Chapter 3: Clipped Wings and Broken Things
Once when Elysia was nothing more than a young babe, she experienced what was called a panicked episode. Thor, Loki, and her had decided to play a game where two of them would hide and the other had to find them. Once it was Elysia's turn to go searching for her brothers she came up empty handed. She searched for what seemed like hours but neither brother turned up. Fearing the worst Elysia plopped down to the ground and, for lack of a better word, panicked. However at the sound of her wails both boys came running.
The whole thing was less than pleasant, what with the whole oxygen being sucked out of her lungs, the walls closing in, the blurry vision, and the sound of her own heartbeat going off like a gong. These also happened to be things that she thought she'd never experience again.
But as she laid there, underneath that shimmering barrier she realized she was wrong. Only this time that feeling came back amplified, because this time there really was danger. And it wasn't the kind of danger that anyone could protect her from, instead everyone was acting like they needed protection from her.
She tried to calm down, truly she did, but it just wasn't working. She felt frightened and oh so alone. Elysia had been so relieved when she woke up to see that she was indeed in familiar territory, not stuck in the darkness that was her mind. Seeing her mother standing there had reassured her that this time she was truly awake.
And then Odin had held her back. He pulled her mother towards him and refused to let go. Why didn't he want Frigga to come and comfort her? Why didn't he want her to come near?
Elysia was unable to dwell on either question for too long when the barrier had slammed up around her, isolating her from her family. The idea of being trapped had sent her straight into an episode that she swore she'd never have again, and soon she lost herself and let it take over.
What threw her out of it was the sound of hands slapping down against the topside of the barrier. Startled she opened her eyes and saw two sets staring back at her.
One a brilliant green and the other a gleaming blue.
They had heard her crying out and could no longer wait for someone to remember that they were still awaiting news of her condition. Neither boy could handle the muffled sounds that they were hearing from her and Thor lost it, running up and throwing the doors open to reveal Elysia screaming and kicking under one of the protection barriers that was generally used to prevent the spread of disease.
The sight stopped Thor in his tracks, not understanding what it was that he was seeing. Loki on the other hand had eyes only for Elysia and rushed towards her, wanting nothing more than to take her into his arms.
By the time Elysia regained focus, Loki and Thor both had their hands plastered across the see-through barrier that enclosed her. Every adult made a move for the two princes, believing their lives to be in danger, only to stop as they watched the golden tendrils recede.
Loki began softly murmuring that she was going to be just fine now that they were there and Thor started cooing at her gently, each trying to comfort her in their own unique way. They continued to do so until Elysia's tears dried up and her breathing fell back into a normal pace
Slowly she raised her hands up to place them in the exact spot as theirs. Now that her brothers were here they would let her out. She gazed up at them with wide doe eyes and quietly pleaded with them, knowing that they would be able to read between the lines. "Please..."
Thor raised his head and made eye contact with his father, asking him the silent question. When he received a downcast look and shake of the head, his heart broke a little. As he looked back down he could tell that the answer was written across his face by the way that Elysia deflated.
Loki tried to salvage some kind of light at the end of the tunnel, "But we'll be right here, we won't leave you okay?" If they had it their way they would have been by her side from the very beginning, not waiting outside uselessly.
This wasn't supposed to happen, not to her. If him and Thor had just listened to her earlier and left the vault, then none of this would be happening right now. The sight of his small distraught sister hurt him in ways that he couldn't even describe.
And now as he stared at their hands, separated by force, he knew that if it were possible he would take her place. But he couldn't, and even though that was a hard truth to swallow he had to accept it. So what he could do was be there for her and let her know that him and Thor would not leave her again.
The adults had been stunned into silence, but none more than Frigga. She didn't understand how her sons could calm the magic that had built a home inside her daughter, while she had only further agitated it. Many things about this situation weren't adding up, mainly how it was that Elysia was still alive. Despite wanting to believe that this was somehow a miracle Frigga knew that such things did not occur. Miracles did not exist, but fate did and Frigga believed in that.
It was no accident that her daughter still lived, but such a thing always had a price. And some prices were too high to pay. Seeing that her sons were fine she escaped her husband's hold and walked over to them, laying a hand down besides theirs, letting her daughter know that she was there as well.
