This is the first chapter of part 1 of a two part fiction. The first part will take place throughout Loki's younger years, and part 2 takes place after the Avengers. PLEASE REVIEW, any feedback is extremely helpful. If you find any grammar errors or have plot suggestions please feel free to let me know.

I hope you all enjoy. I'm having such a great time writing this, and I would love for you to as well.

The boy peered out from behind a leafy branch of the small tree. Inside the wall of the courtyard, a girl held two ornate silver daggers in her hands. She moved with them like she was cutting through water. She was ducking and spinning in what, to the boy, seemed some kind of strange dance. Suddenly, the girl froze. The boy was terrified she had seen or heard him. But she was looking in the opposite direction now, at a green melon placed on top of a pile of crates. The girl now bit her tongue in concentration, eyes fixed on the target. With one swift motion she stepped forward with her right foot and released one of the daggers. It sliced through the air in a straight line, spiraling as it flew. It pierced the melon right in the center, sending fragments of shell and juice flying across the courtyard. The boy was taken by surprise. How could one small knife do such great damage? And how had this small girl hit her target with perfect force and accuracy? The girl walked towards the place where the melon had previously sat, and with was now unrecognizable as a fruit, and more resembled the scene of a gruesome murder. He moved farther out onto a branch to get a better look, placing one hand on a long branch to his right to keep his balance. Crack. The branch gave way and the small child hit the ground with a disturbing thud. The girl whipped around, a knife still clutched in one hand, which she now brought up to chest-height, not in defense, but in preparation for attack. The boy tried to get on his feet, now more afraid than embarrassed.

"WHAT DO YOU DOING HERE?" she shouted.

"I.. Uhhh.. I just..."

But he didn't get to finish, because she had pushed him to the ground again and pinned him on his back, knife held right to his neck.

"You either tell me who you are and why you're spying on me, or what just happened to that melon is going to happen to your head."

"I'm sorry, I just heard noises and wanted to see what was happening. I wasn't spying on you... I was just curious!" he stammered.

The girl hesitated for a moment, as if unsure as to whether he was telling the truth, then she released her grip on him and stood up. The boy got up as well, brushing dirt and leaves off of his tunic and trousers. The girl took a few steps back and looked him over skeptically. He was fairly tall for a child, but dangerously skinny. He wore tan trousers and a loose green tunic with his ink-black hair pushed back. He had a sort of pointy face, and the ivory pale skin was only broken by a pair of intense green eyes. He was looking at her too, now seeing her face for the first time. He had watched her the previous day as well, trying to figure out what she was doing with her weapons. All he had been able to make out from the tree was a long braid of brown hair that fell across her back. Now up close, he could see that she had a narrow figure, outlined by robin's egg blue flowing silk jumpsuit. She also had large brown eyes, currently scrutinizing him under a furrowed brow.

"You didn't tell me who you were." she said in a demanding tone, but she had let the hand holding the dagger fall to her side. The boy straightened the hem of his tunic and cleared his throat.

"I am Loki, prince of Asgard." He said proudly, now that there wasn't a knife being held to his neck.

"Prince?" She scoffed. "So let me guess, you believe it's your birthright to be able to snoop on anyone you choose?

"No!" He said defensively. "And I already said, I wasn't... I wasn't snooping on anyone!"

"Well then why are you in my courtyard?" She asked.

"I uhh... fell out of the tree." He admitted guiltily. His cheeks had turned bright pink, a comical contrast to his extremely light skin.

She just stared at him.

"So... what exactly was it that you were doing with those daggers?" He said, trying to change the subject.

For the first time, the girl didn't look as menacing. She gave a proud smirk and ran off to the pile of crates. When she came back, she held the other knife in her hand. It was still dripping with bright red juice, and she bent down and wiped the blade on the grass. When it was clean, she reached over her head and stuck it into the top end of her braid. Loki winced, for it gave the impression of disappearing right into her skull, only a silver handle remained visible sticking out of her brown hair. Now she picked up the other dagger from where she had lain it on the grass. Twirling it in front of her face, she said "What I was doing" she said in an almost annoyed tone, "was knife-wielding. It's an ancient art form, but most of all, a deadly foe in battle." She tossed the knife up into the the air. It spun and landed perfectly, handle down, in her grip. She continued to explain in a scholarly way for such a young child.

"As you witnessed earlier, not only can it be used in hand-to-hand combat, but a skilled master of the knife can launch their weapons at their opponents from afar, keeping a safe distance but inflicting mortal wounds. The practice of knife-wielding requires stealth, agility, and most of all..." she spun on her toes and released the knife, sending it straight into the trunk of the tree Loki had been hiding in, "...practice." She finished.

