Chapter 7

Wren's earliest memory was surprisingly not of her mother, but rather her father. Naturally, it was all rather vague and shadowed, like an echo of a past that had never really quite happened. However, the one thing that stood out to her was his face. He had a shining, soft smile and resolute jaw and it seemed that the years of subjugation at the hands of a merciless tyrant had somehow not taken the twinkle from his eye. Or if it had, perhaps it returned after she had come along. Those features were the only thing her mother told her she had received from him. In fact, as she was told, they looked nothing alike. Unlike her own porcelain skin, her father favored the warmer tones of the area she supposed he was plucked from. The color of his chocolate brown eyes and hair were nearly indistinguishable from one another.

Upon visiting this particular memory, she always first felt the intones of his calming and loving mother tongue upon her.

"Cálmate nena. Tu mama regresará pronto. Estoy contigo."

That was how she found herself in this particular dreamscape, the blurry outline of her father bent over the crude makeshift baby bed in their quarters.

This was all she had of him.

"No te preocupes, amor. Escaparemos al rato. Cuando sale la luna." He pointed to the windowless wall of their domicile as if she could understand.

"Viviremos en paz para siempre lejos de aqui, bebé." She learned what the words had meant later after absorbing the language from a group of young, terrified transplants from an Earth land called Peru.

They took him that night.

That was, of course the same night they discovered her. She was nearly nine months old. Of course the punishment for procreating, let alone concealing a child was immediate death. There was little to no guarantee that the offspring would manifest the magnitude of power that the parents held. There was a possibility that they would be born useless. At least or so they thought at this point. She was the first known child to be successfully born of two parents in the compound.

When she was old enough to understand, her mother told her the story of what had happened when they were both discovered in that little room, waiting for the moon to rise.

Mother had gone to the practice ring. Up until that point they had both managed to somehow evade being scheduled at the same time, except for a few times, when they had to regretfully leave her alone, swathed in blankets in a makeshift box with holes in the top so that she could still breathe but no one would hopefully hear her fuss.

It was getting more and more difficult to conceal her, however, as she had learned to crawl and was in the beginning stages of toddling around the small apartment. So they did the best they could, paying the ringmaster in bits of bread and meat and small metal trinkets to move them around so that they would never be together. No one suspected much, as this was common practice for exhausted soldiers dealing with the daily and constant fear of defeat and death.

The exception was that this day, for whatever reason, the ringmaster had forgotten to rearrange her father, unbeknownst to him. Her mother speculated that he was growing suspicious, and like all of them, wanted to curry favor with the Master. In the end, she could not blame him for it. This was the society they lived in.

They came shortly after he had told her that they were to escape that night. She remembered nothing of this, which was more than likely a protection laid out for her by her fragile psyche than a fallacy of memory. They were both escorted directly to the Master, and merely moments later her mother was pulled from the ring and drug before him. It was not hard for the Master to ascertain as to who the mother of the child was based on the shock of flaming hair that protruded from her still delicate baby skull.

The Master was surprisingly calm and collected for what had been found. Her mother told her that it was possible he could sense her power right away.

Now he was faced with an interesting dilemma. A child of great strength had been born right under his nose. -Many years later she would also learn of the prophecy that had brought them all to this point. The Master, in all of his infinite wisdom knew that this was not an opportunity to be scorned. The ultimate issue, however, was that someone must stand up and make an example of themselves so as not to let the others think they would also be able to commit a sin of this magnitude. Thus, instead of immediate death for the three of them, he proposed a much more entertaining idea. Her mother and father were to fight. To the death. The remaining parent would take the child and raise it under his more or less direct supervision. If they refused, all three were to die on the spot.

Her mother never told her the details of the battle. Only that it was an unspoken look between them as to who would live and who would die. Her father's body was hung to decay on the wall in the main cavern along with all other transgressors as an example.

Wren's mother was never the same after that, her powers still of good use, but her mind on many a bad day lost to a place that she dare not even touch.

