Hey guys, guess what! New story! I'm putting Values on hold for now because I can't deal with it, and this story has been bottled up inside my head for a while. It may sound a little bit like "Sorrow's Pain" by Small Black Kitten, and that's where this story came from. I'd recommend the story very much, since it was the first one I read on the site, and I can assure you that it's really good. All of Small Black Kitten's stories are great, anyway. This one's going to be a little different from Amber's typical ones, different characters and such. More 'romantic', though it definitely won't seem like it at first. Tell me what you think, and again, I apologize to anyone who was reading Values already. I just can't do watching the movie and pausing it and typing right now. If anyone knows a good site with the Thor Dark World script, that'd be super-duper helpful and I could continue it, but I haven't found a reliable one yet. Thanks and please comment so I know what you guys think.


Chapter 1

Shadow Servant

Loki relaxed in his room, reading a book and running a hand absentmindedly through his raven hair. Inside, he was debating when Nora, his servant, would arrive, having some punishments planned for her sloppy cleaning work the previous day. Even without one arm she had still made no effort and, if anything, made his floor dirtier, failing to mop up the drops of her blood mixed with her tears as she'd cradled her bleeding arm.

After a few more minutes, he heard the door open and light footsteps as Nora entered. He didn't look around the back of his armchair, still not sure that she had noticed him yet. When she had bustled over to the door to his bedroom to check if he was sleeping there, he shot a burst of magic at the doors and they all shut, locking themselves.

"Your work was less than satisfactory yesterday, slave." He pointed to where he estimated her to be, intending to hear a cry of agony but got none of the pleasure, only the sickening sound of splintering bone.

"My apologies, my lord," came a completely different voice, softer and higher, but with the hint of an edge, as if her words could cut like one of his daggers if intended. He spun in his chair to face what most people would see as a replacement. But all he saw was a new toy to break.

Her hair was bright white, straight and soft looking, hanging down around her face, flecked with dust and grime. Her maid's uniform was like any other, except maybe for the built up soot and filth around her knees and the creases in her elbows suggested that she rolled her sleeves up often. Her skin was pale and her cheekbones were sharp, her skeleton almost visible through her paper thin flesh, dotted with bruises and dulled in color by yet more dust. She didn't look at him, but stared at her feet like an obedient slave would. Her toenails were as dirty as her fingernails. One arm stuck out at an odd angle, though both hung loosely at her sides.

She looked like a ghost, a deathly apparition, though then again, many slaves did. But generally only after he'd broken them. This is too easy, he thought, much too easy to break. Yet she hadn't cried out when he'd broken her arm, and now she made no effort to fix it, not ever bothering to acknowledge the splinters of bone that he could see were jabbing at the inside skin of her right arm.

"Will you not beg for mercy?" he asked as he stood up, wanting to hear her reaction, to size her up and figure out how to destroy her.

"I don't know how, my lord, but I will try should you order me to do so." Her voice was cold, calm, and she said everything in a slight monotone as if she had been through this many times and was incredibly bored by the whole thing. There was not a hint of pain, nothing to give him any reward, no signs of weakness having to do with her arm. She really was weak, skinny, and her voice was barely loud enough to be heard.

"Then do so," he ordered her.

The change was instantaneous. She let out a cry and clutched at her arm, yelling, "Oh please, don't hurt me, my lord! Please, my lord, I beg of you!" Tears slipped from beneath her closed eyelids, allowing her to look up as long as she didn't open them. Her entire being caved in on itself, shaking with anguish and despair. She had completely transformed, one moment quiet, composed, cold and distant, the next she was sobbing hysterically and pleading for mercy like a little girl.

After about a minute of laughing and smirking and watching her suffer, he signaled for her to stop. She did, and soon her hiccups subsided. When she stopped she straightened up but otherwise did nothing to wipe the tear tracks carved into the accumulated grime on her face. She let go of her broken right arm and dropped the left as well, letting it swing aimlessly. In that time she had not even glanced at him, not looking away from the floor that she had yet to clean. He imagined that all of the pain, the agony, that which he had inflicted upon her was all bottled up in those tiny organs, and he yearned to look into her eyes, to see every single negative emotion reflected back at him, but she wouldn't even let him get a glimpse of them. That just made him want to see them more.