Loki looked at her in amazement, he had never seen knife-wielding before, but he could tell that she was exceptional at it.

"So, what can you do?" She asked with a tone that let him know that she knew how good she was at her skill, and was clearly not expecting anything as impressive from him.

He waited a moment before answering, trying to build up suspense, although the girl stood in a manner looking quite bored.

"I can do magic." he said, putting a haughty inflection on the first word.

"Do you want to see?" he asked. He had expected her to ask him immediately, but she just stood there looking uninterested.

"Yes." She answered pointedly.

Now he was feeling excited. His gift in sorcery was his biggest pride, and he always looked forward to an occasion to showcase his talents. He turned without a word and walked over to a small pond in the corner of the courtyard. Under the clear crystal water there were colorful fish swimming lazily around. He looked quickly to the side to make sure the girl had followed and was giving him her full attention. Then, he pulled up the sleeves of his tunic and held his arms over the pond. He was being as flamboyant as possible, wanting to seem mysterious and impressive, maybe to even show-up the girl's skills with his own. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and turned his hands palms-down to the water. He started to move his fingers and twist his hands in slow, erratic motions. He heard the girl giggle beside him. He pretended not to notice and started murmuring in long mantras, sometimes including clicking or hissing sounds, in some ancient tongue. Loki had practiced enough to perform magic without having to recite the spells, but he felt adding them in would make his performance more captivating. He nervously opened one eye to see if it was working. Sure enough, a glittering blue fish was rising towards the surface of the water. Loki opened both eyes to enjoy his own spectacle. The fish had broken the surface and was rising higher and higher, gasping and writhing in the air. Loki now had a smug look on face, knowing that the girl had to be impressed by this. She said nothing until the fish had reached a the height of Loki's head.

"Put him down!" she said.

Loki was fish fell with a splash back into the pond. The girl ran forward and knelt by the edge of the water.

"Why did you let him fall?!" she demanded.

"I didn't mean to! You broke my concentration!" he defended.

"Because he was dying! He needed water!" she exclaimed. Then she reach into the water and grabbed the blue fish from underneath. It must have hit a rock at the bottom of the pool when it fell, because it had a large gash in it's side. The girl held it with her left hand now. With her right, she brought two wet fingers to her lips and closed her eyes. She whispered something that Loki couldn't quite catch. She took her fingers away from her lips and touched them to the head of the struggling fish. The second her skin met it's body, a white glow spread from the spot where she had touched all across the body of the fish. The glow was gone in a split second, Loki thought he might have imagined it. He had to blink a few times before the dots of light left his eyes, and when they did, he was shocked to find the wound on the side of the fish was gone. The girl simply placed it back in the water and turned to face him.

"You could have been more careful." she said.

"What was that?" he asked, awestruck.

"What was what?" she snapped.

"You just... you just made the wound disappear!"

"It was nothing."

"But you just touched the fish and it was healed!" He exclaimed.

"It was nothing." she repeated. But Loki persisted.

"You can't just do something like that and say it's nothing!"

The girl took a deep breath and looked away from him. Then she turned back to give him a stern look.

"I'm a healer." she said plainly.

"A what?" Loki asked, now very interested.

The girl sighed.

"I was born with the ability to heal things."

"That's incredible! Thats, that's amazing!" He had forgotten about showing off his magic, and was now staring at the girl, fully immersed in wonder.

"Why are you acting so indifferent about something like this? It's a miracle!" he said.

"No. No it's not. It's a talent that I never asked for! And you better not tell anyone! Do you hear me? Tell anyone and you'll wake up with one of those shiny knives pressed to your throat!"

Loki wasn't phased by her threat this time, as he was still overwhelmed by the feat he had just seen performed.

"But why don't you like it?" Loki asked.

"Because don't you see? If everyone finds out they'll send me to Vanaheim to study! They'll make me become a healer! But I don't want that. I want to be a warrior."

Loki paused for a moment, not really knowing what to say. He'd never heard of someone in Asgard having the power to heal.

"Well I think you'd make a great warrior." He finally said.

The girl started to say something, but was interrupted by a call coming from within the house.

"Come inside! It's time for dinner!"

"I have to go." The girl said.

She started running across the courtyard to the door.

"Wait!" Loki yelled after her. "You never told me your name!"

She stopped running and turned around for a second.

"I'm Aura." she said. And then she was gone.

Loki walked in a daze the entire way back to the palace.

(Please tell me what you think!)