Chapter 52: Bold Bargaining

Darcy and Loki stared at one another in silence for several moments. Loki felt an uncomfortable recurring of that putrid guilt begin to rot in his stomach. Then suddenly Darcy smirked. She sighed and shook her head. "I don't believe you," she said. He narrowed his eyes at her confusedly as she moved past him, smacking his shoulder, and walking towards Sleipnir. "You're a great big liar, Loki, you always will be. I can wait a little longer, but not much longer. I know you want to be with me for the rest of at least my natural life, I saw it. You are a liar."

"Darcy, this delusional nonsense cannot be allowed to exist even for a moment. We have far too much to do," Loki countered as Darcy kept trying to clumsily climb atop Sleipnir, each time with a disapproving grunt from the horse.

"Hey, I'm trying, but I'm afraid of heights so God made me short, alright?" she retorted. Loki heaved a sigh, shaking his head, and then swept her up in both arms and quickly set her on the horse without a word. "There, now we can get going."

"As long as there is no more talk of your ridiculous mortal . . ." Loki began.

Sleipnir let out a strange, high-pitched whinny. Loki froze, recognizing it as a warning sound of utmost importance. Darcy furrowed her brow. "What the heck was . . ." Before she could finish Loki covered her mouth firmly and listened. He gently nudged Sleipnir's side with one foot and the horse cautiously, quietly moved out into the darker, misty area away from the oasis. This was a barren moon with that singular oasis and he remembered well the promise made to him by The One on behalf of Thanos. Darcy remained silent and as still as possible as they moved. They moved through the dark mist with barely even a sound from any of Sleipnir's eight hooves. Darcy found it nearly impossible to see, but could feel that they were walking over a hill, then down the other side, then slightly up the side of another. Her eyes widened at the sight that met them.

"Damn," Loki muttered. There were three ships, each sporting red-glowing energy and with several well-armored dokkaralf soldiers surrounding the area and making it secure. Malekith exited a moment later, barking at them in their own tongue and pointing to several areas around them. Darcy began to try and pull free of Loki's grasp, to metaphorically spur Sleipnir to run the other way and call for help from Thor. Loki gripped her more tightly. "He must still be after your natural powers. There must be more to them than walking in dreams that he already knows."

She managed to firmly pull his hand down for a beat. "Great, then go down and ask him about them," she whispered sarcastically.

He pushed her hand away, silencing her once more, this time angrily. "Foolish girl, do you not think he is attuned to your voice to track you this very moment?!" he hissed in a whisper. "We must find a means of escape."

Darcy's mind whirred and then came to a most daring, reckless, and absolutely perfect conclusion. "No, we stay right here," she whispered with a broad grin, yanking his hand down once more. Loki gasped and turned her to face him fully in shock. She smiled and leaned forward. "Don't you get it? We let them 'capture' me while you and spider horse keep your distance. You've got more powerful magic than they do now that you've got both arms. You come back, put them to sleep, I get into that little monster's head and make him pay for everything I had to go through to get out of his precious little mountain."

"Are you mad?!" Loki whispered as loudly as he could manage. "Malekith's mind is immortal, vast, and . . ."

"And completely vulnerable to something mortal and new," Darcy added quickly. Loki frowned and looked away. "Hey, either way, you get to scurry back and rescue me again and then I'll really owe you." He looked down at her skeptically. "I mean it, third base, totally. We have a deal?"

Loki pondered this for a moment, but then thought of the pretext itself. Malekith's mind would be compromised and if Darcy did it well, which she seemed to have the power to do, then that elf would kneel before him just as willingly as any mortal. The trickster grinned a little, but kept the rest of his reaction stifled. "Very well," he said softly, now raising his voice a little since the plan was, for the moment, sound. "I will prove my superiority to his pathetic prestidigitation and you will prove your talents worthy of a companion of a prince of Asgard. Here is what you must accomplish," he said. Darcy listened carefully. "You must sway his mind to aid us. First, find the deepest of caverns within and learn the history of his world and his people and himself as quickly as you can. Then you must acquire all you can in the realm of his emotions and basic motivations, perhaps even the extent of his powers," Loki said firmly. Darcy nodded. "And lastly, and this is most important, you must make yourself a ruse. Appear to him as someone or something dear; make him want to aid us for the sake of something he loves, or at the very least admires if it is indeed possible for a dokkaralf to love."

