Tawar forced herself to speak despite the coming tears. "Can you get there, with the baby?"

Xiefa was absolutely shocked by the question, and not because she didn't understand it; because she understood more English than she could actually speak (her accent made the correct pronunciation harder, somehow).

"Yes..." The girl admitted after what seemed like forever.

"You need to take her." Tawar told her. "Need to take her away. For safety." She explained as best she could, as fast as possible. "There's someone coming, for me, for us... they cannot find her. She must be protected..."

Xiefa did not want to go, was terrified of hurting the newborn child, of leaving her grandmother and even the woman she'd begun seeing as family as well. Eventually Yue, the midwife, joined the conversation, pretty much ordering her granddaughter to take the baby and run the moment she understood, more or less, the seriousness of the situation.

Tawar would have told Yue to run as well, but the old-woman would have never managed the journey to the town, she was too old (there was a reason they had people who ran errands for them). Still, they both felt the need to protect their families.

"You must... name child..." Yue stated in a very thick accent, speaking English for the first time before Tawar.

That actually gave the brunette pause, as she looked at the baby in her arms; she didn't want to let her go, but knew it was necessary, to keep her safe. She remembered why she hadn't named her just yet, and it made her sad to think her beloved wouldn't be able to offer his opinion. Still, Tawar knew what to do...

"Menel..." She whispered, placing a kiss on hr baby's brow in blessing. "For her eyes, her father's eyes..."

Eyes that would be hidden. It was something she could do with what little magic she possessed. She didn't like it, but it was necessary, even when the child looked mostly like her, that eye-color would scream who her father was, for those who knew him. It also explained why her visions had showed her a girl with doe eyes, rather than ones that reflected storms; her vision kept clearing up, just like upon first arriving to Midgard and seeing Xiefa she'd begun to understand the clothes her future daughter had been wearing. And she'd also just understood why the vision had showed her daughter standing alone...

Almost as an after-thought Tawar pulled the golden locket over her head, before placing the chain around her baby's neck. It was long for her still, but she would grow into it, and at least that way she would have something from her...

"Menel, my beautiful child..." She whispered, placing another tender kiss on her head before whispering into her ear in elvish. "Amin mela lle, lirimaer amin (I love you, my lovely one)..."

"What does the name mean?" Xiefa asked quietly.

Tawar was feeling so emotionally tired already she whispered one single word into the girl's ear; she nodded in understanding, then shouldered the bag with everything they'd gotten for the baby, making sure she would have no problems with it, and straightened up to receive the child. Before the grief of losing her newborn girl made her even think of something insane, Tawar placed her carefully in Xiefa's arms.

"Goodbye, my treasure..." She whispered as Xiefa turned to leave. "I promise, I will find you one day, my treasure. You won't be alone forever. We will find you..."

xXx

It was late evening, the team had eaten dinner together and most of them were either in their bunks, or on their way there; knowing they needed to rest before the mission the following day. It wouldn't be easy, that was a given from the start with Ian Quinn being involved, and especially considering he seemed to have allied himself with the Clairvoyant, the same who had given Raina her orders, who lead Centipede...

Grant Ward was on his way to his bunk when he heard light noises from the cargo area. Curious, he went to check, only half-surprised when he found none other than his Rookie: Skye, doing some Tai-chi in a corner (May had taught her the basic in the last few weeks).

"You should be on bed, rookie." Grant told her authoritatively.

"I don't think I could sleep just yet, I'm too wired up with tomorrow's op." Skye told him as she began another kata.

"Yes well, if you don't rest enough tonight you might be too tired tomorrow to do things right." He commented flippantly. "On the other hand, you're there to handle communications, not to fight, so I don't see what the problem is."

"Do you know how many ops we've had where there was supposed to be no fighting, yet that's exactly what happened?" She asked him in a deadpan tone.

"No." He admitted, actually beginning to consider it.

"Me neither." She admitted with a shrug. "But the point remains, there have been such ops before, we need to be prepared."

"True." He agreed, then turned the tables on her. "And that includes sleeping properly."

She couldn't help it, she laughed, the side of his mouth actually tugged up in a half-smile.

"Go to your bunk now, rookie." He told her with fake coldness, while half-smirking. "Consider it an order if you must."

"Sir, yes sir!" She called dramatically before laughing loudly.

She did go to bed after that, the talk with Grant having put her enough at ease she could relax enough to sleep peacefully. She trusted her S.O. so much that if he told her things would be alright, she believed him.

xXx

Unknown to most people in the Realm Eternal, even to the actual Eihenjar, there was another cell, besides those in the palace's basement, what was commonly known as the dungeons. It was a room made completely of stone, all around, with no windows and no doors; it could only be accessed with a teleportation spell, by a person holding a magical key. It was impossible to escape. Also, the rocks the walls were made of were special, they drained magic and energy; eventually anyone placed inside it would be drained to the point that they would fall into a trance similar to a very deep sleep, or a comma.

It was a prison meant for the worst of criminals, those who had committed the worst kind of betrayal, for being sentenced there was like being dead while never truly dying. It was a prison only a select few knew of, though most believed it hadn't been used in millennia... the King of Asgard knew different. He himself had sent a young elven-lady there, over two decades before; after she'd proven that nothing, not magic, nor persuasion, nor torture, would make her speak, make her reveal her secrets... and the one the King cared to know the most: the location of her offspring: the child who, according to his sources, had been born less than three days before he found her, with only an old, mortal woman to defend her... he'd still missed the brat, and the elf refused to talk.

It was all his traitorous son's fault, he knew. The fool should have known better than to try having a child; hadn't he seen what had become of all the other ones? It was all because his foolish son was a monster, even if he didn't know it yet; monsters weren't meant to have children, especially not monsters who could one day destroy the world he (the king) had built. He would never allow anyone, especially not a bastard's brat, destroy the way of life he'd spent thousands of years building, his legacy, his throne...

In the end he still needed his foolish bastard of a son for his plans, but he did not need the she-elf, and the problems she could cause. So he'd sent her to the 'box', and made sure to erase any and all memories his adopted son had of her. The brat had disappeared for the time being, but he would find her one day, and he would destroy her utterly. A fitting punishment for the parents who had dared defy him by bringing her into the world and then daring to try and run to keep her from him, as if anyone could ever have more power than him...

Those were his plans, the plans of the King of the Realm Eternal, Asgard, of Odin Allfather. Plans that came crashing down when his adopted son chose to commit suicide rather than stay under his thumb. Only he didn't die, he fell through space and emptiness and darkness; fell into the abyss, where he discovered pain and horror, and at some point, he also rediscovered what he did not know he had lost: a princess from the forests, with eyes like honey and beautiful curls of golden-brown hair; and the miracle she'd been carrying in her womb...

Throughout everything that followed that fall: the pain, the grief, the torture, the war, the defeat, the hysteria, the loss, the escape, the sacrifice... he never forgot the two loves of his life, never stopped fighting to do anything that was necessary to get them back. Until the day came when he managed to rob the King of his throne, claiming it for himself. With that throne came a key, and when the Fool, who had become the Usurper, decided to place Odin in that very cell to keep him out of the way, he found his elven princess there. And everything changed once again.

When Tawar woke up, in a four-poster bed with silk-sheets and huge pillows, in a huge bedroom with wooden floors, bookshelves that went from floor to ceiling, from wall to wall, and forest-green drapes swaying softly in the wind, opened to reveal a balcony with a gorgeous view of the Eternal Realm... she did not recognize the room, or the view, or the world she was in. However, she did recognize the eyes staring at her, the man sitting beside her, waiting for her to wake up: it was the Fool, turned Usurper, seen as King, her beloved...

"Serrure..." She whispered, her voice hoarse by lack of use.

"Tawariel..." He addressed her the same way he had all those times, in another world, a different life, so many years before...

"You found me..." She whispered, marveled.

"I will always find you." He assured her, bring one of her hands to his lips, to kiss. "Call me by my true name, I wish for nothing more right now than to hear it from your lips. Say it, please..."

"Loki, my love..." She whispered.

For a few seconds not a word was said, until something reminded her of her last days awake; instinctively her free hand went to her middle, to the bump no longer there. She had known it wouldn't be, she remembered the birth of her child clearly enough, and also her loss...

"Menel..." She whispered brokenly.

"Menel?" He repeated, drinking the name in, switching it to a more princess-like name. "Meneliel..."

"She's no princess..." She reminded him.

"To me, she is." He insisted. "And now that I hold a throne...Meneliel..."

"I had to let her go..." She confessed to him. "To protect her from your father..."

"He is not my father. He never was." He corrected her calmly. "But I see your point." He caressed her face tenderly. "Do not feel bad, my love. You did what was necessary to protect your child, our child..."

"She's lost... alone..." She began crying at the thought, the memory of the vision.

"We'll find her." He assured her. "I promise you. We will find our princess... our sky..."

"We'll find her..." She repeated with conviction.

xXx

At first she didn't feel the pain, just a sharp, almost piercing heat in the middle of her stomach. She was seeing the evil bastard Ian Quinn before her, she'd been babbling trying to keep him distracted until her team arrived, because she believed with her heart they would... she'd lost the Night Night Gun, so all she could do was talk, and hope it would be enough, it wasn't. She had heard the gunshot, and still it took several seconds for her mind to fully comprehend it; then, when the pain finally hit, the shock took her over. She'd never been shot, fired on, sure, but she'd never been shot, and her mind didn't know what to do, she was frozen. Not even all her training her SO had put her through was enough for what she had gotten into.

And then, right as she began to finally focus again, suddenly Ian Quinn was right there, in her personal space, practically in her face, he was holding her, and she didn't understand... then the pain doubled. A tiny cry left her lips, she didn't have any strength to truly speak.

She couldn't speak, could barely think, could hardly even breathe... she was half-aware as her body was laid down on the cellar's floor. It felt cold... or maybe she was the one who was cold. She knew she was losing blood very fast, had the bullets hit an artery or something? If they had, she was probably screwed...

