- Chapter One -

"I wish there was an easier way, child. You know how I hate to watch you suffer."

The man's fingers cupped her cheek, as if prepared to catch any tears that would fall. Her blue eyes looked right into his soul, but there were no tears building up. She looked at him with an expression that said nothing.

"What a relief it is for you, then… that you won't have to be watching me for quite a while."

If he hadn't known better, he would have thought it was a bitter remark. But her soulless eyes only confirmed that her training had been a success. She played the role perfectly – the way she formulated the response and how she voiced it. Everything about her was perfect. Even if he'd probably never see her again, neither chose to bring it up.

"You are humanity's only hope. Take pride in that," he continued. The woman's gaze lowered, and he slid his hand to the back of her neck, pulling her closer to him in some sort of a hug. "Sleep well, Lo. Don't let me down," he eventually said, before letting go and stepping out of her room. He knew he wouldn't get an answer from her. He knew her too well.

Of course she wouldn't let him down. Of course she wouldn't let humanity down.

While Annette Hanshaw was singing 'My Sin' on the radio, the woman put her dark blonde hair into a bun, lifted the window, and lit herself a Lucky. The wind rushed into the room, making her long satin robe flutter behind her before she could sit on the threshold and pin it down. She inhaled the smoke, knowing it was the last cigarette she'd ever get to smoke. It only made her draw more passionately from it. She stared absently at the moon while the radio played in the background. It was the last time she'd get to listen to jazz.

"…You've found your happiness

And your love is over, too

But my sin is just the same

I'm still– "

The song ended abruptly after she elegantly pressed two fingers against the radio button.

There was an unsettling humming in the library, probably caused by the wind that blew through both open windows, but Dolores didn't give it much thought – not even enough to bother closing one of them. She was absently dusting off a shelf, somewhere near the main entrance of the library, but with her back turned to the massive double doors. And as she rearranged a book that seemed to stick out a little more than the others, her eyes fell upon the title of another one, next to it. 'Creation of Midgard,' it read, though in a language that everyone back home called Old Norse. It struck her that if she ever referred to it as 'Earth', or to the language spoken here as 'Old Norse', everything she had worked towards for almost twenty years would have just gone to waste.

Her training had begun since early age, when she was but a kid hiding in sewers or pickpocketing in order to survive – so one could easily say it was the only thing she had known for most of her life. Lying had come naturally to her, even though she had been chosen mostly for her resemblance to the Asgardians. In time, Dolores had managed to lick into shape the necessary skills for this mission, learn the language and customs of Asgard, as well as memorize the basics of each domain – history, medicine, technology, much to the pleasure of her father.

While her boss wasn't exactly her father, as she often called him, Dolores did see him as a father figure, since he was the only person close enough to call family. He was the one that had taken her off the streets, offered her food and, most importantly, a purpose. It only came naturally that she would end up wanting to please him, no matter what. Besides, she was doing this for the whole world.

However, she had never met the Asgardian that had contributed to everything. He had never directly coached her or spoken to her. She had heard his voice once, through the telephone, when she had to be assessed. If it hadn't been for his approval, she would never have ended up on Asgard. But even while being taken to Asgard, she had to be sedated, in order 'to keep the spell intact'.

It didn't really phase the woman, besides the fact that she had no certainty if her father had successfully gotten rid of the Asgardian. He had confessed to her that was his plan for after her transport. But since it had already been a few weeks and nobody had come searching for her, it could only mean everything was still going according to plan. Dolores held that thought for a few moments; she realized she didn't really know how many weeks had passed.

Her short moment of spacing out was interrupted by one of the doors creaking behind her. To that, she didn't turn around, but just kept dusting off the shelves, hoping that whoever had entered would know how to find what they were looking for. Unfortunately, she heard the footsteps coming closer to her, until they eventually stopped right next to her. She turned her head to look at the visitor, while still maneuvering the cloth.

"I have never seen you around," the man stated. Before she got the chance to answer, he added, "Where is Rangvald?" He was referring to the old librarian. While she could clearly distinguish a faint smile on his face, she didn't really feel like returning it in any form. Instead, she went back to focusing on the dust again.