"Where is my usual slave?" he asked her.

"Demoted. Working in the kitchens temporarily," she told him curtly, as if she wished to get this over with.

He smiled. At least she would give him some satisfaction, if not much than at least enough for him to know that he had caused her lots and lots of pain. He loved causing others pain, to watch them suffer, to slowly corrupt and destroy them like a crumbling gravestone, old and unwanted and decrepit. Ever since Midgard a few years ago, he had reveled in the torment of others, but he had no chance of harming anyone as severally as he would have liked. His "brother", his "father", they were off limits. But the servants, the slaves, were perfectly fine for torture. And because he had nothing else to do, he had made a sport of making the slave's life hell.

She still stared at the ground, never even moving, as if awaiting orders. He wanted her to mess up, he needed her to. He always started by finding and pointing out any and all of their flaws in both their work and their life. Then he would break down their mental walls, ripping them apart, toying with their minds both mentally and physically. To all those who stayed, and none yet had, he had no plan, not knowing whether to torture them or to make them go mad or both.

"Will you not look at me?" he asked playfully.

"I am not allowed to, my lord."

"Only at my face." This was true. Slaves weren't allowed to look their masters in the face unless ordered otherwise. He saw her head move upwards, but only slightly, only enough for him to know that she had glanced at his feet, before looking back at the ground. "Tell me, slave, how old are you?"

"In body or mind, my lord?" she asked him, which made no sense to him.

"Mind, I suppose."

"Twenty, my lord."

"I see. And how long have you been working here, slave?" he asked.

"Twenty years, my lord."

"And what about your parents?"

"They left me twenty one years ago, my lord."

"Twenty one?" he asked, more confused than before, "but you just said that you were twenty years old."

"In mind, yes. I was stillborn, my lord."

"Ah, it's you then," he said slyly. Indeed, he had heard about this phenomenon, though he had never believed it, only assumed that it was a story told amongst the servants. The story was something like many years ago, an Asgardian woman gave birth to a child, but the newborn didn't make it. The woman was overcome with sorrow by this, and ordered the maids to bury the baby in the graveyard of Asgard. After a year everyone had forgotten the dead baby and life went on, but exactly five years after the occurrence, a crying, six year old child covered in dirt a maggots was found crawling out of the grave. The servant who found her freaked and killed the thing, dumping the child in the garbage, but the next day, it clambered out of the trash and slunk off. She cried for her mother, but when the woman was finally called to see her child, she was disgusted. She took a knife and killed the little girl herself, ignoring the screeches and sobs of the infant child. Loki had not thought about it, had disregarded it as nothing more than a tall tale. He had not been around during that time, and no one in the royal family had cared for the drama, but he had heard that this particular child had been immensely deformed by the time her mother was done, but the next day there was no sign. In the morning, the kid woke up on the floor of the barracks where they'd left her, and crawled back out and into the castle, calling for her mother again. The events had happened thrice over, and eventually her mother had been driven mad. The next day the child came to find her, she grabbed a knife, but rather than slaughter her daughter again, she held the knife to her own throat, and committed suicide right there in front of her own child.

The child had been taken in front of Odin, who had locked her in the dungeon to try and starve her to death, and after three weeks, she did. But the next day she was up and crying for her mother again. After another year, the Allfather took pity on the child, and allowed her to be enslaved. There had never been a description of the child who had died countless times over, only stories of horror and dejection. And now she stood in front of him, head bowed in submission, a mere maid.

"So you're that child. The one who cried for her mommy so many years ago. I thought you were a myth. But it turns out that you are only a little weakling. Pity, I would have expected better," he mocked her. She made no movement, no acknowledgement that he had spoken except a nod and a simple "yes, my lord", which infuriated him. How dare she ignore him while he insulted her? Then it struck him. She couldn't be threatened. The worst thing he could do to her was cause her pain. But he could use this, yes, he could make her wish that she could die. In a way, this was a curse, not a gift. He would use it.

