Chapter 1: A New Friend
The early morning sunlight finally begins to creep into my room, but I was already awake by the break of dawn, reading a book by the candle light. I did get some sleep last night, but it was difficult. I was overcome with excitement of what will transpire today. For the first time in my eight years of life, my little brother Garrett and I will travel to another realm: to Asgard. My mother, Queen Diante is good friends with Queen Frigga, so it will be a casual social visit. Alas, my father King Andros must stay home today for monarchal duties. I've read so much about the other eight realms, Asgard especially. To finally see the place for myself, I can barely hold still and stay on the ground while my lady in waiting Skylar is helping me get ready.
"My Princess, I understand you are excited, but could you please stop floating for a few minutes? I am almost done with your dress and then you must wear your royal jewelry regale to make a first good impression on the Asgard royal family."
I giggle and then concentrate on descending. I lift my arms and be still for her to finish.
"Sorry Skylar, I just cannot help it! I feel like I'm just about to explode with excitement and curiosity. Mother says we will be staying all day and be back by suppertime. I can't wait to see the city, the palace, and the royal family. I wonder if it is just as magnificent as it was described in the books."
"I'm sure it is My Princess. There we go all done!"
I look in the three-way mirror and see myself wearing a lilac dress with frills on the end and white lace on the sleeves and neckline. The dress compliments my lavender eyes and my tan skin tone. In my short dark brown curly hair, I wear my favorite silver circlet tiara with an amethyst stone in the middle. On my feet, I wear purple strapped sandals with diamonds and silver anklets that clink a little when I walk. I think it is a beautiful sound.
"Beautiful as always: inside and out," I say with pride. I give Skylar a big thank you hug. She may be a maid, but I treat her as a person on equal footing.
"Thank you, Skylar for helping me get ready. I shall see you tonight when I return from my visit to Asgard."
"Goodbye my Princess! Have fun!"
I exit my chambers and walk down the hall to the dining quarters. On my way, I run into my brother Garrett. He's all dressed in his formal but comfortable attire of orange and brown with golden highlights throughout his outfit. He looks just as excited as me, his brown eyes full of mirth and energy.
"Morning sister! Are you excited to go to Asgard too?"
"Yes dear little brother. Come, let's go to breakfast."
After a hearty breakfast, Mother, Garrett and I travel to the outskirts of our city, waving and smiling to our people as we walk by and they bow in respect. In a clearing, Mother holds us close, looks up to the sky and says loudly," Heimdall, take us to Asgard!"
A bright light descends upon us and we are taken upward at a fast pace. I'm not scared, but I cling to Mother tightly as there is a rush of heat and light surrounding us. Finally, the three of us land in a golden circular room. In the middle, there is a golden platform where I presume the man, the Gatekeeper called Heimdall stood in his full golden armor. He has dark brown skin, a black beard and moustache, and amber eyes. He looks quite serious but upon gazing at us, his face grows warm.
"Greetings Queen Diante. Welcome back to Asgard. And you two must be Princess Raven Amethyst and Prince Garrett Kole of Vanaheim." He bows low to us.
We look at him amazed. "How do you know our names?"
He chuckles. "Heimdall sees across the nine realms. Nothing escapes my sight. Please enjoy your stay at Asgard." He points to the Bifrost bridge that leads to the gigantic golden Asgard gate. I stare in awe at the glass bridge that is in array of rainbow colors and how the water falls into the nebulous of space that shines bright with stars and star clouds.
"Oh Mother, it is beautiful!" I say in delight.
She laughs. "Wait untill you see the city. Come along my children."
"Come brother! I will race you to the gate." I start to run ahead.
"Haha! You know I'll beat you dear sister! I always do." And he runs after me. What he said is true. Despite him being two year younger than me, he is one of the fastest and strongest Vanir in Vanaheim. Most Vanir children don't start to show their superior strength and agility until eighteen years of age. Mother said we were always special children. Probably all mothers say that about their children, but with us, what she said is true given the condition of my birth and Garrett's early strength and speed.
True to his word, he speeds ahead of me, but I just laugh and float the rest of the way there, having a good time. When we reach the gate, Mother materializes in front of us. She shakes her head at us, but there is no scold in her eyes, only merry.
