I believe in nothing,

Not the end, and not the start.

I believe in nothing,

Not the Earth, and not the stars.

I believe in nothing,

Not the day, and not the dark.

I believe in nothing,

But the beating of our hearts.

I believe in nothing,

100 suns until we part.

I believe in nothing,

Not in sin, and not in God.

I believe in nothing,

Not in peace, and not in war.

I believe in nothing,

But the truth in who we are…

Lyrics from "This is War" by 30 Seconds to Mars.

A/N: Sorry for the major delay in updating. I have a good excuse, but no one would really care about that. As always, reviews are encouraged and appreciated. For my fellow pagan readers, thanks for the awesome messages and letting me know that I am doing okay here. Blessings to all of you, what ever spirituality you are. I love you all!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~***)O(***~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once there was a little girl with ebony locks and haunting eyes, and she was a happy child. She was the child of wytches, the folk of the old ways, and they did all they could possibly do to protect her from the people that did not understand. She played in a world that was designed to keep her safe and to help her blossom, a world of gardens where she lay for hours in the fragrant thyme and chamomile beds looking at books. When she played she would pick flowers and eat sweet sun ripened fruit straight from the tree and vine. It was a world where the trees where her guardians, sentient and wise, and the animals listened to her every care. This place was made just for her by her thoughtful and loving parents and grandmother. They taught her the ways of the white witch, the folk magic and green lore that would serve her well in her years spent in the Other World.

Then she had fallen. She likened it to nothing more than that…falling into darkness. In this place, years later, she had felt as if she were falling off the edge of the world once more as she lay with the strange man who had come into her life quite by happenstance. A mate that was now trying to protect her from the horrors of this place.. Seagen grew grim, as she realized she was once again looking other worldly darkness in the face. Idly she wondered if death would be like falling all over again…

Loki grabbed Seagen and darted out of The Keeper's way just a hair's breath before He slammed into the wall, knocking out blocks of stone. His massive horns became embedded in the rock, and with an ear splitting roar and shake of His russet head, He ripped more of the stones away and then turned His eye back to His targets. Loki twisted the golden staff in his hands, sending a bolt of blue-green lightening into the snarling maw of the great beast.

Smoke poured forth from His mouth, making him look like an angered dragon more than a Centaur. The Keeper screeched in enraged pain as Loki spun the staff and charged the air around him and Seagen. Jolts of electric light collided with His hide again and again, coming forth from the staff in the Trickster's hands and splitting off from themselves in the buzzing air.

The howls of the Undead poured into the room. Zombies tripped over themselves as they breeched the broken door facing; their cries upon seeing the flesh that they had smelled in the air were nearly ecstatic. Loki snarled and attempted to bring his wards back up, but it was no use. Seagen put arrows into their rotting heads as fast as she could, bringing down the first wave in a matter of seconds. More came through the hole and began to fall upon the backs of their unmoving brethren…a wall of walking corpses twisted and writhed in the half light. They sank to the elbows in the mushy bodies. Seagen shouldered her disgust at seeing them trying to gain their feet…this fetid carpet of death, and took aim once more.

Loki stumbled and righted himself immediately. Seagen could tell by the look on his face that he was beginning to tire. His jaw was set in a grim line, sweat beaded on his forehead, and his eyes were quickly dulling. The god's magick would not hold out much longer, and was already fading fast.

If ever there was a moment to end this, it was now.

The Keeper rose up on His powerful haunches, pawing at the air, and Seagen took that moment to draw back her bow, with aim true, sent an arrow hurtling into His chest. The beast staggered backward, and she ran toward him, jumping off of the hearth of the fireplace, and sending another arrow to be with its brethren: in The Keeper's black heart.

His hooves became hands again, closing around the intruding arrows. As He ripped them out, the barbs of the arrow's tips took hold and tearing a hole in His massive chest. She had stopped her advance, crouching low to the floor and tensed as her bowstring. The Keeper glared in her direction.

"Worthless wretch!" He shouted. Blood the color of night was running from His chest, and Seagen realized with horror that she could see His heart still pumping perfectly. She had only pierced through His thick hide and the armor of bone underneath.

He laughed. "There is no death for me this night, pretty human. Nay, not tonight! Not ever! My Master awaits my return. He has such plans for you and The Jotun Half Breed."