"What was Valhalla like?" he asked her mockingly, interested for now.

"I've no idea. I didn't go there, my lord."

That was strange. "Where, then?" he asked.

"I went to Hel, my lord. That is where I spent the first year of my childhood."

"What is Hel like?" he asked, wanting to know, for the memories to resurface in her, to torment her mind.

"It-it was dark and cold, my lord." Her voice broke and the first emotion he had ever heard from her broke free. It was of fear, and pain.

Score!

"And what was Hel like?"

"She tortured me and gave me knowledge I wish I could forget, my lord."

"You don't want to go back, do you?" he asked, grinning as he saw her shaking slightly. He rejoiced in her terror, wished that he could see her face as the dread passed over it.

"N-no, my lord, never. I never want to go back there."

"Well, then," he smirked, "you'd better watch yourself, because no matter how immortal you may seem, there is always a way to break the spell, and I may be forced to do so." It was an empty threat, but only for now. He would look it up later. She didn't know that, though.

"I understand, my lord."

"What is your name?" he asked her.

"I have been called many things, but Hel gave me the name Shade, my lord, to remind me that I will never be alive, not really."

His smirk widened as her white hair fell around her face, shielding it from his ice cold gaze. He couldn't take it any longer, he took a step toward her now still form. She still made no acknowledgement of him, not looking up. She was going to be a tough one, and an intriguing one as well. He almost wanted to keep her around, and knew that he would be rewarded by it, since he wasn't going to be able to get rid of her any time soon. A young woman who was unable to die, permanently at least. He would have to hear about it, like a good book you couldn't put down.

Like a horror story that was so terrible that you couldn't drag your eyes away from it.

He took another step toward her and caught her leg twitch. It was a small movement, only about a centimeter or two back, but enough to show him that she was nervous, probably scared by him. He chuckled and in one fluid movement, grabbed her chin and yanked it upward so she had no choice but to stare him straight in the face. She shut her eyes quickly, but he refused to give up. "I order you to look me in the face, slave. Do so!" His eyelashes fluttered, but he still saw nothing, "open your eyes! Look me in the eye, slave, now!" She flinched, as if this hurt more than a broken arm, and slowly, very slowly, she opened both eyes and stared straight into his own.

He leered for a moment, but then what he was seeing registered and his breathe caught.

Her eyes were white. Not full, zombie white, but far more frightening. Her irises were bright, blinding white, slivers of shining grey giving her eyes the look of shattered glass, outlined sharply by the darkest black he had ever seen. He looked closer, and could see horror and anguish, and above all, death. The sorrow of one who had viewed her own mother as she first killed her daughter again and again, and then was forced to kill herself. These eyes had seen Hel, had lived there. These were the eyes of a child who had been killed again and again and again, of a woman who lived every day weighed down by images that no one alive ever should have seen. And all he could do was laugh. Laugh manically until he was out of breathe, feeling her pulse quicken under his fingers and her strange bright orbs fixed him with a terror ridden stare. He chuckled again, darkly. Finally he was done, and he let go of her face, allowing it to fall back to its previous position as he smirked at her.

"Well then, slave," he said darkly, leer widening, "I would watch my step if I were you. As of tomorrow, you shall be beginning your new assignment as my personal slave!"


If anyone had told Shade that morning that in only a couple hours she was going to become Loki's new chambermaid, she would have laughed in their face, which she didn't do often. She had awoken, gotten dressed in her servant's uniform, which she kept having to replace because of her growing, and stepped out of the servant's quarters, avoiding eye contact with everyone as she always did, including the other slaves. It was a Wednesday, the day when all she did was walk around and clean various rooms, rather uneventful, but fine nonetheless. Then the head maid had barged in and screeched at her to go clean Loki's room. Well, she'd meant that, at least. It was lucky for Shade that she could even understand the old harpy, mostly since she was used to her yelling "you useless slave, can't you read?!" Shade had always wanted to respond to that question, but some questions were just not meant to be answered. Still, maybe someday…

