You won't believe how annoyed I am trying to find the right spot for this. I've rewritten this chapter a dozen or so time, pulled apart who to have there and who to leave behind and who exactly was going to know anything! I've looked through the exact wordings, I've edited about a million different insinuations and reworked half of my ideas for this and I'M FINALLY DONE! For anyone worried, this is not the actual end… It's Book 1… Heh, Avatar reference.

Anyway, you all enjoy this little snippet of teaser stuff. I will be marking this fiction as complete and will inform you all when the second story is ready to come out! In the meantime, enjoy to your hearts discontentment with my laziness! And incompleteness! And othernesses!

Univerce

And it Begins

Of all the things Loki thought he would be doing that day, answering a call for aid was not one of them. Although he could grant that he wasn't exactly answering it at the moment so much as preparing to answer it with all things considered. He's still not entirely sure how she managed enough strength to send that message in the first place. That, and whether or not the fools in their tower would report him missing or if they would keep it quiet in hopes of appeasing the girl once everyone was in their proper places again.

For a moment, he freezes in his place along the wall of the hallway. That girl has a name, so why does he insist on referring to her only by a gender identity? He can't seem to recall the exact reason, although he can remember that it stems from sometime in their first meetings. What had she done that had upset him to such an extent? Ah, right…

The story. Truly, fate and luck do enjoy screwing with people's heads and forcing them to their utmost limits. How could he have forgotten as much? She had let it slip, albeit in the slimmest split of a second reaction, that what bothered her was being called a 'girl.' But why is he still insisting on calling her such now that it seems the soft spot has hardened? Better question, why is he even questioning this? He quickly shoves all thought of changing how he thinks to the back of his mind. Nuisances like that can be left for later concern. Rather than worry over that, he focuses in quickly on the area ahead of him.

If his magic is working correctly, no one should see him when he slips through the door. So as the cleaning servant opening the door steps inside, he carefully slides in right behind her, dashing for the balcony across the room. Safely there, he breathes easier and settles himself to wait. Although he finds himself surprised when his mother enters the room soon after with a knowing smile on her face. She briefly glances at the balcony before asking the servant to step away and attend to other work. For a moment, eh wonders at his own ignorance, but quickly shoves the thought aside.

"Loki? How did you remove them?"

Letting his spell drop, he feels the immediate relief of pressure from the bracers around his forearms. They had been constricting in since he'd started the spell after appealing to Heimdall. It had taken him the better part of two hours to understand the silence – coming through the normal way would be more dangerous. As such, he called on what little magic he had and tried to think like her. Which turned out quite well, considering where he currently is.

"Mother."

"Loki… You look exhausted."

He smirks, leaning heavily back against the railing of the balcony. "And I'm afraid resting is not an option, for the moment. I need some help."

His mother's eyes widen, the clear surprise impossible to hide. Granted, he could clearly remember denying her and his… brother anything and everything to do with him. He denied belonging to the family in even the most remote of terms.

"What happened?" she breathes, stepping onto the balcony with him.

He frowns slightly, turning away from her toward the room, unsure where to begin. Several attempts to speak end only in his frown deepening.

"Loki. Start from the beginning. How did you get here?"

Figuring it as good a place as any, he sighs. "I took one of the old pathways. Heimdall would not allow me through the Bifrost, most likely as it would have been far less successful if he had, and I used what little energy was allowed to me to mask myself until I reached your rooms."

Frigga nodded gently, pulling her son over to one of the seats she kept on the balcony. Once he's seated, his shoulders sag, head drooping.

"I don't know what happened exactly, Mother. But I know that Thor and… she are in danger."

Blinking, Frigga hums. "She?"

"Yes, the girl. The one who came here? Had me brought to Midgard? Her."

"Lyra?"

With a growing grimace, he nods. For the moment, his mother refrains from commenting on the oddity of avoiding her name. She instead focuses on the fact that he's asking for help for people she could have sworn he had at least a marginal dislike for. Then again, these same people are the ones currently responsible for his well-being and anything that could not be accounted for in their own well-fare could easily swing around onto his shoulders…

"Where are they?"

She finds herself shivering at the dark frown on his face.

"I believe they've been taken hostage. And I have no clue who has taken them or where."

Leaning against the glass wall, she breathes as shallow as she can force herself to do. The creatures around her are no fools, surely, but even they can't overlook the possibility of illness taking over the captives. This is one of the few ways she could think of to test the situation boundaries. Eventually they would have to open the large fishbowl they had dropped her into to check on her health, assuming they wanted her alive. Going by the fact that they ceased whatever they had been doing to Thor when demanded, she could only assume she had been their main goal. Or maybe a bonus or something required in top condition, as far as she could think of. Then again, she also had plenty of enemies just by associating with the men and women who formed the so-called 'Avengers' team. That could be the issue, too.