"Your master? Who do you speak of?" Seagen asked. There was no mention of anyone in the book that The Keeper answered too. She had thought Him to be the top of the food chain in this world…it made her shudder to think of the horror that He must serve.

The Creature's gore streaked face cracked open in a feral smile. "Ah, there is so much you do not know, puny witch. The time will come soon for you too see. You think you know pain, but you do not…I have taught you nothing of pain, yet. Even when I was tearing through your sweet maiden's flesh-"

Loki screamed out a string of obscenities that made Seagen jump. He lunged past her, his head lowered, and he hurtled toward the Beast. Golden horns met with ebony, one great eye glared into two glowing hate filled red orbs. Loki's quickly changing cobalt hands morphed into solid sharp chunks of ice and he slammed them into the shoulders of The Keeper. With a savage growl, they fell upon each other on the floor.

Seagen shouted to her lover, and was about to knock another arrow into the Beast when another swarm of shambling Undead fell through the door. The Jotun warrior pulled his frozen blades from the monster, and sank then in once more into the gushing flesh. Clawed hands tore at the Frost Giant, and with a deafening roar The Keeper threw Loki back and limped into the throng of zombies. They sighed collectively and parted to let him pass, the hole closing back immediately.

"Loki!" Seagen screamed. "The fire, the candles! Light, fill this place with light!"

He nodded, staggering backward away from the rushing mob, and with the last bit of magick that he could muster, the room filled with the warm light of fire. The hearth blazed anew, candles lit by the droves in various candelabras around the room. Spinning toward them, he began to dispatch them with the icicles at that were his hands, sending the sharp gore covered talons into their heads, two, even four at a time. The Undead moaned, and shambled back out the hole they had come out of. Their groans sounded of disappointment, no sweet mortal or Jotun flesh would be theirs this eve, no fresh warm blood would pour forth from screaming two legged prey. A few stranglers looked back mourning their lost meal. Several snarled at the light flooded room, and then ambled on, back into the foul night air.

Loki sank onto the bed, still in Jotun form. Seagen quickly assessed the damage done by the great cretin, and began to shred the bed sheets into makeshift bandages. She murmured soft words and etched strange symbols into the air above his wounds. Loki watched her as his weapons became hands once again, his skin fading in pallor, crimson eyes turning emerald. There was a tingling in his body, as her healing energy sunk into his skin, his muscles beginning to stitch themselves together. As soon as she was satisfied with his now mummified torso, she checked the horizon. Sure enough the sky was beginning to lighten; the dead would be going back to the ground from where they came.

"Come on," she said, returning to the god's side and pulling his arm over her shoulder. "We have a long journey ahead of us."

"You do not need to support me, min lille heks. (My little witch) I am fit to travel to your home." He smiled reassuringly. "You have done a wonderful job," he said, patting at his side.

Seagen narrowed her eyes speculatively. "Alright, but we have all day, dawn is just now breaking. Let's take it slow, okay?" She looked around his abode. "It looks like my home is our home now." She gestured to the ruined room. "This one is broken."

Loki sighed. "Yes, quite. Perhaps after I have sufficiently rested I can create us a new bed." His smirk was not lost on her.

She shook her head and then took a last longing look at the plush covers and decadent mattress. "Yes…yes, perhaps you can."

*************************************)O(**********************************

The pair sat in the afternoon half light sharing the remains of a rabbit. Their companionable silence had only been broken a few times by a grunt of pain from the Trickster god, but now he looked at her as if there were something on his mind.

"Out with it," she said softly. "You wish to ask me something, I can tell."

"How did he steal your maidenhood?"

The abruptness of the question with no apology caught her off guard. Seagen's jaw worked for a moment, trying to form words that would explain how much she did not want to brooch this subject, not now and not ever. She was fascinated to hear what came out instead.

"Did you know that there are seasons here?" She asked. Loki shook his head and she continued. "Yes, there is really only two. This is what I would consider to be perpetual spring, but there is a short winter here when it snows and stays dark most all day. It was seven or eight winters ago when He caught me."

Seagen poked at their cooking fire with a bone, and then covered it with dirt. "I can talk as we are walking. I suddenly want to be home curled up in front of a fire."