"Now children, I do want you to enjoy your first visit to Asgard, but please be on your best behavior. Until we face the royal family, stay close by me. You don't know the city or palace as well as I and I don't want you to get lost."
"Yes Mother, we understand," we say respectfully.
"And Raven Amethyst darling, try not to float so much. It might startle some of the locals. Unfortunately, not all Asgardians are familiar with magic like our people are back home."
"Of course, Mother. You are right." I take a deep breath and focus my energies. My feet finally touch the ground. I tend to use the air in excess whenever I am happy or overly excited. I still feel that, but it is subdued.
After much walking and taking in the scenery of the mountains and the buildings built from them, we finally reach the castle gate where there are two guards. At first, they are suspicious, but recognize my Mother and bow to her.
"Queen Diante. Welcome back to Asgard. The royal family have been expecting you."
They open the gate and two more guards escort us to the throne room where Queen Frigga sits. The look on her face is pure delight when she sees my mother, who mirrors her expression.
"Diante my dear! It is so good to see you again." They hug each other tightly.
"To you as well Frigga."
"How is your husband?"
"He is quite well. He apologizes for not coming this time. Unfortunately, he had kingly business to attend to back home. He promises to come next time."
"Make sure to tell him that I understand. Speaking from personal experiences, I know what it is like to have a husband who is always busy with royal duties."
She finally glances down at us and a big smile grows on her face.
"At last, I finally get to meet your children."
Just as we practiced, I gather my skirts and give a curtsey. "Princess Raven Amethyst of Vanaheim."
"Prince Garrett Kole of Vanaheim," he bows low.
"It is an honor to meet you All Mother," we say in unison.
"Such good manners! It is wonderful to meet you two as well. Your Mother loves talking about you. I've heard nothing but the best. My children would love to meet you."
As if on cue, the main doors open, and three people walk in, the All Father and two princes. The princes are around our age. One of them has blond hair and blue eyes, a well-rounded face, wearing a dark blue and red vest with a lighter undershirt. The other boy caught my eye instantly. His black hair complimented well with his pale skin. He had green eyes that reminded me of jade and it matched his green Asgardian attire. They walk up to us and the All Father gives us a big smile and bows.
"Queen Diante. Welcome back to our home. I see that you brought your children with you this time."
"Yes, All Father. It's their first time visiting another realm. Allow me to introduce my firstborn, Princess Raven Amethyst and my second born, Prince Garrett Kole of Vanaheim."
"Enchanted to meet you," I curtsey.
"We thank you for your welcome and hospitality," Garrett bows.
The All Father is impressed with our greetings.
"It is a pleasure to meet you as well. Please allow me to introduce my sons. This is Thor, my firstborn" he places a hand on the blond boy shoulders and looks at him with pride. He places his other hand on the raven-haired boy. He smiles at him as well, but the grand look of pride was diminished slightly. I also saw the way this boy looked at Thor and the color of his energy shifted slightly. I found it curious but kept my face neutral and friendly.
"And this is my second-born, Loki."
Thor and Loki bowed to us.
"Welcome to Asgard! We hope you enjoy your stay!" Thor says enthusiastically. Loki only gives a friendly nod. Loki seems to be a quiet one. I don't mind though. Often the quiet ones have a lot to say.
"Many thanks Prince Thor and Loki!" I say with equal enthusiasm. "I'm sure we'll become great friends! Garrett and I have been so excited to come! Your home is amazing!"
"Have you seen much of the palace?" Thor asks.
"Not much," Garrett answers.
Queen Frigga gently intervenes. "My sons, why don't you show our young guests the palace while me and Queen Diante get reacquainted in the gardens?"
"Yes, Mother." They say, and they beckon us to follow.
The next hour is spent of Thor and Loki showing us around their home. Their palace is humungous with many long hallways and many kinds of rooms. There is also friendly conversation between us. Well, mostly between Thor and Garrett. Despite Garrett being much younger than Thor, they were able to connect, given how they are both boys who loved physical play and tales of daring adventures. I was mostly quiet, taking in the breathtaking beauty of the palace; admiring it. It was like my home but different as well. The Asgardian palace was made of polished stone and gold. Our castle was largely polished wood and marble, and while it did not shine like Asgardian gold, my home still had extravagant patterns that lined the hallways, columns, and doors. I've always admired our Vanir patterns.
