Something I forgot to mention last chapter: the song Silbhé is supposed to be playing in the flute is Yanni's "Nightingale", just focus on the flute parts. In fact, that artist was my inspiration for the whole situation with the flute.
This chapter's son is Dreams, from the Cranberries. Enjoy!
Second Song. Dreams
The Second Song was one of life, of a future, of seemingly impossible dreams…
Loki and I kept meeting every so often. We had no accord or anything like that. He would just appear in the gardens at some point during the morning, hang out with me from a few hours to a whole day. The same thing could happen one day to a week straight, then he would be gone, any lapse of time from a handful of days to months at a time.
I learnt so much from him: from the Norse language (both the old form that was spoken in Asgard as well as the more modern one). He told me many things about his realm, the people who lived there, their history. I read everything I could get my hands on concerning the Norse culture, mythology, history, literature. Then Loki and I would spend hours debating how alike or different Midgardians' beliefs were from the truth he knew. It was wonderful.
During those years I also went through with learning Greek as well as finishing my studies as far as high-school. It was shortly after that, around the time that I'd begun working on applications for a couple of colleges, that things took a turn…a bad turn.
I fell sick. In a way I hadn't been since I was at least nine. By the time the results of my tests make back and the doctor saw me I already had a pretty good idea of what they would tell us. Of course I was right…my aunt cried, my father was in denial and I downright refused to stay in the hospital, not like it would make any difference in the end.
The moment I entered my room I locked the door and went to my window-seat, opening the window wide and trying my best to let the nightingale's song drown the sound of my aunt's sobs on the next room…
I shook my head, trying to block it all out, it became impossible when the next thing I heard was his voice right behind me:
"So…who died?" The low, thick voice asked in my ear.
My breathing actually stopped for a few seconds, then, with a sigh I just let go, resting my head against the wall.
"Me." I answered eventually.
For almost a full minute silence reigned, so much I began to believe he might have left as silently as he arrived; that is, at least, until I suddenly felt his hand on my arm, he pulled me, pretty much manhandled me until I was facing him, my back to the window.
"What the hell does that mean?!" He demanded.
"Exactly what I just said." I replied, as emotionlessly as I could.
"You're not dead." He hissed at me. "You're right here."
"True." I nodded. "Doesn't mean much though, I'll be dead soon enough."
"Why?" His voice sounded a mix of angry and…haunted?
"I am sick." I tried to keep it simple.
"I've seen you sick, you didn't die then." And of course he couldn't make it easy.
"This is a different kind of sickness…" I sighed. "The details are not important. I am sick, and I'm going to die, soon. That's all there is to it."
"The details are important." He insisted strongly. "So tell me."
He was going to force me to face the very thing I've been refusing to deal with ever since the doctor said those fateful words in the hospital…ever since I demanded to be released because I did not want to spend what few weeks I may have left trapped inside that place, with its washed out walls, awful smell of alcohol and iodine and other chemicals, and nurses directing such pitying looks your way….Just no. If I was going I was doing so in my terms, in my home…
"I have cancer." I finally told him. "Leukemia. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, if you want to get all technical. In few words, it means there is a sickness in my blood, and it comes all the way from my bone-marrow, from where the cells are produced. I've had this sickness my whole life… was treated for it since I was a small child."
"How did I never know anything?" Loki asked, suspicious.
"When I was nine I went into remission." I explained. "It means that the treatment worked, for the most part, the cancer was no longer killing me. However, it was still there, it couldn't fully be cured. It reactivated recently. In the last few weeks I'd been feeling tired. I got a cold and it kept me in bed nearly a full week…" I shook my head. "It was after that, after the very high fever I had those days, that my aunt finally decided we needed to go see a doctor. They kept me for a few days, while the tests were processed and I got over my cold…when the results came, I knew already what they were." I sighed. "The cancer is back, stronger than when I was nine."
"Why don't they treat you again?"
"It's too advanced now, too strong. The chances of any of the medicines, or the radiation, or any other treatment really working are extremely low."
