Welcome to the other side….I know, I know. I'm sorry guys! Frigga's death is terrible and I may have cried while writing it. This whole bloody movie is one giant tragedy and if you've watched it then you know what's to come. Let's just all hold hands and get through this together, and know there's a brighter side to it (eventually). Anywho. I actually found that Tessa taking Jane's spot in this movie was actually a pretty smooth transition from canon. She slides right in perfectly and I hope you're liking her role in everything. Yeah, I still don't have any of the pesky rights when it comes to anything Marvel. With that out of the way, let's move along! Enjoy(?) Xoxo-NickyLynn
Later that evening, under the shining night sky, Thor and Tessa stood at the end of the pier, along with all of a mourning Asgard, as they shipped Frigga off to Valhalla, along with all the other fallen warriors. Tessa had experienced a lot of loss in her life, and it was never easy, but as she watched Frigga's body float by her….well, there was just something so distinctly trying about this loss, that she found herself wishing she could run to the far corners of the Nine Realms, if only to escape it. It was only Thor's strong arm around her which kept her rooted to the spot. He held her against him as they watched Frigga's body float out into the dark waters that reflected the night sky like a shining mirror.
A blazing arrow shot through the sky towards her floating memorial, and Tessa jumped as it hit the boat and set the wood ablaze in a bright flame. Thor's arm around her tightened as they watched their mother's body become enveloped in flames as hundreds more arrows flew through the sky, landing on the boats of all the other men who had lost their lives defending Asgard that day. The bay began burning brightly with all the boats floating off into the distance. Tessa began trembling under Thor's hold as the image of the endless flames, reflecting off the water, burned into the night sky and into her memory forever.
As Frigga's ship hit the edge of the grand waterfalls which surround Asgard, Odin brought his staff down in a loud boom of power. Instead of falling down into the flow of water, Frigga's boat continued floating out into the night sky. The flickering flames shifted into bright, white specks of light that floated up into the beautiful night sky. The burning ship dropped down below the horizon as what remained of Frigga floated out into the night sky as pure, beautiful energy. Tessa's eyes followed the shimmering light up, until she lost sight of it amongst the burning stars hanging above them, Frigga becoming one with the cosmos once again.
The sky then filled with thousands of white orbs, all of Asgard sending them up into the night sky, following their queen into the afterworld in a move of remembrance and grief. Tessa's eyes moved over the glowing sky, desperately wishing she could undo what she did…desperately wishing she could undo this pain…. desperately wishing she had never been returned to Asgard to begin with. "I'm sorry." Tessa said, stepping out of Thor's grip as the pain consumed her. "I…I can't." she said, feeling everything breaking inside her… pain, anger and terror overtaking her senses. "I just can't." she said again, knowing she was losing control. "I'm sorry." She said again before she disappeared from the shore in a burst of blue.
Tessa transported herself back into the safety of her room, and once she got there, her walls crumpled. Her eyes slid over to the vanity mirror and a memory of Frigga standing over her shoulder, braiding her hair with a tender smile washed over her. She lashed out at the glass, sending a blast out at it, her reflection shattering out in an explosion of glass. Her breathing became erratic and as her eyes slid around the room, being reminded of everything she had been given, only to realize how much she had taken, she lashed out at it all. She sent blast after blast at everything she seen, the pain and anger inside burning with hate. She screamed out in fury as she destroyed everything around her, unable to handle the weight of the guilt building within her any longer. Everything burning inside her came to a crux and burst forth in a powerful blast, sending everything around her flying about, the blast destroying everything else in its path as a gut-wrenching roar tore from her.
Loki had been sitting, reading one of the books Frigga had brought down for him, trying to keep his mind occupied. It had been hours since the rest of the prisoners escaped, and no one had told him anything. They would not tell him what happened, but he knew by the seriousness of the guards that something bad had arisen from it. He didn't know what that beast had been after when he tore through the prison, releasing the others, but he was beginning to think that it had been something much more serious than a simple breakout.
A blue glow drew his attention to the corner of his cell, pulling his attention over to it. He dropped his book as the familiar power surprised him. "Rania?" he asked, shocked to see her at all, let alone in his cell while so many guards were about. "What are you-" he began before taking in her appearance for the first time. Tessa stood there, her arms limp, shoulders heaving up and down, and her face….well her face was so crumpled in agony that Loki shot up from his seat instantly, rushing up to her.