Loki nodded and helped her kick dirt over the charred wood and rabbit carcass. She began to speak again, only when they had been walking for some time. "I had been hunting. The winter must drive the Dove Deer into hibernation, because they are nowhere to be found, no tracks in the snow…nothing. So I had ventured a bit further than I should have, and night came before I made it to the cottage. I was close…I was so damn close.

"He came out of the woods to the right of me. Bastard had to have been laying in wait, because you know you can hear the thing coming from a mile away. I didn't even have time to pull my hunting knife…or scream for that matter. The Keeper threw me to the ground, and I hit my head. Honestly that is probably a blessing, because it knocked me out."

Seagen had stopped walking and was standing on a large flat stone. From it they could both see the cottage up on the hill. Even in the damp half light it looked inviting. "He took me right here," she said softly scuffing at the rock with the toe of a well worn boot. "When I woke up my clothes were in shreds around me, and the pain was intense, and there was blood on my thighs…I could hear the Undead moaning in the woods all around me. They could smell the blood, and raw skin, but they did not come near me that night, I don't know why. I guess I had His scent on me." She shivered and began the trek up the hill.

Loki stayed behind for a moment staring intently down at the stone upon which his little mortal had been raped of her virtue by a filthy beast. He would disembowel the mix breed whoreson for that if it was the last thing he did…after he made the creature grovel at her feet. In that moment, as he watched her open the door of the stone cottage on the hill, a house that he would share with her, Loki vowed that he would exact revenge for all the wrong that had ever been done to her, both in this world and in her own.

He would make the all the realms fall at her feet in reverence. And somehow he would convince this pure heart, to stand above them, powerful, prideful. A Queen.

His Queen.

Seagen paused in the open doorway and looked back over her shoulder. "We're home," she called. "It's not as grand as your place…" She winked at him, trying to appear carefree. At the same time, he could see the struggle on her face, as she tried to put the memory of The Keeper far in the dark recess of her mind's eye.

The God of Mischief smiled up at her, understanding. "Seagen, there is no golden palace in all the worlds that is as grand as this humble home. For you are here, and you warm the hearth, the bed, and the once cold heart of a Prince."

She blushed prettily, and he thought she was going to duck inside to hide the crimson creeping up her neck. Instead, she held her hand out to him. Gratefully, he climbed the hill and took the offered digits, pulling her against him in an embrace.

"Never will that creature hurt you again," Loki murmured into her hair. "I am here now. I've got you."

Seagen sighed in his arms, his words encircling her like a healing balm. She had no idea of the dark plans that were quickly forming inside his head. Plans that included turning her against her loved Midgard.

**************************************)O(**************************************

Darkness swallowed the land. The dead awoke as they always did, tearing their way up through the loose soil of their tombs. The Keeper stood atop a large black stone. Where the ruined hole had been in His chest, there was now a heavy armor plate. More armor shined among the rough fur of His shoulders where the Jotun mongrel had pierced the hide. His thick lips curled back in a smile as he watched the army of the dead rise. Perhaps it would not happen this night, but it would happen…He would have her again and this time when He was done, her soul would be as black as His. She was to be His prize for when all the Good Work was done…

The Master had promised Him this.

*************************************)O(****************************************

Loki rolled his lithe hips seductively. He knew Seagen was watching him from the corner of her eye as he lay, naked from the waist up on her bed, save for a few remaining bandages. Keeping true to his word, when his magic had been refreshed just enough, he had made the bed larger twisting the branches of the headboard up into a tree shape. The mattress had become plumper and the furs and blankets plush. He had done this while she meditated in a corner of the room behind the screen. She had lit candles and chanted an enticing mantra that nearly lulled him to sleep, until he realized just how small her bed truly was. There were so many things that he still wanted to do with her, to her, so much to teach her…the thought of molding her innocence made his blood boil. No, the tiny mattress would simply not do…so as she fell into a deep meditative trance he began his work.

He ran hands over the wood of the bed, the magical energy pouring from his fingertips like water, rippling across the surface of all he touched. Loki used this to stretch out the wood, to pull and mold it into the shapes that he wanted. He chose a tree since he knew they were significant to her, and it seemed only natural since the bed frame was made of branches twined together with deer hide straps. Loki ran his hands over the wall, carving out a small alcove around the bed. By the time he was done, and exhausted, there were sage green curtains hanging from the ceiling of the alcove on either side of the bed, and a candle holder had become an ornate hanging lantern.