She thought she heard Quinn whisper something before leaving, but couldn't be sure, his words seemed odd, considering what he'd just done.

"I'm sorry..." He seemed to have said. "I have my orders too..."

And why should he be sorry anyway? He was a bad guy, she was with the good guys, it was to be expected that he should try to kill her, or apparently succeed... Maybe it really was a bad idea for her to go after him on her own, after all, she was just a rookie...

She didn't know how long she lied there, bleeding, hurting, taking shallow breaths in an attempt not hurt worse. Until she realized that she couldn't just lay there and give up, it just wasn't her. She was a fighter, had always been (apparently since she was an infant, considering all that had happened back then), and not only that, she was a survivor. And if she wanted to survive what was happening right then, she had to fight.

Focusing as much as she could, she found the door and then, making use of all the strength of her will, and ignoring the piercing pain as much as possible, she began moving. She held one hand over her stomach, trying to staunch the bleeding, while with the other she began to drag herself across the floor, in the direction of the door. It took her what seemed like forever, but eventually she managed to reach it, then pull herself so she was sitting up, her back against the wall right beside the wall. Then, with an almost inhuman effort, she raised her hand and opened the door.

She wanted to call for help, wanted to scream and cry, and have someone hear her, her team hear her, save her... but her voice came out as barely a whisper, something no one would ever be able to hear, she could hardly hear herself...

"Help... Help...H..."

Regardless of it all, she kept calling until she had no more strength to speak. Her breath was failing her, and her hand had fallen on her lap, unable to keep pressure on her wound anymore. Unable to do anything anymore.

Her team hadn't arrived, regardless of how much she had called, prayed, out-loud and inside her mind, they hadn't come... it wasn't their fault, not really. She had known it was dangerous to go after Quinn on her own, but she just didn't want to let the bastard go again; she wanted to prove that she could be a good agent, she wanted to make her family proud...

As she lied there Skye began finally accepting that, unless some kind of miracle took place, she was, indeed, going to bleed to death in that cellar. In that moment she felt like a little girl again, and after using the last of her physical strength to wrap her bloodied hand around her locket, she did something she hadn't done in a very, very long time, she called out for her mother:

"Mama..."

xXx

In a private garden in Asgard, full of flowers and surrounded by a ring of trees that usually could only be seen in a very specific forest in Alfheim, there was a deafening cry.

It took the King just an instant to appear in the middle of the garden, dropping the spell that made him look like the Allfather with just a thought. His beloved was in between some of the flowers, curled on herself, crying almost hysterically.

"Tawariel?" He asked as he approached her.

When she raised her head and her honey eyes fixed on him he noticed she seemed to be standing on a ledge (figuratively), like he had been after the torture from the Mad Titan somehow managed to break the seal the Allfather had put on his memories, when he'd remembered the woman be loved and child she was expecting, when he'd realized all he'd lost...

"What is it my love?" He asked her, deeply worried. "What is wrong? Why do you cry?"

"She's... dying..." The she-elf gasped in despair. "She's dying..."

"Who...?" Loki's mind clicked and he realized what she meant an instant later. "Menel is dying! How? Why?!"

"I don't know!" Tawar practically screeched in despair. "My baby-girl is dying and I'm not there! I can hear her, inside my mind, calling for me, for her mama... and I cannot reach her!"

Loki, who was about to begin pacing in despair himself, stopped abruptly that line of thought as he processed what his beloved had just said.

"You can hear her?" He inquired. "Right now?"

"Yes." Tawar nodded, still crying.

"You can sense her?" He insisted.

"Yes!" She almost snapped.

"Then focus on her, with all your energies." He told her. "You will be our guide and my magic will get us to her."

Tawar didn't need anything more to be said. Making use of all her training in the mind-arts (which she had to go through, having been a royal, even if she had very little magic herself and was no spellweaver), the she-elf focused on her daughter's presence; she'd stopped hearing her voice at some point, but whatever it was that had actually opened the connected was still in place, and it allowed her to reach back.

From an instant to the next the two seemed to sink into the ground, or more precisely, the shadow at their feet. Loki didn't even try to see where they were going, he just held onto the connection his beloved had formed to their daughter, and let the magic get them there.

They would find Menel, and they would save her... He would see to their daughter's safety, if it was the last thing he did.

xXx

In the Bus, Agent Philip Coulson was standing guard beside the hyperbaric chamber where Skye was kept in a desperate attempt to keep her alive until they could get her to a S.H.I.E.L.D. medical facility. It had been an hour since take-off in South-Italy, and it would be at least an hour and a half more before they made it to the London HQs... the worst part was that the systems were down for whatever the reason, so they couldn't even ask for a medical team to be on stand-by for their arrival.

One moment everything to be normal, in the next Phil noticed something out of the ordinary from the corner of his eye. Training kicking in he spun around, gun on his hand immediately, the sight that met his eyes was one he'd never expected.

"Loki?!" He cried out.

The shock was such that for a moment he didn't move. The Agent wasn't sure he wasn't just hallucinating, or dreaming, maybe he'd fallen asleep standing guard over Skye... the thought was enough to put him completely on alert again. Dream or no dream, there was no way in heaven or hell he was letting the evil bastard who'd pretty much killed him anywhere close to the wounded young woman, her life was already hanging by a thread.

"Didn't I kill you?" The black-haired man asked, seemingly as confused by the Agent's presence as Phil was about his. "I thought you were supposed to be dead."

"Yeah well, according to the files I read on what happened in London last month, so were you." Phil answered in his most dry tone.

"Maybe we're both just too stubborn to die." Loki shrugged before giving a step forward. "Now, if you'll just let me..."

"Don't even think about it." Phil aimed the gun at him. "You're not getting anywhere close to Skye, god or no god, you're not."

"As if you could stop me..." Loki sneered at him.

"I won't let you hurt her further!" Phil insisted.

"Who says I want to hut her?" Loki challenged. "I'm here to help her."

"The last time I saw you, you stabbed me, in the heart!" Phil reminded him in a snap. "So I think I have a very good reason not to believe a single word you say."

It looked like Loki was about to say something else but before he could even open his mouth a hand on his arm stopped him. It was until then that Phil noticed the god of lies wasn't alone, with him was a brunette woman with honey eyes, in a beautiful cream colored dress; she reminded him powerfully of someone, but couldn't place who. Still, her presence was an unknown, and it only made him even more nervous. The only reason he hadn't called for his team already was the fear he felt at what Loki might do to them.

"Philip, Son of Coul?" The woman addressed him. "That is you, am I right?"

"Yes." He nodded, turning to her, though without lowering his gun from aiming at Loki. "I'm afraid I don't know who you are, miss."

"I am Tawar, d... from the House of the Midnight Blossom." She informed him in a very formal tone. "I promise you, in the name of my ancestors, that we are not here to hurt you, or the young lady in the crystal chamber behind you. In fact, we're here to save her."

"Why would you that?" Phil asked, suspiciously.

It took a moment for the woman to answer, but when she did, Phil knew he couldn't be dreaming, his imagination simply wasn't that good; the words she said he could have never expected:

"Because the young lady in that crystal chamber is my daughter." She told him quietly. "Our daughter, in fact."

"What?!" Phil's shock was great at that.

"Look." Tawar began talking fast in her nervousness. "I know you have no reason to trust me, much less him; but unless you give us a chance, Menel is gonna die."

"Her name is Skye..." The Agent corrected her.

"I know." Tawar smiled brightly at him. "That's what I named her."

"But you just said..." Phil began.

"Menel is a word from my language." She clarified. "It means sky... I gave her that name to honor her father, for the one thing she inherited from him... her eyes." Knowing what the Agent would say next she went on. "I know her eyes won't look like his right now, I had to change them, so she would be able to hide, brown was an easy color, enough humans have it that no one would find it odd. If anyone who's ever known Loki were to see her real eyes they would have no doubt just who her father was."

Phil still did not believe what the woman had said; but he was logical enough to know that if those two, Loki especially, really wanted to hurt anyone on the plane, they would all be dead already; which meant that at least some of what they were saying had to be true.

"If you're really her parents." He asked. "Where have you been the last twenty-four years?"

For a second it looked like Loki's fury was going to take over, until once again a hand on his arm calmed him down.

"The story is long, and hard." Tawar told him quietly. "I would much prefer it if I didn't have to tell it more than once; and if there is anyone who deserves to know, it is M... Skye. I can tell you this, though; it wasn't by our choice."

Phil knew it would have to be enough, it wasn't like he could actually stop either from taking Skye if they wanted, especially not Loki; and they had been quite patient with him.

He moved around the hyperbaric chamber to reach the controls when, just their luck, Jemma Simmons, the biochemist who had basic medic training and had been doing all she could to keep Skye alive stepped into the lab. She might have never met Loki, but she'd seen footage from New York; the moment she realized just who he was, she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Loki shut her up with a wave of his hand, but by then she'd already called the attention of all the others on the Bus. The Engineer and Jemma's boyfriend came down the same hallway she had, wielding a Night Night Gun in his hands; he shot at Loki the moment he saw him, before fully processing who he was. The shot did nothing to Loki, except distract him, allowing Agent May to get close enough to him to deliver a kick, and then Agent Ward. It was at that point that Loki lost his cool, sending them all tumbling back with a wave of his hand. The Agents jumped back on their feet almost as fast as they'd gone down; they were about to try and attack again (which would have sent Loki over the edge), when Tawar intervened.

"Enough!" She yelled with all her authority. "I know that no one around here trusts us but if your insistence on attacking us ends up costing my only child her life I will make sure the rest of your life is Hell! And trust me, I know its queen, I can arrange for that!"

The statement was shocking enough to stop everyone in their tracks.

"What the hell is she talking about?!" Ward demanded after a few seconds.

"Apparently they are Skye's birth-parents." Phil offered from beside the hyperbaric chamber.

"That's impossible!" Several voices called in denial at the same time.

"STOP IT!" Tawar yelled. "When are you going to understand that there is no time for this?! Menel is dying!" She fixed her eyes on Loki. "I can feel it. She's slipping. I'm holding onto her as hard as I can... but it soon won't be enough."

