A/N HEEEEEELLLOOOO READERS! I feel like it has been such a long time since I posted. , but my work scheduled has gotten really demanding, but I till try to make time for writing. I thank everyone of you for your reviews, favorites and follows. Your support keeps this story alive. YOU ROCK! This was a difficult chapter. It is long and not very action filled and it follows closely with Thor 2. I think it is the changing point for the story so I hope you can bear with it and enjoy enjoy it. Happy reads and writes, God bless!
"NO!" Jane shrieked as the molten hands of the Kursed dropped Lady Dagmar's limp body like a sack of potatoes on the wet marble floor. Her cry caused her to come out of concealment. The Kursed's blazing fiery shifted from concentrating on the woman who Malekith had just pierced and fell on the auburn haired mortal woman. A pleased rumbled was emitted from the ghastly creatures throat. Its crusted black tar finger was raised and pointed toward Jane.
Malekith's empty dark eyes followed the beasts finger to gaze upon Jane. Malekith's white lips formed a sinister smile."The Aether ," he muttered lustfully and reached out with leather cased fingers for her. Jane gulped. She'd given away her hiding spot, but she didn't care. Without thought she rushed to the side of her fallen friend.
The Vanir maiden was sprawled out across the floor by the pool. Her lovely light blue gown made of the finest and most expensive silks was now ruined and saturated with blood. Dagmar pressed a shaky hand to her side trying to soothe her pain and stop her bleeding. "Dagmar!" Jane hollered fleeing from her corner of safety and rushing to the noblewoman's side.
As Jane rushed to aid Dagmar she was caught in the Kursed's brutal grip. She immediately screamed in horror as the hands rough as gravel gripped her slender wrist. The monster grabbed her by her wrist and yanked her back. Jane let out a yelp as her thin, soft arm was forced behind her back in an awkward angle. She gritted her teeth as hands rough as the rocks on a jagged cliff gripped her by the arm and slammed her against a stone wall of a chest. The auburn haired mortal began to fight against the creature, her tiny fist struck hard blows and the elfin-beast volcanic ash chest, but her blows did nothing to the savage. The astrophysicist struggled pushing and pulling against The Kursed's mighty grip. She couldn't break free of the monster's hold; it was simply too strong of a beast. Jane felt herself pull the muscles in her shoulder as she tried to break free. She grunted against the pain. For all her vicious struggling the molten rock monster didn't move a muscle. Merely she heard a rumbling come through it nasty looking snarled mouth. It was a growl that sounded like a mocking laugh. He bore his terrible tusk at the brown-eyed woman. Jane screamed out in horror. Jane's scream was a shrill, panicked squeal high-pitched and loud in volume and nearly ear-splitting. The elfin monster released Jane's soft forearm only to grip her roughly by her loose auburn tendrils. The creature grabbed a fist full of Jane's sandy colored mane and yanked her head back in a brutal effort to silence her. His pulling was so forceful that he whipped Jane's neck back so hard tat he caused her to land flat on her back and bang her head against the marble stone on the ground. Jane scrunched her face up in pain. Her head throbbed. She felt that sick feeling again. The world swirled about her in that eerie red and black spiral that left her dizzy and week, she couldn't have moved even if she wanted to. The Aether surges rendered her powerless.
She opened her eyes just in time to hear Malekith's footsteps lumbering toward her. His black boots stood tall over her face. Before long it was not merely his boots and gothic armor that she was staring up at but his pasty face. His face looked like plaster covered with chalk. His features were stern and foreign, accented by his pointed ears and unearthly, blank white eyes. He wasn't pleasant to look at, but the thing that was most bloodcurdling about the leader of the Dark-Elves was his chalky, chapped-lipped sneer. It housed no real mirth on humor only the smug satisfaction of a creature without pity.
Malekith loomed over her, circling her like a vulture, his evil smirk never faltering as he looked at hood. The gigantic sized rock beast standing in the background like a chained dog that was waiting to strike. The Elfin-warrior stooped down slowly. His dry white knuckled caressed her face with a fondness as he spoke harsh words in an ancient tongue. Jane struggled the words he spoke though not comprehensible to her mind, caused the Aether to bubble in her blood. She could feel it twisting, turning, churning in her gut and throughout her veins. It caused her to writhe, her body contorting trying to escape the pain of the surge. She started flailing about, trashing as she felt her pulse quicken, heart race and he skin tingle with a burning sensation. She made a gagging sound like was gargling.
