*I would like to take this opportunity to give all of you a big virtual hug. Virtual group hug!
*is tackled by my amazing fans*
Okay, okay, that's enough. But anyway, it's my birthday, and I'm the strange person who is for some reason giving you all a present even though it's my birthday… O_o lol Loqi logic *shrug*
*is tackled again by crazy fans who want to wish me happy birthday* *manages to extricate myself from the crushing mob of favoriters and followers and readers*
Anywho, I am seventeen now if anyone wants to know. And also I am somewhat satisfied with this chapter So yay! I love you all for the continued support, and I hope you all like this chapter!
Discovery II
"How could you?" Blanc snarled, facing Chatte Noir Soir down as they stood sheltered from the rain by the eaves of the considerably less-large villa that served as the outer-city hideout of the revolutionaries.
Soir lifted her chin in defiance of the younger neko's fury. "How could I do what, Lune?"
Blanc's fists clenched at his sides, and he resisted the urge to draw the knife at his belt. He had spent the walk to this place in chilly silence, hanging back from the rest of his group as his chin quivered at the thought of Noir curling up against a stone wall to bleed out as she tried in vain to stop the inevitable fate that was woven for her. He hadn't said a word to anyone when they arrived here, hadn't listened to the laments of plans having to be reconsidered, hadn't chosen to hear the nekos who went around the house double-checking the new arrivals for wounds. Only when the meetings had disbanded and groups dispersed had he once again found some semblance of resolve. He had requested that Soir talk to him in private and, after she sneered in contempt at him, she obliged by walking outside and around to the alley in between this building and the next.
"How could you do that to Noir?" the white neko hissed.
Something like reluctance stirred in Soir's eyes, softening for a second as her clenched jaw slackened. "I didn't…" Her face hardened again just as quickly. "I did what had to be done, which is more than you'd ever be able to do, crawling back to help in the rebellion only when you felt like it," she curled her lip in disgust at him. "Only when you feel like finding a bit of adventure by storming the castle gates, or when your little friends abandon you—"
"And one of them was your daughter!" The words tore themselves from Blanc's throat in a strangled shout, and his vision clouded momentarily. He dropped his gaze quickly, breathing heavily as he forcefully wiped the tears from his eyes.
A hand seized the front of his cloak, dragging him closer until he was face-to-face with the black neko. Her face was grave, lips pinched into a line and eyes cold.
"Do you think I don't know that was my daughter?" she whispered hostilely, a growling hovering on the edge of her every word. "Because I know. And do you think I really wanted to stab her?"
Blanc cringed at even the word 'stab.' He didn't reply.
"Because I didn't," she breathed. "I've spent far too long thinking both my children were dead. Then I find out one of them is alive. Do you think it was my desire to find myself truly a mother of two children I was unable to protect because of my own wrong decisions in life?" She leaned closer, practically spitting the word into his face. "No."
She shoved him backwards, releasing him. Blanc stumbled back, but kept his balance after a few steps backward. He glared witheringly at her. "Then how could you possibly do it?"
Soir sniffed and turned away. "I… I didn't stab her in… in a particularly lethal place. She still might…"
Blanc scoffed, tasting something bitter in his mouth as a wry smile twisted his lips and a lump formed in his throat, making it difficult to breathe. "…And what about the poison on the daggers? Did you account for that, Chatte Noir Soir?"
Soir shuddered. "There's nothing that can be done about it. I just… gave her longer to live. She has at least three hours from the time of her wounding."
Blanc squeezed his eyes shut. "And how is that supposed to help? You know she'll be unconscious after the first… what, half hour? Forty-five minutes? An hour at the very most?"
Soir's voice was trembling with suppressed emotion, as if the tears were quivering on the edges of her eyelashes and she refused to let them slip free. "But if someone only finds her, and helps—"
"And who would help her?" Blanc demanded. "She was relying on us! She was relying on you and me to protect her! And you wouldn't even let yourself or me do that much!"
The young man stormed past her, leaving her alone in the alleyway with her shame, anguish, and guilt.