Occasionally, I see Loki staring at me intensely, but whenever I make eye contact with him, he quickly looks away.
I just give a soft smile and say, "It's my eyes isn't it?"
"I'm sorry," he says. It's the first time I've heard him speak. He has a soft-spoken, well-mannered voice. Slightly different from Thor's, but I like it. "I know it's impolite to stare. I just couldn't help it. I've never seen anyone with purple eyes before. They're very pretty. It sorts of reminds me of the flowers in my Mother's garden." He stops suddenly and looks away again. He looks slightly embarrassed, judging by the slight pink in his cheeks.
"That is very kind of you to say," I reply. He looks back at me, surprised. "It's alright. I've grown use to the stares. I love my eyes and that's all that matters. I like your eyes as well. It's a nice shade of green."
Loki blinks in surprise but gives me a soft smile. "Thank you, Princess Raven Amethyst."
"You're very welcome, my Prince. But you can call me Rae-Rae. All of my friends do."
His look of surprise grows even more. I tilt my head in curiosity. I'm already starting to like him, but his shocked demeanor is puzzling me a bit. Does he not interact much with others that are not family?
I'm interrupted by my thoughts when I hear a snicker coming from my little brother.
"Dear older sister, are you already flirting with a Prince? You've only just met."
Garrett's chuckle grows as he sees my flushed face. Thor is laughing too as he sees his brother growing red in the face. I can see Loki's hand glow in magic, but I beat him to it. With my glowing purple hands, I send a strong wave of air at Thor and Garrett, blowing them several feet backwards. They simply get up laughing and Thor leads my brother to the castle grounds. The purple glow fades from my hands.
"Sometimes, my dear little brother does not know when to quit with his teasing." My annoyance quickly fades when I turn to look at Loki and see excitement and pure joy written all over his face.
"You can do magic as well?" This is the most animated and excited I've seen from him so far. I like it.
"Of course! All Vanir can perform magic. I've practiced and mastered so much so far, but I still have a lot to learn. Garrett has magic too, but he's not as skilled as me. Out of the two, I'm more proficient. He's more hands on when it comes to learning. I prefer the book method. I spent most of my time reading books about magic in our family's library."
The smile on his face grows wider. "Me too! Mother's been teaching me. We spent a lot of time in the library as well, reading and practicing magic. Would you like to see our library?" His face grows slightly wary, as if afraid of my answer. Does he think I'll say no?! Perish the thought!
I just grab his hand, that felt cool to the touch, but pleasant. He was surprised again but didn't make a move to let my hand go. "Show me the way," I say eagerly.
His full smile comes back. He holds my hand a little tighter and we run to the library, me giggling in joy the entire way. We finally reach a set of tall golden doors. Loki pushes it open and shows me inside. I couldn't help but let out an audible gasp. It's the biggest library I've ever seen, even bigger than the one we have in Vanaheim. The book shelfs are incredibly tall, at least eight feet taller than me and Loki combined. There are many tables, chairs, and luxury couches by a large fireplace for people to sit in and enjoy an engaging tome. There are tall glass windows that led to a large balcony that hold some outdoor chairs and a small water pond.
This time, I can't obtain my excitement as I see so many books to be read. I wonder if this library has books that mine doesn't have. I let out an excited squeal as I levitate high into the air and fly to various books shelf, examining many sections.
"This is amazing! Your library is humungous! You are incredibly lucky Loki to have access to so many magical books. Oh! Here's one that my library doesn't have." I picked a book titled "How to Master Illusion Magic" by Yolg Jefson. I descended to the ground. Loki stares at me in awe.
"You can fly?"
"Sort of," I shrug. "I'm mostly using the air element to help me elevate from the ground. Although, it's sometimes involuntary. I'm mostly experienced in elemental magic; my whole family has it. Mother says I have vast potential, but I'm still learning to control it all. Air and water come easily to me, but fire and earth is much harder. For my brother, it is vice versa. Sometimes, my powers get a little out of hand when I'm emotional, like what you just saw. I tend to 'fly' when I'm really excited or happy about something."