Tessa watched through blurred eyes as Loki rushed up to her, obviously in distress over her condition. That alone made Tessa feel worse, seeing as it was him who should be receiving the concern. "I'm sorry!" she sobbed out to him.
"Rania what's wrong? What's happened?" he asked her, latching onto her upper arms.
"It's my fault!" She cried out, falling to her knees.
Loki dropped down to the ground with her, trying to keep her help up. "What's happened?!" he asked again, trying to shake her out of her distress enough to give him a proper response.
"Frigga." Tessa said before her throat closed up on her and she found herself unable to finish the sentence. The one word was enough. Loki knew that there was only one possibly reason that she uttered that name with such agony.
"No." Loki muttered as the gravity of what happened washed over him.
"I'm sorry." Tessa muttered out again before her eyes slid shut and she went limp in Loki's arms.
"Rania?!" Loki said, trying to shake her awake. "Guards! GUARDS!" he bellowed out in fear. There didn't seem to be any physical wounds on her, yet her breathing was shallow, and her skin had gone startlingly pale.
A group of guards rushed up to Loki's cells and as they looked from him, down to Tessa's form, the wrong assumption formed in their heads. "BACK!" one of them yelled out at Loki, aiming a spear at him. "Get away form her!" he ordered, before turning to the others. "Drop the barrier! Get the Princess out!"
"This was not by my doing!" Loki defended as he cradled her limp body.
"STEP AWAY FROM HER!" the guard ordered again as the barrier dropped and a swarm of men rushed into the room, all aiming their weapon down on Loki.
Loki carefully slid her down onto the floor as he slowly stepped back with his hands in the air. "It wasn't me." He said again, knowing how bad it looked. "She needs help!" he said, nodding down towards her.
"BACK AGAINST THE WALL!" he was ordered as one of the guards advanced, the point of his blade dangerously close to Loki. Loki took a step back, trying to appear as harmless as he could.
"I'm not going to do anything, you have my word!" he shouted. "Just help her!" he said, motioning over to Tessa's form again. Once his back hit the wall, two of the men moved forward, scooping her up from the floor and rushing out of the cell with her. The others all stepped backwards until they were back out into the hall. Loki rushed forward as the barrier powered back into place. "What happened?!" Loki asked, looking over to the guards rushing out of the area with Tessa.
A guard towered over him, looking down at him disdainfully before turning and walking down the steps. "Alert Odin." He told one of the men with him, ignoring Loki's question. "Tell him his daughter's been found."
When Tessa awoke again, she found herself staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. She blinked in confusion a few times before pushing herself up from the bed, still feeling tired, but knowing she had to push past it. She caught eye of two men standing at attention at her door as she swung her feet down to the floor. "What's going on? Where is am?" she asked groggily.
"You were brought up to the medical ward after you were found unconscious down in the prisons." One of the men told her.
Tessa looked up at him with furrowed brows as the memories filled her. She swallowed thickly as the realization that everything had not been just some terrible dream hit her. "Where is Odin? I need to speak with him." She said, pushing herself up and stepping towards them.
"Odin has ordered that you remain in the safety of this room." The man told her, putting a hand up to stop her. "I must ask that you return to your bed. You should rest, Princess."
Tessa looked up at him with a raised brow. "Would that be for my safety or for everyone else's?" she asked him, upset. Tessa received her answer by the way the men were watching her warily. "Right. Well, I don't really care what Odin ordered. I'm not staying locked up in here." She told them.
"I'm afraid we've been ordered to ensure you remain here." The other guard said, causing Tessa to turn and look at him.
"Oh, I'd like to see you try." Tessa shot back at him before transporting herself out of the room, set on finding her father. When she did find him, he was not alone. He stood in a circle with Thor, Fandral, and the other generals surrounding a glowing display of the palace, no doubt formulating their next move. "So, I'm a prisoner now, am I?" she called out to Odin, drawing his attention over to her, along with everyone else's. "I suppose imprisoning your children must come naturally to you." She bit out at him, upset that he tried to keep her locked up.
Odin looked around the group of men, obviously upset by her intrusion. "Leave us." He ordered. The men, other than Thor, stepped away from the platform that they had been standing on, brushing past Tessa as they moved out of the room. Her and Fandral locked eyes as he passed, and he gave her a sad smile before moving past as well. Once the family was alone, Odin stepped down, coming over to where Tessa was standing with her arms crossed. "I do not wish to fight with you." He said wearily, the events of the past day beginning to take a toll on him.
