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Disclaimer: All characters involving Thor belong to Marvel, I only own the OC's present in this story
Luciana sat in Talon's sitting room, clenching her teacup tightly as she listened to Aceline and Temira's whispered gossip about her.
"I bet she's using an enchantment to make herself beautiful," Aceline whispered. "Under that pretty face is probably a toad!"
Temira and Aceline giggled and Luciana bit her tongue to keep from yelling.
"Well, you know what I think," Temira whispered. "I think that she's probably not as smart as she lets on! She probably stole Ramsay's notes while he was there!"
"It wouldn't surprise me. She's probably as daft as a mule, maybe more!"
"Exactly! It's a shame Ramsay has to marry that. Here I was hoping my nieces and nephews would at least be decent looking and relatively intelligent."
"Ha! Not with her as a mother! You know what they say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And in this case the tree is a stupid, ugly wench."
With that, Luciana clenched her fist so tight that she shattered her teacup in between her hand, and the porcelain flew about the room. Everyone in the room fell silent and looked at her in shock.
"Luciana?" Ramsay asked, looking at his bride-to-be in horror.
"That was my best porcelain!" Celeste hissed.
"You should learn to be more careful!" Magus snapped.
"Yes, control your temper!" Ramsay said.
Luciana darted her head over to him and stood up, walking towards him. "Control my temper? Control my temper? I'm done controlling my temper!" She screamed, glaring at him. "From the minute I came here I've been treated like scum, and you're telling me to control my temper? What about your family's attitude? Aren't you going to tell them to control that?"
Ramsay stared at her in shock.
"You know, girls," She addressed Aceline and Temira, turning to look at them. "You're both so lovely on the outside. But on the inside you're the toads!"
Their jaws dropped.
"Luciana, calm down!" Ramsay exclaimed.
"No! I will not calm down! I've had it up to here with your family Ramsay! I wish that I was never arranged to be married to you because your family is hell! I've had enough of all of this, all of it! I've stayed silent and polite for too long now!"
"You should learn to keep your mouth shut," Celeste said to the girl.
Luciana turned to her. "And you, Celeste, should learn how to be a proper being instead of the monster that crawled from the darkest holes of Asgard!"
Celeste's jaw dropped and Luciana scowled.
"Now, if you all excuse me," She said. "I'm going to bed! The faster I get to sleep means I'm that much closer to my life being over!"
Luciana whirled around and stormed out of the sitting room. She ran up the stairs and down the halls, slamming her door shut as she entered her room. She quickly got changed into her nightgown and threw herself onto her bed, fuming. She only made things worse for herself, now they all had a reason to be vile to her. She didn't care though, she just wanted to go home and cry like a child until there were no more tears to shed.
She closed her eyes and waited for sleep to come. After a half hour, she heard scratching on her window. She opened her eyes and raised her head from her pillow, eying the window. The only movement was the branches of the tress moving slowly with the wind, and she laid her head back down and closed her eyes. The scratching began again but she dismissed it, and she rolled over onto her other side as she felt herself drifting off to sleep.
She didn't hear the window creak open, and someone fall into the room with a thud. The person got up off the floor, holding something in their hand. They walked over the bed slowly and quietly, as not to wake Luciana. They raised what they held over her and quickly brought it down on her head, waking her up.
She was confused as she felt someone stuff her into something, and it was only when she realized that she was being kidnapped she started to scream.
She screamed and struggling in whatever held her, and she strained her neck to see whoever had abducted her, but she was surrounded by darkness. Whoever captured her slung her over their shoulder as they climbed out the window and down the tree, walking quickly as they left the home.
She continued to struggle as her captor walked down the road, humming a merry tune.
"Let me go!" Luciana cried. "You have no right to do this!
Her captor continued to hum, seeming unaware of her struggling. Desperate, she blindly pounded her fists everywhere around her, screaming and pleading for help as her abductor continued to trudge on with her in tow.
"Please, let me go! I haven't done anything!" She exclaimed, panting from her struggles.
There was no response as she was continued to be held captive, and she let out a sound of distress.
There was no way she was getting out of this.
Loki walked towards the kitchen of the house, looking very crestfallen.