00000
Loki was somewhere beyond petrified. That was all he knew. He knew of his fear… and he knew of Noir, and the seriousness of her condition here and now. She wasn't asleep, that was for certain. She was breathing, but shallowly, and her eyes darted under their closed lids.
She had grown even paler, and he was certain that her wound, still ceaselessly oozing blood, wasn't helping. At first, all he did was continuously press dry cloths to the wound, hoping to eventually staunch it. But after half a dozen washcloths were soaked through and were discarded into a basin of warm water, he gave up on that idea. He retrieved a clean sleeping tunic from his closet and took great care in tying it around Noir's midriff tightly. In the meantime, he kept warm cloths on her forehead and tried to keep her warm. She was so cold… her entire body clammy and chilled.
He held her hands between his, rubbing them and breathing on them.
And still she seemed to grow worse. Twitching and whimpering began, but no matter how Loki begged in a low tone, shaking her slightly, she wouldn't wake.
So at some point he had dashed off to the library and seized every book he could get his hands on about healing spells and poisons.
None of the books he kept in his room had any kind of helpful information: they only held instructions on curing small ailments like minor cuts and scratches and bruises and burns, the sort of thing he and Thor would occasionally end up with on accident. Never had they run into as something as serious as a stab wound to the abdomen, poisoned and bleeding profusely and Norns knew what else it was doing to her body.
Loki bit down on his bottom lip, concentrating as he pored over the tomes he was desperately searching through. Attempting to match symptoms to a poison, striving to find some remedy.
She was shivering in her unconsciousness now, the tiniest tremors travelling through her as she lay limp on his bed.
Loki groaned desperately, squeezing her hand as he laid yet another warm cloth on her forehead and flipped another page and begged her to please wake up, to please open her eyes, to please say something. Loki refused to let himself cry. If she woke and saw him crying, he wouldn't be able to stand the mortification. And he kept telling himself she would wake soon, that any moment now, her gray eyes would flick open and she'd blush at her situation but thank him for helping.
She wasn't waking now, though, and now the shivering was dying down, and Noir was alarmingly still. Her chest still rose and fell slightly, and her eyes still moved under their lids, but no more twitching or whimpering or shivering. Loki took it as a bad sign.
"Noir," he whispered. "Hang on. Please."
There were endless poisons and venoms, endless potions to cure them. Endless spells to heal a wound, endless tips on caring for a patient. None of it was right. He was having no luck tracing Noir's symptoms to a single source, a single culprit of her state. And so he couldn't tell what he was supposed to do.
Growing hopeless, he shoved yet another book aside and yanked open another. Why were these books so useless? Why wouldn't they help? Why couldn't he help Noir? Why was he so useless, and…?
His eyes lit on a spell scrawled in spidery writing across the blank page of an old leathery book.
Bloodstream Purifier
Quickly, he found the page and read the description. 'A spell capable of removing any toxins, poisons, venoms, or infections from the blood of a person.'
His heart leaped in his chest, and his eyes skimmed quickly through the words on the page, rereading thrice before daring to hope this might be possible. His eyes lingered on the warning on the bottom of the page only briefly : spellcasters attempting this cure should note that it takes great energy and skill. Do not perform whilst tired or ill, for you may hurt yourself and your patient more than helping.
He dropped the book carelessly on the floor and knelt next to Noir, cringing as he gingerly untied the shirt tied around her midriff to staunch the bleeding. Noir's life still oozed out of the incision, surely and almost proud to make its escape out of her as it trickled down her side. Loki glared at the red liquid. It had no right to leave her, leaving her cold and leaving Loki friendless.
With a shaky breath, Loki flexed his fingers and laid his hands on her stomach and ribs so the stab wound was in between the webs of his thumbs. He closed his eyes and quietly breathed out the words of magic listed in the book, and focused on pushing all his magic into his fingertips, and on drawing out the poison from her veins. His brow creased, and he started to feel the magic seeping from his fingertips into Noir instead. Yes… it must be working. But now the magic was flowing out of him at an alarming rate,, faster than he had expected, and kept rushing out of him to complete the spell he had cast. He clenched his teeth, determined to hold on and finish this—
Something slippery and warm ran over his fingers, startling him, and he opened his eyes. With a start, he saw that there was something leaking out of the cut—not blood, it looked like, but something else. A thick, brown-and-honey colored substance the consistency of tree sap trickled out, sliding over his hands and coating them.