Her response came accompanied by a neutral tone, "Resting. We work in shifts now." A short moment of silence followed, during which she could feel the man's eyes fixated on her. She left the cloth on the shelf and eventually offered him her full attention. "Can I help you?" The man raised an eyebrow, his faint smile now having turned into a smirk. His long, black hair framed his pale complexion in a way that made his blue eyes seem even more piercing, but she wasn't analyzing him like one would analyze a painting, she was merely trying to figure out who he was. There was a glimpse of superiority emanating from him, which only helped her put two and two together, so she continued the question by addressing him directly, "…Loki?"

"So you know who I am. For a moment there, I thought I'd have to introduce myself, judging by your tone." Of course he'd react that way.

"My tone was in no way meant to be insulting," she countered. "I apologize if it came out that way."

Again, there was a brief moment of silence before he turned his back to her and slowly started to walk away. Dolores kept her eye on him, however, but when she decided she could go back to work, the man stopped. She watched him from the corner of her eyes as he only seemed to look around. But then, he broke the silence.

"What's your name?"

It would have been a lie to say she hadn't practiced this moment over and over again, until she had almost convinced herself that she was telling the truth. "Ingrid," she said, not too quickly, nor too late. Knowing she was facing the one and only god of lies, as was one of his aliases back on Earth, did not exactly make her confidence skyrocket. She had eventually learned that she could easily mask that by acting indifferent. So indifferent she became, turning her attention back to her task.

Loki realized that, which made him turn around. He had not sensed any kind of emotion coming from her, which intrigued him slightly. It was expected she would either be nervous or excited to meet him. He was, after all, Loki Odinson. Not everyone had the chance to have a one on one conversation with him. Instead, the woman was just casually minding her business, as if she had met some regular peasant.

"And how long have you been here for?" he continued the questioning.

"A few weeks."

It almost felt as if someone was repeatedly slamming a door in his face, something he was not used to. As a natural reaction, Loki resorted to the advantage he had over her. "I want you to find this and bring it to me," he said in a demanding voice, while making a small piece of paper appear into his palm out of thin air. But Ingrid only turned around to look at him when she realized he wouldn't walk towards her to hand her the piece of paper, thus missing the display of magic. She rapidly walked in front of him and read the title written on the note.

"Sure. I'll be right back," she said, already starting to walk away.

"No, you'll bring it to my chambers."

She stopped and turned to look at him. "I don't know where your chambers are."

He grinned softly as he explained to her how to get there. It seemed bizarre that his chambers were so disconnected and underground, but there was not much she could question. While she knew the plans of the public side of the palace by heart, private chambers and the like had been omitted during her training. Once Loki had finished explaining, she nodded and watched him walk away. Maybe there was something about that grin that made her doubt he was telling the truth.

Since he had not exactly insisted on delivering the book in a short amount of time, Ingrid took her time to finish what she had started, before going to the back of the library to search for the location of the book. She opened the registry book and began searching for the index, not really focusing on the subject of the book. It was only on her way through the dark halls of the palace that she started to wonder what could possibly interest him in a book on botanical arts.

Following Loki's instructions, she ended up two floors underground, on a dark hallway that was barely being lit by a small torch. It wasn't enough to fully light up the other end of the hallway, so by the time she got there, Ingrid's eyes had to adjust to the darkness and she had to guide herself based on the shadows. When she finally reached the wooden door, the rumbling noise coming from behind it signaled that it may not be such a good idea, but she knocked on it nevertheless.

"Come in."

It was clearly Loki's voice, but something about it seemed off, as if it had an unusual echo. It wasn't evident, so she dismissed it, thinking it was just her mind being too paranoid. She searched for the handle and pressed it, pulling the door towards her, and the faint rumbling noise stopped. However, the room was pitch black, and she didn't quite know what to do. Stepping inside was just too much after all the uncertainty that led her there.

Before she could make a decision, the rumbling reappeared, only this time louder, and it rapidly transformed into a growl. She shrieked when a pair of glowing yellow eyes emerged from the darkness, along with an immense set of sharp teeth. Her reaction came quick enough to drop the book and focus her whole energy on shifting behind the door and trying to push it back, but the creature's head was stuck in-between. It kept growling, and she could se its paws stretching through the opening, clawing at the floor and trying to push itself out.

She was stuck – it was either she let go of the door and ran away as fast as she could, or she risked being overpowered and maybe even thrown to the floor by the force. Either way, both meant letting loose a beast within the Royal Asgardian palace, in the middle of the peaceful night. Thoughts and options rushed through her mind, but she lost focus when she caught sight of the beast clawing at the book she had thrown to the floor. It dragged the book closer inside, and she could feel the push getting weaker. Eventually, she managed to close back the door and ended up slamming her back against it. When she turned around to check if there was any lock on it, she was met with a completely different view.

