"What in the name of-"
Valkyrie awakened to thunderous pounding on her front door. Exasperated she sat up, throwing the blankets aside and swinging her legs that felt weighted with fatigue over the side of the bed, placing her feet into her slippers. She stood, grabbing her robe from a hook on the back of the door as she exited her bedroom, tying it around her.
There were only a few reasons she could think of that someone would be making such a racket at her front door this time of the night, and none of them were good, especially considering recent events.
"Who is it? What's going on?" She called out as she stumbled, still shaking off the last vestiges of sleep, towards the door.
"It's Loki! Quickly!"
Valkyrie reached the door and turned the deadbolt, then the knob, pulling the door open.
"Loki! What in the nine realms...if you dare tell me you're hungryl-" Loki pushed his way in before Valkyrie had the door completely open. She didn't immediately notice the burden he carried as her brain was still working on going from sleep to fully functioning. "What is it? What's wrong? You probably woke the whole town-" Valkyrie abruptly stopped as she saw the woman in Loki's arms. "Who is that? She's soaked! Quick, this way. We need to get her out of those clothes!"
Another woman in a robe, her long brown hair braided into one large braid laying across her shoulder stepped into the doorway that Loki and Valkyrie were rushing towards, also shaking off sleep and looking stunned.
"Gunilla! Blankets! Then go get Ragna! Tell her to come quickly!" Valkyrie called out as Gunilla moved out of their way. Gunilla rushed to the nearby closet and swung open the door, pulling three blankets from a shelf inside.
Valkyrie led Loki up the stairs and into her bedroom. He stood by the bed continuing to hold the shivering woman in his arms. Valkyrie sped to a dresser and wrenched open a drawer, pulling out a long, flannel white nightgown printed with small violets. She threw the nightgown on the bed, then turned back towards the bedroom door.
"Towels!" She rushed out of the room and returned in a few seconds with a handful of towels. Gunilla came into the room with a pile of around 5 blankets and sat them on the bed as well, then left the room hurriedly.
"Sit her up so I can get that slip off her! We have to get her dry!. She's ice cold!" Loki sat on a chair, attempting to position the shivering and unconscious woman into a more upright position hooking his arm around her middle with her head resting on his shoulder. Valkyrie tugged at the bottom of the long slip, peeling it from the woman's body up towards her head.
"Perhaps I should leave this in your expert hands." Loki looked unsure and uncomfortable as Valkyrie continued to peel the shift upwards, pulling it up over the woman's panties and bare abdomen.
"Don't be a prude. I just need you to hold her, if you're that bothered, close your eyes ."
"Others may be able to say many things about me, but there's none that can accuse me of being a voyeur." he said defensively.
Valkyrie lifted the woman's arms up with one hand, working the wet shift up over her head with the other. Loki turned his head,. Valkyrie grabbed a towel off the bed and pushed it towards him.
"Come on, we need to dry her off. It's a woman, don't tell me you've never seen a fully formed one before."
"Of course I've seen a woman before, what do you take me for?"
"You really don't want me to answer that." Valkyrie rubbed the woman's body vigorously from the legs up with a towel. Loki with one arm wrapped around the now nude woman's middle to hold her in a leaning upright position held another towel in his free hand.
"It just seems more courteous to have permission. But then, I've never need ask before as they were more than willing -"
"Yes, I'm sure you're just a chick magnet." Loki rubbed the towel over the woman's hair as Valkyrie rose from her kneeling position in front of the woman and grabbed the flannel nightgown off the bed. The woman continued to shiver but the severity had lessened.
"A what?" Loki looked puzzled, not sure if he should be insulted.
"It's a colloquialism. Slang. It means popular with women."
"What sort of people refer to their fairest members as if they're barnyard animals?" Loki asked disgustedly.
"The kind that buys our fish, mostly." Valkyrie put the nightgown over the woman's head and pulled it down over her body. "There. Lie her down." Valkyrie plumped the pillows as Loki re-situated the woman in his arms and then laid her carefully into the bed. Valkyrie pulled the blankets up over her, then unfolded the ones Gunilla had brought in and spread them out. The two stood looking down at what little they could see of the still form under all the blankets.
"This isn't your usual brand of mischief. Where did you find her?"
"Near the sea, on the shore."
"What were you doing out there this time of night? Out for a midnight stroll?" Valkyrie paused, a dark thought coming to mind. "Wait...you weren't going to-" Valkyrie cut herself off before finishing, making a hanging gesture. Her concern over Loki's mental state had been growing over the last couple of days, especially after their exchange that afternoon.
"Heavens, no, of course not! Death rejected me once already. It favors me no more than anyone else."
"Except for all those 'chicks.'"
"Oh. Yes. Of course...them." Loki grinned as he looked down upon the sleeping woman.