And so there she was raised by her mother in the little dwelling inside of the mountain. There she was protected for nine short years and spared from the ring until her powers had built up safely inside of her. The eventually day came, however, when she was forced to fight, to use her telepathy and power of air and wind to confuse, hurt, maim, kill.

Which was why she came back to this dream regularly. The best memory. When she was still safe and secret, locked away in the adoring eyes of her papa.

The part of her mind that was still somewhat aware of what was going on in the outside world alerted her to the soft padding footsteps that were accustomed to years of sneaking and treachery, and she knew her raven locked caretaker was on his way back.

Taking one last glance at the man peering into the little cot, she whispered the words her infantile mind had lacked the ability to say in that moment and regretfully pulled herself away, coming fully back to the present.

The slit of her eye opened just as her door handle jiggled, the prince very obviously announcing his presence before he entered. With him he carried a tray with two steaming bowls of food that was producing a smell so delicious that even her cautious stomach could not resist it.

She opened both eyes fully and regarded the man, once so regally treated, now reduced to a level of self care she imagined he never could have even fathomed in his youth. Still so, it seemed to suit him more than being served on a golden pedestal as she imagined he had been for so many hundreds of years before his life had led him to this point.

He set the tray down carefully on her bedside table.

"Well. You certainly smell better. I shall have to thank Hilda for her efforts. Can you sit up to eat?"

She nodded, and gingerly pulled herself up, fixing the pillows to suit her. He set the tray in her lap and took his bowl and bread, retreating to his chair opposite the bed, his eyes never losing their wary look.

She wondered briefly if he was always so suspicious of others or if there was some sort of lesson learnt that had made him that way. She did not even have to reference her brief leap into his mind to suspect that he had experienced many more a tragedy than most.

He began to eat quietly and she did the same, sipping carefully.

"What do you call this soup?" She sighed, setting the spoon down halfway through. Her body needed more, but her appetite had decided to refuse, so she figured a small conversation was better than the ultimate rejection that she feared would happen if she ate too quickly.

The prince put his spoon down and picked up his bread, his movements ever graceful even when doing such a menial task as consuming food.

"It's called blomkålsuppe. My mother would shoo the servants out of the kitchens and make it herself for Thor and I back on Asgard on the rare occasion we were ill or battle weary. Of course, the ingredients on this planet are a paltry substitute for the real thing, but I find that the Midgardian cauliflower works well enough."

He watched for her reaction to his hard work and kindness, but she simply nodded and began to pick at her bread.

"It is delicious. I would thank the queen for imparting her knowledge to you."

Loki's eyes hardened.

"You may yet have that chance if you continue not to eat, little bird."

Whether she understood his implication or not, he did not know, for she looked back down at the bowl and attempted to take a few more feeble bites.

He cleared his throat, wishing to begin extracting information from her, but knowing full well that he needed to take his time with this one.

"Eir advises me that she has run some tests on you while you were unconscious. She wishes to speak with you this afternoon regarding them."

Wren managed a sardonic smile at that, setting her spoon down once and for all.

"There is nothing she could tell me about my illness other than the manner of how it occured and how I shall die from it."

So it wasn't a simple case of hypothermia as they had suspected, Loki thought.

"I am only glad I was able to hide it for long enough to escape a weak death and come here."

He waited for her to speak more of it, but she did not, and went about setting her tray to the side, leaning back against the pillows once more. He nodded, leaving her to her privacy for now, and returned to the more pressing matters at hand.

"Well, unfortunate as your situation may be, you know that I have come here to find out everything you know about this imminent threat to my people."

"Of course," She agreed. "I will tell you everything you desire." She hesitated, unable to ascertain where she should begin. "Where would you like me to start?"

He leaned forward, his jewel green eyes sparkling in the light of the sun that filtered through her window, looking at her in his beautiful serpentine way as if he could read the thoughts of her dream only moments prior.

"Start at the beginning."