With lessons in history with Odin and lessons in combat with Thor - not to mention Eiliff kept sneaking up on her and checking to make sure she wasn't doing anything he didn't like - Susan barely had time to sleep and eat, let alone steal down to the dungeon to get practice with her daggers. Or plot with Loki.
As much as she hated it, the girl knew that her father was her best bet of getting free of Eiliff's manipulation and scheming. So she tried to go see him, but Eiliff seemed to want to talk to her every time she thought about going down to the dungeon.
Today he was grinning like a maniac and his hands were behind his back. He'd knocked on her door and she'd groaned when she'd opened it to find him standing there. Now he was rocking back and forth on his heels and smiling like he knew something she didn't.
Eyes narrowed, Susan was tempted to slam the door on his smug face.
"What?"
"Would you care to have a tour of the palace?" He asked, taking his hands out from behind his back and holding out a bouquet of white poppies. Susan blushed. No one had given her flowers besides her mom after a school play. Not even Jermaine, her boyfriend.
"A tour?" She took the flowers and admired them.
"Of the palace, yes. I think it is about time you can find your own way around."
"Is this like… a date or whatever?"
"If anyone sees us together, certainly."
"Ugh."
"But otherwise no."
"Fine. Let's go."
She put her flowers in her room and came back to his offered arm. She took it and he began leading her through her new home. He pointed out and explained many interesting bits and she particularly liked the mural on the ceiling of the throne room, though they didn't get to look at it long since there were many people milling about. Then he started to take her to more secluded places and she started to get a bit worried. She would have been more freaked out if he hadn't told her multiple times that he found Jotuns disgusting and therefore he found her disgusting.
As she was just about to say something about heading back when he got an excited look on his face and took her down an impressive set of stairs and to a large double door. There were two guards by the door and they both saluted Eiliff with their fists to their chests. Susan caught them looking at her curiously as they opened the doors to the room beyond. When the doors were open she stopped worrying about it, however, and was left speechless.
"Odin's Vault," Eiliff said as the doors closed behind them, "Many of the most powerful items in the universe are housed here."
"Really?"
"I'm sure the Tesseract is in here somewhere too, but that's not what we're here to see today," he tugged her roughly to the end of the room and they were confronted with a swirling, glowing blue box. Susan couldn't help but think it was beautiful.
"What's this?"
"The Casket of Ancient Winters," Eiliff gestured to it, looking at her with a pleasant and expectant expression, "Care to pick it up?"
"Uh… is it allowed?"
"Certainly."
"I don't believe you," she couldn't help but want to reach out and touch it though, "It looks like one of those Indiana Jones kind of things that if you touch it you melt or burn up or explode or something."
"Not at all," he reached out and poked it, "See."
"I'm still not touching it."
"You sure?" Eiliff shrugged, "Okay, but this will be your only chance to ever touch it. Odin doesn't let many people in here."
Susan bit her lip, rolled her eyes, and then, before she could have second thoughts, reached out and grabbed the thing by its handles. She instantly regretted it. A very faint blue spread up from the Casket to her arms, filling her with a strangely delightful chill.
"Oh gross," Eiliff sneered, "Well at least your eyes didn't turn red like a full blooded giant."
Susan stumbled back from the blue box but the pigment in her skin took a few moments to fade, panicking her mightily. She could not even acknowledge her companion making rude remarks about her because she was too freaked out. When the blue color was finally gone she took a deep breath and bolted for the door to the vault. Eiliff caught her arm and yanked her back.
"What the heck was that?!" She gasped as he spun her around to face him, "Why did my skin do that?!"
"Why do you think? Frost Giants are blue. The Casket of Ancient Winters is from Jotunheim."
"So that was the Frost Giant part of me? Blue?"
"Yes, and I'm glad to see it worked," he let go of her and ran a hand through his hair with a smirk, "If you can wield the Casket then it will make killing Odin easy and we can pin it on Loki since he's the only other person in Asgard who can use it. Simple."
"That's why you did this whole tour thing, isn't it? You just wanted me to touch the Casket thing and see if I'd turn blue!"
"And you did! Hurray!" Eiliff's smile dropped a moment, "But you will tell no one of this. No one needs to know that you are able to use it. We'll keep it a secret between you and I."
"Fine," Susan shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself, "Just don't ever make me do that again."
"Not for a while anyway."
"I hate you," she muttered, still feeling the peculiar chill through her bones.