"So you are giving up? Isn't even a small chance better than no chance at all?"
"In my case…no, not really. If I agree to any of the treatments, they will be harsh, they will make me sick. And in the end, they might just end up making the time I have left shorter, time that I will end up spending in the hospital…" I shook my head. "I do not want that. I want whatever time I have left, here. In my home, with my roses, my birds, my music…"
"You cannot just give up! Lay down and die! You have to live!" His voice sounded so strange to my ears, almost broken…
"Oh Loki…we both knew this was bound to happen sometime. I honestly do not know whatever it may be about me that has kept you around for three years, but we both knew it would have to end sometime…You are a god, and I am a mortal girl…I was always going to die someday…"
"Yes, some day, when you're old and gray…not at fourteen, not when you're little more than a child. You have so much to do still! A life to live! Didn't you tell me you were applying for some important school where you would learn more about myths, and legends and literature and history and all those things you so love?"
"I'm not sure how much more I could learn, you've already told me so much…" I smiled at him, though it did not reach my eyes, I knew. "It's alright Loki. My time is running out. I'm dying sooner rather than later. I have accepted it, and so must you…"
"No!" He yelled. "You are not going to die Nightingale! I shall not allow it!"
With that, he was gone, and in the loneliness of my empty bedroom I finally allowed myself to cry, for dreams, and hopes and life…all lost…
xXx
I was given three months at most, and that had been before the doctors somehow had managed to convince my aunt to keep me in the hospital for a week running tests to try and find a way to treat this return of the leukemia…it wasn't until they began talking about very aggressive radiation treatments and medications, which were as likely to kill me as they were to give me more time (because there was no hope for anything coming even close to healing me, really), that I decided to put my foot down. I was already going to die, there was nothing I could do about that. What I could certainly do something about was the conditions in which I died and the place. I wasn't about to die too weak to even know where I was, what day, or who was with me; and I certainly wasn't going to die in a hospital. Despite being just fourteen years old, in the end I won the argument and I was sent home. That particular meeting I had with Loki on my day back home certainly could have gone better…
As soon as I had recovered from my crying I began doing what I could to get my affairs in order. I wrote several letters to the universities where I had previously applied, offering my apologies and a brief explanation on why I would be unable to continue pursuing the studies I had hoped to get into. It was a good thing I hadn't begun looking into getting an apartment yet…
My aunt would go into my room every couple of hours, alternately trying to offer some form of comfort, worrying over me and trying to convince me to try some of the newer and more experimental treatments the doctors had mentioned. I accepted her comfort as best I could, tried to make her stop worrying, and downright ignored any ideas of treatment. I also ignored when she kept insisting I stopped my walks through the gardens, even if I only did it once a day and not for very long…it was a very small part that I still had left of what had once been my normal life, I wouldn't give up on it until I had no other choice.
My father began having dinner with both my aunt and I at least every other day, which was a miracle in and of itself. Too bad it had taken me being pretty much condemned to death for him to decide he wanted to spend time with his only daughter…
Loki's absence was one thing I was saddened about. I had hoped he would have stayed, at least so I could have someone to distract me from my impending departure…but then again, I hadn't planned on telling him I was sick and how bad it was until I absolutely had to…I never imagined he would be there that day, and catch me so off-guard that I didn't even stop to think about it before I blurted out the truth…Maybe it was better that way, one less goodbye I had to worry about, and he wouldn't have to see me all sickly and awful…
At least that's what I wanted to believe, until I saw him again, a week after that awful day when he'd refused so vehemently to accept I was going to die.
I was half-laying, half-sitting on my bed, a book on my hands. One my moment I was alone…the next I wasn't. He appeared right beside my bed, the light from my bedside lamp giving him a somewhat eerie-glow. There was no greeting, no comment, not even a smile, he just stared at me in silence, as if waiting for something; eventually I decided to break the silence, though I wasn't about to make things any easier for him…
"I did not think you would be coming back." I commented, passing the page, pretending that his presence in my room was completely inconsequential.
"You cannot tell me you're dying and expect me not to react in some manner." He told me in a very quiet tone.
