"Lillith, that is a beautiful name." Jane said smiling widely. She seemed extremely happy. Her eyes kept flicking back to Thor with the most love stuck expression I had ever seen. Once again the world tried to fall away and I instantly leaned back against Loki. Darkness did not cover my vision as I expected. Instead I saw something strange moving within Jane. A red fragmented thing was slowly moving through her body, and I could feel it calling. It knew that it's host was dying…it would protect itself. It needed its master….or a better host. A name slithered through my head. Something old.

Malekith.

Jane slowly sat up and looked at me. She could feel it perhaps not as strongly as I but she could feel it none the less. Whatever I was seeing, whatever was inside of her, had noticed me.

"Lillith." Thor was staring at me now I could tell by the tone of his voice, but Jane and I were locked in a staring match. And the thing was whispering now in its own strange language.

"You found it in the dark didn't you. In a forgotten place. The stone pillar, you touched it….and you woke him up." I could hardly hear the words I was saying. I was too busy listening to the whisper of the thing inside of her.

"It wants you." She whispered it in horror.

"My words are mere noises to you that you would ignore them completely?" Odin strode into the room breaking whatever spell had come over the two of us. I took a step back and away from her. Loki's hand lightly touched my arm.

"She's ill." Thor replied instantly.

"She is mortal. In this is their defining trait." I felt myself stand a bit straighter as Odin came close to me.

"I brought her here because you can help her." Thor spoke lowly. I was instantly brought to another moment in time. That time was hazy in my memory but I remembered the same scorn in his voice as I pleaded for my life. I'm not quite sure what caused him to heal me…or how I somehow agreed to staying in Asgard before I officially agreed to stay in Asgard.

"She does not belong here in Asgard as much as a goat does not belong at a banquet table." His eyes shifted slightly towards me.

"Did he just-?" Jane asked looking towards me. "Who do you think you are?" She spat at him. Odin looked to her.

"I am Odin. King of Asgard protector of the nine realms."

"Oh, well I'm.-"

"I know very well who you are, Jane Foster." Odin said quickly cutting her off.

I heard Jane mumble something to Thor but I had already stepped forwards. "Odin you go too far." He whipped around to watch me.

"And you should know your place!" Odin snapped. "I am your King!"

"You are as much my king as the goat you spoke of before. If you were really a king, my king, then you would help this woman."

"Your kind have healers, they can take care of her. Guards! Take her to Midgard." Odin ordered.

I walked forwards placing myself mere inches from the ruler of Asgard. The man who had been housing me…and keeping me a sort of prisoner. "They cannot help with this." I said lowly. "You've no idea what she has found…who she has awoken."

"And you do?" Odin, for once, didn't actually seem to be talking down to me.

I nodded. Three things happened at once. Thor warned the guards not to touch Jane, Jane blew them back with a blast of red energy, and I remembered the name that was told to me.

"Malekith." I said as Thor rushed to Jane's side. Odin looked shocked. I could feel whatever the thing was call to me. She was dying…a few more waves of protecting itself and it was all over. It needed something sturdier…something super human.

"What do you know of the Aether." Odin asked reaching out and grabbing my shoulder.

I glanced to Jane. "I can feel it. I can hear it." I let my gaze flick to Loki and even with his Jaco disguise he looked concerned. "It's killing her. She's so fragile."

"Much like you were." Odin said as if he were remembering. I nodded. It wasn't trying to change her…it was using her like a parasite. And it was going to drain her dry unless someone did something. Someone had to save her the same way someone had to save me.

"Odin," It was the ever-forgettable voice of Jaco, "she needs rest. I am taking her to her bed now."

"Such sentiment." Odin said simply. I could almost feel the hatred radiating from Loki. Odin still had not let go of my shoulder. "Tomorrow you shall come and find me. There is much we need to discuss. You will have no need of your guard at that time." He added.

"I don't think you understand," I said in a tone so sweet it could cause cavities, "I say when I need or don't need my guard. And until you are someone I would follow I have no need of your advice on that matter. Or any matter really." I turned away from Odin and realized that everyone in the room was watching the interaction. Jane was grinning at me, though I knew she must have felt awful.

