Chapter 9

Buttons on the phone are worn thin

I don't think that I knew the chaos I was getting in

But I've broken all my promises to you

I've broken all my promises to you

She had a crimson scarf tied around her head like a bandana, standing out starkly against her raven hair and blue-grey skin. Her ears were as pointed as Loki's, but her skin a few shades lighter, a common difference between male and female, but also a common indicator of how much human was mixed in to the bloodline.

Her sharp eyes, a fawn brown that betrayed human blood, found his form as he entered the dingy shop, and narrowed dangerously. Slender arms, encased in fingerless black gloves came together to lace those long, exposed digits for the Jotun's chin to rest upon.

"Well," she said testily, with a voice filled with ice and the promise of pain, "look what the proverbial cat dragged back in."

"Angrboda," Loki greeted, wincing as he said her name. 'The harbinger of grief', was the most exact translation he had been able to unearth for her unusual name. And it certainly seemed apt when he became involved with the talented, witchcraft-practising Jotun. She seemed to relish all the trouble she could get him into. With even more new memories than ever swimming in his mind, he was able to gaze upon her in a new, and frankly horrifying, light. Details he could have easily done without, including the woman spread out beneath him, body bare and rising and falling underneath his rough hands, black hair mingling as their heads came close together. He shuddered, trying to bring his mind back to the present, and wipe such memories firmly from his mind, or at least hide them in a deep and dark corner of it.

Angrboda kept her eyes trained on him as he moved forward, in and out of the light filtering through the holes in her roof. Absently, she pulled out a deck of tarot cards sitting at her elbow, shuffling them skilfully as she kept her eyes on him, until his skin crawled.

"It's been quite some time since you've graced my door, Son-of-no-one," she greeted nastily, not inviting him to sit down, and finally directing her attention down at the cards, only for them to tumble out of her grasp.

Loki said nothing as her lips turned down, and she stared at the cards irritably.

"I…found it necessary to take a journey," he offered up finally as an excuse, knowing it was weak. True, but truth in words was not something that mattered to the woman who had grown up with his lying.

Angrboda scowled at the cards, prodding them a little, "You upset Sigyn when you ran off, you know." She said sulkily.

Shit. Loki winced. Never upset Sigyn if you wished to encounter Angrboda and walk away unscathed. Sigyn. Loki abruptly recalled the simple, hardworking girl in a very different light, gazing up at him nervously, his own smile reassuring rather than teasing for once as he lead the bejewelled and silk draped girl down the aisle. Her own gaze had taken time to warm; unlike so many of the æsir who mistrusted him, she had never judged, but that had never stopped her from being scared of what she knew he was truly capable of, with all his schemes and deceit. It had warmed, however, with the passing of time and Loki had honestly loved her for it. But, it was not an intense love, not a shadow of what he shared with Thor, what every Loki had shared with every Thor. Still, he valued her companionship, as he realised he always had in their childhood.

"I'll make it up to her," he promised, a little wildly, he didn't really have time to be concerned with pacifying Sigyn and by proxy placating Angrboda, before pressing his hand down on the table, fingers splayed out across the cards. The bracelet Thor had given him jangled down ice and obviously around his wrist and, finally, Angrboda's interest was piqued.

"Ooooh," she breathed out, delicate blue fingers prodding the bracelet, turning it this way and that as she admired it, irritation melting away in the face of what was the most interesting gossip she was going to get regarding Loki in her life. "Loki, you never said you had a new admirer. Pray tell who it is."

"I think you already know who it is," he replied, wearily, accusingly, as he finally took a seat before her. "And he is far from being a new admirer." He fixed her with a look, searching her face. "…You've known this for a long time, haven't you. What I'm talking about. You've known this since we first met, maybe even earlier."

Angrboda's fingers froze in their probing, and she leant back, drinking in Loki's appearance like she was seeing him for the first time. She neither confirmed nor denied his words, and Loki could feel her eyes tracing his face, the tense set of his jaw, his cheeks darkened from blushing, and his eyes, wide and weary with knowledge and fear, and an emotion too deep for her to fathom.

She fiddled with the trailing ends of her headscarf for a moment, contemplating her next words.

"…How long?" She said simply.

"…A few weeks now." Loki admitted. "I…didn't realise at first. He was a stranger to me. But then, I…started to dream. I started to remember, just fragments at first…" his eyes filled with even more sadness. "But now I remember it all."