When Seagen emerged from her trance, she took one wide eyed look at what he had done, squealed with delight and bouncing on the balls of her feet, she clapped her hands together like a child, telling him how beautiful it all was. It pleased him greatly to see such uncensored joy upon her face.

It would please him even more to take her to the bed and make her squeal like that again.

Now she was looking through the journal of that mysterious pioneer Stephan, trying to find anything about another that The Keeper answered too. A clue, just one word that she might have missed. Seagen knew that book from cover to cover, and knew damn well that there was nothing in there about a keeper of The Keeper…but still she had to look. A certain God of Trickery was not making that easy at all. From the corner of her eye she watched as his boots fell to the floor, soon followed by his tunic. The lamplight flickered over his torso, creating shadowy patterns across his ivory chest. She moaned inwardly at the sight, his hands behind his head, a fan of black silken hair spread over the pillow. Slowly he allowed one hand to slide out of his hair and ease across his taunt abdomen, down the sparse trail of hair that peeked from his breeches. For a moment her breath caught in her throat, as Loki gripped the end of a leather thong in between his expert digits and slowly, oh so painfully slow, he pulled, unraveling the knot…his breeches popped open as the leather came undone, and he rolled his hips.

Huffing, she slammed the book shut. "Have you no shame?" She laughed playfully. "You are not even yet healed!"

Loki pouted. "I believe I need your healing hands on me again to ease my pain."

Seagen snorted. "Oh you do, do you?"

He held out his hand. "Put away your book and come to bed. I made it just for you, and you have yet to lay in it with me."

She sighed, and reached for the healing balm. "Alright, I will lay in it, tend your wounds, but nothing more. You must rest and heal. You have drained your magick twice today already, and your body is still injured."

"My magick is coming back quicker as the days pass," Loki mused, scooting over in the blankets as she came to lie beside him, her head on his chest. He tangled his fingers in her locks, and smiled as a vision of how enticing she would look with her hands tied behind her back with her hair filled his mind.

"Stop that," Seagen murmured, her eyes trained on the bulge that threatened to spill from his open breeches.

He laughed, deep and low in his chest. "I am not the one who is doing…that. That is entirely your fault."

"Hmmm, is it now." She rubbed the balm into his skin, over the healing lacerations, the bruises that had faded to a soft blush in a manner of hours. It never failed to amaze her how fast this being healed. She idly began to trace the strange symbols across his chest again, her fingers tickling and making him flinch slightly.

"I do not know these runes that you are using. What are they?"

She sat up and leaned over him, both hands now working their magic. Loki could feel the massaging heat building below his skin again, working its way down into his muscles and ligaments. The combination of the symbolic movements of her hands and the ointment she used was rapture.

Seagen was leaned over just enough that her tunic hung at a perfect angle for his…amusement. She lifted hooded eyes to his, to see him smirking at her.

"Well, now, little healer, I thought I was not well enough-"

She reddened slightly, sat up straight and pulled her tunic up around her long neck. "Quiet. This is healing time, not play time."

He cocked an eyebrow and then nodded to her hands. "Tell me about the symbols."

Seagen set back to work. "My grandmother taught me these symbols. She said that they were of an Asian form of medicine called Reiki…channeling the energy of the Universe into a way that allowed it to flow from one person to another and heal. Emotional, mental, physical healing. Every symbol has a different purpose."

"Very interesting and most effective."

Seagen flicked her gaze up to briefly meet his and gave him a half smile. "So glad that you approve."

Dark lust stirred inside his black heart. Loki's eyes darkened, but he held himself at bay. She was no longer looking at his face, but instead replacing bandages on the few remaining spots that still needed them. The places he had been gored the deepest by the beast. The thought of The Keeper caused his blood to boil in a different way. Instead of acting on the need to knock her on her devilish rump and ravage her, he concentrated on keeping himself under control. She would flee like the Dove Deer if she could see the things he really wanted to do to her.

Seagen had seen the Jotun monster, and yet she had lain with him anyway, for she had not seen the monster coming for her.

Not yet.