Somehow her words seemed to be enough to get Simmons moving. She ignored the two outsiders completely as she went for the chamber's panel, gasping when she noticed the reading.

"She's right!" She announced to the others. "Her blood-pressure is dangerously low... I don't think she's breathing anymore..."

"She's turning blue..." Phil added in a heart-broken tone.

"That's... actually not a bad thing." Loki offered as he took a look at the girl himself.

"What the hell does that mean?!" Ward demanded. "How can turning blue for lack of oxygen not be a bad thing?!"

"Because that's not why she's turning blue." Loki explained quietly. "It's her heritage surfacing."

Tawar nodded, understanding; the humans didn't.

For all answer Loki extended an arm over the chamber, allowing his hand to shift to his Jotun appearance. Simmon's eyes widened slightly, but she controlled herself almost right away, going back to examining the panel.

"Even if that's true, she's still dying." She admitted quietly. "I thought we would have more time..." Her eyes filled with tears. "At this rate she won't make it to a hospital."

"She doesn't have to." Tawar told her.

"Can you get her there?" Phil asked, interested.

"I could, but that's not what she meant." Loki said shaking his head. "I may be able to heal her."

"May?" They didn't like the lack of confirmation in those words.

It still seemed to be enough for Simmons, who typed a command on the chamber, unlocking it.

"Jemma!" Fitz cried out, obviously not expecting that.

"Didn't you hear me?" She asked. "We're still over an hour away from any medical facility! Skye won't make it that far. Right now he is her best chance."

No one had a reply to tht, they knew it was true.

They didn't even try to get Skye onto a bed, or even a table; there simply was no time, and Tawar knew that if they moved her, it might just make things worse.

"Should we move her hands away from her wound?" Simmons asked quietly.

"No." Loki shook his head. "See that hand? She's holding the locket, Tawar's locket. It's what allowed the two of them to connect, if you take it off her hand the connection will break and right now that link is the only thing keeping her alive."

The revelation sobered all of them, though it was the mention of the locket that began, finally, convincing them that the two immortals might be telling the truth.

"You have to save her Loki..." She whispered in an almost broken voice.

"I promise you." He assured her.

She could ask for nothing more.

Minutes passed, every member of the team had their eyes fixed on Loki as he kept drawing intricate designs on the air, right above Skye's wounds, all the while murmuring under his breath in another language; spell after spell, focusing on undoing damage, restoring what was lost, healing. Never stopping for anything.

Eventually Simmons noticed that the brunnette woman who had arrived with him was talking too; she was kneeling on the opposite side of Skye from where Loki stood, hands clasped together, pressed against her chest, whispering in yet another language:

"A Elbereth Gilthoniel,
silivren penna míriel
o menel aglar elenath!
Na-chared palan-díriel
o galadhremmin ennorath,
Fanuilos, le linnathon
nef aear, sí nef aearon!"

"Are you doing magic too?" Simmons couldn't help but ask, guessing that if she was, the woman would just ignore her and keep going.

"No." She shook her head, turning to the young human. "I am no spellweaver. I can do some basic things, but nothing in the scale Serrure is working on..."

"Excuse me, Serrure?" May inquired.

"Sorry, Loki." Tawar smile. "At times, when I am distracted or nervous, I tend to call him by the name he used at the time we met." She turned to Simmons again. "So no, what I was whispering wasn't a spell, it was a chant... you could almost call it a prayer. The oldest song of my people, a call to our Mother. Usually we use it when we want to dedicate something to her, right now I'm hoping she will hear me, see my need, that she will help protect my child..."

"Mother?" Fitz was thoroughly confused.

"I am one of the Ljósálfar, you would call us elves." Tawar explained. "We believe that the great goddess Elbereth, the queen of the heavens, created the stars, and through them she placed the light in our eyes. She's therefore our Mother, she listens to us, to our joys and pains, and she knows our needs, like any mother would..."

"I don't think Skye's mother heard her for the longest time..." Agent Ward muttered darkly.

"Ward!" FitzSimmons were horrified at his rebuke.

"It's alright." She assured them, though the hurt showed in his eyes, for all who saw her. "You care for my child, I will never be able to thank you enough for that. However, I want to leave one thing very clear: us abandoning her, it wasn't of our own free will. There were extenuating circumstances, which we will reveal when Me... Skye has woken. Also, the reason we are here right now is because she called to me. She held onto that locket, my locket, which I placed around her neck right before I had to let her go, less than two days after she was born... she held onto that, and called to me... and I answered."

As if on cue, Loki stopped chanting right then. He dropped his hands and even swayed slightly, thoroughly exhausted as he was.

At first no one in the team noticed anything different. Skye's clothes were still red with blood, her skin still looked almost sickly pale. Then, right as they were all about to panic, everyone could hear a light gasp, and then a pair of eyes snapped open.

"Skye!" Several people called at once.

It was all a flurry of movement after that. Together Ward and Coulson finally got Skye off the hyperbaric chamber and onto a medical cot Simmons had had installed in a corner of the lab for emergencies. As soon as she was settled there Simmons began checking for her vitals with Fitz passing her things. It was right as they were about finished with everything, finally reassured that Skye was, in fact, alright, that their friend opened her eyes again, fixing the pools of blue-gray-green straight on them.

"Oh..." Simmons gasped.

"What is it?" Ward was on alert all over again instantly.

"Her eyes..." Simmons explained quietly.

"Wha... what's wrong with my eyes?" Skye asked, trying and failing to sit up.

"Stay down, you're too weak to try moving." Simmons half-chastised her. "And there's nothing wrong with your eyes."

"You were saying something about my eyes." Skye insisted, though she did settle back down.

"They're beautiful." Simmons blurted out.

"They changed color." Fitz clarified. "They were brown before and now... now they're this mix of blue-green-gray..."

"What the..." Skye was completely confused by that. "Why the hell would that happen?"

"Because the spell keeping your identity hidden, and with it whatever might reveal the true you, fell when your life was endangered." A soft, melodic voice called from behind her friends.

Skye moved a hand, just a little, but enough for FitzSimmons to understand and move to a side enough for Skye to look straight at the woman in the cream colored dress.

"I know you..." The still weak girl whispered. "I heard your voice, in my dreams..." She fought to clear up her fuzzy memories of what she instinctively knew had been more than a dream. "You were holding onto me, refusing to let go... you called me... called me... Li...Lirima...

"Lirimaer amin..." Tawar finished for her, going to kneel beside the cot, taking one of Skye's hands in hers. "It means My lovely one... it's what you are to me, what you've always been... it's what I called you a day and a half after you were born, the last time I saw you and held you in my arms, so small, so beautiful... my child, my treasure..."

"Mama..." Skye whispered in shock.

Her eyes closed after that.

"She's only asleep." Simmons clarified before everyone could go into a panic, again. "Even though her wound has been healed, Skye still lost a lot of blood. It's likely she will sleep for a while, and be tired for days if not weeks as she fully recovers from the ordeal."

"We have no blood on board for a transfusion." May pointed out.

"Would that even work with her, considering who her parents are?" Ward inquired.

At some point, with everything that had happened, the team had stopped doubting Loki's and Tawar's words and moved on to dealing with the revelations. They knew it wouldn't be easy, but Skye's health was more important than anything else, even discovering that her father was a psychopathic god who had attempted to conquer the world once already.

"We don't have blood-bags, but we could set up a direct transfusion." Simmons suggested. "Her mother would be the best candidate..."

Since Tawar had no idea what a blood transfusion was (they had no such things in Alfheim and she hadn't been long enough on Midgard to learn such things), FitzSimmons explained the basics to her. In the end all the she-elf needed to know was that it would help her daughter and was safe enough; she was willing to do pretty much anything after that.

While that was happening in that corner of the lab, Loki chose to approach Coulson. The man eyed him warily, though didn't raise his gun again; it might also have helped that he knew his team would help if the god of lies were to try anything (and after seeing how hard he'd worked to save the girl he claimed as his daughter, it was unlikely he would hurt any of them).

"Son of Coul..." Loki nodded with what almost seemed like respect.

"Loki..." Phil didn't know what else to say.

"So, when can I expect the armed guards to arrive, or maybe even my 'dear old brother'?" Loki inquired with fake cheer.

Phil could see through the god's charade, he was on guard, but not like a man readying himself for a life-or-death battle, more like a man on death-row... almost.

"Our communications are down." Phil announced with a shrug.

"Does that mean you and your team will be the ones taking me in?" The god insisted. "I imagine it will be enough to give you legendary status in your human organization. The group who captured the insane evil god... that is, if your return from the dead didn't grant you that already..."

Phil shrugged again, refusing to answer either implied question.

"Anyway." Loki pretended not to care. "I would appreciate if you would wait at least until I can finish explaining things to my daughter. She deserves that much."

"That she does." Phil agreed. "That and much more..." He turned to May, beside him. "Set course for HQs in New York."

"Are you sure that's a good idea sir?" May inquired." We're half an hour away from London HQs already. A flight to New York will mean six more hours."

"Do it." Phil insisted.

May decided not to insist and instead went to the cabin. Loki didn't say anything, instead walking slowly to where his beloved was laying on a pull-out cot, a thin tube connecting her arm to that of their daughter, sharing blood. She was sleeping, the stress of everything she'd done to keep their daughter alive until he could finish healing her, taking a toll on her. And even when all the difficulties he knew were bound to come his way once the aircraft landed, seeing his two most beloved people laying side by side in that moment was enough to convince the once maniac god that things would turn out alright in the end.

xXx

They didn't get to land in New York six hours later as they'd planned. There was a huge electrical storm in the area and all air-traffic had been cancelled; they'd had to raise the altitude, to be above the clouds and safe from the mess the weather had become. Also, even when the storm ended it would take a while before all other planes that needed to take-off and/or land did, as they weren't a priority at the time.