A shaky sigh of blissful relief rasped out from between Loki's lips, and he allowed himself a moment to close his eyes in triumph. That was the poison—whatever kind it was, leaving her body.
And the next thing he noticed was a kind of soreness all over him, and a headache pushing into his head at incredible speed. It felt like he had just tried to wrestle a bilgesnipe for three days straight. Exhaustion tugged his eyelids downward, but he refused to give in right now.
He drew his hands away from Noir's stomach and took a clean washcloth, wiping away the pasty brown-gold substance with care to make sure it didn't get back into her cut. He absently noticed that his hands were shaking with lack of energy. He pushed the thought aside and continued to carefully clean away the poison and blood. And then he looked up to Noir's face, waiting expectantly. Had it worked? Surely she'd wake now?
Seconds ticked by, and she didn't move. Loki swallowed and leaned forward, inspecting her carefully. Cold sweat was still clinging to her clammy skin, and there were still tiny breaths being inhaled and exhaled through her nostrils. Nothing had changed. She was still quiet and unmoving and unconscious.
Something stung at the back of his eyes, and he leaned over her, searching her face desperately for any sign of her getting better. "Noir, please, please, please," he begged, his pleas almost inaudible even to himself. "Noir… Chatte Noir Voleuse," he whispered, staring down at his friend. She couldn't leave him. Not like this. Not like this.
He had cast the spell. He had done what he could. He had tried… so hard. Wasn't it supposed to work? But the lack of results was pushing him toward a precipice of desolation.
"Noir," he whispered her name again, fighting back sobs even though there were already tears tracing their way down his cheeks. He stroked a hand down from her forehead to her chin, anguish flooding him as her breath faltered for a moment, and she trembled. "No…" he breathed. "Please, no… Of all things good and holy in Yggdrasil… Don't leave me, Noir." He lowered his lips to her forehead and kissed her cold, clammy skin. He kissed her cheek. Then his lips hovered over hers, for the briefest moment. He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched his lips together, shaking his head. Not like this. Then he lay down next to her cold form and drew her close to him, feeling her faint heartbeat against his chest and her increasingly shallow and weak breath on his neck. "Noir, my little neko thief, my little friend, my love," he whispered. "Don't leave me now." He ran his hand through her still-damp hair and squeezed his eyes shut. "You can't…"
But his eyelids felt like stone, insistently being drawn downward by gravity. And his bed felt extremely comfortable, and he was so tired, so drained. "Noir, please," he whispered one more time before he joined her in unconsciousness.
00000
The queen of Asgard walked briskly through the halls of the palace, her shoes making a quiet click with every step that echoed off the golden walls. It seemed the entire place was eerily silent, as if the palace itself was holding its breath in anticipation of the events to come. Frigga was practically holding her breath, too, as she proceeded towards Loki's room.
What she already knew was that Marron was a neko, and Thor and Loki had been working together to help her. And that there were reasons behind this that Loki was keeping quiet, so important and secretive that even Thor and Marron wouldn't share it even after they had already been found out. That she could only find it out from Loki. And that was precisely what she intended to do.
Her pace quickened slightly as she came into sight of the large doors to Loki's chambers, and she sighed, taking a moment to compose herself as she reached them. He should be in here.
Carefully, she lifted her hand and knocked on the door twice, hard and clear, and waited. A moment of silence. No response. Another knock. No response. Queen Frigga frowned. "Loki?" she called, leaning in to listen through the door. Nothing. Her brow furrowed with slight irritation. She was growing tired of all this not knowing.