Shade had been told that she was an idiot girl, a weakling, Nora's temporary replacement, to go die, and that she would be skipping breakfast. It had taken a while for Shade to uncover any useful information, since she was so used to getting yelled at practically every morning. When she had, she had felt a little afraid, but not very. She could take the pain of one day's work for the Prince, she could take a lot of pain before showing it, and she prided herself on it. Still, she had seen Nora after yesterday. Shrieking and moaning and begging them to end her life. Shade had done that, multiple times actually, but no one knew how and it was now more of a joke than anything. She was sure that if anyone had actually known how to kill her, they would have gladly obliged, seeing as she wasn't very welcome here. But Nora lived on, crying and bleeding down in the kitchens, annoying the heck out of the other kitchen maids. Shade had tried to convince her not to go to Hel. She still had nightmares about that place, and she had temporarily succeeded. Still, she didn't think that it was such a great move to tell someone that they weren't allowed to kill themselves no matter how much they wanted to, then stick them down in a place full of burning, sharp, and all around deadly objects. Better than dumping her in the barracks, though.

Shade had set to work for an hour with her normal morning jobs (scrubbing, washing, dusting, any other synonym for cleaning, etc.) and then grabbed her cleaning supplies and headed off to Prince Loki's chambers. She had arrived at the door, and knowing that it was unlikely that any royalty was awake yet, since it was only, like, five thirty or something in the morning, she had opened the door quietly and walked inside. But not before taking a deep breathe outside of the door to help keep her sane among other things. Like when you're about to get a shot and tense your muscles in the middle of it, making it hurt more. She didn't want that to happen. She'd done that once, when they were trying to kill her, and it had hurt like heck.

She hadn't looked around, just crossed to the bed to see if the Prince was there. He hadn't been, and that was when the door had closed and locked itself. She had inwardly sighed in exasperation at that point, listening to the sound of the Fallen Prince's cold voice as he chastised her, obviously thinking that she was Nora, and completely ignoring the sound of her arm as the bone shattered under her skin. She looked down to check the damage and saw millions of slivers floating around, poking and prodding the inside of her right arm, about the size of a splinter you might get from wood when you held it in the wrong place. Except her bone was much more brittle than wood and the blood inside her bone was flowing out. She had to admit, it did hurt a lot, but broken arms were like nothing compared to your own mother dismembering you, ripping you to shreds, and doing her best to destroy you, which unfortunately never seemed to work on her.

Still, it was quite an experience, going to Hel, coming back, getting mutilated, coming back, watching your mom commit suicide, getting killed again, coming back, killed, back, killed, back- the list went on and on. A broken arm was nothing compared to getting your arm ripped off. It was just common knowledge.

Loki had turned around at that point, standing up, and asking her something like "will you not beg for mercy?" She had replied as she always did, not really paying attention to the question, just reflecting it back at him in a statement about how she would do what he said when he said it. It was her go to statement, it kept her out of trouble when she wasn't paying attention. Though she rarely felt threatened by lashings, she was never whipped. They had discovered early that that had little to no effect on her, and that she used it more to train herself not to feel pain. It had hurt when she was younger, but now they used her for target practice, letting the guards slice her up using a human shaped target. It was quite funny, actually, because that did even less. When she had tried to point out that they weren't doing anything at all except leaving a cut, she had been elected as stabbing target. That hadn't done much either. None of the guards knew any pressure points, and if someone didn't address it, they would get killed in the next war. She itched to grab a knife and slice one of their corroded arteries just to show them. Or their wrists, that was an okay place. Even that brachial artery under the bicep would be good enough. But they kept getting her in the chest, which could only do so much. They were constantly missing her major organs, which was really stupid since her ribs were in plain sight and they were supposed to be well trained. They had often yelled things like "I'll go easy on you!" which made her laugh because she wasn't doing anything and dying was alright with her.