"Whatever you were up to, it was a good thing you found her when you did. She wouldn't have made it much longer."
"If you must know, I was talking to my mother." Valkyrie turned her head questioningly toward Loki, looking concerned once again.
"Frigga? Loki….Frigga's not…..she's….you mean you were just 'talking' right….like communing…"
"I saw her. Spoke with her. She led me to her."
"But Loki, your mother is in Valhalla. She couldn't have-" Loki turned his head to look at Valkyrie, his face deadly serious.
"I'm not mad!" He turned his head away again to look down at the woman on the bed again. "At least no more than usual."
"I'm not sure that's all that comforting. Your usual level of madness left a big chunk of New York a pile of rubble. Yeah, I have a bit of free time around here. I used it to catch up on Earth history."
"That wasn't madness. That was….something else."
"It was something else, alright."
"What's all this about?" Another female voice filled the room from the doorway. Loki and Valkyrie turn to see a middle aged Asgardian woman dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans holding a leather bag standing just inside the doorway.
"Oh, Ragna! Come in! Thank you for coming. This woman was found down by the shore. She was soaked to the bone, nearly frozen to death. Probably a boating accident."
Ragna walked to the bedside as Valkyrie and Loki shuffled aside. Ragna put a hand on the woman's forehead, then opened her bag.
"Poor thing." Ragna pulled a digital thermometer gun out of her bag and aimed the laser dot at the woman's forehead and checked the readout. It was a far cry from the technology she had once enjoyed as an Asgardian physician, but it did the job, most of the time.
"She's only suffering mild hypothermia now. You did exactly the right thing. I'd like to check her for any other injuries." Ragna carefully slipped her hands under the blanket and felt around on the woman's body. Ragna turned her attention to the woman's head feeling gently around her skull, then lifting one eyelid, then the other, shining a light into them.
"No signs of any neurological damage. My diagnosis would be a very cold, and a very lucky, young woman."
"So you noticed nothing amiss? Nothing different about her?" Loki asked quizzically. Ragna looked at him a bit confused, as if she were missing a key piece of a puzzle.
"No….she appears to be just like any other normal woman of Midgard. Why?"
"I'd like to get a second opinion on that." A male voice said from behind.. Startled, Loki, Valkyrie and Ragna turned to see a cloaked man standing in the doorway.
"Excuse me, I'm not sure we've met before." Ragna said, not recognizing the new arrival and a bit annoyed thinking her diagnosis was being questioned.
"We haven't. I'm Dr. Stephen Strange. I keep a watch on beings who could be a threat to this world and this one just set off all the alarms in every sanctum on the planet." Dr Strange walked towards the trio and the bed, looking suspiciously over at Loki. "Or maybe it's just the company she keeps."
"I would watch my tongue if I were you, wizard." Loki spat at Strange menacingly.
"Trust me, my tongue isn't the only thing I'm watching." he replied.
"Loki., Stephen's a friend. He's on our side."
"How does that Earth saying go? With friends like that-" Loki said with contempt.
"Who needs enemies. Who indeed…" Strange trailed off. "By the way. I've known you were here from the minute you arrived and I've done nothing. I've kept my distance. If I thought you posed any threat-"
"Oh, trust me, wizard. If I decide to pose a threat you'll know it because you'll find yourself strangled by your entrails-"
"Loki!" Valkyrie interjected, cutting him off. "Enough. If there's something dangerous here, don't you think we should find out what it is? Advanced notice would be a welcome change of pace."
Dr. Strange stood staring down at the sleeping woman in the bed, eyeing her intently. He put a hand out over her forehead. Loki reached out and quickly grasped his wrist in an iron grip.
"I"ll have you know, she's under my protection."
"I assumed as much. I have no intention of harming her, whoever or whatever she happens to be. I understand you had another visitor earlier this evening." Loki released his grip on Strange's wrist and stood staring at Strange with a mixture of shock and anger.
"How could you know that? Is this place crawling with insects?" Dr. Strange looked perplexed at Loki's question for a moment, then chuckled .
"You mean bugged. No. Not in the traditional sense anyway. But I do have my ways to find out what I need to know about those I have a particular interest in. I'd like a few moments in private to examine the subject at hand, if you don't mind." Valkyrie put a hand on Ragna's arm and they turned and began walking towards the door. Loki remained fixed to the spot at the side of the bed." Strange stared at him. Loki stared back menacingly.
"I'm not leaving this room. Now if you'd like to send me falling through the void for another thirty minutes, we can discuss the dire consequences for you of that decision."
Strange turned his attention back to the woman on the bed. He pulled her arm out from under the blankets and grabbed her wrist as if to take her pulse.
"That won't be necessary."
"I'm happy to hear it, for your sake."
Dr. Strange remained silent but slightly rolled his eyes. Loki caught the gesture.