Finally, after some amount of time she lost track of, one of them appeared from around the corner. Smaller, lesser in the size of claws, terrifying stare and-

"Aolani?"

The oversized cat snickers, stretching languidly before leaping upward toward the top of the glass bowl. With a soft smile, the girl leans back to watch her once small cat dig her own claws into the rim of the metal lid atop the cage. Watching the feline work, she hummed lightly with her ears open for any sound of the demi-god that had been with her. After some stretched moments of fraying patience, she finally stands to leap for the 'cage' rim as her feline bats the loose lid away. Odd how capable a cat raised in odd environments can become, though Lyra doesn't dwell on the thought. She instead pulls herself up and out of the glass bowl, taking a closer look at her cat that is somehow perching easily on the smooth glass.

"How did you get here? I thought you got knocked into a tree?"

Just thinking of the way one of the beasts that had ambushed them tackled her friend aside had her glowering into the darkness around them. But her cat's ever-familiar snicker makes her smile again. Sliding down the curve of her former prison, she absently notes how Loki must have felt when he was retrieved from his. It's a very humbling idea despite being filed away quickly into the darkest corners of her mind. Maybe she'll think about it when the experience isn't attempting to reignite her childhood fear of the dark.

With her cat at her side, she slowly navigates carved tunnels of rock, glancing nervously at the swirling patterns that surround her. Vague sounds of screams and pleas and fear settle into the air as her cat turns a corner just ahead. Not wanting to be left behind, even if her instincts blare at her, she trots along a little faster.

For a moment, she wishes she hadn't.

"Are you certain of this, Loki?"

He could never fault his mother for much of anything – the few moments are mostly when she would ruin his pranks, anyway – but her constant concerns on this are picking at his already thin patience. Still, she is his mother, as he grudgingly admits to himself in the privacy of his mind, and she has her valid points in this. As far as he could remember, the tome is the only one in the royal library's restricted section that he could recall anything familiar of. Or, at least, anything familiar pertaining to the current crisis. His mother had agreed to retrieve it for him under the pretense of a 'seer's moment,' as he once called them when he was younger. While she was off doing that, he had attempted to connect across the worlds to… her… And came up with a very confusing array of colors and the simple image of a blood-stained table.

The connection had not ended up on Midgard as he had hoped it would. It was somewhere much farther, possibly past the emptiness he had found the Chitauri in, though that made very little sense.

"Yes, Mother," he sighs finally, his temper reigned in.

To her credit, Frigga does not flinch at the obvious ire she had provoked. But rather smiles softly with an almost proud glint in her eyes. Loki wouldn't know it, but she could always tell when something aggravated him, even when it was far away out of her sight and she only saw the scheming that came after. That he could hold himself back as he in her presence as he once did before everything had collapsed around their heads… She finds herself grateful for whatever must have happened on Midgard, despite the very limited time that had passed.

"Very well. Did you locate her?"

A grim expression on his face, he refuses to give anymore answer than a nod of his head. It's enough of an answer, nonetheless, that has her worrying for her missing child and another that she can only describe as a miracle worker. Because only miracles could possibly get into her son's head for anything more than a few moments of 'that is a bad idea' or 'you really should not.' Then again, she worked many miracles herself- she quickly forces herself back onto the problem at hand. While her mind is keen to reminisce given this prime opportunity of a calm son, there are things he worries for himself that she should work her attention toward. Maybe once everyone is not in what sounds like mortal danger, she might get the chance.

"Where shall we start, then?" she offers, knowing he will feel better taking the lead of the spells. "We cannot simply search without direction, as I am sure you remember well."

To that, her son smiles grimly. "We aim towards the abyss beneath the Bifrost. Whatever took her is hiding in it, somewhere." Turning to her, he smiles weakly at the pale tone her skin has taken. "No worries, Mother. They were dragged there against their will. I…"

He can't bring himself to explain the destruction he'd wrought, the pain and panic he had felt, the very shattered soul he had managed to piece together in the darkest places of the universe. Nor how very different he had felt when he was found afterward, or even how he managed to survive it all without calling out for aid. By all rights, he should be dead, save that something in existence saw fit to keep him alive against no doubt the wishes en masse.

"Oh, Loki… Let's not waste time."

When was the last time his mother shortened her words in any way?

She stares at the bloodstained table, watching the woman laid out on her side grin almost insanely back.

"Oh, good! You're awake."