"Say his name for me," Angrboda requested, still skirting the lines and planes of his face. Loki wondered if she was reading him like she always did, learning more from his body and face than from his words. For one who relied on wordplay to get by, having an acquaintance he could perform such a feat was annoying, to say the least.

"I do not see why you need me to-"

"Loki," she interrupted, calmly, "say it."

It was as if she had compelled him. The letters and sounds fell from his lips, unbidden by him but called forth by some deeper power.

"Thor," Loki breathed, and suddenly he wanted to cry.

Angrboda's eyes fluttered shut, and she inhaled deeply. Loki could see her eyes moving beneath their lids, darting back and forth as though reading a manuscript concealed within them.

"Well shit," she finally said, blunt as a rock when her eyes finally opened again. "Loki, you're doomed." She informed him, unhelpfully. He leant forward, desperation in his eyes.

"That is all very well, but what about him? If I were to leave now, to erase his memory perhaps, would he be safe?" he asked desperately. He didn't want this, he wanted what he was saying to be false, he didn't to make Thor forget, didn't want to give him up- but…but if that was what it took…

Angrboda shook her head, bracelets and charms on her own wrists and long neck jangling as she did so. "I'm afraid not. Your meeting is all the trigger they need to find you." She told him solemnly. "You recovering your memory changes nothing, other than how much you will suffer when they find and drag you apart again."

Loki's heart felt too restricted in his chest, sick relief and swamping worry and fear.

"There must be something," he hissed across the table, his nails sinking into the wood "I have to be able to save him, Angrboda. I have to."

"You could always kill yourself," she suggested flatly. "Experience tells us he'll likely follow and you can be free for a little longer." She showed no sign of concern or regret for recommending the death of her childhood companion and a man she had never met in this life.

"He wouldn't kill himself," Loki scoffed; self doubt creeping in swift and unbidden. "He is not that in love with me. I do not even know if I am in love with him," Loki continued dully, the memories of the kisses they had shared tarnished now by his knowledge, and by the possibility that he was being manipulated by the past "perhaps it is only the memories of having once loved him that motivate me to feel for him now."

"…You really think so?" Angrboda raised an eyebrow at him, before her brown eyes narrowed. "Well. I suppose it may be so, there is a first time for everything. Even a first time for you not being a sentimental fool when it comes to the oafish son of Odin."

"He is son of no one!" Loki snapped furiously, leaping up from his seat. "He has no relation to that hated King, to him or to Asgard! He has fled this far with me, and he will flee further. I will protect him and keep his memory blank and safe from them, I will not. Let. Them. Have him." He snarled, red eyes boring into pale brown.

Angrboda stared back at him evenly, a triumphant smirk twitching at her lips. "Oh yes," she said, her tone practically sing-song with glee, "Those are definitely the words of one who is not in love with Thor Son-of-No-One."

Loki's mouth snapped shut, eyes wide as he flopped boneless to the floor. His head fell forward, black cloud of hair obscuring his face. Angrboda, in the first sign of decency she had probably displayed in her life, did not say a word as Loki's shoulders began to shake, long fingers clutching at his hair and pulling at it, messing the gold beads about and tugging at his scalp.

"So what can I do?" he finally asked, looking up with crystallised trails running down his cheeks. "How can I save him? He is Thor, but at the same time he is so much not Thor…I do not wish to see him fall into their hands under any circumstances but I cannot…I cannot see him die. Not again, not for my sake."

Angrboda had kept herself distant, emotionally detached from him and his concerns as if he were a stranger. Part of this was natural abrasiveness, but part of it was, Loki realised as he female leapt forward over the table to pull Loki forward, wrapping her arms tightly around his shoulders. Her nails were digging in. It hurt, it was uncomfortable and awkward. It was also the most comforting thing he had felt since he had embraced Thor the day before. He wished so much that he had done more than simply brush their hands together before he had left. Angrboda's tight grip, however, proved not to be a wholly dissatisfying substitute, and Loki gripped her in return, feeling the tensions beneath his fingers and under her skin.

Of course. She had always known. He wondered now, if it was even from childhood that she had known, and whether for both of them it was the magic in their veins that pulled forth their old memories with ease. It would make sense to with the different paths their magic had taken. Angrboda's magic had always lain in reading the features and futures of others, and by a strange kind of proxy was able to build up an image of herself in the process. Of course out of all of them she would be the one to remember first. Angrboda finally pulled away from him, although she kept her bony grip on his shoulders, gripping them tightly.

