n which Loki is illuminated, and Asta is blinded.

Notes:

Trigger warnings for violence against women and animals. I have a plan! Trust me! Last warning I'll need to give you, thank God. This is the last of the really difficult chapters if you've been skipping.

Chapter Text

But the next day was so much worse.

"Awake, Progeny!"

Asta gritted her teeth as the guards yanked her down the hall. She'd given up trying to pull away from their harsh grip and simply walk long ago, her efforts only digging cruel fingers into the soft flesh of her arms. The meal with the Dark King was so much worse- his gestures angry and disjointed, and when Asta wearily refused him yet again, he hauled her to her feet himself. "You insult my hospitality? The honor of carrying my children?" he shouted, clearly unhinged. "Then this is what you deserve, you White Court whore!"

'No! Oh, Nonono...' Asta moaned silently, knowing he was dragging her into the courtyard where Fryktløs was still held in that cruel cage. She could take the whipping- she could. It was watching Loki's poor horse paw frantically at the floor and whinny furiously at her captors as he was forced to see her endure his torture. Burying her head against her hands bound to the cage, the Princess sent out desperate tendrils of inquiry from her mind. 'Fryktløs' she thought. 'It's all right, my friend. I can hold. Loki will be here soon.' In her suffering, Asta didn't see the Titan watching the beating. After Prince Andreas finished, his whip dripping with her blood, King Angrim suddenly laughed.

"Now give the beast HER punishment."

"NO!" she cried furiously, before forcing herself into silence. Her pleas would only extend the noble animal's misery.

Thrown back onto the moldy stones of her cell that night, the Progeny fought the desperate desire to weep. Fryktløs' punishment then sparked another of her own, then back again and so forth, until Princess and stallion were both covered in blood. All the while, the Dark King mocked her with the loss of her sons, ridiculing her weakness in not keeping them safe within her. Finally getting to her hands and knees, Asta rested a moment before crawling on to her cot, scratching off another day on the wall. Knowing it was useless, the girl sent out her psychic inquiry, tendrils of thought hopefully spreading, trying to find someone to answer back. The Alone was so much more terrifying tonight, maybe there was someone this time... Asta gagged, suddenly sitting up on the filthy mattress. An oily stench was curling along a fragile signal of inquiry, eagerly tracking it back to the source. Unconsciously shaking her head, she tried frantically to coil her feelers back in like a ball of yarn, but the filthy grasp finally latched on to her brain. It was like the unspeakable seconds Asta spent in the mind of the Demon King Surtur at her wedding feast, trying not to scream at the wasteland of horrors she'd seen there. Except, this was so much worse. A thousand times more horrifying, the chill of its madness tearing through her nerve endings before Asta managed to sever the connection. Her long-empty stomach recoiled, leaving her to dry-heave wretchedly until her body accepted there was nothing there to expel. Drifting into a fitful sleep, the Princess dreamed again of Ragnarok, shuddering and moaning wretchedly.

"Awake, Progeny!"

Numbly staggering down the hall, Asta was almost grateful for her guard's harsh grasp today. Her legs were so shaky, she wasn't sure she could walk. The luscious breakfast. The vile proposal.

"You see my problem, Lofsjar." Angrim's tone wasn't hateful today as always. He sounded like an actor happily playing his favorite role.

To Asta's horror, the next voice was the nightmare howl of the Titan. "I believe our approach needs some... adjustment." Suddenly, her entire body felt bound, wrapped in impenetrable ties that held her utterly still. A thick muffling hood swarmed over her head, blocking sight, sound, and more terrifying, her mind's ability to reach out. The Princess was trapped in the Alone, with no way to escape. Casting desperately for sanity, Asta began to clearly and calmly repeat the Complete Histories Of The White Court, Volume One.

Angrim's brow furrowed. "Why do you allow her speech?"

The Titan Lofsjar grinned, black blood dripping down his chin. "Patience."

Asta was three hours into the Complete Histories Of The White Court, Volume Six when her throat suddenly seized, choking her until she forced herself to breathe slowly. Her voice was gone. The Princess was sure she was shaking, weeping... but she felt nothing, drifting alone in the ether. Mentally taking a calm, deep breath, she began again. "Chapter One, page one." Asta thought, "The White Court was founded by..."

Loki was pacing the floors of his chambers again, forcing his mind to walk through the steps over and over. Where was the mistake, the chink in Angrim's armor? No court of the Nine Realms disappeared overnight. Where was his WIFE? He suddenly hoped Asta and Fryktløs were being held together. They were the only other connection to home and sanity. Slumping on to the thick green velvet coverings on his bed, the Prince buried his head in his hands. Where WAS she? What were they doing to his Asta?

'Chapter... chapter... was it 3,006?' The Progeny tried to recall where she'd left off. Without her scratches on the wall, she had no idea how long she'd been buried like this- blocked utterly in the Alone.

"My dear, look..." The usually vile tone of the Dark King was comforting, warm. Asta shuddered against the sudden surge of gratitude to the voice that spoke to her in the dark. "...your sons, they need you. They need their mother to help them. Why would you refuse your babies?"

'Ch- ch- chapter 3,011,' she moaned internally, "How King Illurium slew the Demon Dragon...'