"Shh," he cooed still his thick, chalky hands patted down her face with a mock tenderness that was almost comforting. "this will all soon be over," he confirmed pursing his lips and squeezing Jane's olive-skinned cheeks together and making her lips pucker. She was startled that the Dark-Elf spoke in English but she was in too much pain tot wonder about such things. "It is time for you to return what you have stolen, child, " he explained as her raised his clammy white hand in the air. Jane Foster's body levitating as he did so. Her body floated up into the air bonelessly. And she felt as the Aether swirled in side her. She could feel the liquid power gem surging pulling and pushing against itself. It wanted to escape and yet wanted to stay inside her. Jane felt as if her atoms were going to split within side her. It was excruciating. She choked out a cry feeling herself lurching like she wanted to vomit. As the pressure from Malekith trying to extract the energy from her.
Lady Dagmar managed to roll on to her side. She was gasping, panting, mashing her lips together to keep from screaming out in agony. Her alabaster palm was stained ruby as her own blood trickled seeped between her fingers. She looked down. The wound was bad. It was a mortal wound from the angle that the blade had been thrust into her. Another sharp searing pain shot through her abdomen, rendering the enchantress breathless. As if the mortal wound wasn't bad enough the sharp, two-edged sword was laced with poison. Malekith was a ruthless warrior who had courted battle since his youth he had learned to take no prisoners. The young healer had tried to heal herself, but her energy was fading, she didn't have enough energy left to breathe let alone to call on the power to heal gulped as a sweat streaked down her temples and forehead. She'd need a healing crystal. A healing crystal would be the only way to draw out the poison and stitch up the organs that had been slashed clean through. Her silver eyes darted around the chamber rapidly, the room was spinning. She couple barely keep herself balanced on her elbows. Another wave a pain shot through her stomach area causing the Vanir maiden to collapse, her raven locks splattering in her face as she fell face first on the floor She had to keep her forehead resting on the cool marble slabs if only to try to cool the fever starting to boil inside from the poison.
Dagmar struggled to push her head up to look around once more. Her porcelain arms trembled violently, nearly causing Dagmar's upper body to tumble back toward the polished marble floor. Still scrambling for air she managed to glance around the room. She could see her way into Queen Frigga's bedchamber, she knew that the queen surely kept at least one healing crystal by her bedside in a golden trunk where she placed many valuables, if she could get there... then perhaps... The silver-eyed ambassador from Vanaheim attempted to drag her body toward the queen's bedroom. Her legs were dead weight and even inching along the ground was taxing. She was crawling with her belly pressed the floor like some slithering serpents as her hands worked tirelessly to pull the rest of her body toward the inner bedroom of the queen's chamber. She barely moved a foot before she'd fallen flat on her face once more. She felt so cold, so weak she could scarcely breathe.
The bedchamber was close, yet so far, Dagmar Audricdottir's ivory hand reached out shakily trying to grasp for the glittering glass screen door that separated her from her salvation. In the back ground she heard the horrible gagging sound coming from Lady Jane's hovering body. Her silver eyes were glazed and unfocused, but she squinted and managed to bring to them to stare and see an oozy red and black substance being pulled from Lady Jane's body. "N-n-no!" Dagmar stammered turning toward the direction of where Malekith was extracting the Aether from Jane at the very moment. She twisted causing herself to quake in pain as her body crumpled to the ground. She had so little energy. Only enough energy for one quick spell. She had to think fast. Perhaps with her remaining energy she could summon the healing crystal from Queen Frigga's bedroom and heal herself, but in those seconds Malekith could succeed in extracting the Aether from Jane. There wasn't enough time. She couldn't get to the healing crystal and prevent Malekith from extracting the Aether from Jane and plunging the worlds into darkness. Dagmar gasped somehow her body twisted to her back. Her right hand reached up and twirled slowly in the air and mumbled magic words. A purple force-field bubble engulfed Jane's body.