Odin stood up straighter and made his way to his family, daring anyone to try and stop him. Instead of placing a hand atop the barrier he opted to stop at the top of the table, making sure that he could make eye contact with Elysia. He didn't want to do this, but keeping the truth from her would do no good.
It was not his intention to scare her or make it seem like this was somehow her fault, but she needed to know why none of them could come near her for the moment and why she was being isolated.
It would be heartbreaking for all involved, but it would be necessary.
Elysia felt as though she would be ill. How could this have happened?
She killed someone.
She sucked the life out of someone.
She didn't know how to deal with any of this. She was only 190 years old, still a young child, much too young to have to worry about whether or not she was a danger to others. She didn't know how to comprehend what it was exactly that Odin was trying to tell her. She understood the logistics of it, but not the cause nor the reason.
The more that he spoke, the more that Elysia wanted to go back to the dark nothingness of her mind. At least there she didn't have to be concerned with hurting anyone else. There the realities of life were not quite so savage or overbearing.
There was something inside her, something that paced back and forth along the edge of her consciousness. And it wanted to be free; it wanted to jump off that cliff into the unknown, where a whole new world awaited. Elysia felt like she was carrying a force within her and it was changing who she was at her very core.
She knew that she should be horrified at what she had done, what the magic had done, but she wasn't. She was grateful that it had taken the loss of that woman for them to isolate her, which in turn protected everyone else.
The sacrifice of that woman had secured the safety of her family.
Elysia was disgusted with herself. She hated violence and yet here she was being thankful for it. Truly whatever it was that was inside her was a monster. But through all the confusion one thing was glaringly obvious. The voice had been right in its parting words to her.
She would never forgive it for this.
The Odinson family had bided their time while Eir and her team of assistants worked around a now silent Elysia. After Odin's recounting of events the girl had practically disappeared into her mind, shutting herself off from the others. No amount of soothing words or sounds would draw her back, for all intents and purposes Elysia had let her mind wander far off.
Eventually Odin and Frigga understood that what she needed was simply time to process what had happened over the past couple of hours. The boys on the other hand would not give up in their pursuit to bring her back, determined that she was not too far gone yet. It was difficult for the parents to watch their children in this state, and both had to walk over to Eir just to have a brief moment of reprieve from the saddening sight.
While the royal family had been comforting one another Eir had taken it upon herself to begin running various tests, making sure to follow every safety protocol there was just in case. With every diagnosis that came up the more pieces to the puzzle were coming together, forming the entire picture and ending a part of the mystery.
"She's absorbing the energy around us at an incredible rate. These scans are showing that there seems to be no form of energy that is inaccessible to her. However there is something that's blocking her from taking it all in."
Eir's statement gathered the attention of all in the room except for Elysia, who was still doing her best to disappear back into a blank mental state. At the new revelation the confusion in the room seemed to double.
"All energy in existence? That's not possible."
"What do you mean something's blocking it?"
Odin and Frigga both spoke up at once with the speed and ferocity of a worried parent. Eir sighed and tried to answer their questions to the best of her ability, which was hard seeing as how she didn't quite understand all of this herself.
"With the way that these scans are measuring her energy input and output," Eir moved the screen over so that Odin and Frigga could see it as well, "the princess should keep absorbing energy without stopping. She has no training on how to filter it herself and the sheer amount that she has at her disposal should, in every version of reality, kill her." Before the two of them could start up a whole new round of frantic questions, Eir continued, adamant that her explanation be allowed to come to its conclusion. "And that is simply because there is no non-living nor living thing in the entire universe that could handle this sheer force of unfiltered energy."
It was a horrifying thought to know that such a small child was now burdened down with something that not even a full-grown immortal could handle.
Frigga could barely believe her ears. There was something about this that was seeming familiar, but she could not remember no matter how hard she tried. She could feel it on the tip of her tongue but when she opened her mouth the words failed to form. Out of the corner of her eyes she noticed something on the scan that intrigued her.
