Loki laid in bed, holding the jar of sleep honey in his fingertips. The lighting of the room dimmed because the Midgardians deemed it time for him to sleep. He did not sleep but stared at the jar in the half-light.
Something was deeply troubling the girl. Though the blasted brace stripped him of his magic, and weakened his senses, he still had his mind and his wits. They saw the pain and confusion the girl tried to hide. It bothered him.
He had surprised himself, in taking her hand. He didn't mean to show any care for her condition. Why had he? Her refusal to be intimidated by him also surprised him, but in a pleasant way. He wasn't entirely sure why about that, either. The girl was nothing more than a means of escape. Besides that, the man, Fury, had most likely sent her to befriend him.
Sighing, he sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the cot. Looking up, he saw the little red dot that indicated the device with which SHIELD watched him. They were always watching him. They pestered him for answers. Thor came to belittle him, to try to use emotion to draw him out.
"Loki," he had said earlier, "I am your brother, no matter what blood says. Loki, listen, we can face Father together..."
"Like all the times we faced him together...brother?" Loki spat, unable to contain himself any longer. "All those times he snubbed me in order to please you?"
"I am your equal."
"You are no more my equal than those skulking Midgardians. No more than that pathetic woman you claim to love!"
Thor flew over the table, and, grasping Loki, slammed him against the wall. Guards ran in to restrain him but, in the end, it was Stark and Rogers that talked him into not snapping Loki's neck.
The memory dimmed and Loki sat alone on the bed. Rage filled him, hot as an inferno. Standing, he threw the small pot at the camera. The pot broke and honey flew everywhere. Sinking back onto the bed, he thought of Sigrid, and his heart ached. And he didn't know why.
OoOoOoO
The next morning, I stopped in the kitchen long enough to leave my satchel, and then, with a small tin in my hands, walked to Loki's cell.
When I reached it, the guard there said, "You don't want to go in there, miss. The prisoner is not in a pleasant mood."
"I think I'll take my chances."
He shrugged and opened the door for me. Loki was sitting in the arm chair again, stroking his upper lip. I noticed his hair was freshly washed. He watched me with thoughtful eyes.
"Good morning," I said. "I brought you something."
Loki didn't answer. I set the tin on the table, feeling nervous under his probing stare.
"I made lemon poppy seed muffins. I brought a couple for you."
Still, he said nothing.
"Well, I'll be back this afternoon. Maybe we can play another game? Or we can talk? Nothing serious, of course. I can tell you what I do when I'm not here. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the muffins."
He spoke as I turned away. "Where did you learn your magic?" he asked.
I turned back to him. "Excuse me?"
"The honey. Where did you learn how to do that?"
"My mother taught me beekeeping, but I don't do anything to the honey. It just is."
"Hmm. I fear I will need more of that sleep honey. I... Its pot was broken."
"Certainly. I can bring it tomorrow."
After a long moment of silence, I said, "Why do you ask? About the honey?"
"Merely curious. Everyone is asking me questions. Aren't I allowed a few of my own?"
"Of course. But, like I said, I haven't done anything to the honey."
He gave a small half-smile. "Are you sure?" He shook his head. "Why do you come here, anyway?"
I blinked. "Well, Mr. Fury asked me." No point in lying to the liar of liars.
"I suppose to get more information out of me." He sneered the words.
"Maybe." I straightened my back and glared at him. "But, honestly, would you rather have no one to see you but the guards and interrogators?"
Silence stretched between us for a long moment. Finally, he said, "You may come back this afternoon, if that's your wish."
"Then I'll see you then."
He stood and bowed. "My lady."
I nodded and left.
OoOoOoO
When I returned to Loki for our afternoon game, we didn't speak anymore of magic or my reason for being there. In fact, the only thing he commented upon were the muffins, which he didn't like.
Well, you can't win them all.
What he said about the magic had bothered me for the rest of the day. Once home, I barely spoke to Eartha, only listened as she rattled on about all the things we were going to do once the twins were home and all the preparations she's made so far. Like I said, Joan was all right. I'd much rather be locked in a cell with Loki for eternity than have Jane over.
But, like I said, you can't win them all.
After dinner and Eartha had gone to bed, I went up to our attic and began looking through trunks. It didn't take long for me to find it.
I suppose you would call it a grimoire. We all called it Hedwig's Book. In it was all the beekeeping my mother ever taught me. But that was only the first half. There was a section on sword fighting, but it was very thin. (Swordsmanship is best learned with a weapon in hand rather than a book.) The rest of the book contained lessons on magic: diagrams, charts, lists, and paragraphs of crabbed writing.
It was the life's work of one of my ancestresses, Hedwig, who feared the family line was about to go extinct and preserved her knowledge in writing. To the untrained eye, it all read like gibberish, with bits of it making sense in light of modern science.
I took it downstairs to my room and sat at my desk. Flicking on the desk lamp, I opened the book and carefully turned the pages all the way to the back.
Hedwig had finally given birth to a beautiful baby girl, but she was dying. She was entrusting the book, the sword, and armor to her brother, to be given to the girl when she grew old enough. In the last days of her life, Hedwig took up the book to write a letter to the daughter she would never know. I skimmed through the paragraphs until I came to the ones I needed:
"My dear child, I have told you all that I know. I only hope I have imparted it in a proper manner. Eschew the tales of men who say magic is a farce. Magic is merely the work of the natural order, working on a level we have yet to understand.
"Our magic has waned over the years. It is quite thin, and if it weren't for the bees that remain our companions, even I would doubt the old story's veracity. Most of the magic I have written of, I cannot do. I have written it because my mother made me commit it to memory. I ask you to do the same. You may also wonder to yourself one day, 'What if I am the one? How shall I know?' I can only tell you of a few things Sigyn could do.
"Though her power was mostly gone, she could heal herself so quickly, it was almost as if she were never hurt, though this did not keep Time at bay. She also had the strangest rapport with bees, being able to handle them as if they were beloved pets. She petted them and spoke to them like we would a cat. My grandmother, who was her granddaughter, told me that she saw her once completely covered in bees and remained unscathed."
I jerked out of the chair and walked away from the desk. Covering my eyes with my hands, I took a few deep breaths, and then walked back. Standing over the book, I read:
"I imagine, sweet child, that if you find yourself experiencing similar, you are the one."
The final line was unreadable. I wondered if she wrote it as she died.
I took a deep breath, trying to put this into perspective. This all started when Loki came. Perhaps it was linked to him? But the brace drained away his magic. How could he affect me? Thor had been here for weeks and nothing had happened then. But what if the affect came on slowly? It may not have anything to do with me being "the one."
Walking to my window, I looked out into the dark. If it was true, though, I had a responsibility to learn more about magic, in case I would need to control it. It could also come in handy, if Loki ever tried to trick me.
Returning to the table, I turned to the beginning of the section on magic and began to read.