With a sigh, the queen opened the door. If Loki had not wanted her to come in, he would have said so. And if he wasn't inside, then he wouldn't mind her simply looking into his room. She left the door standing open as she surveyed the sitting room. It was perfectly empty of life, devoid of life and movement. From where she stood, she could see that the doors to both the bedroom and the bath room were ajar, lights on in both. Also, there was a faint spattering of water droplets leading from the bath room to the bedroom, so she peered through the half-open door of the bath room. The only thing to notice there was that the basin for washing your hands was missing, and so were all the washcloths.
Tilting her head curiously, the queen exited the bath room and instead followed the trail of drips towards the other open door: the bedroom.
"Loki?" Frigga called quietly.
There was no answer other than the rain still tapping relentlessly on the windows of the room.
"Loki?" the mother reached forward and gently pushed the door open a few more inches; just wide enough for her to peer inside and glance around. She leaned forward through the frame and looked in. And stopped dead.
On the large bed lay two figures, unconscious and pressed against each other. One was Loki, and his arms were wrapped around a girl… clothed in black that contrasted starkly with her ash-pale skin but matched with her jet-black hair… and ears and tail. A neko girl sleeping in the prince's bed.
Frigga's heart hammered, and she could feel the color drain from her face. There was only so much she could condone, and… this… this was pushing her boundaries. She started to step forward to wake her son, but stopped again when she nearly tripped over a book that had been tossed onto the floor.
She paused. It was a medical book, still open to a page displaying a blood purifying spell. Frigga hesitated, and her gaze swept over the room once more, this time taking in more than just the figures on the bed.
The basin of water on the bedside table, tainted a faint pink with the blood-soaked rags that lay within. The books on healing strewn about the room haphazardly, as if the reader was growing desperate with trying to find his goal. The door to the balcony was still slightly ajar, and a small puddle of water had collected from the rain that still pounded outside.
The thought of Loki, in the hall earlier, heaving a huge stack of books towards his room, appearing panic-stricken and desperate, claiming he had something important to do.
"Helheim," Frigga breathed out, pieces clicking together in her mind once again. Abandoning the idea of waking Loki and scolding him and demanding answers, she rushed to the other side of the bed and to the side of the neko girl. She was so still and pale... Loki's arms were wrapped around her waist and shoulders protectively, and her head was cradled in the crook of his neck. Frigga pursed her lips and gently moved Loki's arm away from the girl. The queen gently slid the girl away from her sleeping son, and her eyes widened. There was blood… Blood staining the blankets that she had been laying on. And blood was on Loki's tunic, too, which had obviously rubbed off from this girl. A quick check on the side of her neck told the queen that she was still alive, but didn't appear to be anywhere near consciousness.
With a grimace, Frigga gingerly lifted the hem of the neko's tunic and bit her lip at the sight. There was an incision perhaps an inch wide just below the right side of her ribcage. There was blood smeared around it, but it didn't appear that the cut itself was bleeding anymore—whatever Loki had done, it had stopped the profuse bleeding that had caused so much blood to be lost. Next to her on the bed was a rag soaked in a golden-brown substance. The queen leaned down slightly and nudged the cloth with a finger. It was sticky, but she couldn't tell what it was. It didn't matter. What mattered was that this girl was in a dire condition, no longer losing blood but she had obviously lost so much already, and it looked like she couldn't wake up.
With a firm set in her jaw, Frigga turned slightly and went to get servants to carefully bring this girl to the healers' wing—no matter that this girl was a neko.
Before she left, she turned back slightly to the girl and glanced between her and her son—who still slept without stirring from his deep slumber. Her eyes fixed on the lids of the neko girl's, and she whispered to her even though she knew she couldn't hear. "Oh, darling… I don't know who you are… But I feel like you really shouldn't leave us just yet."
And then she left the room as quickly as possible, determined to do whatever must be done in order to make sure that this girl lived, whether the Aesir healers were willing to help or not. Loki had been right. This was important. She wasn't sure exactly what this all meant… but she could sense its importance. And she didn't want that to die.
00000
Loki woke, tired and bleary. He barely remembered anything, until a sound drew his attention. He looked up and saw that there was a chair by his bed, occupied by his mother, who was reading a book. "Mother?" he asked in a cracked voice.