"You cannot escape them forever," she told him, and her voice was weary with the press of years upon it, "but you can run. Run as fast as you can, son-of-no-one," she told him, voice fierce. "Don't let them catch you, at any cost. I don't want to end up even more under their control because you were not able to slip out from their grasp."

Loki nodded, his tongue felt too heavy to speak but Angrboda seemed to understand, giving his shoulders a final squeeze before releasing him, and standing up behind the table. "I'll see you out, " she told him, returning to her airy, dismissive tones, "Dangerous criminals should not be given the opportunity to sneak about my home under my very nose."

"And what a hideous nose it is," Loki shot back at her. It was a lie, really. Angrboda's delicate nose was one of the few pleasing things about her. She gave her a retaliatory kick in the shins as punishment before ushering him roughly out of the door. Loki barely had time to pull his hood up before he was in the sunlight again, and spun around before Angrboda could remove him clear from the doorway. He grasped her hands tightly one last time. "Thank you," he told her, and this time it was sincere, "apologise to Sigyn for me, please?" he asked, and Angrboda nodded.

"Bring her a present as nice as yours next time you're on the run in this area," she told him, squeezing the gold between her fingers. Loki plucked the bracelet out of her grasp, rolling his eyes, and without another word was gone, hurrying back towards Thor and his friends, Angrboda watching as he went.

Unbeknownst to the two diminutive Jotun within the house, there lurked a presence outside, one which had taken in Loki's arrival, had seen the blonde figure of Sigyn out and around the house, and eventually watched as Loki exited the tiny shop, hood already up as he turned back to the tiny grey-skinned girl to grip her hands tightly before hurrying away. Balder lounged in the tree, one leg dangling from the branch he was sat on. "Well, well," he murmured, gazing down at the scene, taking a bit out of a shining golden apple, "It looks like you've lead us to more than just my once-brother, Loki." He licked a trail of shimmer juice that had run down his arm, lips curving into a smile. Tossing the apple down into the waiting hands of Helblindi, hidden just further back in the trees, Balder slid down to the ground with no small amount of grace, wandering back to the Jotun prince.

"What are we going to do with them?" Helblindi asked, curious. He knew little of the blonde girl but had known instantly Angrboda, differently dressed as she was from the last time he had seen her, and her blood so diluted by Midgardians. Balder turned to his companion, eyes glittering with mirth, in quantities Helblindi had never seen and had hoped to never see in blue irises.

"Do with them?" Balder echoed. "The usual, of course. Guards?" he called out, his demand instantly met by the clatter of men appearing before him, muted to others by the glow of blue magic surrounding them. "Wait until Loki has left the vicinity," he ordered, voice calm, "a group of you, follow him. The others, seize the girls." The Einherjar immediately moved to follow his orders, and Balder smiled again, holding his hand open to Helblindi, who dropped the golden apple back into the smaller Prince's grip. "What a profitable day this has turned out to be," he smiled, taking another bite. Helblindi watched him with distaste, until the shouts of females rose above the noise of Balder's eating, and he emerged from the trees to assist in the capture, leaving the silver haired prince to his own devises beneath the trees.

Balder finished his apple, placing the remaining core in a small drawstring bag hung at his hips. Even the remains of such fruit were too precious to be leaving behind in a Midgardian forest, he mused, making hi way through the foliage. He was headed in the direction that Loki had disappeared into, and he wondered what had made the man so sloppy. He hadn't even woven an illusion as he had run to visit his friends, the women who had been with him since the very first time. Well, it hardly mattered. Balder had been successful in finding the fugitives, and have even located two more of the individuals that were of particular interest to his father and to King Laufey. He did so love being victorious in his endeavours.

Hearing the struggles of the girls had not dissuaded him at all, Balder knew how they felt and knew that they would come to terms with the new lives that would be presented to them. They would be fools not to. He frowned a little, he would not have called Loki and Thor fools before, but watching them continue to run made it difficult not to. They just…didn't understand, Balder told himself. Didn't realise that there were greater things they were required for, and that wasting away on this tiny realm was wrong.

Seeing just who Loki's friends were had in fact settled Balder's mind on matters, erasing any doubts he might have had about taking these people away from their lives, having them eat the apples. Surely the fact that they had gravitated together like so, even without any outside influence from Asgard showed that they were destined to come together as they once had? Neither Loki nor Angrboda, the witch in particular, could deny that they knew the ways in which the strands of their fate had been interwoven for far longer than a single lifetime.

Yes, Balder decided, catching up with the Einherjar he had sent ahead and following Loki with them, this was for the best. Everything must always come full circle. That was the way things must be.