Bifrost set its passenger down on Alfheim's surface gently, but the shock of suddenly meeting solid ground after weightlessly flying through space still made the passenger feel like they had jumped off a room as her knees and ankles took the brunt of the shock. There was a soft crackling noise around her as the embers with the image Bifrost always branded into the ground went out. Tilaria did not notice the embers around her or the sunlight overhead in one of the very few places where Alfheim's canopy of trees was broken. She did not let her legs buckle.

Her goodbye with the Princes a few minutes ago on Asgard had bought her a little extra time, so Arlen's body was gone from the clearing along with everyone else. Only King Hallien of Alfheim remained to greet her, and Tilaria knew she would not enjoy his greeting one bit.

Tilaria's intense mental training that she had undergone as a child – that all Ljósálfr children underwent – prevented her from cringing as Hallien walked over to the burnmark where she stood. He said nothing, but his eyes, eyes so pale a blue they looked like chips of ice, stared at Tilaria's deep fuchsia eyes with a similarly neutral expression. As he approached Tilaria lowered her eyes in a submissive gesture and waited for him to speak, for she knew that he would.

"Do you have any defense for killing my council member half-breed?" Hallien asked, a flash of anger illuminating his otherwise emotionless eyes.

"He attempted to kill me," Tilaria replied cautiously.

She took care to keep her hands by her side and to not rest her fingers on the hilt of her dagger. Right now, the last thing she wanted to do was appear threatening and give Hallien another reason to kill her. Her life hung like the sword of Damocles, and it was Hallien who would decide if the sword should fall on her. Likely there was nothing Tilaria could say or do to survive, but she was too stubborn not to try.

"Your life is not worth Arlen's, or any elf." Hallien reminded her with a slight hiss to his voice, showing a slight flare of emotion as he rested one of his hands on the hilt of one of his daggers.

Tilaria realized that this time playing submissive wouldn't work. Since she was going to be executed for killing Arlen anyway she figured she had nothing left to lose, and switched tactics to try and anger Hallien.

"Arlen was ordered to kill Asgard's Princes," Tilaria accused Hallien brazenly, "but I stopped him. In order to stop him, I killed him."

She took a step forward towards Hallien and tilted her head up to meet Hallien's icy gaze that was starting to submit to the fiery emotion of hate. "I wonder who ordered him to kill those boys because who on Alfheim would want Odin's sons dead? If they were dead then Asgard would be in chaos without an heir, and a chaotic Asgard is one easily conquered. Correct, Hallien?"

Arlen did not let her finish her sentence, and struck her. He did so with his hand rather than his blade, luckily for Tilaria, and the crack echoed through the thick forest. Against Hallien's will his hand was trembling, and he lowered it to his side to try and hide the tremble.

"The princes were not the target," Hallien snarled as his control over his anger slipped. "They were an added bonus. You were the one that Arlen was supposed to arrange the death for, for with one of my royal family dead, it would give me grounds for a blood vengeance on Asgard. It would have been war, and we would have won, but Arlen attacked you directly instead of through a third party and he didn't manage to kill you or the princes."

Tilaria slowly raised her head, and her bangs that had fallen over her face fell back to reveal the handprint on her cheek. "Aren't you bold, admitting everything when Heimdall could be listening."

"Asgard's watchdog is far from perfect," Hallien assured Tilaria, "especially against my power."

He reached up and touched the Emerald Crown he wore on his brow, the proof and symbol of Alfheim's ruler.

"The power of my crown is equal to Gungnir's after all," Hallien said darkly with something akin to a twisted smile.

Tilaria understood Arlen's actions now. He had acted out of turn, and Hallien's war that might have ended with Ljósálfr dominance had slipped from his fingers because of Arlen's mistake of attacking directly. With Arlen dead, there was no one for Hallien to vent his frustration on other than Tilaria.

"Now you return to my care, fosterling." Hallien's twisted smile grew to something that might be called delighted until Hallien managed to regain control of his emotions, and continue in a calmer voice. "You ruined my plan and killed Arlen. Now you stand before me, acting as if you have not a worry in the world, as if I won't kill you."

"I know you would, and probably will," Tilaria corrected him. "Since I am likely going to be executed soon, I thought I might as well speak my mind for once. By the way, it was Arlen who ruined your plan when he attacked me, not the other way around."

"You have no right!" Hallien snarled as his emotional suppression slipped up yet again, for Tilaria had a knack for angering him. "No right to your smug tone, or to your heartbeat."

There was a brief hiss of metal as Hallien drew one of his daggers, and the polished blade reflected the midday sun that poured through the break in the canopy. Tilaria's first reflex was to draw her own blade, and although she grabbed her hilt she stopped short of actually drawing it. The only reason she had survived her fight with Arlen was because of blood, but thanks to the Emerald Crown's protection she could not use her blood against Hallien, and that meant she could not defeat him.

"Every being has a right to life." Tilaria whispered remembering that Hallien had struck her with his hand in his anger instead of his blade, and hopeful that she could duplicate that injury if she angered him enough. "Even a Halfling like me. Or do you say I had no right to interrupt your plot to overthrow Asgard by saving two other lives?"

Hallien's hand was trembling again, but this time with anger, and he laughed in a short harsh sound at Tilaria's declaration. "Your right was to die abandoned in the forest."