Some people couldn't help but think it might even be a good thing. Give time for Skye to get better, so people at HQs wouldn't insist on getting her checked out in their infirmary (who knows what they might discover about her); and also so explanations regarding the couple of immortals who claimed to be her parents could be given.

Skye and Tawar both slept for six hours or so before waking up almost in unison.

"She shouldn't be awake so soon..." Simmons mumbled worriedly. "Skye's nowhere near recovered, she should still be sleeping."

"She's half-elf." Loki pointed out from where he'd spent the night, sitting in a corner, watching the two women sleep. "That means she doesn't need as many hours of sleep as a human does. She may have lived the last twenty-four years as a human, but after what happened her heritage will begin to manifest. It's happening already, not just with her sleep, but also the change in her eye color, the way she was comfortable in the cold of your crystal chamber. Her mother's blood running through her veins will help too. I imagine she will recover fairly quickly; and after that you will begin noticing that she becomes faster, stronger, more agile, is capable of enduring more than she used to be." When seeing Simmons worried expression he added. "She won't change who she is in essence, who she's grown to be. She will still be herself just... more durable."

Simmons nodded and smiled, satisfied with that.

Tawar was completely awake by that point, sitting up on the cot; her left arm folded up, with a cotton ball in the inside of her elbow, where her blood had been taken; while on her right she was holding a cup with a special healing tea she'd prepared with Simmons's help, out of some of her own herbs (she'd had them in her bag when they left Asgard).

The biochem had just placed a cotton ball in the inside of Skye's elbow after taking out the needle and was checking her vitals one more time, when Skye's eyes opened.

"J...Jemma?" She asked in a drowsy tone.

"Hello honey." Jemma smiled at her dear friend. "How are you feeling?"

"Alright... I think." Skye seemed confused in more ways that one. "I had the strangest dream..."

When Skye looked down at herself she did a double-take; she remembered clearly going with Fitz to the mansion in South Italy, remembered going after Quinn on her own, hoping her team would catch up; she remembered the pain when she'd been shot, twice, and then when she'd forced herself to move, dragging herself across the cellar's floor to reach the door; she could remember trying to scream for her and her voice coming out barely above a whisper... she remembered quietly calling for her mama... and someone answering. Or had that last part been a dream? Had all of it?

She didn't understand. She wasn't wearing the clothes she'd chosen for the undercover op. Instead in that moment she was wearing a nice sleeveless off-white top with an abstract print in shades of blue, green and brown, it looked almost like a twisted tree with blue flowers (or maybe the blue was the sky...), and jean-shorts, her feet bare. Strangest thing was she felt quite comfortable despite how little she was wearing, not cold at all.

"I don't think it was a dream, honey..." She only half-heard Jemma speak.

The reason was that Skye had chosen that very moment to turn to a side and notice the woman sitting on the cot that had been arranged beside hers. She was tall, with a slender figure, tanned skin and loose curls of chocolate brown hair falling over her shoulders; she was wearing what Skye thought was a gorgeous dress of a beautiful cream color, long enough to cover her feet, with bell-sleeves that half-covered her hands.

"I saw you..." Skye whispered, not even noticing she was speaking out-loud. "In my dream..."

"It wasn't a dream." Tawar said, her eyes growing glassy with held-back tears. "You were dying, and you called for me. I reached back and held you, held you tightly until your body could be healed and you could recover..."

"I called for you..." Skye repeated, slowly beginning to connected the dots. "But that would mean..." She automatically reached for the pendant hanging from her neck. "Mama..."

"Yes..." Tawar nodded as the first tear fell.

"No..." Skye shook her head almost violently in denial. "That cannot be..."

"But it is." Tawar insisted.

"If it is, where have you been all these years?!" Skye demanded, her voice turning vicious. "Where were you when I was on the streets, sleeping in a van, because I couldn't even pay for a motel room for a night? Where were you when I kept bouncing between foster homes, with no family to call my own? Where were you when people kept dying to protect me as an infant? When a whole village in China was razed to the ground for protecting me?!"

"A whole..." Tawar lost her voice before she could finish the sentence. "Oh Spirits! Oh Goddess! How... how... Xiefa!"

The she-elf went into hysterics after that; enough that Skye forced herself to calm down. She still wasn't buying that the woman was her mother, but it was obvious she'd known nothing about what Skye had been through, or what had happened in China. Still did not explain how she could be who she claimed and not know...

Then, as if she didn't already have enough reason to be in denial and very nervous, Skye noticed a black-haired man dressed in green silk and dark leather kneeling beside the woman to comfort her; the younger woman had no trouble knowing who he was, and that nearly froze her in shock.

"What the hell is Loki doing here?!" She cried out.

"According to him and the woman beside him, he's your father." Simmons informed her.

Skye had barely opened her mouth to scream her denial when Phil joined them and said something that destroyed everything she knew, or thought she knew:

"He's the one who saved your life, Skye..."

xXx

An hour or so later, after a hot shower and breakfast Skye felt more like herself, and ready to face the people who claimed to be her parents. She still wasn't convinced herself, but after learning that she owed her life to them, she was willing to at least give them a chance.

They all arranged themselves in the lounge. Skye was seated in the middle of the biggest sofa, with Jemma and Phil each on one side of her, Grant was behind, resting on the back of the sofa, Leo sitting on the armrest beside Jemma, and Melinda May was sitting on her own in the smallest sofa, closest to Phil's side. Tawar and Loki were sitting together in the love-seat, right across from their daughter.

"Ok, we're all here." Skye declared, trying her best to hide her nervousness. "Lets get this over with. Shall we?"

"Before we go into the story proper, I want to leave something very clear." Tawar announced, eyes fixed straight on Skye. "It is true you grew up alone, and I can see now that has hurt you in ways I cannot begin to comprehend, but you need to know that it wasn't by our choice or will. We... I had to let you go, for your own safety. So you might have a chance at a life... I didn't want to do it, it felt like it would kill me to do it... but it was the only way to make sure you would live, and be free..." She sighed. "I wouldn't change the past, because what I did was necessary, for you, but if I could, I would have done anything so you would be happy and not only safe."

"Who killed all those people in China, and the Agents?" Skye asked the question that worried her most the first. "Was it really me they were after?"

Skye had taken a moment after breakfast to share with FitzSimmons and her SO the truth about her origins, or at least as much as they knew. Jemma had embraced her, telling her nothing had to change, Leo had apologized profusely for his thoughtless words on the train, while Ward had berated her for keeping something like that to herself when she could have had their support. They were her team, but more than that, they were her family...

"It was Odin." Both answered at the same time.

"Odin?!" Several members of the team cried out in shock.

"Odin as in the King of Asgard, that Odin?!" Simmons babbled in shock.

"Technically the former King... I've since relieved him of his duty." Loki answered with what sounded like satisfaction. "He's a sick bastard who feels joy at causing pain to everyone around, especially me... and my children."

"Children?!" That made Skye react.

"Indeed, you are not my only child, though you are the youngest, and the only one I've had with Tawar." Loki told her. "You are also the only one who has a free life, outside of the influence of Odin and Asgard..."

Ever so slowly the people in the Bus began to understand things were far more serious than it might have seemed at first instance. The introduction at least was enough to finish convincing Skye to at least hear them out.

Loki decided to begin their quite complicated story himself.

"At times it might seem like I'm digressing too much, but I promise I've got a point." Loki said before going into the story itself. "I was born almost eleven centuries ago, at the end of the last and bloodiest interdimensional war. It was between Jotunheim and Asgard, though the last part of it took place here, in your world. It's how you ended having stories of us."

"The Berserker staff..." Leo murmured in understanding.

"What?" Tawar didn't know what he was talking about.

"You mean one one of those things was left here?" Loki's eyes narrowed. "It's an extremely dangerous artifact..."

"We know." Ward cut him off. "It's in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody now."

"Not sure how reassuring that is, I was once in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, after all." Loki half-smirked at him. "In any case, I never liked those things. Battle-lust on its own is already a dangerous thing to deal with; augmented by an object like that? It made them beyond irrational. The worst is that most hadn't been Warriors beforehand, so they didn't know how to deal with the effects of the rage and the blood-lust... some never came out of it."

"I thought you said you were born after the war..." May muttered, unsure.

"At the end of it." Loki corrected. "And I read enough, and have met enough people in my life to know about things."

"Thor told us once you were adopted." Phil commented suddenly.

"It is true." Loki admitted with a huff. "Though I did not know that for the longest time. So, if you'll bear with me. I will continue with the story in the proper order. I believed myself to be the son of Odin and Frigg, the King and Queen of Asgard, younger brother of Thor. I grew as such. Still, from a very young age I knew the Allfather preferred Thor, it wasn't hard to see why. Thor was everything a good Asgardian was supposed to be: strong, with light hair and eyes, proficient in the arts of war, loud and wild... I was all the opposite: quiet, lithe, I preferred reading and practicing magic to doing war, and thought things over before acting. I got along well with Mother, whom I never doubted loved me, Odin was another story."

Even with just that little told the team was beginning to notice patterns: like the fact that not only Loki hated Odin, but he would never refer to him as family, Frigg was another matter entirely, and Thor... they weren't sure just yet.

"By the time we were teenagers Thor was well-loved by everyone, while I was treated with doubt at best and contempt at worst." Loki went on. "All because I did not act like a proper Asgardian, a proper son of Odin." He snorted. "I did not care. I learnt from a young age to stay as far away as I could from Thor and his wild, idiotic stunts. The last time I tried to please my father in any way was when the Wall of Asgard was built. No one knows what the builder's name was, only that he promised the gods he could do it in three seasons, and the payment he wanted for such service was the goddess Freya, the most beautiful of all goddesses, the sun and the moon. It was even assured that the builder would do it with help of no man, and only the assistance of his stallion: Svadilfari. The gods agreed, convinced as they were that there was no way the builder could do as he'd assured." Loki shook his head. "Three days before the Summer Solstice, the deadline, the builder was really close to finishing. The gods began to panic. I remember that night clearly. I had stayed late in the library, reading, and on my way to my room after a late snack I heard the man I still considered my Father then, move with unease. I asked him what was wrong, what worried him. He tried to send me away, or at least pretended to, but I insisted; he asked me if I could keep a secret. I felt so delighted that he seemed to trust me, that I vowed never to say a word of what he revealed to me in confidence, to anyone." He made a pause before adding. "What you need to take in consideration here is that a vow made by one of us, and I'm not talking about being Aesir, which we all know I'm not, really, but someone with any kind of connection to magic. A vow we make, can never be broken, magic makes sure of that. If we were ever to even try it, magic would extract a heavy price, and aside from that, we would be forever known as Forsworn."

