Chapter One – Running Blind

Things had gotten gravely out of hand and, like always, it was all HIS doing!

Loki leaned forward over the swiftly bobbing neck of his galloping mount, trying desperately to make their bodies more streamlined as her powerful legs raced them across open grassland, charging away from the only place they had both called home since birth! The dark mare's nostrils flared and her ribcage rose and fell like great bellows between Loki's legs as fear drove her blindly onward. Loki tried to keep his eyes clear of the stinging lash of her mane in his face, but he didn't care WHERE she carried him so long as it was away from Jotenhiem and the horrendous monsters that had invaded.

When the young Prince had heard of the great Frost Giants of the north, he thought that surely they must be large, dumb, lumbering things that would make an easy target for his mischievous sport of goading and practical magic… but OH how he'd misjudged their wit and strength! How he'd brought down ruin to his home and people over his foolish trickery!

Jotunheim now lay in the dust kicked up by his faithful Sigyn's frantic hoof beats, smoldering after a night of ice and fire ravaged it's once glorious stronghold; the giants having merely toyed with them! All their magic could not hold the enemy's strength and numbers off for long, and now…

Now Loki was fleeing for his life… not knowing if his kin lived or if he were the only one left.

As Sigyn's pace became uneven and her breathing faltered, Loki leaned up and reined her in to a halt, feeling her quiver on unsteady legs as she bowed her sleek head and graceful neck to gasp for breath, white froth smeared along her chest and withers from the hard run. Loki knew she was truly the finest horse he'd ever owned, and by far the swiftest… but this had run her too hard too fast and he ached with the regret of having had to push her for both their sakes. He slid off her back; his royal robes of emerald and gold satin sticking to his sweat slicked skin; moving to crouch before his mounts lovely dark head, gently cupping her warm, round cheeks and stroking them up to her ears and along her neck, hoping to comfort and sooth her.

'Easy now, my dearest… There is only smoke behind us now…'

He whispered in his native tongue, pressing his brow against his mares and closing his eyes at the sting of bitter regret threatening tears. He continued to hold her for a short time, feeling her warm, moist breath lightly puff against his chest as she recovered; the damp velveteen softness of her nose lightly bumping him as she made to lift her head and look around. He stood with her, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings and furrowing his brow. Loki had ridden to many corners of his kingdom, but never this far… They stood at the edge of an ancient forest with high mountains looming beyond, the snowcapped peaks looking like a great, wondrous palace, shining even in the fading evening light. The young Prince frowned a bit, gripping Sigyn's reigns in one hand and feeling his core vibrate as if silent thunder was rolling across the land, straight through his body. He thought the rumbling feeling was coming from the forest itself until Sigyn's head jerked up higher and turned to look behind them, her slender ears pricked forward and nostrils flaring. Loki always trusted her keen instinct, often even above his own, and tensed, looking behind them in the fading light.

What he had initially thought to be only the smoldering smoke that marked the destruction of his home in the distance was now more clearly a dust trail! They were being followed and the giants were gaining fast!

Cursing his rotten soul and damnable luck, Loki launched himself onto his horse's bare back, his legs hugging her sides as he roughly pat her neck and shoulder.

'Forgive me, Sigyn, but for gods sake and our own, RUN!'

The mare reared up with a frightened whinny, her dark hooves lashing at the air before she leapt into another ground eating gallop, driving headlong into the looming trees before them and weaving among their massive trunks and kicking up the heavy underbrush.

The sound of the pursuing band of giants grew more ominous as they too crashed into the forest, the heavy thudding of their massive bodies running hard on the heels of the fleeing prince echoing through the dense woods and driving both Loki and his mount into a panicked frenzy, both horse and rider's chests near to bursting with their quickened breaths. Their blind zig-zag around trees abruptly ended at the edge of a cliff and the drumming of fast flowing water beating its trail through the canyon below. Loki gasped, pulling back hard on Sigyn's reins to keep her from dashing headlong over the edge. He looked back towards the sound of the approaching giants, noticing that the heavy rooted trees formed a natural barrier between forest and cliff, but he doubted even these ancient redwoods could hold back a mob of angry Frost Giants for long. Tired of being chased and having too few options left, the Jotun prince narrowed his eyes and turned Sigyn to face the forest and the threat crashing ever closer. The mare whinnied in protest and fear, but he forced her to stand their ground as he began chanting in the runic tongue of his people. If these giants were so focused on following him this far, he'd end their trail right here! He was a master of transformation spells and he'd turn them into boulders or trees themselves just to spite them!