"How did you get here?" She asked as I passed.

I smiled. "He saved me." I said nodding to Thor. "So did he," I added glancing back to Odin. "And then he did," I let myself bump into Loki though Jane did not know that is who I really meant. "You can ask Thor. I'm supposed to be resting. But I can tell you tomorrow if you want. If a certain king is allowing you to stay." I did not look back towards Odin, but the smile that spread across Thor's face confirmed it for me. "Tomorrow then." I said heading out of the healers room.

"That was quite brave of you." Loki said in his actual voice. I glanced to the side and watched as the Jaco façade crumbled away from him.

"Bravery is such a pleasant word for stupidity, don't you think?" I answered back. "I know it was stupid, but I couldn't stand to watch him be horrible to Jane just because she's mortal. I'm mortal."

"Don't say that." Loki said frowning slightly.

"What? That I'm mortal? I am until further notice. I may or may not have the same life-span as an Asgardian. I'm guessing that in order to do that they would have to draw my blood and run tests on it."

"Why don't you?" Loki asked eyes locked on me.

"Needles."

"I remember your fear." He said it softly. The sound of our footsteps in the empty hall reminded me of my racing heartbeat. "I wanted nothing more than to kill every healer there."

"What? Why?" I asked turning slightly more towards him.

Loki smiled. "You were afraid…so very afraid." He shook his bracer arm at me. "It was one of the strongest tests of my will. I knew I had to calm you down somehow." I remembered the first time Loki had touched my face. We had reached my room by this point and I pulled myself into the netting of my bed and undid my dress. I was still wearing my underdress and decided to leave it at that. "We have much to talk about." Loki said pushing the netting aside and sitting on the end of my bed. I groaned and let myself fall forwards face planting into the bed and sliding until the top of my head touched Loki's thigh.

"Everything has gone to shit." I groaned. "I'm not sure where anything stands anymore." I rolled slightly and felt my side ache the smallest bit. Loki was looking down at me and after a moment he leaned back until we were both laying and staring at the celling of my large room.

"Your dreams…have they been the same dreams?" Loki asked after a few minutes of silence. I nodded my head, but then remembered that he probably couldn't see me.

"Yes and no. They're all about the same thing and they have some of the same elements but they're always different somehow. Parts get added or taken away. And before you ask, yes, it was the same things I saw when I fell. The dreams started a few days after I was here on Asgard."

"Have you told your maids about this?"

"No, why would I talk to them about my nightmares? I hardly think about my nightmares to begin with." I felt the bed shift and I pulled myself up to see Loki sitting up in the middle of my bed. I propped myself up with one hand but otherwise didn't move much.

"So I suppose the birds have no idea either."

"Huginn and Muninn do know that I have bad dreams…but not what they're about. Muninn thinks they're about my Dad." He still showed up in my dreams but less so now. "I thought they were because of my Dad too," I admitted tugging my dress down a bit, "and Muninn offered to fix it. He said he could dull the memory so it wouldn't bother me."

"And did you?"

"No of course not." I said looking to him in shock. He raised his eyebrows at me. "If I let him dull that memory it would make my father's death mean nothing. It was my hatred over his death that brought me here." I rolled back onto my back and watched the celling hoping that Loki was looking away from me. This was something that had kept me up many a night. "Back home they say that grief warps us. Makes us into something we would never be, but that's not true. Grief reveals us for who we truly are."

Loki was quiet for a moment. "I know of a Midgardian phrase…one I learned during the time I spent there," neither of us mentioned what he was doing during his time on earth, "I believe it went 'blinded by grief'. Do you know of the phrase?"

"I could see just fine. I knew that I was risking my life and everything I was just to get revenge on a man I didn't know." I sighed. "I know I would have gone further too, if it meant taking you down. But now…." I pressed my hands into my eyes. "I put myself into this situation. And now…."

"You've no idea where anyone or anything stands." He quoted me and I simply nodded too tired to care. Let Loki know my deepest darkest thoughts. I didn't care, at least not at the moment. "I could tell you," Loki said after what felt like an eternity of silence, "where things stand."