Raven knows a good deal of the stories of her people. She knows that eons ago they were born from the skies above, and fell to Midgard as warriors and skilled healers with the intent of living amongst humanity in peace.
The humans saw them fall and worshipped them as immortal patron gods. Man saw these new beings, with their strong wings and immortal aura, and thought them pure.
Some humans called them Angels. Others, the northmen, called them Valkirye.
It was a rather silly thing, Raven would often think as she sat cross legged before the flock leader as the wizened old man told the story of the Ancients to the group of fluffy winged fledglings. After all, why should man decide what to call them?
But man rather liked deciding such things for themselves and so they began to fight amongst themselves over their title and origins. The Northen were conviced that these winged warriors must be gods. Those of the south however, thought them servants belonging to a single faceless god.
Thus a war of belief struck humanity.
High above in Asgard, Odin saw the bloodshed cause by the birth of these new beings and plucked them from earth, taking them instead to the glittering city of asgard, where the humans might forget them entirely, and so that the newly christened Valkirye (for Odin greatly favored the northmen) may live amongst their fellow immortals (so to speak).
As a tiny fledging in the ripe age of 100, eyes still wide and nieve and wings still coated in downy fluff, Raven hadn't thought much of the story of the Ancients aside from the entertainment it brought.
Being a much wiser 400 now and just on the brink (six centuries away actually, a fact which often frustrated her and amused others) of young adulthood Raven often rolled her eyes at the ridiculousness of the fairy story. Valkiryes, falling from the sky out of nowhere and into existence! How ridiculous!
All the same, Raven had no doubt the midgardians had fought. The midgardians were always fighting!
Raven would rather do magic...
She would, one day, when all her jet black feathers grown in and she had grown out of her preteen scrawnyness. when she was convincingly adult enough for a Mage to accept her apprenticeship. She would be Mage Raven Milasdotter, aid to the Warriors!
Or maybe just the village Healer.
For now she was just plain old Raven, the scrawny little flegling whose feathers hadn't even fully grown in, always trailing after the boys, wrestling and playing about with scraped knees while the other girls glared in disdain from their perches in the shade where they braided each others hair and silly things like that.
Why anyone would want to spend their days messing with each others hair and giggling over who liked whom, Raven could never understand.
Her best friend, an asgardian boy by the name of Ivan, seemed to have the same thoughts.
"There they go again, buzzing away like mindless insects. whatever could they have to discuss that could be engaging enough to be worth sitting so still all the time?"
Raven shrugged and readjusted the wooden sword in her grip, thrusting it forward, aiming for her friends knee only for him to knock it back.
"No idea. perhaps it's not engaging at all."
"Oh?"
Raven smirked as she ducked to avoid Ivans playfull swipe at her messy black hair with his makeshift weapon.
"Perhaps they're just lazy!"
The two laughed at that and exchanged a few more playfull parries and thrusts with their wooden swords before a bell tolled off in the distance, signalling the end of another day.
The two friend lowered their swords and ran to grab their satchels before parting ways for the night.
Off in the distance a woman stands in the doorway of a glittering manor not unlike the hundreds of others found on asgard. The woman's eyes have wrinkled from a lifetime of smiling and brown hair pulled into a neat bun.
She cups a hand beside her mouth and calls out to her oldest fledgling.
"Raven!"
"Coming mother!"
The Valkiryes long black wings ruffle in annoyance as she sees her daughter running towards the house, her tunic torn and leggings covered in dirt. All the same she greats her daughter with a hug and orders her upstairs to change out of her playclothes before dinner.
Raven stomps upstairs and bursts into her room. Waiting for her is a little girl, a toddler with fluffy white wings who pounces on Raven the moment she steps inside.
"Raven!"
The winged youth topples over at the force of her little sister's embrace and laughs.
"Hello Allah! did you have a good day?"
The younger fledgling nods with a little more force than necessary and proceeds to babble about how she helped mother bake bread while Raven changes into a cleaner tunic and leggings and takes great care to unbraid her hair and brush out the waves, frizzy and matted from the days play.
when she is done she helps her little sister change into her evening tunic and the two race down the stairs, hungerly breathing in the scent of rich, meaty stew.
Aria Evensdotter rolls her eyes at the sight of her two daughters stomping down the stairs like a pair of heathens but smiles just the same at the display of youth as she sets down the bowls of stew.
The backdoor can be heard opening and closing and standing in the doorway is Milas Hargonson, a tall, well built man with strong white wings, tarnished with soot and ashes from the forge, and a muscular frame fit for that of a blacksmith. He had dark, eyes, crinkled in the corners from constant laughter and unruly black hair.