The queen looked up and saw he was awake. She gave him a terse smile. "Loki, you have some explaining to do."
"Hmm?" he asked tiredly, beginning to sit up. He paused when he realized the sheets he lay on were damp. And then he remembered. Noir, soaked from the rain, and the terrible wound on her stomach that oozed pus and blood. Where was she now? He looked frantically around for a moment, his heart nearly stopping at the sight of a small pool of blood on his bed, and a bloodstain on his own tunic where the girl had been pressed to him in anguished desperation.
Frigga's expression was concerned as she saw the younger prince looking around wildly, no doubt looking for the neko girl. "Loki, she's not here at the moment," she explained softly.
Loki's eyes snapped to hers. "What?"
"I came to find you because I was worried, and I found you with her… I had her taken to the healers' wing, Loki," Frigga said gently.
Loki felt his heart drop into his stomach, and his throat tightened as he stared pleadingly at his mother. "You… you came in here while…?" His mind was still trying to recollect all that had transpired. The last thing he remembered was pulling Noir close to him while tears slid down his cheeks and he begged her not to leave him. Self-consciously, he reached up to his cheeks to make sure the tears were no longer there. They weren't. But had his mother seen…?
Frigga smiled wryly. "Yes, Loki, I did come in here while…" she trailed off meaningfully. She shook herself. "It doesn't matter. The servants have been sworn to secrecy of how the girl was found when I called them in, and the healers were not informed of the circumstances."
Loki's jaw tightened. "The healers? But they won't heal—"
"They will heal her," Frigga cut in, a hard edge to her voice. "I have made it clear to them that they are to do all they can for her."
Loki's mouth felt dry, and he swallowed as he looked warily at his mother. "…Why?"
The mother looked contemplatively at her son, not answering just yet. "I made an educated guess that she is of great importance to you. There is no reason that I should not offer her what help I can, and see that our healers do the same."
Loki felt his cheeks get hot, and his gaze dropped from the queen's.
"She is of great importance to you, isn't she?" Frigga asked softly, not pushing, but merely wanting to confirm her suspicions.
Loki's lips pressed together in a hard line, thinking of the fear that had seized him at the thought of losing her—that still gripped him at the thought of losing her. Slowly, he nodded.
Frigga nodded. She had so many more questions for him, but that would do for now. That was all that truly mattered for the moment—she would learn the rest soon enough.
"How long ago did you have her taken to the healers? Is she alright? Do you know?" Loki asked, sitting up a little straighter.
Frigga smiled tiredly. "Loki, I don't know… but she was not doing well when I found her."
Silence. Loki's stomach was performing acrobatic stunts, it seemed, and he felt like he might be sick. Noir… She couldn't die. She just couldn't. "Let me see her. I have to know that she's alright," he pleaded quietly.
Frigga nodded. "Change your clothes, Loki, and then we can go see what progress the healers have made."
Loki was on his feet before his mother even stopped talking, heading to his wardrobe and grabbing a simple green tunic.
Frigga shook her head at her son's eagerness and left the room, waiting in the sitting room for him to join her.
Loki changed as quickly as he could, tossing the bloodstained tunic back towards his bed and grabbing only a simple knife to strap to his belt before walking out to the sitting room. He absentmindedly ran his fingers through his mussed hair and walked immediately to the doors of his chambers, glancing back impatiently to his mother. They left together, heading for the healers' wing without saying anything. There was plenty to be said by just the silence.
Note from LoquaciousQuibbler: So… well, then, lol. I apologize if there are any typos in this chapter that I missed; I was editing a little more rushed than usual cuz I wanted to get this out by tonight. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure what to say about this one XD
Except that I am seventeen reviews away from THREE HUNDRED FREAKING REVIEWS OMG YOU GUYS ARE SO BLOODY AMAZING! And I forgot to mention to you guys that we are now over one hundred favorites on this story! I love you all for the support, and I sincerely hope that you guys are able to live through my occasionally-slow updates on to-die-for cliffhangers… perhaps it's a bit cruel of me. But you know. Love ya duckies, and please let me know what you thought of this little chappy.
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