The energy outside Elysia's body was burning brightly but as soon as it got to her wrist it dimmed. She turned and looked at her daughter's wrist, noticing for the second time that there was a foreign bracelet located at the sight of the dimming energy. If Frigga's newly found suspicions were right than it was the bracelet that was acting as a mild blockade. Worried that if she brought it to Eir's attention that the woman might attempt to remove it, Frigga kept silent.
Eir remained completely unaware of the epiphany that had just struck Frigga. "You mentioned that her natural affliction was absorption magic and it seems that when she touched the Tesseract her magic flared unintentionally, resulting in her taking in part of the stone's essence. Since it didn't kill her on first contact it bonded with her somehow and amplified her natural abilities." Eir emphasized the somehow portion, understanding that they wanted answers but not having any valid ones to give. "At the rate that this is expanding I would say that if she were to truly concentrate, she could in effect use the energy she takes in." She took a pause in a brief moment of silence, "That's what happened to one of our healers, her life energy, her essence, was absorbed through direct skin contact."
Now came the hard part, the part that Eir did not want to bring up. "It is my express recommendation that until she can control whatever this is that she not have physical contact with others, lest she finds that she cannot control herself and another loses their life as a result."
Wake up, eat breakfast, run more tests, visit her family through another barrier, eat dinner, practice with Frigga, and go back to sleep.
For three weeks this was the only schedule that Elysia knew. Sure she got to see her family, which was nice, but it was always through a barrier and never could she touch them. Even during her lessons to control the awful energy with Frigga she was not allowed to be in the same room as her.
The days begun to blend together and she longed for just a fleeting touch with another, a simple brush of the hand would have sufficed. But Eir still deemed her too unstable and Elysia was left to stay within the confines of the room provided.
The voice had yet to return but still every night Elysia would beg the open air around her for just a moment longer with it, just to ask it a few questions that she desperately needed answered. It seemed like this night was going to be just like all the rest, unsatisfying and unfulfilled. Elysia was tired and her body ached from her lessons, giving up for the night she went to her bed and laid her head down in preparation for sleep.
Then in the span of moments it was like ice water had been tossed in her face and Elysia was thrown back into darkness, scrambling towards the light that was quickly fading away. It felt like she was falling without the actual falling. The feeling of her bed was ripped out from beneath her and she was suspended in air as the last of the light finally died out.
At first the darkness scared her, but it also provided a vague sense of familiarity and accomplishment soared in her veins. She had done it, somehow she had made it back to the place where she first spoke to the voice.
It appears that you were searching for us little one?
Elysia startled when it began to speak and she had to clear her throat in order to form the words that she had been holding in over the past few weeks. "Ye- Yes I wanted to speak with you" she tried to muster up enough confidence to sound as though she were in charge of this discussion, after all that's what Odin had taught them to do in cases that involved negotiations. It was always 'stand tall and proud for you bear the mark of royalty, and neither a king nor queen bows to those below them'. Elysia hated that saying, she didn't feel like she was better than anyone, in fact she liked to think that they were all on an equal footing.
However she had quickly learned that Odin was not so appreciative of such thinking and preferred it when she listened without question, something he liked everyone to do. "I would like answers to hold to my current affliction."
We feel that we should warn you now that this will be the last time we will be able to speak for quite a while, so make wise use of your time young one.
Elysia's cheeks heated up, well that would certainly put a damper on her plans. How was she to know which questions she needed to ask? What if she accidentally forgot one? "Okay then..." she muttered underneath her breath. All she had to do was prioritize which ones were the most important. Suddenly she knew just where to start.
"Everyone says I should have died but I did not. In fact everyone except for you was surprised that I even woke up, why did I not perish from touching an infinity stone?"
You were chosen.
Elysia felt like pulling her hair out of her skull. This voice had to be jesting with her, surely it didn't expect her to be content with such an explanation. "But I am asking why. Why did this happen and why did it happen to me?"
There was a being long ago, much before your time, and it knew all. Everything that you could possibly imagine, the future, the past, the present, and all in-between. Some have called it a god, and it seemed fitting. After all, what other name would be appropriate? However that being said, we were never truly in need of a name.
At first Elysia was very confused, she had asked for answers not a story. But during the slight pause she realized that this was its way of telling her why. For some reason it thought it necessary for her to understand this before she understood why any of this had occurred.