"I know," he smiled again and took her arm, ever the gentleman. Then they headed back up the stairs and he left her alone for the rest of the day. With her free time Susan knew there was one person she absolutely had to talk to.
Life in a cell, while incredibly boring, was also a good time to plot. Now that Loki was in Asgard again - where he'd wanted to be all along - he could focus on his plan to take the throne. Of course, to do that he might need to thwart Eiliff's plan to do the same first. How irksome.
As Loki sat, meditating and plotting on his bed he didn't notice Sigrid come in until she was about to tap on the energy field. They'd recently turned up the power flowing through the golden wall and it might be enough to hurt a human.
"Don't touch that!" He snapped and the girl jumped back.
"Sorry!"
"They upped the power. I did not wish you to get an unpleasant shock."
"Oh, thanks."
"Not that I am not delighted to see you, daughter, but should you be here? Where is our guard friend?"
"I dunno where he went but I don't care," there was hurt in her tone.
"Don't tell me you were getting attached to him and then he did something to hurt you. I can't bring myself to feel sympathy for that. You ought to know better than to fall for an idiot like that."
"Huh? No! I don't like him at all!" She furrowed her brow angrily.
"Then what has he done?"
"He… he took me down to Odin's Vault," she said, looking up at him, "And showed me some of the stuff there."
"Ah," Loki spent much time trying to forget the last time he'd been to the vault himself, "And I suppose he wanted to show you the Casket of Ancient Winters?"
"Yes!" She looked down at her hands and Loki felt a pang. She'd likely seen the monster that lay beneath the surface and she probably wasn't pleased with it. He didn't blame her.
"He made me hold it and my arms turned blue! They had these weird lines on them and the blue went up to my face!" She gingerly touched her face, "He said that Jotuns are blue. Are you blue?"
"I can be when I wish it," he admitted, "I use magic to hide it most days."
"That's so…"
He braced himself for whatever painful word she was about to use.
"Cool!"
"Cool?"
"Can you show me?"
"Uh…"
"I was really scared at first and Eiliff says that since I turned blue then he's going to use the Casket thing to kill Odin and pin it on you, but I think it's really cool that you can turn blue at will!"
"It isn't cool," he snapped, "It's monstrous. Jotuns are monsters."
"Really? That's kind of cool too!"
"Being a monster?"
"Yeah!"
Loki shook his head at her and crossed his arms.
"Midgardians have odd views on things."
"True dat," she laughed, but then sobered, "Wait, I just realized that Eiliff is going to make me kill Odin. I don't want to kill anyone! Killing is terrible!"
Loki rolled his eyes at that remark, wondering if she'd said it trying to make him feel bad about Max Quigley. He still didn't care about that murder beyond the fact that it had made Sigrid so furious.
"Tell Eiliff that he wants to use the Casket to kill Odin that I'll do it for him," Loki commented, "That way he doesn't even have to frame me."
"You can't! If you kill Odin that means Eiliff's plan works!"
"Alright, well do not fret over it, Sigrid-"
"Susan."
"I will sort out some solution for you. No guarantees that Odin lives, but I'll think of something for you."
She beamed at him and he felt his own icy heart warm a bit.
"Really? Thanks Loki! See, I knew telling you would help," she laughed, "Sometimes the best defense against an evil magic guy is another evil magic guy."
"How flattering," he rolled his eyes again but he couldn't help feeling delighted that she had wanted to come talk to him. And that he'd been able to sooth her worries. It didn't hurt that she was smiling at him with more happiness than he'd ever seen on her face. She truly trusted him to do as he said and that made him all the more determined to stop Eiliff in his tracks.
A/N: Hi... been a while huh? Sorry about that, I've just had so many other stories that I've been working on and so much stuff happening in real life that this story kind of got shoved to the back of the shelf. Then I had an idea for it last night and I thought I might write it before going to bed, proof read in the morning, and post the thing. Ta-da! I also have to give credit to syed because they were the one who gave me the idea to have Susan use the Casket of Ancient Winters. Awesome idea, thank you syed! :)
Not sure when I'll update next but now that I've gotten one chapter written hopefully I'll be able to get some more out before I go back into hibernation.
Side note, has anyone seen Infinity Wars yet? No spoilers, but it made me cry just like I knew it would. Still, a fantastic movie all around!
Thanks for reading! Please review/follow/favorite! :)