The King shook his head mockingly, attempting to distract Tilaria's attention while he charged a hex in his free hand. "Anastasia should have left you to die, but she didn't and she brought you back to the palace. She should have left you there, but she would not me get rid of you either after her death for she wished me to continue raising you. That I have done and now you, whose right to life was forfeited by your family when they left you, rob Arlen of his?"

Tilaria's sense caught a flicker of magic around his form, and Hallien seemed aware that he had been detected for he lashed out with the stunhex. A hex of that nature was just what she expected, and Tilaria drew her dagger as she stepped to one side. The hex slid across the flat of her dagger as she raised it, and parried his hex away from her as if it were a thrust from an enemy sword.

Hallien was not surprised that she was able to parry his hex, and so glided in close while Tilaria was recovering from her parry. She didn't have a chance to bring her dagger into position, so Tilaria threw up a defensive ward between herself and Hallien. It was the wrong move evidently, for Hallien energized his dagger and smashed threw her ward as if it were a window.

He grabbed her by her throat with his free hand as he kicked her legs out from under her and slammed her to the ground. Tilaria used the physical contact to try and hit Hallien with a mindflare, but he deftly shredded her clumsy telepathic attack. As if to show her how it was done, he responded with a mindflare of his own and his attack tore through the shields around her mind.

To Tilaria, it felt like someone had hit her in the head with a frying pan, but the feeling of pain did not fade away. It grew, spreading like fire to the nervous synapses in her mind. Her mind was left reeling, and Tilaria was sure she screamed, but if she was she wasn't aware of it from the pressure Hallien was applying to her throat.

"Son of a-" Tilaria swore and kicked Hallien in the chest with one of her feet, satisfactorily sending him sailing backwards.

Although humans used the expression "cat always lands on its feet," it was actually incorrect. A more accurate wording would be an "elf always lands on their feet" for that was what Hallien did. He slid backwards for a second, but remained upright.

Tilaria knew that she had but bought herself a few seconds, and she rolled onto her side to try and stand up. The attempt was in vain however, for her mind was still in shock from Hallien's attack. Breaking the mindflare by knocking Hallien away from her no longer seemed like such a good idea. Her breathing was ragged from the aftereffects, and her heartbeat had quickened unnaturally.

Hallien began to walk over to her slowly and calmly, and Tilaria was aware of the imminent danger. Her mind simply would not stop reeling from her fumbled technique at breaking the mindflare, so although she could see her blade lying less than in from her fingers, she could not force her hand to move and pick the blade up. Tilaria tried harder to force her mind to recover and reached for the blade, willing her nerves to respond to her thoughts.

The heel of a boot came down on her hand just as her fingertips touched the dagger's hilt, and Hallien levitated Tilaria's blade from the ground to his open hand casually. Tilaria gave a choked noise as Hallien put his weight on her hand, but even her voice was having difficulty working. Hallien looked at the blade he had recently gained custody of rather than at Tilaria as he applied pressure to the point where her bones splintered.

Tilaria bit her lip hard enough that a drop of blood ran down her chin. Although the Emerald Crown would protect Hallien from blood magic, it would not stop Tilaria from turning her magic on herself and that was exactly what Tilaria did. With a rush of adrenaline that came from the use of blood, Tilaria pushed herself up and whipped a leg around to land a solid kick to Hallien's knee. Her reward was for him to take a buckling step back with a curse, and the sound of cracked bone and torn ligaments that proved she had managed to damage his knee joint.

Her spin had snapped her wrist, but Tilaria didn't notice from the rush of blood. Hallien had dropped her dagger when her kick had connected, and Tilaria snatched it with her good hand as she scrambled to her feet and hoped back several meters to distance herself from Hallien. There was a defiant look in her eyes that warned him that she would not let him kill her quietly.

Hallien seemed to realize as much as he stood on one leg to take the pressure off the injured limb while it healed. With a tsk that he would have to reveal his secret to her, he waved his free hand and made a motion like he was grabbing something out of thin air. Light glimmered as he opened a subspace pocket he had created and a gun fell into his hand.

Tilaria was startled to see a Ljósálfr with a gun until she realized exactly what it was Hallien had just pulled out of subspace. It was no gun, but a sleek black Dökkálfr disruptor. How in Yggdrasil had Hallien gotten ahold of a Dökkálfr energy disruptor?

Hallien's grip tightened on the gun and he raised it to Tilaria. She fell into a fighting stance as she prepared for fight or flight when the sun of amber and topaz on the Emerald Crown glittered. The trees around Hallien came to life at the Emerald Crown's call, and groaned as the branches shifted.

Tilaria looked around, and realized that flight might be the wiser course for her to take. Trees were Hel to fight against because unlike normal opponents they had no vital organs, no ability to feel pain, and the solid wood forms hurt. She had no intention of fighting one.

Roots from one of the nearby trees wrapped themselves around Tilaria's right foot and started to twist up her leg. There was no way she could teleport now with the tree wrapped around her. She held her free hand towards the roots, intending to blast them away with killhex when Hallien pulled the trigger. Tilaria had forgotten he was there, and the shot of electrified plasma from the Dökkálfr disruptor did the rest.


This story takes place on Alfheim, and since Marvel has not introduced us to any Ljósálfr it is an OC story. The events that happen throughout this month are vital to later stories where Asgard and its inhabitants are involved. Repercussions from the events in this story are felt 500 years from now after the events of the first Avengers movie, because this is where a supervillian organization (non-human HYDRA with magic sort of) starts.

Ljósálfr: Light Elf

Dökkálfr: Dark Elf (Malekith's species)