"Then how is it you're known ad the God of Lies?" Skye wanted to know.

"That is because I am especially good at twisting words enough I can conceal what I truly mean, without ever actually saying a lie." Loki told her honestly. "I don't do it most of the time, mind you; and I'm not even the only one who does it. However, once one person called me god of lies, it stuck. I'm far prouder of the title of god of mischief, though!"

Tawar just shook her head with a small smile.

"As some of you may or may not know already, depending how good your Norse mythology is, you have an idea what happened then." Loki went back to the main story. "Though I will tell you now they've gotten quite a lot wrong..." He shook his head. "Anyway, I promised the Allfather that I would take care of things. I thought I was being a hero, I didn't realize he was just using me... I shape-shifted, something I'd only recently discovered I could do. And with the form of a mare distracted the builder's stallion for three nights so he wouldn't finish the wall in time. I saved the Lady Freya, the sun and the moon... do you think anyone thanked me? No, Odin, and everyone else, they acted as if things had been exactly as they planned, as if it had all happened because they willed it. And maybe that's a way to see it. Me... I ended having to stay in the form of a mare for almost a full-year, when I gave birth to an eight-legged foal." His eyes became glassy as he remembered that time. "He could have changed, taken human form, I know he could have... but he was never given a chance. Before I could fully recover from the ordeal and change into Aesir Odin was there, he placed a spell on the newborn child, so it would forever remain in that form, as a horse... then he threatened to tell everyone that I was a deviant, into bestiality and dark magic, if I ever tried to claim him. And I could have never explained the truth because I'd vowed never to reveal what he'd shared with me!" A tear fell down his cheek. "I named him. Odin didn't like it, but afterwards Sleipnir refused to answer to any name but the one I gave him, so there was nothing he could do. I was allowed to see him once a week, for an hour, and I was to never tell anyone he was mine. For all of Asgard he would be nothing but Odin's steed..."

"But you're telling us now..." Leo was confused.

"Because he made me swear never to speak a word of it in Asgard, nothing was ever said of doing it elsewhere..." Loki actually smirked, showing the team just a bit of the kind of games of words he played.

"After that event, I promised myself I would never fall into Odin's games again." Loki continued. "I even did my best to stay as far away from him as possible; taking the chance to explore the Realm Eternal as much as I could. When I eventually grew tired of exploring Asgard I learnt the secret ways out of the realm, the Hidden Roads and later on the Shadow Paths, and I began traveling the realms. The fact that I was able to do so without using the Rainbow Bridge earned me the title of Sky-Treader." He smiled faintly. "It was during my travels that I met Angrboda. I was so young, still a teenager in the eyes of the immortals, even if I had already lived several of your lifetimes... Angrboda was very dear to me, my first love. Even though I could only spend a few days with her every few weeks, or at times months, we still cared deeply for each other. In the time we were together we had three children: Hel, Fenrir and Jörmungandr. Contrary to what your mythology would have you believe, my sons weren't born as beasts, they were born with humanoid forms, and the ability to shape-shift, just as I did. They did have a marked preference for certain forms though: in Fenrir's case a wolf, and in Jörmungandr's a sea-serpent." Loki smiled briefly in remembrance before letting out a breath. "Eventually the love Angrboda and I shared cooled off. We did not hate each other, but no longer loved each other either. We were content with simply being friends. The children stayed with her, though I visited often. I didn't fully trust taking them to Asgard, not after what had happened with Sleipnir, not when I knew that most Aesir would never understand my boys' preference for shifting into animal forms. However, the decision was taken out of my hands in the end, when Angrboda died in an accident, or at least that was the version I was fed. There was a fire, responsible for the scars my Hel is well-known for; Asgardian soldiers happened to be in the realm and heard my children calling for help, managing to save them, but not their mother."

"Sounds convenient..." Ward muttered.

"My children were brought to Asgard, and things were pretty much like I expected." Loki sighed sadly. "Hel had been so very beautiful, but the fire had left her with serious scars. Also, her body would seize and she would grow weak easily. Fenrir and Jörmungandr kept to their practice of shifting into a wolf and sea-serpent respectively. Until one day, for no apparent reason, the Allfather accused them all of dark magic. I don't remember much of what happened that day. I know there was a huge fight, Hel was fatally wounded trying to protect her brothers, and I nearly died myself... not sure why I didn't actually." He shook his head, trying to push the pain aside. "When I recovered I was informed that my two sons had been imprisoned for 'crimes against Asgard' and my daughter had been exiled to the world of the dead for the same reason as well as for her own well-being, seeing as the wound she sustained during the fight would have killed her otherwise. I was kept under 'surveillance' for 'my own good' for a long time, until eventually I managed to slip away and find my children. It broke me, seeing what had been of them. To see my fierce, proud Fenrir held by unbreakable chains; my gentle, caring Jörmungandr magically trapped in the deepest recesses of your oceans; and my girl, my beautiful princess, condemned to forever live among the dead... I pretty much lost all three of my children in one day, and didn't actually know why..."

Even with everything they had known of Loki before, everything they knew he'd done during the attack on New York, the fact that he'd killed Phil! None of the team were unaffected by the revelations of what had happened to him in the past. Skye in particular was beginning to get a pretty good idea of why her parents had chosen to give her up; if what had happened to her older siblings was anything to go by, even being bounced from foster home to foster home her life had been much better than it would have if Odin had found her...

"Do you know now?" Phil couldn't help but ask. "Why Odin did that, I mean?"

"He never told me, obviously." Loki shrugged blankly. "I only discovered it recently, actually, when I took the throne from him... but we will get to that part of the story..."

Everyone nodded, understanding that some things just needed to be explained in a certain way, to be able to understand them correctly.

"I suppose it's my turn then." Tawar announced as the attention shifted to her. "I was born Tawariel, youngest daughter of Arbellason, the Lord of the Great Forest. To give you a little background. Alfheim, my world, which is inhabited by elves, is divided in several areas, each which has a main city and smaller settlements of a particular clan of elves: those of the Great Forest live in the very center of the realm; there are clans of smaller forests, others that live close to and owe their names to the Sea, rivers, lakes, mountains, you get the idea. I was the youngest child and only daughter of the Lord of the greatest clan, that of the Great Forest, or the Summer Forest, as it is also known."

"When you introduced yourself you used the name of another house..." May reminded her.

"I know, I will get to that in a moment." The she-elf assured her. "Elves grow faster than the Aesir, but once we reach our prime we shall not age until the day we're taken from the world, or choose to leave it of our own will. Still being fully grown in body doesn't mean we're fully grown in spirit. My father made the mistake of arranging a marriage for me, shortly after I had reached my majority. Vöronwe is a good man, the Head Ambassador of our people. I know he would have been a good husband, respectful, kind, understanding of my constant desire for learning all the things I could, for being outside, exploring instead of staying in and learn to be a good wife. But I did not love him, and above all else I wanted to feel true love. Vöronwe would have never broken off our betrothal, because even if he did not love me either, he wasn't interested in anyone, and breaking a betrothal with a princess was the worst kind of insult he could commit. So I broke the betrothal instead, in the only way I could. As the arrangement had been made by my father, I disavowed myself. I stopped being Princess Tawariel, and became just Tawar. After I left my old home I traveled for days, eventually reaching the ruins of what once had been a small clan, there was no one there anymore, but I was alright with that. It was the clan my mother had once been part of, before she died of grief after her last child was born dead: the baby would have been my little sister. It was the clan of the Midnight Blossom." She made a pause before signaling to Skye and adding. "That locket belonged to her. It has been in our family since the beginning of time, according to our history, passed on from mother to daughter... the engraving of knots at the front represents the way we're all tied together, we're all connected..."

Skye looked down at her locket, rubbing it with her thumb carefully. Learning that it held such history, history of her family... it was amazing...

Ever so slowly the story began to take form, and the team remained quiet, just listening.

"I met Loki when we were still children." Tawar continued. "In the only trip to Asgard I ever convinced my oldest brother: Arphenion, on taking me along with him. We only had a few days, but still managed to become good friends; we both enjoyed exploring, and learning, and I just loved seeing him experiment with his magic..." She smiled brightly. "When I couldn't find anyone to take me to Asgard afterwards I thought I would never see Loki again; and for many years I didn't. Then I disavowed myself, and it was an even bigger reason to think we would never find each other again. Except we did. He found me in my little cottage in the Shadowed Forest. He said he'd gone looking for me at my old home, learnt of what I'd done. It was Vöronwe himself who told him where to find me." She reached to take her beloved's hand in hers with a smile. "We rekindled our friendship almost immediately and, through the years, that friendship slowly turned into something more. We knew we couldn't marry, Asgard would never accept it, would never accept me; I was considered a disgrace, a social pariah for my breaking of the betrothal with Vöronwe and my separation from my Father's House. That didn't stop us, though. We went through an old elven ceremony, pronounced vows that called on the Higher Powers, we bound ourselves to each other."

Jemma actually sighed at that, it was beginning to sound like a love-story. Still, most of the team still remembered that something had to have gone wrong for things to have ended as they were in that moment, for Skye to have lived alone for so long...