"To be honest I didn't expect anything at all…" I sighed, closing the book and placing it on my lap, it was unlikely I would get to do any more reading with him there. "Loki…I'm a girl… a human, mortal, sick girl…nothing more than that. I am nothing important at all, so why should you even care? Like I said before, it was always on my cards that I would die one day; and whether it be at fourteen or at eighty years old, it was always going to be relatively soon, a lapse of time that is nothing compared to the centuries you have lived." I sighed. "This way might even be better in a sense, the less attached you grow to me, the easier it will be to forget me. I honestly cannot imagine why you haven't already."
"I am already attached to you…" He whispered, touching my bare arm with one hand. "I would prefer it if you stopped belittling yourself so much. You might be human, and mortal and young and sick…but none of that makes you any less in my eyes. In some ways it even makes you more. There's no way I will ever forget you, in the few years I've known you, you've become special to me. You're my friend my Nightingale, the only one I have besides Thor…and sometimes I'm not sure he actually counts…"
"He's your brother, he'll always be your best friend." I half-smiled. "It's also a brother's prerogative to be a pain-in-the-ass to other siblings, particularly younger ones…or so I've heard."
"Certainly an interesting way of seeing it…" He smirked in return.
He made a motion at me, asking me with his eyes if he could sit beside me, so, with some effort, I moved more to a side of the bed, allowing him to sit against the frame, his arms then pulling me against him, It was so strange…I had never known Loki to be a touchy-feely kind of person, but in that moment…it was like he just had to be in contact with me…like he couldn't let me go.
"What are you reading?" His question brought me out of my thoughts.
"Oh, this?" I signaled to the book. "It's a book a friend from the internet recommended to me."
"Dream Chaser, by Sherrilyn Kenyon…" He read looking at the front of the book.
"Yeah." I nodded, fingering the images lightly. "According to my friend, Kenyon has written a bunch of books, part of a series called Dark Hunters. She recommended the series to me but I didn't want to begin reading something I'm quite sure I won't get to finish…then she told me there were a few books, like side-stories. They always include some of the characters of the main series, but the stories center around others that mostly do not appear in Dark Hunters; those other books also have mostly independent storylines. Which means I do not need to have read Dark Hunters to understand them."
"And I suppose Dream Chaser is one of those books?"
"Yep." I nodded. "It's why I decided to read it. It's quite good actually. I'm sure I'll be able to finish it in time, maybe even read it a second time if I keep liking it as much as I do thus far. It's not a bad last book, I think…"
"It shouldn't have to be your last book…"
"Maybe not." I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. "But things are what they are, and there's nothing we can do to change them. At least I got to see you again, have a proper goodbye."
"I do not want to hear you say goodbye." He practically hissed the words.
"Not necessarily today, but it will have to be soon."
"How soon?"
"Eight weeks, give or take."
The doctors' prognosis was closer to ten weeks, maybe eleven…but I was feeling so tired and weak already, I wasn't even sure I would make it eight more weeks. Still, not like there was anything I could do to change things, so it was better if I didn't focus in the little time I had left, instead just enjoying it.
"You're not going to die." Loki declared vehemently, holding me against him. "I will not allow it. I swear it upon Asgard's throne…"
I considered telling him that, god or not, there was nothing he could do, there was no cure for cancer. But in the end I decided not to fight him on this fact, he would realize the truth soon enough. And I really didn't want what little time I had left in his company to be spent arguing about something he would have to accept as inevitable eventually anyway.
xXx
The next few weeks were anything but easy and I hardly ever saw Loki, which made me more than a little sad, I had been hoping to get more time with him before the end.
First I didn't see him for two weeks, until one time when I fell asleep at some point during the afternoon, I woke up in the evening, to a tray of food in my night-table and Loki sitting in the bed beside me, the "Dream Chaser" book in his hand.
"Hey…" I whispered to him, still half asleep. "Do you like the book?"
"It's certainly a bit interesting." He admitted. "I'm curious though, is any of this real? Do any of the people in this story exist?"