The Prince asked her to beg for mercy. She was so bored that she decided to humor him, remembering how she had done so back in the dungeons of Hel, screaming at anyone and everyone to stop for five years. She did so again, but tuned it down a bit, closing her eyes so that she could look up, not wanting to seem as though she made a practice of begging. Inside she was rolling her eyes. She knew that he enjoyed watching others suffer, and did not intend to give him the gratification. Still, she had to obey orders.

At long last he told her to stop, and she did immediately, keeping her eyes closed until they were back on the ground and her feet. He asked her about Nora, she answered. He asked her if she would look at him. She responded with her normal excuse of "I'm not allowed to." He contradicted her, so she glanced at his boots and then back to the floor. He asked her how old she was, and she asked him what he meant. That question always confused her. "How old are you?" What the Hel did that even mean? She felt twenty, but her body was twenty one! She decided to confuse him, finding it funny that a man as clever as him could be baffled by a simple question of in mind or body.

He didn't seem very confused, mainly when he figured out who she was. She hated how everyone knew her story, whether they believed it or not. She was constantly getting taunted about her mother, about being born dead, about the suicide and crawling out of the grave, and mainly about Hel.

"What was Valhalla like?" he asked her. Inside she recoiled. Hel had been bad and she was forever haunted by the prospect of going back, she didn't need to be reminded that she had gone there and missed out on the most amazing place.

"I've no idea. I didn't go there, my lord," she told him.

He continued to ask her questions, and she couldn't help but let a little emotion slip past her wall. Remembering her birthplace was almost too much, and when Loki asked after Hel, she remembered Hel in full detail. She could see how Loki and Hel were similar. Hel had tortured her, left no mercy for the month old child, taught her of death and its inevitability through pain. She had rested the agony of all of the spirits she had snatched from life on Shade's back for a year, reveling in her terror and misery. Loki was the same, going down to Midgard to cause suffering to the lower race of humans, then coming back in chains and destroying the maids because he had nothing better to do. It was twisted. It was wrong.

Finally he asked for her name, and she was forced to give it to him. She was ashamed of it, of her name, and wished that he would just ignore it and call her slave instead. She would even allow those idiotic pet names the other slaves and guards called her, like little birdy and kitty-cat, insults referring to her quick reflexes. Just not her name, the only official name she had ever been given, Shade. Shade, the deathly apparition, Shade the freak, Shade the undying anomaly. Her name, like her immortality, was a curse. A curse that which she would forever bare, because there was no end in sight.

She wasn't paying attention until he took a step toward her. It took a huge effort not to move back. Really good reflexes occasionally backfired. Her white hair, completely straight and rather long, fell around her face, shielding it from sight. He moved forward again and she felt her leg twitch back a few centimeters. He must have noticed it. She heard him chuckle quietly, and then his hand was on her chin and her face was wrenched up so quick her neck cracked. She shut her eyes, not wanting to break the rules.

"I order to look me in the face, slave. Do so!" She squinted slightly into his face, barely a blink, but enough for her to register that his face was only and inch from her own. She shut her eyes again but then came the "open your eyes! Look me in the eye, slave, now!"

She slowly opened her eyes to look him full in the face, flinching as she went, knowing what was coming. He was leering, his stringy raven hair falling around her face. He examined her eyes, not what she'd expected. A leer crossed what she supposed would have been a handsome face if she still cared about that type of thing anymore. Getting killed can sometimes ruin how you viewed relationships. He moved a little closer and she felt her pulse quicken out of fear. The whole relationship thing had sort of switched around, now she hated anything that involved anyone showing affection towards her. He must have sensed the speeding up of her blood flow, because he snickered again. When he let go of her face, she let her head fall back down to the floor. She saw his green and black leather suit with hints of gold, fitted exactly to his rather thin form. His hands, like his face, were pale but clean, his black leather boots the same as his clothes. He was obviously scrutinizing her as well.

Then he said it. "Well then, slave. I would watch my step if I were you. As of tomorrow, you shall be beginning your new assignment as my personal slave."