"That is incredible! We don't have many sorcerers in Asgard that do elemental magic and even then, it's mostly a single element. I just recently discovered that I can manipulate water, but I'm not very good." He glances at the book cover and smirks.
"I've read that to the point of memorization. As of now, Mother's been teaching me her Illusion magic. I've gotten pretty good if I do say so myself," he says with pride.
I laugh at his overzealous pride. I decided to goad him. "Oh really? Show me."
His confidence only grew. He closes his eyes and concentrates. The whole room starts to shimmer in green as it transforms into a different place. We are now in a patch of woods where sunlight is streaming in through the treetops. The grass beneath my feet looks just as green as the leaves and there are daisies blooming. I also hear birds tweeting and see ladybugs fly by me. The illusion looks so corporal, almost as if I could touch it. But I knew if I tried to pluck a daisy the vision would fade.
"This is amazing Loki! I wish I could do illusions like you. I don't even know if I can. I'm certain that we do not have much books about illusion magic in my library."
As his illusion begins to fade back into the library, he says, "Alright then, let's make a deal. I can teach you all I know about casting illusions and you help me with water elemental magic. You can even borrow that book if you would like. Deal?" he sticks out his hand to shake.
I eagerly shake his hand. "Deal! This is so exciting! We can learn magic together! It's always fun learning magic with a friend." I beam up at him. He is taller than me by six inches. He looks at me startled, but then a little suspicious. I decided then to read his energy a little more closely.
"We've only just met, and you already consider me a friend? Why would you want to be friends with someone like me? I hope you realize that I'm not like my brother Thor." He ended his sentence with bitter taste and slight resentment. Then he catches my eye and looks confused.
"Why are your eyes glowing purple?"
"You're jealous of your brother, aren't you? And I take it you don't have many friends and mostly prefer to be alone?"
Loki gasps in shock and is momentarily speechless. "W-Wha-What…Did you just read my mind?" he demanded. He looks slightly upset that I've read him so clearly, but I can understand that.
I answer him calmly. "Not exactly. Elemental magic is not the only thing that I can do. I'm able to read people's energies, or auras as it were. Auras come in many different colors and they can tell me not only the personality of someone, but their emotions as well. I've been practicing reading auras ever since I was five. Your aura is predominately blue and that means you're highly intelligent and intuitive; generally, a peacemaker and have a level head. However, I've noticed that sometimes there would be spots of dark green in your aura whenever mentioning Thor or how you looked at him earlier; a sign of jealousy. Also, on the topic of friendship, I saw spots of dark blue, indicating loneliness."
Loki's face darkens slightly and turned his back on me.
"I understand that being read like that can be a little unnerving. But please don't fear any judgment from me." I place a hand on his shoulder. He turns slightly but doesn't look at me fully yet.
"To answer your second question, the answer is not that complex. I want to be your friend because I like you. And even though I know we only just met, I'm able to be a good judge of character and I like what I see. I see this as a start of a wonderful friendship.
"As much as I was excited to come here for the first time, I'll admit, I was a little nervous about whether I would make a new friend here. The Vanir and Aseir are a little different. I come from a place that values magic and wisdom. This place is a warrior's society. I was wondering if anyone here would value books, sorcery, and pranks like me."
Loki's back straightens up and he finally looks back at me. He doesn't look glum anymore. His face is brighter and there's mischief in his eyes.
"Did you say pranks?"
"Well, ravens are known to be mischievous," I wink at him.
He chuckles and says, "What you said was true. I don't have many friends. Many children around here seem to prefer Thor over me, so it's hard to believe anyone would want to be my friend. But after finally meeting another who I can relate to and wants to be my friend, I guess it wouldn't be so bad."
"Too bad you are not from Vanaheim. You would belong splendidly."
"Then I guess I'll have to visit your realm often."
My heart felt like soaring when he said that. I placed all my concentration into not floating away in front of him over that statement. Talk about embarrassing!