"Well…I don't think so, no." I focused as much as I could, pushing the sleepiness aside, though it was hard. "Then again, most of the people who write about Norse Gods nowadays don't believe any of you exist either so…yes. Also, you told me there are Nine Realms, of which I just know this one, and what you've told me of Asgard…and there's always the possibility of even more worlds existing that none of you Asgardians know about so…who knows? Maybe they exist, maybe they don't."
"Thank you…that wasn't helpful at all." Loki rolled his eyes at me.
"Why did you ask?" I inquired before a yawn interrupted me. "See someone you might like to meet or something?"
"Or something." He replied simply.
He didn't give me any details, and I was feeling too sleepy to ask anymore, so I decided to give up on the matter and go back to sleep for an hour or two more. I was quite sure the food would still be there when I woke up…
The one who wasn't there was Loki…
Six more weeks passed in which I barely saw Loki in brief moments every few days. It made me sad, that he was so busy that he couldn't spend time with me. Yet at the same time, it wasn't exactly unusual for him to be busy, and I myself had told him he had to accept we I wouldn't be around anymore…so I thought maybe it was his way to put some distance; maybe that way it would hurt him less when I was gone. I could hope…
"I'll find a solution…I'll make this right…I promise you my Nightingale…"
I heard Loki's voice in my mind, not quite sure if I'd heard those words in a dream or reality, I just had no way of knowing for sure.
A day came, when I could no longer get off the bed. I was supposed to still have a couple of weeks, maybe even more, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to even stay awake more than a few minutes at a time, lets not talk about trying to get on my feet. I'd managed to convince my aunt of keeping the curtains of my big window open so I could at least see the garden and the birds outside; it was the second best thing, seeing how I could no longer walk through them.
xXx
"Wake up…" I heard as if from a distance. "Nightingale wake up…"
I was only conscious of having been asleep when Loki's voice woke me. I had barely seen him at all in the last four weeks, but in that moment he was there, and not in the casual human clothes he would wear most of the time in my presence, for my benefit I suspect. No, instead he was wearing what were obviously Asgardian clothes, the same kind he'd been wearing the second time we met, when I revealed the fact that I knew his name and that there was no way he could be a boy in his early teens.
"Loki…?" I asked softly, not quite sure yet if I was still asleep or not.
"I need you to wake up, my Nightingale." He insisted.
It took me almost a full minute, but eventually I managed to gather my wits and focus enough. With great effort I pushed myself until I was half-laying, half sitting among the pillows and the bed-frame. Loki was sitting on the other side of the bed, legs crossed, facing me.
"Loki?" I asked, confused. "What's going on? What time is it?"
"It's alright…and not yet dawn, I don't think so." He answered, not giving that last fact much importance in that moment.
"Not yet dawn!" I nearly shrieked, only I was too tired to even do that. "No wonder I just want to go back to sleep. Why did you wake me up anyway?"
I yawned long and deep once, began considering just going back to sleep, but the moment I closed my eyes longer than a blink Loki was shaking my shoulder, softly but firmly.
"Don't go back to sleep just yet." He ordered.
"Alright, alright, I won't sleep…" I muttered, exhaustion making me a bit snappish. "Now tell me, what did you wake me for?"
"I solved the problem!" He exclaimed brightly.
"Problem?" I did not understand.
"Of your sickness." He clarified. "I found a solution."
"Oh Loki…I told you, there's no cure for leukemia." I whispered softly, painfully. "You need to accept the fact that I'm going to die."
"No, you won't." He stated.
Before I was fully conscious of what was going on he took hold of my right arm, placing a two inch bracelet made of a metal that looked like gold but felt stronger somehow. It had engravings, symbols, like runes, though the biggest was a rune that I knew corresponded with Loki's symbol, that of two serpents twisted upon themselves and each other almost forming a double infinity.
He fastened the bracelet on my wrist before I was fully conscious of what was going on.
"What is this?" I asked, observing the bracelet curiously.
For all answer Loki produced a second bracelet from some pocket inside his clothes; it was identical to mine up to the last detail.