"Children are rare among my people." Tawar continued. "They're a miracle to be cherished above everything and anything else, rare as it is. The day I learnt I was pregnant with Loki's child, I felt happiness like never before... I was being blessed with a child, we were being blessed. Even if I could never be publicly known as his wife, his match, even if both the child and I had to spend our lives in that small forest in a corner of Alfheim, I was convinced we would have a perfect life... Until the day I learnt Odin knew of me, and of her..." She swallowed the knot in her throat. "I knew well enough what had happened to all of Loki's children. Had known since beginning my relationship with my love. Neither of us truly understood why Odin seemed to be so against Loki's children, except that he believed they were a danger to him, for whatever the reason."

"He believed children were a danger to him?" Leo asked in disbelief.

"Maybe not the children, but who and what they would grow to be." May suggested.

"It still sounds insane." Jemma agreed with Fitz.

"Insane or not, it doesn't change his actions." Tawar pointed out. "With the horrible things he had done to Sleipnir, Hel, Fenrir and Jörmungandr, the mere possibility of anything like that, or worse, happening to my baby... It terrified me." She shook her head. "Like I believe I might have mentioned before, I am no spellweaver; however, all elves are born with one gift: foresight. It usually manifests in dreams, and depending how good we are with it, we find out a lot, or very little. Mine doesn't allow for much, but at least I realized that Odin knew about me, probably had for a while, and had learnt about my pregnancy. That had made him decide to move against me. I could have gone into hysterics right then, but knowing I didn't have a lot of time I chose to get to work right away. Even if a lot of my people considered me a pariah, I still had some contacts, friends, and at least one person who owed me a favor. Lady Thenidiel is the most powerful spellweaver among the elves, she owed me a favor. She arranged a time-delayed teleportation spell, which would take me to any realm I chose."

"Why not get away immediately?" Jemma asked, confused.

"She waited for me." Loki informed them. "I'd seen her when she was in her eighth week or so; then things happened in Asgard and I couldn't visit until she was near the end of her fifth month. She told me of her premonition and the steps she'd taken to ensure her safety and that of her child. I wanted nothing more than to go with her right then, but I knew I couldn't. If I were to just disappear it would be suspicious. I had to go back to Asgard, find out who knew about her and do everything I could to make sure she would never be found... as you might imagine, that didn't exactly go as planned..."

"I left the following day." Tawar continued. "Activated the teleportation spell and appeared right here, on Midgard, pretty close to a small rice-field, owned by an old midwife called Yue and her teen-aged daughter: Xiefa."

FitzSimmons gasped at that, they remembered what had happened to the people of a village in China, and Tawar's hysterics regarding someone named Xiefa...

"I spent the remaining months of my pregnancy with them." Tawar related. "Yue was such a nice, gentle woman. She never once questioned where I'd come from, why I wasn't with my husband, even though I'd mentioned him more than once, not even what I was doing there when I hadn't the first idea about their language. She just helped me. She's the kindest woman I've ever known... I pray she's in a better place now. Xiefa... she was such a happy, inquisitive child. She spoke English, so we could communicate. She was always asking things, wanting me to teach her everything I knew. Even when I told her all I knew were old stories and songs, she wanted to learn those too. I even managed to teach her some basic words and phrases in elvish..." She let out a breath. "The two helped me when I gave birth. Living in the middle of nowhere, there was really no one else to help. Still, they were all I needed." Her eyes fixed straight on Skye. "When they placed you in my arms... so small, and fragile, all pink and beautiful, with a tuft of light brown hair on your head, and big eyes, the same color as your father's. I loved you so much..."

Skye just couldn't help herself, she let out a sob. She'd been trying so hard to keep her heart protected, to doubt anything the two immortals might say, not give into hope and begin to believe what they wanted her to... until then. Suddenly, seeing the expression on Tawar's face, the absolute feeling with which she'd said those five words... Skye just couldn't doubt it anymore... That woman was really her mother.

"I didn't name you at first." Tawar said, her eyes never straying from her grown daughter. "I did not want to do it without Loki, he deserved to have a say in your name. I knew something bad had to have happened, for him not to have joined me yet. I could only hope he was alright and would find us eventually, as he promised. Things got out of control the next day." Her voice broke slight and she had to force herself to speak past the knot in her throat. "36 hours... that's how long it had been since you were born... I remember it wasn't even dawn yet. And I sensed someone had arrived. Odin had sent someone from Asgard... for us. I was still too weak, having given birth with no medicines, no herbs... I couldn't run, but you had to get away... you had to. So I told Xiefa to take you and run. The closest village was a few hours away, and Xiefa was in good enough shape, I believed she could get there, she could save you. And she accepted. So I held you one last time, I named you, gave you my blessing... then I placed you in a fourteen-year-old's arms and said goodbye..."

"What did you name me?" Skye asked in a whisper.

"Menel." Tawar spoke in the same tone, as if afraid of breaking the moment. "Though Loki has taken to calling you Meneliel... it means sky..."

The sound that left the young woman's lips sounded like half-laugh, half-sob.

"What a coincidence!" Leo declared.

"No coincidence." Tawar shook her head. "Xiefa knew what the name meant. She realized the name Menel would have called too much unwanted attention, so she called you by its meaning instead, it was a good call." She signaled to the locket. "I placed that around your neck. If things had gone my way I would have given it to you when you came off-age, when you knew all about our family history, our traditions... but the moment I sensed an Asgardian approaching I knew things wouldn't go our way. So I left you the locket, and sent you away."

It took several seconds for Tawar to regain enough composure to continue with her story, but she knew she had to, even if she had shared all her memories with Loki, it just wasn't right for anyone but her to tell that part of their story.

"Odin was actually caught off-guard by my actions." She finally spoke again. "Like I told you already, children are especially precious for elves. So much he never thought I would be capable of letting mine go. He obviously doesn't understand where a mother's priorities lie... no matter how much it might hurt me, your safety would always come first to me."

Both mother and daughter were openly crying by then, Skye's hands holding her locket tightly, while Tawar's held her match's.

"The one who came first was someone other than Odin, actually." Tawar clarified. "One of his Eihenjars, used to simply following orders, he cared not for the life of others. He killed Yue when she tried to stop him from manhandling me. When they couldn't find the baby anywhere in the cottage or the property Odin finally came. He tried to persuade me to tell him where I'd hidden my child, convinced as he was I couldn't have sent her far. He threatened with killing me, with killing my husband, if I didn't answer him. The bastard had the gall to say that he had nothing against me, he couldn't allow a monster's offspring to live, but I didn't have to die because of him, because of them. He honestly believed I would sacrifice my own daughter to save my life!" She shook her head in denial. "Eventually I made him see the truth. He was livid. He told me I was no one, that there was nothing I could do to keep the child from him. He would find her, and destroy her, more definitely than he'd done with Loki's other children... He tried to rip the information of my daughter's hiding place from my mind. I felt so much satisfaction when he found nothing... it's not like I even knew what direction the town was in! He told me he would find my babe anyway, that... that he would... would make her bleed, would destroy her in front me a... and my love. So we would know no one could go against Odin Allfather's wishes..."

Every single member of the team was horrified at hearing that. What would have happened to Skye... it was terrifying.

"I was sent, chained and gagged, to a cell in the dungeons." Tawar explained. "Every day he would go, ask me if I'd changed my mind and would tell him where to find my daughter." She snorted. "As if! He... he even tortured my husband in front of me a few times, it was one of his persuasion techniques..." A sob escaped her. "But I still didn't say a word."

"She was doing the right thing." Loki announced immediately, eyes fixed straight on Skye. "Your life was worth more than ours, a thousand times more..."

"One day he told me he'd found you, that he would go personally to retrieve you." Tawar said then. "I spent three days absolutely terrified. I could hardly sleep, and whenever I closed my eyes I thought I heard my baby screaming, and crying, calling to me and I was unable to answer." She shook her head. "When Odin finally visited again he was beyond furious. He was completely covered in blood, so much it made me sick. He took great pleasure in recounting everything he'd done, all the people he'd slaughtered. Only for you to slip from between his fingers. Odin is... was a Warrior above everything. Battle-lust took him over and he lost notion of things, I imagine that someone managed to get you away then..."

"A S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent." Phil informed her. "He was fatally wounded, but managed to get away and hide with her. Eventually two other Agents found his body and the sleeping child in his arms, they were the ones who got her to the States."

"And Odin still went after them." May shook her head.

"What?" That was news to both Tawar and Loki.

"You did not know that?" Ward wasn't expecting that.

"I was sent to the Box after that day." Tawar explained. "It's a windowless, doorless cell, made of stones that absorb energy, it can only be entered and exited if you're holding the magical key, only the King of Asgard knows it's location, or that it even exists. Odin left me there. Eventually I lost so much energy I fell asleep. Didn't wake until a few weeks ago."

"I was made to forget." Loki added his part. "Forget everything about her. We'd been together for a century, and I didn't remember a thing. I was told I'd been exploring and got into a fight, and I wasn't enough of a Warrior... that I'd been left for dead and the Allfather's Eihenjar had found me, half-dead in the forest. Supposedly I got hit in the head hard enough a good deal of my memories were scrambled." He sighed. "I didn't believe most of it, but since I'd been so careful in my attempts to keep my relationship with Tawariel in secret there was no proof whatsoever of it, of her, anywhere in my chambers. So even though I knew I was being lied to, I didn't actually know what had really happened. It was like the day I lost my children all over again... except that I did not even remember losing something. I felt the hole in my heart, and knew not why..."

There were several shivers among the humans, as they tried imagining what it would feel like to go through something like that. It was more than they could even consider dealing with.

"Years passed." Loki got into the next part of the story. "I stayed closer to Thor, at Mother's insistence, she was worried something might happen to me if I kept going off on my own."

"Did she know about... about us?" Skye asked, curious.