This being was all that there was... but it was also alone. And being alone is a hard weight to carry. There was a stipulation, a requirement if you will. In order for life to be created the being would need to cease to exist, the price to pay for companionship was death. So it split itself into six different stones wanting so desperately not to be alone anymore that it would do anything. Though before the split there was something that caught its eye in the distant future.
Even though there was no physical body in front of her, Elysia found herself leaning forward in anticipation. The story was starting to become interesting with the sudden turn.
It saw that there would come a day when someone would come along and misuse its power, but there would be nothing that the stones could do about it. Nevertheless there was also said to be one pure of heart who could be trusted with the highest of powers. With a clear mind the split occurred and the stones watched the universe create and destroy, all while awaiting the one person that would save it.
By this point Elysia was completely entranced with the tale, feeling the urge to shed tears at the pain that the first being must have felt and she wanted to thank it for the sacrifice that it had made because she doubted that anyone had ever done so before. She was still so terribly angry at the voice for whatever it had done to her, but the sorrow in its tone caused some of that anger to chip away.
The very moment that you were conceived the stars fell into alignment and it was revealed.
The minute that Elysia realized that the voice was talking about her she froze. That couldn't be right, she was nothing more than a child, certainly not prepared to save whatever this thing thought she was supposed to.
But you came to us too early and your body was not ready to handle the power that you are destined to wield. Interference was necessary as was predicted and the bracelet was interwoven into your skin.
Elysia's eyes flew down to the silver bracelet that rested on her wrist and she begun trying to pry it off. She thought that maybe if she could just get it off she could ask the voice to choose someone else, however the jewelry was really snug and didn't seem willing to budge.
Calm yourself child. That bracelet is our protection bestowed upon you. It was forged from a piece of the body of the first being as a precaution, it is not something that can ever be removed. It will do you no harm; it will only readjust your cells to accommodate the small amount of energy you can take in at the moment.
And just like that her hand jerked off of the bracelet, now praying that she hadn't in some way loosened it. Elysia resisted the urge to pout, the voice should have started with that, not waited until she was trying to take it off. She wouldn't have messed with it if she knew that it was for protection against something so serious.
Listen to the story of the girl with starlight in her veins and you will understand one day.
Elysia's mind was reeling. She didn't want to have to save anything, and she certainly didn't want whatever it was that the voice had deemed her honorable for. But before she could voice her protests the voice continued unprompted.
When the day comes to choose between the dirt and the stars, take care to keep your feet on the ground.
There was a soft warning embedded in those words and she would be lying if she said it hadn't scared her. The voice had said a lot of things she hadn't liked, but not once had it ever been foreboding. But there was something more to the statement.
Something ancient trembled within her at the words, bringing her a clear message that stated that this was not to be forgotten.
Elysia Gunnarsdottir you will have to make many sacrifices, but it has been written, in the end you will know a happiness that will rival no other.
The very word "happiness" made her think of her soulmate. The soulmate that had yet to be born. Elysia subconsciously rubbed the spot on her right wrist where one day her soulmate's first words to her would reside. Elysia would be happy once she had her prince, or princess, she wasn't really picky about that part just so long as they were hers.
"Please" Elysia tried begging one last time, hoping that it would sway what she now figured was an infinity stone into choosing another so that she could go back to her previous life. The life that she had taken for granted, the life where she could touch the people she loved and who loved her in return, the life where she could leave the palace and gaze up at the constellations. The life that she wanted back. "Please there must be another who is more suited than I."
Little one this was written in the stars, this is fate and it cannot be changed. In time you will come to see this.
Everything went dark and the next thing Elysia knew she was shooting up out of her bed, wide awake and fists clenched so hard her nails were biting into her skin. No matter how many times it would happen she would never get used to the feeling of that abrupt departure.
Elysia looked down at her hands, now understanding what it was that flowed through her. Had there been a mirror in the room she would have seen the specks of gold that twinkled in her eyes. Slowly the energy was becoming hers to the point where there would be no difference between the two; it would be as if the energy had been with her since the day she came into the world.
Though she was young Elysia knew one thing for certain, the stone had made a vital mistake because it had forgotten the most cardinal truth there was.
You never tell a goddess what her destiny is, for they have been known to defy them.