He had been there for weeks and no matter how hard he tried, whether using his silver tongue or not, he could get the family's hearts off of Ramsay. They were too set on the son of Talon, which both infuriated and saddened him. He'd lost hope on getting Luciana out of the arranged marriage, he couldn't think of anything else he could do. Of course he could demand for the arrangement to be broken, by Cyrus didn't have to obey him if he didn't want to; he was only the prince, not the Allfather.
He was going to lie to them and tell them that the palace needed him home, when really he just couldn't stand to have his heartbreak rubbed in his face any longer. He realized that Viveca had won; she was getting exactly what she wanted. How happy she'd be when she found out, how proud her smirk would be when she stared at him as he left.
Loki Odinson, God of Mischief, and Prince of Asgard, had lost. The Lie-Smith had lost to the sorceress.
The sorceress, who somehow was able to avoid Loki's sly, cunning ways, had been able to send his never-failing silver tongue and craftiness to the grave.
"Loki, have you seen my father? I can't find him anywhere." Astrid asked as he entered the kitchen.
"Not since last night, no." Loki replied, shaking his head.
"Oh," She said worriedly. "This is just like him! Wandering off and doing Valhalla knows what!"
"Shall we look for him?"
"We'll wait another hour then we'll search. Hopefully he hasn't gotten himself into too much trouble."
Loki nodded in agreement as Viveca stepped in. The air tensed and they glared at each other, their mutual hatred for the other clear as day. She walked slowly towards her mother, her eyes never leaving the prince, and a frown seemed permanently imprinted on her face.
"How are you today, mother?" She finally said.
"I'm alright, just worried about your grandfather," Astrid said, her eyes wandering up to her daughter's. "No one's seen him all day."
"I'm sure he's alright." Viveca assured.
"Perhaps I should have your father go looking for a bit first, and then we'll conduct a search party." Astrid said.
"Search party?" Cyrus asked, walking into the kitchen. "What about a search party?"
Astrid sighed and looked at her husband. "I can't find my father, and no one has seen him all day."
"She was wondering if you could go looking for him," Loki added in.
"Perhaps I should-" Cyrus began to say but was cut off by sound the front door slamming open.
"The sky is blue, the trees are green, and everyone lives in harmony! The mountain imps sing, the forest pixies ring, and the trolls are tied up with string!" A man's voice loudly sang as banging was heard in the front room.
They all looked at each other before racing out of the kitchen and into the front room. There, they saw Garnock walking into the house carrying a sack that seemed to be moving wildly. He seemed merry as he closed the door behind him, and he looked at them with a broad smile on his face. His eyes scanned them before stopping at Loki, and he smiled wider.
"Laddie," He loudly exclaimed. "I've gotten you a gift! Catch!"
He threw the sack into the air and it sailed towards the prince. Loki held out his arms and the sack heavily landed in them, and he grunted as he stumbled back a bit. He placed the struggling sack on the ground and knelt beside it, looking up at the family. Cyrus, Astrid, and Viveca had all backed away from him, their hands up and glowing, ready to cast a spell. Garnock, on the other hand, looked completely proud of what he'd given Loki, and stared at the prince with a crazed smile on his face.
Loki eyed the struggling sack warily.
What could have Garnock gotten for him? A troll? A goblin? Some other creature? Because the state of Garnock's sanity, Loki almost didn't want to know. But as the sack continued to move, he couldn't help but let his curiosity get the better of him, and he moved his hands to the drawstrings.
"Careful, Loki," Cyrus warned, staring at the moving bag.
Loki nodded and slowly moved the bag to his lap and opened it slightly. Black hair popped out of the opening first, and then to his great surprise, the head of a very disheveled looking Luciana shot out. She looked around the room, her breath in pants. The rest of her body was concealed by the sack, but it was obvious she was cramped in there and currently in an awkward position.
No one said anything; they all just stared at her.
Loki swallowed as he stared at her, flabbergasted yet overjoyed. He thought he'd never see her again, yet here she was sitting in his lap.
"Luciana?"
Cliffhanger!
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PS. Because of two recent, and fairly large, writing projects I've started, I apologize for any delay in my story updates. There may not be any delays, since the other projects are only just starting to get written up, but there might be so I'm apologizing in advance because I try to run my writing process like a machine...Hence my pen name, The Script Machine. But don't worry, this story will always be my first and main priority.