"I don't know for sure, but I don't think so." He shook his head. "Mother would have never allowed Tawar or you to be hurt... she would have loved you..." He let out a breath. "As you probably know already, eventually the day came when Thor was to be crowned as King of Asgard. I thought it was insane. As much as I may care for him, Thor just wasn't ready to be King at the time. He was immature, wild, reckless, dangerous; he did not understand what ruling truly is supposed to be about; not about yourself, but about your people. And Odin did not care for correcting him! I have always said he is no father to me, I suppose he shouldn't even be considered a Father to Thor, he never chastised, never educated, never cared for the hard half of parenting..." He snarled quietly. "I knew Asgard would be in danger if Thor took the throne as he was right then. So I sought to provoke him, to force the Allfather to see just how ill-prepared his golden-son was." He sighed. "Things didn't exactly go the way I planned. Thor being exiled was never in the cards, much less ending with the throne myself! The last thing I needed was those kind of expectations piled on me!"

"I thought you were supposed to be a great strategist?" May challenged.

"Excuse me if I was a bit distracted by the fact that my skin had just turned blue at the touch of a Frost Giant while we were in Jotunheim!" Loki snapped testily. "Like I said before, I lived most of my life believing myself the son of Odin and Frigg... it was then that I learnt the truth. I didn't take it well. Then again, I don't think anyone would take well finding out they're the very thing they've been taught to fear and hate their entire lives! That's how much Asgard, and Odin in particular hates the Jotun. Why Thor grew up claiming he would one day go to Jotunheim and slaughter all the Frost Giants!"

There were several gasps as the team was forced to consider one of their heroes committing that kind of genocide, planning it since being a child.

"When I confronted Odin on his lie he offered no answers." Loki forced himself to continue the story. "The most he said was that he'd had plans, but they no longer mattered. What kind of plans? Did he think he could educate me as an Asgardian and then send me to be the next King of Jotunheim, be a puppet King? I might have been Laufey's firstborn, but I do not think the Jotun would have been very agreeable to something like that. Or was I supposed to be some kind of ransom? Considering that Laufey left me in a temple to die in the aftermath of the worst war ever, it was quite obvious he didn't much care for me. I knew not what the plan was supposed to be, he fell into the Odinsleep before I could keep pressuring him. After that the revelation, added to the expectations placed on me as King of Asgard and everyone's distrust, just kept making things worse. I tried to make a treaty with Jotunheim, but Laufey was beyond reason. So I was forced to play dirty, I offered him the chance to murder Odin; though, unknown to him, it was all a ploy so I could assassinate him. I hoped that with him out of the way I would be able to talk peace with his people, maybe whoever became King once he was gone. Heimdall, and Thor's friends: Sif and the Warriors Three, had to choose that very moment to betray me. And things pretty much went to hell. Really, there was no way to win after that..."

"You went suicidal..." Phil's comment shocked everyone.

"How would you know that?" Loki demanded.

"Thor and I talked in the helicarrier." Phil shrugged slightly. "I didn't understand what made him care so much with everything you were doing, and had already done. He told me about your fight in the Rainbow Bridge. How he didn't realize it at the time, but in hindsight it was so obvious that you were provoking him to fight, to be angry, and yet you were holding back. With your magic you could have destroyed Thor in seconds if you had truly wanted to, instead you made him angry, fought him mostly physically, and pretty much let him throw you around."

There were several gasps, and Loki was completely tense; however, Phil wasn't done just then.

"He also remembered what happened at the end." Phil added.

"Don't..." Loki hissed.

Tawar closed her eyes, she didn't like it, but something inside told her the truth needed to come out, all of it, even... especially, the parts they hated most.

"You yelled at Odin, told him you could have done it, for him, for the family... you could have been the son he wanted... he said no." Phil continued. "And then... you didn't slip from the staff the Thor was holding so you wouldn't fall... you let go..."

The silence that followed that revelation was so thick several people felt like their were choking on it. Skye's eyes were wide in horror, she might have only known Loki, the true him, for less than a day, but the mere thought of him trying to kill himself, it hurt a part of her she hadn't known could hurt... because she had parents, parents that loved her, who had done everything, sacrificed it all, to ensure her safety... and then they'd come so close to dying and she would have never gotten to meet them... She finally accepted fully the fact that they were, indeed, her parents; but that only seem to be bringing an even bigger and crazier rollercoaster of emotions.

"Of course, I did not die." Loki said mirthlessly. "Instead I fell for what seemed like forever, until I crash-landed on what might have been a planet once, or a moon or a star. Whichever the case, it was the hideaway of a long-forgotten race that had been corrupted beyond thought or reason by the Mad Titan, Thanos. When he saw me, saw my power, the fact that I too could survive in the abyss, he wanted to use me too. I tried my best to resist. While I might have had no love for Odin even then, I actually cared for Thor, still do, and I will always love Mother. So, when I refused to cooperate, Thanos tortured me. It went on for a long, awful time, until at some point, the tortures made something snap inside of me. And just like that, a century worth of memories slipped back into place. It was then that I truly fell into madness." His voice broke briefly. "To suddenly realize I'd lost a wife and a daughter, that they'd been lost for more than twenty years and I had not known. I hated Odin so much... I stopped fighting against what Thanos wanted."

His story suddenly explained so much. Like how insane he'd seemed throughout the whole thing in Stuttgart, the helicarrier and finally New York.

"I didn't care about anything anymore." Loki said with a shrug. "Far as I knew both Tawar and our baby were dead. And even if they weren't, what chance had I of helping them? I decided I had a better chance to try and destroy Odin any way I could, and then eventually die... I certainly was not going to go back to pretending I didn't remember everything that bastard had done. If anyone in this universe is truly a monster, it is he." He let out a sigh. "I never actually wanted to destroy Midgard, it's not really my style. And it's not like it was the humans' fault. Also, if my smallest, brightest hope happened to be true, my daughter was somewhere in this realm, alive, hopefully living a good, free, happy life."

"That explains why you chose angering every would-be hero as your opening move in your conquering plan." Phil murmured in understanding. "I could never understand who went to such great effort to openly provoke those who could stop him, when they could have done everything in secret and not even be noticed until it was all said and done. You never intended to win."

"You had me all figured out at that moment." Loki admitted to Phil. "When you told me I wasn't going to win, that I lacked conviction. The only thing you didn't realize was that I never intended to win... not at all." He shook his head again. "When Thor took me to Asgard in chains, I was all ready for my final move. I would kill the Allfather and then I would die... But then, Mother was there. Odin made her leave, but her brief presence still shook me and I forgot to act. I was taken to a cell in the dungeons then. Each day my anger would grow, I began working on a new plan to murder Odin; but then Mother would visit, and it was as if her mere presence blew the anger away. I couldn't help it, couldn't help myself. It was a sick vice, yet I enjoyed her visits too much to tell her not to come back..." He let out a dark laugh. "Maybe if I had done it, if I had killed Odin, it would have been better."

"Why?" Skye asked, hurt. "You would have never known me."

"True, I would have regretted that." Loki admitted openly. "But maybe your mother would have been freed earlier, she would have found you, and you would have never been as close to death as you were yesterday. And maybe Mother would still be alive..."

"She's dead...?!" Skye was shocked.

"Yes." Loki let out a sigh. "Stabbed while protecting Jane Foster from Malekith and his followers a little over a month ago. I wasn't there... Odin had me rotting in a cell... and he and his son were elsewhere, playing with lesser fighters; and none of us were there to save her... none of us... she died all alone..."

Tawar embraced him tightly, whispering every comforting word she knew in both Elvish and English. It didn't help that much.

"I... I am sorry about L... your...Grandma..." With some effort Skye forced herself to accept her own connection to the deceased woman. "But if you had died, I wouldn't have known you and, well, I like being able to know you. Both of you. Even if the way we got here wasn't the best, I'm still happy."

"We're delighted to get this chance too..." Tawar cut herself off before she could get too personal.

"Can you... can you call me that again?" Skye asked quietly. "Those words in your language, that you called me when I was a baby. What you called me in those dreams... I liked it..."

"Lirimaer amin..." Tawar whispered in a half-sob.

Skye smiled brightly.

"I still don't understand one thing." Ward stated, turning to Loki. "Why do S.H.I.E.L.D.'s records have you listed as deceased? There is even a note that you died in battle for Asgard."

"Thor..." Loki murmured, though he sounded touched rather than exasperated. "I told him quite clearly I hadn't done it for Asgard."

"What happened?" Skye was worried all over again.

It was strange for her. She was still getting used to caring about her team, worrying about them, and to suddenly have even more people, blood-family, to care for and worry about...

"After Mother... after she was gone, Thor went looking for me." Loki explained. "He claimed not to trust me anymore, yet he needed my help. He made me an offer he knew I wouldn't be able to refuse. A chance to take vengeance on those responsible for Mother's death. With some minor help from Heimdall and Thor's friends we got Jane Foster to Svartalfheim through the Hidden Roads; it was what they needed me for, as there was none other left who knew them like I did. The plan was to attract Malekith's attention away from Asgard. Also, we needed him to get the Aether from Jane Foster, as it was the only way she wouldn't end up dead from its power. We believed that if we managed to attack from close enough at the precise moment we would be able to destroy the Aether. It didn't exactly work our way..." He let out a breath. "We had a plan, the first part went just fine. It wasn't hard to pretend to betray him once again, and since the Kursed serving with Malekith had seen me in the dungeons, that supported my story that I wanted to destroy Asgard as much as they did. Jane Foster was freed of the power of the Aether, but even though Thor sent his best attack at it, it just wasn't enough. I think nothing would have been in that moment. I made sure the woman didn't get herself killed in the madness that followed, and then joined the melee. It had been so long since I'd been in such a battle, with my brother at my side rather than against me... I will admit it felt good. Then... I saw him, he was down, being pummeled by the Kursed. The monster was going to kill him, and I couldn't allow it. I might not be the best brother... and might deny even having such a connection with the oaf most of the time. But he is my brother, and I will protect him if I can..."

"You sacrificed yourself for him..." Jemma whispered.

"Not exactly in the way you're implying it, but it came down to that in the end, yes." Loki shrugged. "The longer version is that I stabbed the Kursed, it turned against me and ran the very blade that was still in him, through me as well. Now, contrary to what I imagine you're beginning to think right now. I did not fake my death, to escape going back to that cell... I did die." He undid several buttons from his tunic, opening it enough to show the pink scar on his chest. "I did die, and had that truly been my end, I don't think I would have regretted the way I went. I would have regretted never meeting you, Meneliel, never seeing Tawariel again, but not that. It was the first time, in many years, that I did something right..."

