"Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being."

— Albert Camus

Heimdall's story occupied the greater part of my thoughts for several days. I kept looking at the old picture of my mother, trying to imagine this woman finding my father, understanding him, helping him as no one else could have. I tried to imagine my father opening up to her, grudgingly honest, reluctantly happy. I wondered what would have happened to him if she hadn't found him, if that unheeding bird hadn't flown ahead and drawn her gaze to him, or if she had decided to walk the short route as usual. I wondered how many tiny coincidences had led to their meeting, and how many huge impacts that meeting had.

Like me, for example. Was I just a vastly unlikely product of chance? The odds against my birth were huge — did that make me special or just random? Did my birth mean anything? If it did, I thought cynically, it surely wasn't to sit safely in Asgard when there were eight other Realms to explore within the Yggdrasil alone.

There were two possibilities, I decided. One, my life was fated and held some importance in the universe, and my father's selfish repentance was beneath me. Second, my life had no innate meaning; my father had tried to give it meaning, but that meaning was for him and not for me; and I had to make meaning for myself. Either way, I would achieve nothing by staying safe.

Even if I couldn't meet my mother — which, on second thought, did seem like a remarkably risky idea — I could at least pay a visit to her world. Possibly I could even discover where she had lived, and walk in her literal footsteps for a little while. I knew enough about Midgardian culture to get by — after his first unfortunate experience with Midgardians, my Uncle Thor had helped establish a cultural awareness class made mandatory for all children on Asgard. As a hybrid of two races, neither of them Aesir, that was the only class that had ever interested me. The rest were asinine, completely dull, but that one seemed at least to have a purpose.

I wasn't forgetting that I was also half-Jotunn, but I knew better than to expect any kind of welcome from that side of the family. No, it would have to be Midgard.

And I would go. I promised myself that I wouldn't turn back out of fear, obedience, or over-practicality. I would make this journey. I would prove to my father, and to everyone, that I was capable of looking after myself. Nothing, I vowed silently, would stop me from doing this.

There was planning involved, of course. I would go, but I wouldn't go unprepared. I spent hours every day preparing a backstory, a character to play. This part would be easy. I spent practically my whole life pretending; one more lie wasn't any stretch. Besides, I only had to change a few facts in order to make my story seem quite believable to a Midgardian. Names, Realms of origin, number of murders committed, that sort of thing.

Money would be easy to obtain with my illusions. And with money, I could have lodging, food, clothes, and anything else I wanted. It wasn't necessary to pack anything except a few small weapons and my wit.

I visited my father before I left, and gave him a perfunctory notice. "I am going to Midgard," I said simply. "You already know why. I will return at the end of two years. Do not expect me before then. Do not look for me."

This time, I took a horse for the ride across the bridge. I wanted to move quickly, now that I was going; I couldn't allow myself time to get caught or change my mind.

Heimdall watched me ride up. "Greetings once more, Daughter of Loki," he said. "You plan to leave."

"You have been watching me," I noted. "Yes, I am going."

"You have been watching me," I noted. "Yes, I am going."

"You seem to forget that you need my cooperation in order to pass."

"To the best of my knowledge, Odin has not forbidden me to leave. Has he?" I asked, suddenly worried.

Heimdall shook his head slowly. "He has not. But he will be angry if I let you go. So will your father."

I shrugged. "My father is in prison, and as long as you do not break your oaths, Odin can do nothing to you. Please, allow me to go."

He nodded warily. "You speak reason. Yet I would still counsel you not to make such a decision as this in the haste of rage. Its consequences could be more severe than you think." He seemed to be trying to warn me of something, but I could not tell what, so I put it down to nervous fancy.

"What haste? I have been planning this for weeks. If that is not enough time, I would rather be hasty than reasonable."

Heimdall sighed. "I cannot in good conscience allow you to do this," he insisted. I knew he meant well, but I wasn't about to back down.