"Nor I with you, but do you really expect me to roll over and just find contentment in being locked away helplessly?" she asked him. "If Malekith is after the Aether then he will come again."
"If Malekith comes again, he will fall on ten thousand Asgardian blades." Odin told her.
"And how many Asgardians will fall on theirs?" Tessa shot back at him. "Asgard has already lost too much because of this….because of me. I will not idly stand by and watch more men suffer the consequences of my mistakes!" she told him adamantly.
"Tessa is right father." Thor said then. "If their dark forces return then they will destroy us."
"You both overestimate the power of these creatures." Odin said, walking past Tessa.
"I was taught never to underestimate my enemy." Tessa shot back at him. "And I value the lives of the Asgardian people who so willingly defend us. I will not watch them slaughtered needlessly!"
"And what would you intend to do? Hmm?" Odin asked her, turning back around to face her.
"I am weakened by the Aether. If Malekith can really extract it from me, then perhaps I will have strength enough to take him on. I can destroy him and the Aether." She told him.
"I can take her to the Dark World." Thor said in agreement, coming to a stand next to her. "We can draw the enemy away and when the Aether is drawn from her, it will be exposed and vulnerable. It could work." He said, looking over at Tessa and giving her a nod. "We could take the Aether and Malekith down without having to endanger the lives of our people."
"And if you fail, then you risk this weapon falling into the hands of the enemy." Odin told them.
"And if we do nothing, we risk the same." Tessa told him, shaking her head. "Malekith has set his intentions on retrieving this force at all costs. He had everything to gain and nothing to lose, which makes him more dangerous than we could hope to defend ourselves from. He outmatches us either way. If we take the fight to him, the edge of surprise will be in our hands, and we can keep any more of our people from dying in a fruitless effort." Tessa tried to reason with him.
"Father if we do nothing the risk is far greater." Thor told him. "Tessa speaks sense. How many more Asgardians must fall for-" he began to ask before Odin cut him off with a shout.
"AS MANY AS ARE NEEDED!" he bellowed angrily, letting out a gasp of pain as he pressed his weight into his staff. "We will fight! Till the last Asgardian breath. Till the last drop of Asgardian blood." He decreed.
"Those are no words of a king." Tessa told him with a lip lifted in disgust, shaking her head disappointedly. "Those are the words of a tyrant."
Odin let out an unamused laugh at her words. "Call me what you want, daughter. My order stands." He said undisputedly, turning and leaving to pair of siblings to stew in their shared anger.
Tessa watched Odin's retreating back, wondering how someone with such a profound reputation for nobility and leadership could have fallen to this. "Well good thing I've never considered myself a citizen of Asgard." Tessa said then, spinning around to face Thor. "Would you seriously help me take on Malekith?" she asked him.
"Of course." Thor told her, nodding. "It's the right path."
"Then let's do it. I don't give a damn what the old fool says, I'm not going to stay here and no nothing." She told him, shaking her head. "I can't."
"What would you have us do?" Thor asked. "He'll have no doubt ordered the Bifrost closed. Heimdall will not be swayed against a direct order from Odin."
"Well good thing I know someone who knows other ways out of Asgard." Tessa said with a shrug.
Thor furrowed his eyebrows down at her for a moment until they shot up in understanding. "No! No, that's a terrible plan!" he told her.
"Thor come on! Loki spent years searching out every crevasse of Asgard, searching for a portal that would lead to me! He'll know how to get us out of here, I know it!" she said convincingly.
"He'll betray us." Thor countered.
"Maybe." Tessa said, raising her eyebrow in agreement. "But I think we can trust him. Besides, he's the only chance we've got at this." She reasoned.
Thor let out a sigh, turning the thought over in his head. "Even with his help, we can not hope to do this alone." He told her eventually.
"Yes, well, good thing you have very loyal friends." Tessa told him.
So, Thor gathered his friends together and later that day, they all sat down in secret and sought the help of Sif, Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg. "What I'm about to ask of you is treason of the highest order." Thor began. "Success will bring us exile and failure shall mean our death."