"Deamarkonian." Loki answered as he held the second bracelet in his hands.
"Sounds familiar…" I murmured, trying to remember where exactly I had heard, or most likely read that word before, but I was still a bit too tired to make much effort.
"It was in that book you were reading some weeks ago." He told me. "You told me you didn't know those people to exist, so the same must apply to their trinkets…however, that doesn't mean at least one of them could not be created."
"Bracelets…" I gasped, suddenly remembering why the whole thing seemed so familiar. "The bracelets Zatara used on Xypher and Simone?!"
"Not exactly the same." Loki qualified. "We do not need to be in close proximity all the time. I made sure of that, seeing as I still spend a great deal of time in Asgard and could not take you there. I mostly created them with the purpose of allowing us to share energy; or more precisely, so I could share mine with you." He smiled at me, a smile so bright, so honest, like I'd never seen before in him. "I believe that my energy could strengthen your body, allow you to heal from this sickness…this cancer."
"It would also make me dependant on you…" I whispered, not sure I liked that.
"I know I'm not someone you would want to be dependant on but…"
"It's nothing against you, truly. In fact, all the opposite. I just…I don't want to be a problem, a liability Loki…if you do this, that means I will depend on you for however long I live. What happens when you eventually grow bored of me? Or if for, whatever the reason, you can no longer visit Midgard? What if someone finds about this? You are a prince of Asgard, I don't believe Odin, or any of the other high ranked gods there would be exactly happy to discover one of their royals bound to a mortal girl, a sick mortal girl…"
"First of all, I will never grow bored of you Nightingale, I promise. Second, I believe humans might find a way to heal you eventually, and even if they don't, I won't stop searching for a way. Think of this as a temporary measure; something to make sure you don't die until before a cure is found…I tried the first couple of weeks after you told me, you know? When that failed I began working on creating these…" He signaled to the bracelets. "On the last details you mentioned. I have never cared much about Asgard, about being a prince. Long has the Allfather favored Thor over me; it's been many years since I stopped caring…for the most part. I truly believe that Mother wouldn't mind, though I will not tell her unless I have no other choice, or if I thought she would be able to help you; and for the time being I don't believe she could make any difference. And in the end, if they truly care about me they will accept the decisions I've made." He placed the second bracelet on his own right wrist, his free hand hovering over the latch. "I choose to bind myself to you and save your life. I choose to remain bound to you for as long as is necessary for you to live a long, fulfilling, happy life. I choose to protect someone I care deeply for… Will you allow me these choices, Nightingale?"
It was crazy, absolutely crazy. Really, for a god…for him to go through so much just to save my life…a human girl's life…it was insane! And yet, I couldn't find it in myself to resist. It wasn't just the idea of not having to die, though that in itself was truly wonderful. No…it was knowing that someone, that he, cared so much for me he would go through such lengths…would go as far as creating something entirely new, an object that was supposed to only exist in a fiction book, only to save my life…
"I will…" I finally whisper. "I promise to you Loki, I shall forever be grateful and treasure this chance you're giving me. I owe you my life…and if someday in the future I find a way to pay you back, I will do whatever is necessary…"
With that I placed my hand over his, and we both fastened the cuff-bracelet on his wrist. There was a bright flash of light and I lost consciousness.
xXx
When I next woke up I took a deep breath, stretched some this way and that as I noticed I was very stiff for some reason, then I pushed the covers off me, sat up and swung my legs to the side. It was until I was about to stand, as my eyes landed on a tray on my bedside table (a tray which held some tea, my aunt's latest attempt at some miracle cure) that I froze in place as my mind focused yet again and I remembered everything.
When I had laid down on the bed it was like settling on my deathbed (almost literally!). Then to wake up, to move and suddenly realize that my body didn't hurt, that I had no trouble breathing, or moving, that I didn't feel tired and weak…that I was alive…it was the most wonderful feeling I had experienced in my whole life.