Raven gave a shriek of delight and was the first to greet her father with a tight hug.
Milas laughed a deep, booming laugh and greeted his most loyal daughter (Allah was more of a mommies girl) with a tight hug, noting with amusement that she had obviously been out playing amongst the boys again.
Aria gently prodded Raven towards the table and gave her husband a kiss on the cheek.
the family settles down for dinner and idle chatter of the days passing fills the air. When the spoons hit the table and the fledglings are ushered off to bed, Milas follows them up the stairs to see them off to sleep, and Aria sets about cleaning the dishes with a gentle hum.
All is well.
sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
Raven's eyes snapped open. She lay still, unsure of what had awakened her. The moon was still out, it's silver rays kissing the cheeks of Allah, who was blissfully unaware of the disturbance in the air.
Raven couldn't place it, but it filled the air, making it thick. The fledgling sucked in a breath and slipped out of bed, a strange energy coiled up at the pit of her stomach.
Sitting atop her dresser was a small dagger her father had gifted her last spring. It was still tucked into the loop on her belt, which she had tossed onto the wooden surface not long ago.
Raven grabbed the well worn leather accessory and looped it on over her nightclothes. She stepped out into the hall, determined to seek out the disturbance in the air.
There was an unusual scent in the air Raven followed it downstairs, past her parent's room, lanky wings, down still clinging to the appendages trailed after her every step.
The scent grew stronger as she got the ground floor, her bare feet touching the unusually warm floor. The feeling in her stomach grew stronger. Raven's feathers ruffled and pricked, urging to take off, the fly far away from here, although she could not, her wings still too small yet.
Something bright flickered at the corner of her vision. Raven glanced and barely had time to process what she saw before the world turned red.
Fire!
Raven ran as the flames licked at her heels. Her bag, the one she kept for outings to the fields beyond the city was slung over her chair. Raven snatched it and ran outside, stumbling at what she saw.
The world was on fire!!
And ice, she realized faintly, a great beast, huge and blue, towering above her, was lumbering through the street, ice encasing a single fist. A path of destruction followed him, flaming houses, animals running about.
Raven wondered why no one else had sensed this towering frost giant, why there were no running villagers running about in terror, no scramble to gather some guards.
Then the scent of burning flesh hit her and she knew.
Another terror crept up on her, not a jolting one, no screams escaped her lips, rather a fact that hit her chest and brought tears to her eyes. She twisted her head. Her house. Her house was on fire!
Her family was burning.
A lump rose in her throat and she swallowed hard. She'd always been a silent cryer and now it was her saving grace as she took off in a run, far away from the giant blue sentry that had sent her world up in a haze of yellow.
Raven hated the color yellow.
She also hated the rough terrain of the outer reaches of Asgard, where her village had been nestled. She stumbled and tripped along the edges of her existence, uncertain death just feet away in the form of endless space.
And in the end, it was a small crevice in the ground that was her undoing.
Raven screamed as she went plummeting over the edge. A chill swept over her as she fell.
Black took over the edges of her vision as her breath left her.
The coil in her stomach seemed to sharpen and solidify. Warmth enveloped her from wing to toe and her position in the nothingness of space seemed to glitch, the stars snapping into different positions.
A tiredness took over her only to shift into surprise when something grabbed her and for the second time that night Raven screamed and twisted around to face her attacker, expecting one of the horrid giants that had destroyed her village only to come face to face with an Asgardian man.
He was dressed in green black and gold robes that went well with his black hair and green eyes.
He, like her, was falling in the void of space. He was taking it a lot better than her though. As though he went falling through the unknown all the time.
He held her close to his chest, Observing her closely and with concern. Obviously, he had not expected her to join him on his trip in the void.
"Hold on." was all he said when he finally spoke.
Feeling shaken and secretly fearful ( spending so much time with the boys must have caused her to pick up a few of their prideful habits, like never showing fear) Raven simply clung to her savoir tightly as white encased her vision.
There was another jolt, like the one that had come from the strange energy in her core and suddenly she was stumbling away from the man, choking on impossibly clear air. Her hands caught her as she nearly landed face first on an earthy surface.
A gentle hand grasped her elbow and pulled her up.
Raven stood and turned to the man gratefully.
"Thank you."
But the man said nothing, merely surveying the land. They were in a thick forest, birds twittered about. Raven, forgetting her troubles, as children are quick to do, looked about in awe. Such things she had only ever read about in books.The glittering empire that was Asgard hardly allowed for such beauties in person.
The man shook his head at her and sighed.