War Council the following morning dragged, without Loki taking charge. He simply sat, staring at a stone in the wall without expression. Odin finally waved his hand tiredly and ended the session. Thor walked out with his brother. Casting about for anything to say that didn't include Asta in the sentence, he asked, "Tell me truthfully, brother. Did you ever get Fryktløs to fly as you rode him?"

It took Loki a moment, then he wiped a hand across his stubbled jaw. "Ah," he mused. "Was that the rumor? No, Fryktløs has his own plan for when such things would be carried out because he was never would allow me the honor." He gave a humorless chuckle.

Hopeful at least getting his brother to speak, Thor grinned. "I knew it! Stubborn creature. But so magnificent,"

"Beyond compare," Loki agreed with a rare smile, "Fryktløs was truly the best of all our wedding gifts-" He stopped dead, Thor nearly tripping over him. As his brother whirled to face him, the God of Thunder almost didn't recognize the look on his face. It was hope. "It's here!" Loki hissed, seizing his brother's arm. "Damn me to Hel for my foolishness, the portal was right here all the time!"

Asta's body was shuddering, a simple fatigue reaction from the immeasurable strain. But wrapped in the torture of the Alone she couldn't feel it. She was whispering a nursery rhyme her Sister sang to her at the Nagovisi convent. How long had she been drifting here in the Alone? A day? A thousand years? 'One fine day, a maiden true...'

"Your sons need you, Asta. Can't you hear them weep? Their poor hands reach for their mother. Why would you push your babies away?" The Dark King's voice was the only thing to breach the utter silence of the Alone, his voice sad and reproachful.

The Princess swallowed for a throat she couldn't feel. "I am the wife of Prince Loki of Asgard, I will never betray my husband. ...one fine day, a maiden true..."

The castle was finally alive, a thousand different people racing in one direction or the other. Loki, Odin, and Thor directed the multitude with new authority and purpose. "The strike must be ruthless," emphasized King Leafstred. "With the power of the Mad Titan behind them, there will be no second chance with the Black Court."

"Agreed," said Loki, "the element of surprise is our greatest advantage." He turned to the combat sorcerers from the White Elf group. "My friends, your harnessing spell must be able to hold the Titan for the time it takes to bring our troops through..."

Was there still a Universe outside her prison? Asta wondered, still trying to croak the alphabet in order. Or, had Ragnarök taken everything-wiped out every living thing in existence? 'Ah, Beh, Ceh-'

"Please, sweet Asta, please do not leave your son's tiny souls to suffer." King Angrim sounded nearly tearful, his distress over these lost twins truly profound and painful. "They need their Mother. They need to be safe in your womb, my darling. Will you let your little ones drift in the Alone?"

The breath caught like razor blades in her throat. Her boys? Their babies, hers and Loki's, trapped in the Alone like her?

The King's voice came with the warmth of another this time, the warmth of a body standing close to hers in the terrible black nothingness. "Take my hand, dear Asta. Take my hand and save your sweet sons. Can you feel them? So close to you, sweet. So nearly inside you again."

"R-really?" The Progeny knew how cracked and desperate her voice sounded, but it was all she could manage. "My babies?" 'Our babies,' she thought, dazed. 'Loki's and mine.'

"Yes." She felt the warm, firm hand take her own, centering her for the first time in eternity. "Yes, your twin sons. Do you want your children?"

There was something wrong about saying the word, Asta knew it. But she couldn't remember why and her babies needed her. 'Yes?'

Angrim's voice again, warm and empathetic, as his other hand reached into the Alone, squeezing her shoulder gently. "You must say it aloud, my dear. So they can hear you."

Clumsily clearing her throat, Asta whispered, "Y-yes."

"And will you lay with me to bear these beautiful children?"

Why should she refuse? Asta shook with the effort of trying to remember, but all she could think of was the tender weight of her babies in her belly and the expression on her Intended's face when she brought them home to him, safe at last.

"...Y..."

"Asta, my dear? Your sons..." The warm hands were loosening from hers, and she gripped them tighter.

"Yes."

Loki's mouth was set in a thin and furious line as he stared at the object of their betrayal, Asta's and his. How could he not have known? The elaborate chest filled with gold coins and jewels, the wedding gift of the Dark Elves sat on its stand in the vault with the other gifts from their wedding. Raising his broad forearm, he made a quick slash with his knife. He spoke once more. "Be ready. The future of the Nine Realms, my- my Asta's life depend on you." Raising his arm over the chest, Loki's blood flowed into the cursed object until a vicious ray of bluish light shot from the object with a massive "CRACK!" as if the surface of the World was tearing open. The massive portal ripped apart in front of them, and the battle unit raced forward.

Asta barely felt the ungentle hands bathe her, dressing her in Black Court garb, lacquering her long black hair into an elaborate style and painting her face like an exotic doll's. The whites and golden iris of her eyes were swallowed with matte black, staring ahead blindly. The hands pushed and pulled her to the courtyard, where Asta could faintly hear the terrified whinny of...who was that again? She was laid on a granite altar, the viperous buzz of the Dark Elves muted in her ear. "It's time." King Angrim's voice was no longer warm or kind, Asta could feel him roughly pushing her gown up her calves, shoving the heavy silk past her knees. "Spread your legs, dear. It's time to make you with child."

Notes:

I know how tough this is. But you know Asta's devotion would have to be tested in the most terrible ways for her to ever weaken. I tried to keep this as non-awful as possible while showing the severity of what poor Asta could take before breaking.