"Surely you are aware that if you do not let me through, I will fimd and use other — and more dangerous — paths to get away from Asgard.

Clearly he knew enough about me to realize that there was no point in trying to change my mind anymore. He turned silently and walked up the small pedestal in the middle of the orb. Looking at me once more, he took his sword in his hands and held it ready to activate the Bifrost.

"I'm sorry," he said, and stabbed downward. He looked sad.

I was about to ask what he was apologizing for, but before I had a chance, I felt myself ripped from Asgard itself and hurled through a dizzying stream of rainbow energy, on my way to freedom.

Loki stood and watched in silence as his daughter turned her back and walked away from him. Unable to say anything, unable to even move — this was his worst fear realized, this was the nightmare that had haunted him for nigh on a century now, ever since Aurora. He couldn't so much as think beyond the horror of the moment. This was the end. Everyone and everything was lost to him now. His life had just been dashed to pieces by his own daughter. Not that he blamed her. It was his fault. It was his fault that she had even been born. Her mother was his fault, too. Everything was his fault. He had given her pride, and of course that pride had turned against him in the end, like everything else.

He hadn't any idea how long he stood there, but at length he heard footsteps approaching. Thor's footsteps. Angry. He forced himself to look up in his brother's accusing eyes.

"She's gone."

Loki nodded numbly. "She told me."

That seemed to surprise Thor. "She did? Why didn't you stop her? Why didn't you talk to her?"

"As if I could." His laugh was hollow. "She is my daughter, Thor. She is so much like me. Too much like me, in the end. There was nothing I could have done. You know she is stubborn. Once she had made her decision, I couldn't possibly have changed her mind —"

"YOU COULD HAVE TRIED!" Thor bellowed, hitting the glass wall of the cell with such violence that Loki froze mid-sentence, stunned. He stared, his tongue suddenly dead in his mouth as he realized that, this time, nothing he could say would ever fix this. This was his wrong, and it was a wrong he could not right.

Thor watched his brother. He saw Loki's walls drop for the first time since they were children. The raw pain in the other's eyes staggered him. If he had only known —

He sighed. "I had hoped this would turn out differently. That year on Midgard changed you, brother, more than you care to admit. I thought Ljota might be a kind of anchor for you, I thought that caring for her might help you. I only hoped you could be my brother again. But now Ljota has gone wrong the same way you did, morphed into a younger version of her father, and there is —"

"Do not say that," Loki hissed. "Do not confuse her with me, and do not make this out to be her fault. What I am is no fault of my daughter's."

"I know." Thor sighed again, heavily. "I am sorry. But Ljota is out on Midgard now, and she must be stopped before she — follows too closely in your footsteps. Odin will put out a search, I'm sure."

"No!" Loki interrupted sharply. "Even if Odin does try to find her, which is nowhere near a certainty, it will only be to bring her back in chains. He will lock her up as he has done to me so many times. And believe me when I tell you that being imprisoned does little to cure one's rage."

"Then what —"

"I will find her myself," Loki declared. Thor looked incredulous.

"And how do you plan on doing that? You're locked up in here, and Odin is well aware of your little tricks — it would be impossible to fool him now, even if you convinced me to get you out of there."

"Thor, she is my daughter. I must do this, if it is the only thing I can ever do."

Thor knew his family well enough to recognize that Loki would not be swayed. "All right. But not yet. You must wait a while, until Odin's search has tried and failed to find her."

"Which will not take long, you know. It's not as if they actually care for her. Soon she will be forgotten."

Loki was right, of course, but Thor wasn't going to tell him that. Not now. "Do not say such things. You do not know their minds."

"I know their kind well enough, though. If any one of them cares, they do a remarkable job of hiding it." He paused, then continued. "Fine. Since I do need your help to get out of this accursed place, I will wait. But once they have given up on her, I will spare nothing. You know me well enough, then know that I will be neither patient nor merciful in my search."

Thor nodded. "I know."