"Malekith said he could sense the Aether inside me." Tessa continued for him, leaning over the table in her seat, feeling the Aether's drain inside her. "It's what drew him to Asgard to begin with. He wants it back…..bad. He will come back for it and he will not stop until he gets it back. Odin would have us do nothing, but if we do that then the dark forces will lay waste to Asgard." She said, looking around the table to the warriors who had become her friends. "I am sorry for bringing this curse upon Asgard. And I am sorry for bringing you into this, but I need your help. I will not let another innocent Asgardian fall because of me." She told them solemnly, her voice thick.
"We need your help moving Tessa off-world." Thor said then.
"The Bifrost will have been shut down and the Tesseract been locked away in the vault." Sif stated, looking from Tessa over to Thor.
"There are other ways off Asgard, ways only known to a few." Thor said with a sigh, still not excited about Loki's involvement.
"One, actually." Tessa corrected. The group of warriors all let out a round of sighs, no one liking the idea.
"No." Volstagg said in protest.
"You can't be serious." Fandral asked, looking over at Thor like he'd gone mad. "Loki-" he began before Tessa cut him off.
"LOKI is the key to all this." She interjected. "Without him, we have no hope of success." She told them. It took several more minutes of convincing them that there was no alternative plan before the group begrudgingly agreed. And so, their plan was set into motion.
With everyone given their own set of instructions, Tessa transported herself down into the prison, landing herself in the hall to make sure the coast was clear before transporting herself in front of Loki's cell. He was sitting on his bed with his back facing her, and he didn't turn at her appearance. "Rania." He said lowly, turning his head ever so slightly. "Are you okay? They wouldn't tell me anything since…" he said trailing off. "Since you were here last."
"I…I'm sorry." Tessa told him, feeling terrible for how she had reacted to Frigga's funeral. "I lost control and…I shouldn't have come to you like that. I'm sorry." She told him, shaking her head.
"Did she suffer?" came his next question, and she could hear the brokenness that he spoke with. It hurt to hear the pain in his voice. Tessa looked over her shoulder to make sure the guards were not looking before she transported herself into his cell.
She felt a crunch under her foot as she dropped down onto his floor and her eyes swept through the area, taken off guard by the drastically different surroundings. She realized that Loki must have been casting an illusion, for now she looked around, surveying the broken glass and furniture around her before turning and finding Loki sitting on the floor across from her, his back up against the back wall. She noted the blood on his feet and knuckles before her eyes fell on his disheveled face and her breathing stopped. Loki had never looked so….broken. He looked just as broken as she felt, and it nearly killed her to watch the pain on his face as his eyes looked up at her.
"Oh, Loki." She said, dropping down before him, a new round of guilt burrowing into her core. "There's nothing I could say that would make your pain easier." She told him quietly before her eyes swept around the room again. "And I know your pain Loki, believe me." She said, looking back up to him. "But I'm not here to quell your grief."
"Then why are you here?" Loki asked hollowly.
"I need your help." She told him. "The attack on Asgard was brought on by the dark elves, led by Malekith, I believe you know the stories."
Loki's eyebrows furrowed down at that. "The dark elves are supposed to be dead. Why would they attack Asgard?" he asked.
"Because of me." She told him, finding it difficult to hold his gaze. "I went exploring something I shouldn't have, and now the Aether resides in my body. It's what led Malekith to Asgard. We managed to thwart him the first time, but his forces will be back. I need to get off Asgard. I need you to help get me off Asgard…..before more people die unnecessarily by their hand." She told him.
"You think the people of Asgard hold my sympathies?" he bit out at her.
"No." Tessa told him honestly. "But it's not your sympathy for Asgard which I appeal to. I'm appealing to your desire for vengeance. That I know you hold."
Tessa could see the hint of a smirk lifting up his lip. "Go on."
"You told me you once mapped out all the portals on Asgard. Help me and Thor off this realm and to the Dark World and you shall have your vengeance. We shall have our vengeance." She promised.
"And after?" Loki asked her, raising his brow.
"How about we worry about the after part once we make sure there actually is an after." She responded.
Loki's eyes trailed over her face as he studied her. "What makes you think you can trust me?" he asked her then.
Tessa let out a sigh, tired of everyone having to ask her that. "I once told you that a friend offered me his hand and with it, gave me a chance to prove that I was capable of being something more than my worst mistakes." She said, coming to a stand. "I'm giving you that chance now." She said, reaching out a hand towards him, lifting a brow as she did. "So, what's it going to be?"
Loki looked up at her as he processed the opportunity she presented to him. With a smirk he slid his hand into hers and he let her pull him up to his feet. "When do we start?"