"I would like that very much, Loki!"
He gave me a genuine smile and grabbed one of the books from the shelf. "Do you oppose to reading on the veranda?"
"Of course not! I would like nothing more."
We spend the next hour reading closely together on the garden balcony. To many people, this would be a boring activity. Even though we didn't converse much while reading, it still felt calming and pleasant to just read a good book next to good company on a day that had nice weather. After a while, we exited the library (the illusion book still in hand) and go down to the castle gardens, that were the biggest I've ever seen. Ahead, we see Thor and Garrett trying to cross a stream. Thor was a head, hopping from one big rock to the next to get to the other side. They haven't seen us yet. The way Thor was jumping across the stream made me giggle.
"What's so funny Rae-Rae?"
"The way Thor is getting across the stream reminds me of a frog."
Loki gets the mischievous glint back in his eyes. "Why, you are right Rae-Rae. He does."
He waves his hand and Thor transforms into a frog. Thor lets out a startled ribbit. Garrett shouts in alarm that makes him loose his balance and fall into the stream. Luckily, the stream wasn't very deep. Garrett scrambles to get to the frog and picks him up with both hands.
"Thor? Is that you?"
Loki waves his hand again and Thor transforms back into himself. The sudden retransformation and Thor kind of standing on top of Garrett, they loose balance and fall into the stream again. Loki and I couldn't help but laugh. When they finally get up, they notice us laughing at our misfortune.
"Loki! Not again!" Thor grumbles.
"That was you, Loki?" Garrett asks, almost amazed. "That was impressive!"
"Thanks, Garrett." Loki beams at him, very proud of himself. Thor still looks unhappy with being a victim to Loki's prank.
"Well, I'm not impressed. I'm soaking wet!"
"Let me help then," I offer. With a lift of my hand, all the water drops are lifted from their clothes and skin and form a big water orb in the air.
Thor stares at me with slight suspicion. "You can do tricks too?"
I stare at him with contempt. " 'Thank you so much for drying me off, Raven.' 'No problem at all Thor'", I say sarcastically. "It's called magic, Thor. They're not just tricks. If you don't want my help, I can just dump the water back on you." I start to slowly drop my hand. Thor frantically waves his hand. "No no no! I'm sorry! They're not tricks! Thank you for the help!"
I smile at him. "Much better!" I lower the water back into the stream.
"You should have seen your faces! They were hilarious!" says Loki chuckling. I laugh along with him. Even Garrett smiles and laughs. Thor still doesn't laugh.
"Come on, Thor!" I lightly punch him in the arm. "You got to learn to laugh at yourself a little. We live for thousands of years. Why not have a little fun? One day, you'll look back and laugh about this."
He ruefully gives a smile. "Maybe."
We spend most of the day playing and by the time it was late evening, we had to depart on the Rainbow bridge. I was reluctant to go. I had such a wonderful time with Thor and Loki. I know we'll see each other again. It's not a permanent goodbye, but why does being away from Loki make my heart ache a little? Queen Frigga stands with her sons as they wave goodbye to us.
"Thank you for visiting Diante. Please visit again."
"I will Frigga and I hope you and the boys come visit us in Vanaheim."
"I would like nothing more."
"It was nice to meet you Raven Amethyst and Garrett," says Thor with a big smile.
"Yes, please come again," Loki says quietly.
"Of course! My sister and I had fun!" say Garrett.
'Until next time," I curtsey at them and they bow. We turn to leave but then I couldn't resist the urge to hug the boys goodbye. I hug Loki first who was for a second startled but hugs me back hesitantly.
"Goodbye for now!" I giggle and run to join my family. As I take Mother's hand, I turn and see the boys wave goodbye. Thor has a big grin plastered on his face. There's a smile on Loki's face, but I also see a touch of sadness in his green eyes. He doesn't want me to go either.
I've only known them for a single day and yet I have a strong feeling that we will be friends for an eternity.
Author's Note: I've been a member of this website for many years, but this is the first time I've ever posted a story. I'm excited to write more chapters, so please I would like to hear comments and constructive criticism as I progress. And if you have any questions, please feel free to ask. Enjoy!