Dark World
Prologue: Heat of the Moment
A spherical shaped object was flung high into the sky. Loki squints at it, unsure of what the projectile could be. The mechanical ball arches and at its pinnacle, a red light begins to flash. The trickster realizes a moment too late.
A bomb.
Ice green eyes glance at Thor's mortal, oblivious to the danger, struggling to regain balance. Gritting his teeth, he instinctively reacts and shoves her away from the incoming threat. At the sound of detonation, the younger prince turns and jumps, intending on sheltering the woman from the blast. To his surprise, the explosion became the epicenter of heavy gravity. The forward momentum of his body slows. He stretches out for purchase, for anything to stop the inevitable, and for an instant, he's briefly frozen in place.
Precariously weightless, time stands still.
He should have picked her up and made a run for it.
Honey brown eyes stare at him from over her shoulder - she's terrified. Discombobulated as she was, the woman knows not what would happen, yet she reaches for him anyway. Loki shouts at her to stop her intent.
A small hand snags his wrist, then another.
"Let go of me," he yells raggedly.
"No!"
She leans heavily away from the vacuum, attempting to apply counterforce against the weapons deadly suction. To his dismay, he's tugged forward, but he knew she's weakened by the siphoning of the Aether; though she tries, she fails to pull him any farther.
Time speeds up.
The inevitable happens in a blink of an eye.
She's being dragged across the jagged ground, then they're both lifted high and flung into the circular conduit. She losses her grip and slips away. The long fabric on her shoulder slaps his face and snags his vambrace: entwining.
A red flash marred their vision. Thor is inches above their outstretched arms. The look of a desperate man arriving a moment too late to save anyone, and he crashes into the mountainous terrain.
Brother-
The swirling vortex envelops them.
All coherent thought except one flees away as Loki gathers the blue fabric, tugs the mortal up against him, and curls around her. What echoes endlessly in his mind is the thought that his mother sacrificed her life to save this unworthy creature.
Never would her death be in vain.
An agony worse than death rips at them.
The maiden cries out somewhere against his breastplate and he can't help but do the same.
She smells of gardenias in the heady warmth of summer night.
Mingling together in the turbulent immersion, the world darkens into a black void. Atoms in their bodies shatter, crumple, fold inward, disintegrating.
...Particles of protons, neutrons, and electrons, funnel through a loop and filters through another.
Earth shattering roar of howling wind.
A vortex splits open, spewing forth heavy mist of swirling matter.
Reformation occurs, as shooting pain pulses in every crevice of scattered bodies. The sizzling sound of floating atoms being compressed, reconnected, and forming anew: bone, muscles, nerves, naked skin, heavy leathers, Asgardian metal, blue and green cloth.
Two bodies are tossed aside like rag dolls upon the ground. They lie together, side by side, oblivious to the world around them.
All is silent.
Steam rises off their heated flesh.
A.N: Had to change the format for this story. No character povs per chapter, it'll be too short if I did it that way.