Even though the lighting wasn't in her favor, she could clearly distinguish that the door now had the shape of a vault kind of door, and when she reached out to touch it, it was certainly not made of wood anymore. It was, instead, cold metal. She confirmed it by knocking again. The sound that it made was completely different this time.

"I said, come in." The same voice greeted her, but there was no echo this time. The voice came from the other end of the hallway, and was followed by a short snicker, as well as a question that would have made her blood boil, had she not been in a delicate situation. "Where's my book?" She didn't respond. "And why are you exactly four floors lower than you were supposed to be?"

Ingrid took a few steps towards what she could only assume was Loki's silhouette. "I am where you told me to be. Go down two floors, you sa–"

"Up two floors," he interrupted her. She looked at him as he stepped out of the shadows with her mouth still slightly open after having been cut off. "Go up two floors, I said. Again, where's my book?"

"Right behind that door, where you told me to bring it."

They were now close enough to clearly see each other's expression, and while his anger didn't seem completely serious, her straight face could possibly betray the opposite. Hearing her shriek had amused him far too much to be able to play the pissed off part, but he tried nonetheless, just to get a reaction out of her. They both knew he had clearly instructed her to go down two floors. "You lost my book."

It would have been a blatant lie to say she wasn't tempted to completely go off at the man, but she was looking at her ticket to infiltrating the royal family, so she had to play her card wisely. "I will search for a similar one for you. I apologize. I clearly misunderstood your directions."

Loki frowned at her. Was she stupid? Was she scared? How could she just give up like that, when it was more than obvious he had lied to her face, and was even rubbing it into her face? No, she couldn't be scared, judging by the way she was looking right into his eyes. There was no hint of anger – her expression was calm, even. He tried to push her even further. "I wanted that book. Not a similar one."

Ingrid kept her gaze locked on him. "I will try to find you a copy, then."

"There is no copy."

By the gods, how tempting it was to just tell him to jump into the vault and get it back himself. "Then I deeply apologize." The response silenced him, but he didn't move out of the way. That caused a good few seconds of heavy silence, as they just stared at one another.

"You'll be paying for this, you know," he finally spoke. It seemed to her he really had a hard time trying to figure out what to say in order to provoke her, but she stood her ground.

"I know. I'll let Rangvald know myself."

There it was again, that door slam. This encounter, as the previous one, had caught Loki completely unprepared. He was used to tormenting people, especially people that mostly had no power over anything, and each time he could predict the result. Either this woman had an enormous death wish, or she was just incapable of reacting to the environment. Both intrigued him slightly. He kept going, trying to find his exit in exaggeration, "That was Odin's favorite book."

Ingrid frowned at him, the doubt in her tone evident. "Was it?"

Loki simply laughed it off and turned his back to her. "Don't shriek so loudly in these corridors next time. Who knows what other creatures you might wake up."

A shiver ran down her spine as he walked away back into the darkness, and seemed to completely disappear. She lingered a few more seconds, before rushing through the hallway and back up the stairs, only stopping to regain her focus once having arrived in one of the main halls of the palace. Her heart was beating way faster than liked to admit, but she was finally free to relax. Every effort of controlling herself seemed ten times harder when it came to this man, and they had barely faced each other for more than a few minutes.

It was just something about the fact that he was one of the most probable people to figure her out. And after what he had pulled on her, it seemed the tales of Old Norse mythology weren't so far from the truth, after all. Up until that day, she had not met any of the members of the royal family – only a handful of councilors and strategists, maybe. While she had made sure to ensure a future connection to some of them, none had until then tried to kill her.

Ingrid stretched her right arm, which she had slightly injured while pushing on that damned door. In hopes that whatever spell had been put on her back on Earth could help her heal as well, she started walking towards her quarters, thinking that maybe tomorrow she'd not feel the bruise anymore. Or maybe she'd gain a new one, after telling Rangvald of how she'd lost a botanical guide to some underground imprisoned creature that she wasn't even sure existed.

A/N: F'ed around and came up with this. Hope it's alright for what I have in mind.

Credits and million thanks go to krystal lazuli for taking the time to beta read this story.