"Every creature is capable of love, you big goof-ball," Darcy said with a playful smack on his shoulder. She cleared her throat and turned back to the sight of the dokkaralf and their encampment. "Okay, so basically just kind of an 'Inception' thing except this is about me getting killed or worse or something and you getting your butt thumped by an elf."

"Something like that," Loki said with slight irritation.

"Alright then, see you after 'the kick' and the mission!" she said happily, allowing as much adrenaline to pump through her as possible in order to keep from running away screaming in terror from this ordeal. She slid off Sleipnir's back who grunted unhappily and grabbed her shirt in his teeth as she moved past him. She turned and pulled her shirt away, rubbing his muzzle tenderly. "Don't worry, Spider-horse; you and your mommy-daddy are going to take care of the rest. This is going to be . . ." she began. The words 'fun' or 'interesting' didn't quite fit here and she now found herself beginning to falter under fear. She drummed up more adrenaline at the thought of doing to Malekith in dreams what she had done to the trickster. "Time to meet your worst nightmare, elf."

Loki watched her as she hurried forward, barely able to see and so tripping every few feet saying softly, 'I'm alright' or 'It's okay'. He waited on the hillside with Sleipnir shifting and grunting, nudging his head backwards in complete disapproval at his mother. Loki smacked his side with one leg. "Be quiet," he hissed. "You'll put her in greater danger and ruin it for us."

Darcy finally made it down the hill and felt her heart beating up inside her brain, thundering loudly as she neared the ships that carried these creatures. Elves and space technology had never entered her mind before and even seeing it in front of her hardly seemed real. She sucked in as much breath as she could and pushed herself forward. Just think of this as a dream already, you are in control, she told herself. Somehow, just those words made her feel more at ease and she found herself smiling as she slipped behind one ship and saw her target. She grinned and fought the urge to laugh heartily (a protective reaction in thinking she was in real danger) as she slowly approached Malekith from behind. She halted a few feet away as she saw him slightly turn, having heard something move. Well, she thought, here goes. "Hey, Czernabog!" she called out. Malekith turned, eyes widened in disbelief. "Did you miss me?"

"Darcy Lewis," Malekith observed coolly. "You changed your mind about my offer on Svartalfheim?"

"Nope, I'm here to chew bubblegum and kick your butt," she said proudly, the phrase from an old action film continuing the adrenaline feed. "And darn it, I am all out of bubblegum."

"Pity," Malekith replied flatly then made a single gesture with one hand. Darcy suddenly felt two of the armored elves seize her at either side. This caused her to tremble ever so slightly, but she kept as much of the psyched-up and detached mentality as she could; she would not let them 'elfmaze' her this time. Malekith smiled and stepped forward as a strange sound suddenly came overhead. The two looked up and Darcy's heart sank. The familiar, brilliant beam of the Bifrost's power slammed into the hillside where Sleipnir and Loki had been waiting. Darcy felt her mouth go dry and her knees lost their strength. Luckily, the elves on either side of her were able to hold her upright as the beam disappeared into the sky with a loud whinny following it, no doubt carrying both her prince in golden armor and his eight-legged steed with it. "It was only a matter of time before Odin located him and retrieved him," Malekith said, moving closer. "He knew that I could hear your scheming. I am no mere mortal and even more than an Asgardian, little one. There is no hiding something so close, so blaringly obvious from me." Darcy felt a tear run down one cheek as he reached under her chin and held her face up towards his, softly stroking the side of her face with his thumb. "There is no need to be afraid. As I said before," he continued calmly. "You won't feel a thing . . . ever again."

Darcy slumped forward as a sudden rush of greater adrenaline in a need to escape overpowered her system and sent her into shutdown. In the silent void, she felt herself seated with her knees curled up at her chest. No doubt when she awoke she would be either in a cell or unaware of her surroundings because her mind would no longer exist. But even now, even here, she couldn't help but hope that Loki and Sleipnir were safe, and that Asgard's cruelty towards him was not seeking him out this very moment.