"I haven't the slightest idea what I'm going to do with you." He muttered. "I can't take you back."
Raven furrowed her brows, quick to trail after him as he began to treck through the thick forest. "Why not?"
He turned to her, trepidation in his eyes, as though bracing for something.
"I am Loki."
Raven thought for a moment, the name sounded familiar but she couldn't quite place it. So she simply shrugged.
"You're a magic user." She stated.
The man, Loki, seemed surprised at the change in topic, but took it in stride. "I am."
Raven smiled. "I want to be one too! No one in my village could teach me though. I haven't a family anymore." She seemed to sober a tad at this but carried on nonetheless. "So perhaps I could stay with you and you could teach me!"
Guilt shifted in her chest at leaving her home so willingly, and at her own readiness to forget the terrors and greiving of the night, but Raven was a clever child and would not let this chance go so easily.
The man stared at her incredulously for several moments before shaking his head.
"Tonight you will rest with me. As soon as possible I will find a way to return you to Asgard undetected."
Raven looked around.
"Where exactly are we?"
Loki stopped at a small clearing, his intelligent eyes searching for something Raven could not detect before grinning in triumph and waving his hand, trees severed themselves and flew into place to form a wood cabin. It was then that he spoke.
"Orion. A planet greatly similar to Midgard aside from a blessed absence of humans.
Raven nodded, in pretty much every textbook she'd ever read, humans had been made to sound like rather annoying, violent beings.
The inside of the cabin is small, and cozy, like something out of a story book and for all the nights suffering, Raven is glad. Loki casts and annoyed glance at the girl that told of a great inexperience with children and set about making some tea to soothe the brink of a headache.
"Tomorrow." He muttered with confidence. "I will find a way to take you back undetected."
A challenge flickered in the young valkirye's eyes.
No, she would not go back. Not if she had a say in any of this. She did not want to go back to the fire and the rubble and the charred corpses that no doubt waited for her...
Tears, more tears swelled stubbornly at the corners of her eyes and she wiped them roughly away.
Loki seemed to notice her distress and handed her a cup filled with steaming golden liquid. Raven took a sip and let the warm, sweet tea calm her grief.
Loki stared at the little Valkirye before him with a certain amount of...caution. yes, that was the word.
the Tiny People that were known to most as children had never really been his forté. They were loud and jarring and overall unnerving.
Most would usually ignore or avoid him as it was. Worried mothers were prone to warning their children to stay far away from the silvertongued sorcerer after all.
This one however! This slender little slip of a child seemed rather determined to stick to his side like adhesive. What she was even doing out there, falling through space as he had been upon the destruction of the space bridge, Loki did not know.
Judging by her clothes, Loki guessed she had lived in one of the outer villages. No Noble from the inner cities would have ever allowed their little girl to run about in such a tomboy-ish tunic and trousers after all. It wouldn't have been fitting.
Oh, the joys of Nobility.
Thinking about the snobbish ways of the court almost made the mischief god happy he had left in such an unconventional manner. No more dull politics and thick sculled warriors to put up with.
Loki took a sip of his tea to smother these sardonic thoughts and glanced over his cup at his unexpected companion.
She did have rather adorable eyes...
NO.
Loki cut himself off from his train of thought.
No. No, no, no.
He was NOT getting attached! NO. He was taking her back to Asgard the first chance he got and that was final!
He wasn't getting attached...
Raven noticed his gaze and glanced up at him with curious eyes, soft wings fluttering slightly.
"Odin give me strength." Loki cursed slightly under his breath looking away from the skinny fledgling.
...he wasn't going to keep her. He was LOKI for the gods sakes! Not mention considered a dead man now.
It would never work and it wasn't happening.
And that was final.
sssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
(A/N) WELL I think that went well. Sorry if I seem to be moving thinks along a little fast, I've been doing some research on different writing tactics and I'm trying guys I swear!
On a different note, this is my first story written with Loki (and eventually the Avengers) in it so I hope I can do him justice.
You should also know that I've never seen the second Thor movie so imma just ah..Slide those events under the carpet and pretend they never happened, yeah...
I know, some of you guys aren't gonna be happy, and I get that, really I do, but I just don't own the movies and I don't have the time or resources just to go out and get all the movies that slipped past my radars when I first entered the fandom.
BUT! I can promise that should I have the time and I actually remember (chances are low fellas, I have a terrible memory) I will go back and research what happened during the movies I missed, in Loki's timeline and others.
WHELP! That's all I got for now! love all o ya, please read and review, brush your teeth, work hard, and Happy New Year's Eve everyone!
-Blue