His chanting grew stronger as an unworldly glow spread across his hands, his eyes narrowing as he finally saw those who had taken everything from him that night in a mere show of power. It was one thing to take a pranksters jokes poorly… it was another entirely to slaughter his people over it. The giants slammed against the heavy trees that barred their access to the scrawny 'human' they hunted, the thick wood moaning and creaking as it was splintered and cracked under heavy blows. Loki knew he had minutes at best before the natural barrier collapsed and left him an open target.

The furious giants bellowed and pushed harder at the trees, reaching their large muscular arms and meaty hands through the trunks to try and grab at Loki, Sigyn dancing nervously on her nimble hooves and backing up against the very precipice of the cliff, snorting and making worried noises in her throat. When they realized they could not fully reach their prize, the giants too began to murmur among themselves, a glowing orb of blue-white ice forming in their hands.

It was now or never, a race of spells and swift tongues. Loki's chanting grew fast, his tongue slipping over the runes he knew like names of everyone he'd once loved. With pain and hatred in his eyes, he blasted his magic from his hands, slamming the spell into the face of every giant he could see and reveling in their shocked and anguished howls as their bodies began to change against their will, binding them in the solid forms of wood and stone. Feeling satisfaction and retribution burn in him like a glowing flame, Loki did not see the blast of ice coming straight at him from a giant behind the initial line of those now changed until it was too late to stop it.

His hands shifted instinctually to cover himself in a defensive posture, his magic still flowing and smashing into the approaching ice, managing to deflect it. What he couldn't predict, however, was the ricochet of his own spell straight back at him! Sigyn reared up with a scream of alarm, forcing Loki to wrap his arms tightly around her neck and hang on perilously as the dark mare lost her footing from the blinding explosion of ice meeting green fire, both mare and prince toppling helplessly over the edge and down into the frothing abyss below…

Loki had never known fear and pain and cold as he had when he fell from the cliff to his death in the icy, dark waters below. His mind had simply taken leave of his body as the waters pulled him under, abandoning him to drown in his own misery and failings. It was a rightful punishment for all his tricks… for all he had cost his people over something so foolish as his pride… Death was not something he could avoid forever, and so he embraced the cold and the dark, letting it take him to his icy tomb at the bottom of the river.

…Or so he had thought…

He awoke slowly, in small breaths and the growing ache of many bruised muscles. His head felt heavy and waterlogged, his body was sprained and laying at an all too awkward angle, like his spine was arched back a bit too far. But he was dry… even warm. It felt as though something was draped over him like a blanket. It was heavy and musky smelling, tinged with sweat and a distinctively 'animal' aroma. He could also smell the acrid, but not entirely unpleasant smell of a fire nearby, his ears picking up its soothing pop and crackle as his head cleared and his other senses slowly came back to him. His green eyes opened slowly, the lids feeling so very heavy and his vision still blurry, but he could make out shadow forms that at first looked like oddly shaped trees and stones, but as his hearing cleared faster than his eyes did, he realized the 'stones' were speaking to each other in low, thickly accented voices.

Grasping that he was either in an enchanted forest—unlikely, but not impossible with the things he'd seen in his travels-or more likely that he was not alone made Loki stiffen with fear that these large forms were in fact more Frost Giants that had pulled him from the river to continue torturing him! And what of his poor beloved Sigyn?! Had the river claimed her as he'd assumed it had taken him? Had she survived only to be killed and eaten by these savage beasts?!

The thought suddenly drove his body into a blind rage of fury and self-preservation. Loki leapt up from where he'd been lying in dry pine needles and leaf litter, standing rigid and ready to fight as he faced off against his most hated foes. The adrenaline in his system sharpened his vision in a fraction of a second but left him startled and bewildered at the sight before him.

Where he'd expected to see a small circle of giants, instead there was a band of several brawny, shirtless men staring at him with equal tension and perplexity, and even perhaps a bit of intrigue… Even so, they held weapons in hand, ready to defend themselves if needed. If that weren't enough of a shock, as Loki took them in, he realized they were not standing on two legs…but four. Four HORSE legs! These warriors were not men, they were centaurs! Loki had heard of them in his schooling of the various realms and races that lived in their world. These were Asgardians, the warrior stronghold of the Asgard kingdom… A wild and often ruthless group ruled by nothing short of the wild elements themselves!

Gasping in shock; not knowing what these large men might do to him; Loki turned to flee, pivoting in the loose underbrush in a sudden flurry and rushing to take several hasty steps that would send him into an all-out sprint through the woods only to find his feet tangled among themselves, tripping him up.

… All FOUR of them…!

-TBC-