Yes, that was one thing he would never regret.

"How are you alive then?" Leo blurted out, backtracking the moment he felt the first glare. "Not that I think there's anything wrong with you being alive! I'm just... curious."

"I suppose some would say it pays being the father of the Queen of the dead..." Loki quipped, before turning more serious. "She told me I could come back, because there was something still tethering me to the world of the living. It was then that I learnt Tawariel was alive. I had no idea where she could be, but she was, indeed, alive. She was the one tethering me to life." He smiled at Skye. "Hel also told me you were alive as well. So I took the chance, and returned to life. I used my shape-shifting abilities to pass myself as an Eihenjar and get close enough to Odin to take him down. I even told him of my death... he didn't care. All he cared about was Thor."

"So you killed Odin then?" May inquired.

"No, I did not." Loki shook his head. "If I were to kill Odin, Thor would know, because the throne would demand his presence. Last time it was different, he was powerless, due to the Allfather's punishment, so I was the next choice. But with things as they are now, if Odin died, Thor would feel the throne calling to him. He would be able to see through the spell that makes everyone believe Odin is still on the throne, even though it's me. And he would most likely kill me himself." He shook his head. "To be perfectly honest. I did offer him the throne after he defeated Malekith. He chose to come back to Midgard and be with Jane Foster..." He took a quick look at his beloved. "Can't say I disagree with his choice, but someone had to stay in Asgard and handle things there. And he did say that from the two of us I was the one who truly understood the reality of ruling..."

"How does this connect to you?" Simmons asked Tawar.

"When he took down Odin, Loki decided to imprison him in the very cell Odin had left me." Tawar explained. "I woke up in his personal chambers less than a month ago. It took me a week to even be able to stay awake longer than an hour at a time, another to get on my feet again; and it was less than three of days ago that I began walking around."

"So, you aren't fully recovered, yet you... you came..." Skye was shocked speechless.

"I came the moment I heard you calling." Tawar finished for her.

Skye simply couldn't handle the emotions anymore; she jumped to her feet, pretty much stumbled around the coffee table in the middle of the lounge and then threw herself in her mother's arms.

"Mama... mama..." Was all she mumbled, time and again...

xXx

No one was sure exactly how long the little family spent like that. Skye ended curled up between Loki and Tawar, both embracing her tightly. Slowly the team began drifting away, giving the three their space, though there was no doubt they all would be back in seconds if Skye, or anyone were to call on them.

The moment was eventually interrupted by May's voice on the speakers:

"The weather cleared an hour ago and we've been informed that air-traffic is free now. We're clear to land. Should be stepping off the Bus in thirty minutes at most."

Everyone could read between the lines, the time was coming to an end.

As if to confirm when Skye raised her head she could see Phil standing behind one of the sofas once again.

"Guess the time has come..." Loki murmured, mostly to himself, before turning to Phil. "I suppose you will be the one to take me in."

"What?!" Skye practically shrieked. "No! AC!"

Tawar just held her tightly, she didn't like it either, but there was nothing she could do to change things, not without affecting her daughter, and her friends...

"It's alright, my dear." Loki caressed Skye's face softly. "The Son of Coul has a duty to fulfill. A duty to his organization and his country..."

"But it's not right!" Skye insisted. "You... they will see you as a war criminal, they will kill you... they won't understand..."

"The fact that you understand, brings me happiness like you cannot imagine..." Loki whispered, kissing Skye's brow. "It will be alright, my child. I got to meet you, got to see you all grown up, see you smile.. what else could I ask of the universe? Besides, as much as you might believe you understand. In the end, I'm not a good man, and justice must be served..."

"You cannot take him, take them, AC, please!" Skye insisted.

"I am not." Phil's answer surprised everyone present, possibly even himself. "In fact, I was going to suggest you get off the Bus before we land... and that your daughter might want to work her magic in the cameras in here before that time as well... just in case."

"What?!" None of them knew what to say.

Phil didn't say anything else, just turned to leave.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing Phil?" Melinda asked him quietly around the corner.

"What do you suppose I am doing Melinda?" Phil inquired in turn.

"Letting a dangerous interdimensional criminal go." Melinda said as if it were obvious.

"I see it as giving a man who's already lost too much, a second chance." Phil told her quietly. "I also see it as us gaining a possible ally if things ever get as bad around here as I fear they might."

"You're preparing allegiances outside of S.H.I.E.L.D..." Melinda was shocked.

"I am just taking precautions." He insisted.

He would never say it, but since he'd discovered how far S.H.I.E.L.D. had been willing to go, both with the dramatic way in which Fury had presented his death to the Avengers, his being brought back to life, and the whole Tahiti illusion, Phil's trust in both Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. as a whole had lessened. Then there was the Clairvoyant... it would seem like their 'enemy' knew too much of their movements, and the workings of S.H.I.E.L.D., including the neuro-toxin in that grenade they'd used in Italy. So either they had a mole, a traitor, (or more than one) or something much more perverse and dangerous was afoot... In the end, having someone like Loki as a possible ally in case of an emergency might not go amiss. And that was without considering what Skye might be capable of when whatever abilities she might have inherited from her father began to truly surface...

xXx

Thirty minutes later Skye joined the rest of her team at the bay door when the plane fully stopped. None of them said a word about her parents, knowing they must have left already, no mention was made either about the leather-coat she was wearing, which she hadn't had before, with a green collar she kept discreetly pressing her nose against.

The team left the bus, like any other time after a long mission. Each going their way. The next day when they saw Skye right on time for take-off, Jemma noticed she had white bandages around both wrists.

"What the...?" The biochemist began.

"Before you go all ballistic on me, no, I did not hurt myself." Skye interrupted her. "I actually went and got tattoos. Give me a moment and I'll show you."

Turning her back on Jemma she took off the bandages; before swiftly calling on her still-new magic and using a basic healing spell; it was the one thing she'd insisted her dad teach her before he had to leave, a good place to begin, and useful considering their line of work. The man at the tattoo parlor had told her it would take days for her wrists to heal after the work he'd done, of course he did not know she had magic on her side. In a matter of minutes the swelling had gone almost completely down (she wasn't perfect).

"There, what do you think?" She asked, showing them to Simmons.

She had tattooed the inside of both wrists, on one she had what looked like a snake twisted in an eight pattern, or an infinity, her dad's symbol; on the other a flower made of knots, it looked somewhat like the symbol on her locket, and fit well with the name of her Mother's House.

"They're beautiful." Leo declared, looking over Jemma's shoulder.

"I can't exactly claim my father's name." Skye explained with a shrug. "But I could do this to honor them." She fished a wallet from the back-pocket of her jeans. "And also this."

The contents surprised Jemma and Leo, as they included an ID, driver's license, among other things. All of them with the same name: 'Skye Astrid Avery'. Also by that point the rest of the team arrived, and they began looking through the things as well; they all looked surprised, except for Phil, who handed her a badge. They all could see it was a S.H.I.E.L.D. badge, with Skye's picture and the same name as the rest of her things. Skye was officially a Probationary Agent (not even Level 1 just yet, but the time for that would come).

"You needed a surname to become a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent..." Ward was the first to understand, at least part of what was going on.

"I needed to even exist in the system first." Skye pointed out with a half-smirk. "The rest came as a consequence."

"I thought you did not know your surname." Jemma said to Skye, confused.

"I don't really have one, it's not like either of my parents had one, and I cannot take either of their names as would be the tradition in their worlds, for obvious reasons." Skye elaborated. "So instead I chose to take the surname of the Agent who got me to St. Agnes, who set up the protocol that kept me safe for all those years, the last one who died to keep me safe." She smiled softly. "I hope to one day be able to make her proud."

"I'm sure you already have, Agent Avery." Ward told her with a smirk.

Skye felt shivers up her spine, it was the first time anyone had referred to her like that.

"What about the middle-name?" Leo asked, interested.

"It's the name my father chose..." Skye said quietly. "I asked him before he left, what he would have liked to name me. He said he liked Skye, even if in Norse it means cloud rather than actual sky, and he insists on calling me Meneliel... when I insisted he eventually admitted he had always liked the name Astrid. Said it was the perfect name for a daughter, as it could be interpreted in three ways, all of which he liked: beloved, beautiful and divine strength, and all of those served to represent his daughter..."

Skye was crying by then, remembering the moment when her dad had said those things to her, when he had expressed in that, almost simple way, just how much he loved her...

"Well, I think it's a perfect name." Phil declared, handing her her things back. "Team, we have a mission. Wheels up in five, debrief in fifteen..."

With that he left for his office, while the rest of them rushed to their places to strap themselves for take-off. They were back to their normalcy, though some things had forever changed. She was no longer just Skye, or alone, she would never be again. She had family, two families in fact. One that would be with her every day, of people who may have no blood-connection with her, but whom she had chosen, and had chosen her; and another that while they may not be with her every day, cared for her just as much, who had done everything, sacrificed everything to give her a life, give her freedom, happiness and love. She would always love her two families, would try her best to make them proud, as well as every single person who had at one point lost their lives to protect her, to give her the life she had right then.

She still did not know how far she might one day come with her magic, it was just beginning to surface... she didn't know either what it was she was supposed to do one day that Odin feared so much; but she was sure that with her families supporting her, whatever it was, things would be just fine in the end. After all, they were family, and family together could achieve anything.

---

Hope you liked the story. As impossible as it is.

I'm not sure if I should leave it here or make it a crossover with Avengers (or Thor). If people ask me to, I will move it, if not I'll leave it here.

Maybe one day I will write more of this (unlikely, but not impossible, depends on if people like it or not). Hope you'll review. Impossible or not, I would still like to know what people think of this.

P.S. Please don't forget to read the stories in my Nightingale verse!

See ya around!

Long live the King (that means Loki, of course)!