Her heart, now used to this, stopped. Not for a while, it just skipped out on a minute or two of beatings. She reprimanded it silently, then looked down at the floor she had yet to clean. She should really get on with it. She tried not to think about her new job and slipped past Loki, grabbing her cleaning supplies and setting to work ignoring him as she dusted, washed, and made herself familiar with his considerably large quarters.

There was a small bathroom, a dress room, and a bedroom all to the right of the door. A miniature library, empty room not being used, and her new bedroom. It was half the size of the bathroom, barely enough room for the stone slab that was apparently going to be her bed. She sighed, hoping that these weren't her mandatory lodgings now. Jerk maids and lovesick guards she could deal with. An evil god who had threatened to send her back to Hel and was intent on her mental destruction, she could not. She looked at the stone slab. It was completely flat, unlike her normal, brick laden bed. Lucky her, her rock was flat rather than uneven. Great, just great.

The day went on with few casualties. Her broken arm was hard to tote around, but she made up for it by avoiding further injury. Loki didn't seem to be watching her, she couldn't tell, but whenever she sneaked a quick peek to make sure, he was reading his book contentedly. Why then, did she still have that itchy feeling, and how did he know where she was. It wasn't like he released snakes and spiders around his room because he liked the color, she was pretty sure of that. She liked spiders, and thought the snakes were cute, and she let them go about their business of biting her legs. She didn't really care, and wanted Loki to see it. Maybe if he found no weakness, he would give up. She really couldn't do her work with tons of wounds all over her body, eventually she would bleed out, and rejuvenation took about six to twelve hours, though it felt really good.

If only she hadn't let her fear overcome her earlier, when he had been making fun of her Hel visit. She knew that he would make note of that, probably exploit it just to prove that he could, and the worst part was it worked. She automatically felt angry when anyone poked fun at her death. Didn't they understand what she had gone through? No, of course they didn't. The other slaves may have it bad, but they had nothing on her. She had been killed by her mother, had been to Hel, had watched her mother kill herself in an attempt to rid herself of her deathless daughter. Not a day went by where Shade wished that she hadn't come back. Hel would have left her alone if she hadn't intended upon sending her back. She would have slipped by unnoticed, blending into the crowd of spirits. Down there, she had stuck out like a sore thumb, still solid, still with her rosy complexion. Her hair had been black, she remembered, as had her eyes. She had been an infant, a newborn. Hel had cared for her for a year, made it seem like it was all going to be okay. Then, when Shade trusted Hel most, things had changed.

Hel had created her, made her the entertainment, torturing her daily just to get a few laughs from her crowd. Shade had been a pet, a mere circus animal. She had been killed again and again in a world of death, screaming and begging for release. That was where she had learned that begging would get you nowhere. That no one cared. But she still felt pain, still it annoyed her, even hurt on occasion. The dungeons of Asgard had hurt almost as much as Hel, the whippings were an inconvenience because of how hard it was to move afterward.

She heard Loki get up, and looked over at his feet. They were moving toward the door. She moved out of his way and he kicked her as he passed, wiping his feet all over the floor she had been scrubbing. He was trying to get her to mess up, to look him in the eye. She would not, she refused to get a punishment. No matter how painless she made it feel, it still hurt like Hel. Life wasn't easy, she knew that much. And it was about to get much, much harder.


Hey guys, guess what! New story! I'm putting Values on hold for now because I can't deal with it, and this story has been bottled up inside my head for a while. It may sound a little bit like "Sorrow's Pain" by Small Black Kitten, and that's where this story came from. I'd recommend the story very much, since it was the first one I read on the site, and I can assure you that it's really good. All of Small Black Kitten's stories are great, anyway. This one's going to be a little different from Amber's typical ones, different characters and such. More 'romantic', though it definitely won't seem like it at first. Tell me what you think, and again, I apologize to anyone who was reading Values already. I just can't do watching the movie and pausing it and typing right now. If anyone knows a good site with the Thor Dark World script, that'd be super-duper helpful and I could continue it, but I haven't found a reliable one yet. Thanks and please comment so I know what you guys think.