My eyes went straight to my right arm as I confirmed how exactly I suddenly found myself so amazingly healthy when I'd so recently been so terribly sick…the cuff-bracelet, deamarkonian Loki had called them, like the ones in Kenyon's novel. Wonder what the authoress would think if she were to learn that someone had actually managed to make that imagined trinket of her fiction into a reality…?
My head swam when I got on my feet, I wasn't sure if it was because I'd been so long in bed, or because my body was still growing used to Loki's energy. I could feel it…or I thought I could. An energy flowing through me, revitalizing me in ways I never thought I could possibly be helped…not quite undoing the damage of my leukemia, but helping a great deal nonetheless. It was like the cancer was still there, but Loki's energy was keeping it from hurting me; whatever the case, it was more than I could have ever dreamed of…
I slowly moved to my window-seat, where I sat to watch the sunrise…I felt a shift in the air to my side as Loki appeared.
"Nightingale…you're awake…" He whispered softly.
"I am…" I agreed.
I made a move to turn and look at him but he stopped me with a hand on my shoulder, looking slightly sideways I noticed him watching the sky as it turned lighter ever so slowly with the rising of the sun, so I turned to continue watching as well.
"I will never be able to thank you…" I whispered after what seemed like forever.
"You being alive is all I wanted, I require no thanks, though…" His voice changed something, an inflection I couldn't quite identify. "Sing for me…? Sing for me my Nightingale so I may convince myself that you're truly here, that those in Valhala haven't taken you from my side…"
"I am here Loki…" I whispered softly yet strongly.
I folded my right arm then, to touch the hand still on my shoulder, our bracelets touched and I could almost feel the shiver of the energy that bound us together, that kept me alive…
In that moment I couldn't understand why he sounded so stressed out. It was until later that I learnt I had been unconscious for three days and nights straight, not waking, not even moving and barely breathing…Loki wasn't even sure I would wake. The only reason my own family hadn't gone insane with worry was because Loki had set a spell beforehand, making so any time either my aunt or my father entered the room they saw me the same way they'd been seeing me the last few weeks; they also lost any interest they might have to make small talk with me, or ask any questions about how I felt and the like.
In the end, I chose not to ask any questions, at least not right then. Instead, I just sang. It was something I had been playing with in my mind for a while now, but it was the first time I actually sang the words…and Loki was the one there to listen. It seemed right in some ways I didn't stop to think much about, some I couldn't actually begin to comprehend. It didn't really matter right then, all that matter was that I sang, and Loki listened…
"All my life
Is changing every day
In every possible way
In all my dreams
It's never quite as it seems
Never quite as it seems…"
"I know I've felt like this before
But now I'm feeling it even more
Because it came from you
Then I open up and see
The person falling here is me
A different way to be…"
"I want more
Impossible to ignore
Impossible to ignore
They'll come true
Impossible not to do
Impossible not to do…"
"Now I tell you openly
You have my heart so don't hurt me
You're what I couldn't find
Totally amazing mind
So understanding and so kind
You're everything to me…"
"All my life
Is changing every day
In every possible way
And oh my dreams
It's never quite as it seems
Cause you're a dream to me
Dream to me…"
Hope you all enjoyed the chapter. If anything medical isn't exactly truthful I'm sorry, I don't have Cancer and while I've known people who have it, none with the conditions of my main character. What happened here, with the Cancer and the deamarkonian is important, you will see it in due time.
The book mentioned here is, like mentioned in the chapter itself "Dream Chaser" by Sherrilyn Kenyon, part of her "Dream Hunter" series, a side-series from her "Dark Hunters" series. I have never read the main series itself, in fact I haven't read anything but the book actually mentioned in the story. However, one of my best friends is a huge fan of Kenyon and her work, and it's because of her that I have some knowledge of it. It just happened that I was rereading the book around the same time I began planning "Nightingale" and this happened.
Next chapter: Years pass, Silbhé's growing up, her feelings changing, and she begins to realize that what she feels for Loki is more than just friendship and gratefulness...at the same time Loki learns Thor is to be made King...nothing will ever be the same again, for either of them...Soulmate.