"Finish whatever it is you feel you need to do so you can crawl back to your hovel full of worthless junk and leave us in peace."
"That's the plan, Stan."
"I'm Loki, Prince of Asgard, rightful king of the Jotunheim and you will address me-"
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I know. It was just an expression. Cool your - nevermind."
Loki kept a close watch on every move Strange made as the master of the mystic arts studied the woman lying before him. He examined the length of one arm, then the other, then gently turned her head from side to side, scanning the skin of her neck. Conjuring a circle of white magic with his hand, he ran it the length of her body.
"And you noticed nothing peculiar, no markings, nothing identifying, She displayed no behavior that was out of the ordinary."
"Nothing. Though I must admit I was a bit more concerned with the fact she was freezing to death."
"Well that's certainly out of the ordinary."
"What?"
"That you were concerned about a mere mortal." Loki genuinely appeared hurt by Strange's sarcastic statement.
"I'm not the heartless fiend you take me for."
"Could have fooled me when I was putting your victims' bodies back together in New York. On the bright side, you put the children of a lot of medical supply company and hospital executives through college. Gave a real economic boost to the mortuary industry along the way."
"And I suppose you 'put those bodies 'back together' for free, out of the goodness of your own heart." Strange stood looking down at the woman for a moment, taken aback at Loki's comment, remembering the man he used to be.
"A man has to eat."
"Yes. But there's a difference between cabbage and caviar."
"I always found caviar a bit too salty for my taste."
"My true intentions were to finally bring peace to the people of this realm."
"And you thought you'd accomplish that by being the world's biggest douchebag."
"A millenium ago my father agreed not to interfere in affairs here, to allow all of you to find 'your own way,' and the results have been nothing short of disastrous. Your people abuse and slaughter each other en masse on a daily basis over trivialities. I would have put an end to all of that. You must have the storm to get to the calm after. "
"So you were just cracking the eggs to make the omelet."
Loki grew weary with the subject of the conversation.
"We were all his puppets in our own way." Loki said, the combativeness gone from his tone, 'his' meaning Thanos of course, but had no desire to say the name ever again.
"I suppose that much is true." A heavy silence fell between the two men. Strange ended his examination of the woman and took a step back from the bedside.
"Are you quite through?" Loki asked. Strange crossed an arm across his chest, propping his other elbow against it and resting his chin on his closed hand.
"I have to be missing something. I"m seeing nothing that should have sounded the alert to her presence. Has she been conscious at all since you found her? Has she said anything?"
"Minimally. She seemed to know me. But then so does everyone now. Our existence is no longer a secret, we no longer reside in the realm of myth and fiction, relegated to outlandish children's stories obviously concocted by heathens who'd imbibed a few too many tankards of ale."
"Or that they created to use for their own ends., which is exactly what I want to avoid here. You said that your mother led you to her. That she was here, you spoke with her. Yet your mother has been…" Strange glanced at Loki, the look on his face warning Strange to tread carefully, "...gone...for a number of years now."
"Yes She told me to keep her safe, to protect her. I know not why, she didn't say. But she was clear it was of the utmost importance that I do so. She said everything depended upon it."
"Are you sure it was really her?"
"I know my own mother! I'd stake my life on it."
"You seem to have a great many of those, I'm not sure that's saying much."
"She knew things only my mother could possibly know. She related our last conversation before her death. I was in the dungeons, isolated in my cell."
The woman on the bed stirred slightly. Dr. Strange stepped back towards the bedside. The woman's eyes slowly opened and she looked around in confusion as her eyes focused
"What….where….who are you? How did I….?". Strange put a hand on her shoulder.
"It's alright. You're safe now. I'm Dr. Stephen Strange. What's your name?"
"I don't….I'm not sure…wait….Angela. My name is Angela"
"Do you have a last name, Angela?"
"I do...but I don't….I can't remember..." Strange smiled down at her and patted her shoulder.
"Do you know what happened to you, how you got here?"
"No...no I don't. I'm sorry."
"That's ok. It's not unusual after what you've experienced. You were hypothermic. In simple terms, your body got too cold . That slows down blood flow to the brain. When that happens, your brain shuts some parts down to protect itself and conserve energy. In these situations the amnesia is almost always temporary."
"Where is 'here?'" The woman asked, looking scared and confused.
"You're in Norway. A place called New Asgard. It used to be called Tonsberg."
"Norway? I remember…..there was a woman…i don't know where...it was so bright…she was very kind, so beautiful, I remember wishing I was that beautiful. No one ever thought I was beautiful….back home…someone, something, was trying to find me, I just remember, I couldn't let it find me." The woman seemed to temporarily lapse back into confusion.
"Back home. Can you tell me where that is?" Strange asked hopefully.
"No….I can't….I know that I know, I just can't…."
"It's alright." Strange reassured her.
"Those….those things…. they look like people, but they're not people, . they couldn't find me. But they did find me….it took them a long time, but they did…..I didn't know anything about them until right before…they never told me…I wasn't ready yet…...then that woman, she found me,...I didn't want to go back, but she told me I had to….she told me she knew someone that could help me, would keep me safe. I knew him...then I realized I knew her too….I thought I did, but I wasn't sure, She brought me here. I couldn't feel anything, then I felt things again….I felt cold, so cold."
Dr. Strange listened to her ramblings patiently. He turned to Loki who looked confused, and concerned, trying to put the pieces of her story together.
"Her neurons are working at reconnecting. It's how the brain works, it breaks memories into smaller pieces, then puts then together again, like a puzzle, but after trauma it isn't always able to fit them back together in the right order or some are left out."
Angela's expression suddenly seemed frightened and anxious. She started to try to raise herself up and look around.
"Loki?!"
"I'm here." Loki stepped over as Dr. Strange stepped aside. A calm came over her and she laid back into the pillow.
"You should rest now. I can give you something if you'd like." Strange said soothingly.
"No….I don't need….I'm just so tired…" Angela's eyes fluttered and she again faded out of consciousness. Loki looked down at her serene face and then reached out, brushing a lock of hair aside. There was something peaceful and soothing about merely touching her or being close to her,he couldn't explain,. He didn't even know her yet he felt as if he wanted nothing more than to wrap himself around her, not in a sexual way, no, but just to absorb that calm and peace into himself, to be wrapped in it like a soft cocoon.
"I was wrong. I don't think it's her we need to be worried about. It's what's looking for her and why."
"But what would be looking for her? She's just…" the just stuck on Loki's tongue and he paused. This woman wasn't "just" anything, even if she was a mortal. "She's a mortal. Surely there's nothing about her whomever or whatever it is couldn't get from any other. She had no possessions other than what she was wearing, nothing anyone could take."
"No Tesseract hidden in a quantum pocket, I'm sure." Dr. Strange quipped acidly. Loki felt guilt rise within him again and looked down in silence. He had no more energy left for a reply or further banter. "I'd like to have a look at what she was wearing." Loki looked down and behind him to his right at the pile of towels on the floor. He stepped over and bent down rifling through them and pulling out the thin, soaked blue slip, handing it over to Strange..
"I could give you her undergarments too, if you'd like. Perhaps you already have a collection among your other relics." Loki said insultingly as he handed over the shift.
"This is fine, and no...no undergarment collection, magical or otherwise." Strange said as he examined the wet slip, feeling the fabric between his fingers, examining the cut and seams, then holding it up to his nose, smelling it. Loki smiled mischievously.
"Are you sure you don't want them?"
Strange stared up at Loki over the shift under his nose at Loki's implication but chose not to dignify it with a reply..
"Whatever this is, it isn't salt water. She wasn't in the sea."
"What then?"
"I don't know. I'll need to take this with me. It seems you have a job to do, as do I. I'm returning to the Sanctum to try to find out what I can. Valkyrie knows how to contact me if she remembers more and starts making sense. I just hope we can put the pieces together before it's too late."
Too late for what? That was the question that troubled Loki. How can you protect someone when you don't know what or whom you're protecting them from? If you know what to look out for, it's easier. When you don't it's like trying to swat flies in the dark.
Dr. Strange glanced at Loki, noting that he looked tired. Dark circles were beginning to form under his eyes and his whole countenance was one of exhaustion.
"Get some rest while you can. I have a feeling you're going to need it." Loki gave an acknowledging nod without replying as he gazed down upon his new charge. Strange turned and left the room with the shift in his hand. What was it about this mortal that drew him to her so? It wasn't merely just his mother's involvement. He knew there was more to it.
Valkyrie reentered the room and walked up next to Loki, looking over at him..
"You look terrible, I mean, you haven't been looking particularly well lately..but now you really look-."
"Thank you." Loki answered sarcastically.
"You should go home. Get some rest. I'll keep an eye on her. She'll be fine here with us the rest of the night."
"No, i'll stay….if that's alright with you."
"Suit yourself. I'll take the spare room."
Valkyrie left the room. Loki turned and took the few steps to the light switch and switched it off, then quietly closed the door and engaged the lock. He walked over to the window on the other side of the room and tested the lock. He knew that anything or anyone that would be after her would most likely not be stopped by simple locks, but it made him feel like he was doing something. He sat down on the other side of the double bed opposite the sleeping woman, turning his head, he looked over at her. Then he lay down on the bed beside her staring at the ceiling. As he finally closed his eyes, he gingerly reached over, placing his hand on top of hers. That soothing feeling of calm, of peace, enveloped him again and he fell into a peaceful slumber unlike he had experienced for a very, very long time.