The Aether could not breach the shield. Malekith tugged and tugged trying to pull the red and black poisonous mixture through the bubble but he found her could not frustrated her screamed enraged. He cast a glance at the black-haired woman bleeding buckets on the floor. He inclined his head toward her and suddenly the Kursed heavy feet ran toward her. Dagmar's silver doubloon eyes were wide with horror as she saw the monster looming over her. It's razor-sharp teeth bared in her face. Before the Vanir enchantress could even utter peep, the Kursed gripped her delicate porcelain arm and yanked it hard, mercilessly dislocating the woman's arm from her shoulder. She hollered in agony. Her silver eyes welled with tears that soon were sliding down her face. He roughly tossed her limp aching arm to the ground.
The glowing purple force-field around Jane's body fell instantly and Jane started to sink back to the floor. Malekith caught her in an invisible hold. With both hands he twisted and twirled his gnarled white fingers desperate to rip the Aether from the Midgardian's being. A high-pitched wail tore from Jane's throat. In a split second the thick, gold laden door to the queen's chamber burst open. A strapping figure charged through with all the might as if he was leading an army rather than he just storming the door singularly. He barged into the chamber with a great roar. It was so loud and triumphant it was full of strength like a lion roaring as it sought its prey across the savannah. It was loud booming the type of sound that could strike fear into an enemy's heart like a roll of thunder! "LET HER GO MALEKITH!" the prince of Asgard boomed.
The smug Dark-Elf paid the future king of the golden realm no heed, he continued to try to pull the Aether from Jane's body. He was greedy for its power. Thor declaration was only returned by and loud and feral growl from the Kursed. The hideous dark creature raced toward Prince Thor. It's heavy footfalls sent cracks through the queen's white marble floor. It lunged at the prince managing to get its huge boulder like body airborne as if it intended to crush the wielder of Mjolnir. The beast cast its evil eye upon the weapon. He remembered his lord, Malekith telling him that this was one of the two relics whose power was enough to stop them in their course if they did not unleash the Aether before the Convergence. His throat rumbled as he felt a surge of rage invigorate him. No. They'd not be deterred again. The face of the Asgardian king Bor was etched in his memory it was that face that had caused the death of his wife and child. It was only befitting that he should end the line of Bor. Kursed road as his molten rock body was hurled toward Prince Thor. The prince did not flinch as the creature that looked as if it had been created from the pits of a volcano sailed toward him. Once the Kursed was nearly upon him, the blond-haired warrior prince slung his hammer with might. He knocked Mjolnir right against the Kursed's cranium hoping to bust the monsters skull wide open.
The horned brute lied under a pile crumbled limestone. It shook its head like a bull after having a red sheet pulled from its face. The room swirled for the Kursed, but it managed to maneuver its body and stagger its way from the mound of crumbled column. Thor did not even dignify the terrifying monster with a second glance. Thor's sky blue eyes burned red as fiery coals as he watched how Malekith had Jane suspended in midair convulsing without restraint. Once against the golden locked prince let our a battle cry before her pointed Mjolnir at the Elfin general and summoned forth lightning. The lightening crackled as it was emitted from face of the celestial hammer. It cut through the air quick as a flash and electrocuted the left side of Malekith's pasty face. His nasty white flesh sizzled and smoked. The room was soon full of the smell of burning skin. The Dark-Elf yelled in anguish as it felt like his face was engulfed in flames. Immediately, he flew back his hands flying in the air and is concentration and grip on the Aether we broken as he writhed on the floor, wriggling like a worm clawing at his left cheek that was melted down into rough, purple and black ridges.
The Aether sucked back into Jane's body. The murky red and black liquid swam back into the openings of her mouth, nostrils and eyes. Jane dropped to the floor panting on her hands and knees. The great prince rushed to her side. Seeing that she was quivering and convulsing violently. As Thor raced to the aid of his beloved as the charcoal creature ran to assist its leader. The burly molten rock monster instantly swooped up its injured general and proceeded to whisk him out of the balcony window.
Thor jumped out of the balcony widow read to attack once more. He would drag them from the sky and pummel them into the ground for the horror that they had caused this day. Left gaping on the floor, Lady Jane collected herself. Her head had finally stopped reeling and the torturous pain had finally subsided. She felt her body to make sure she was still in tact. For honestly she did not know. The attempted extraction had made her feel as though her skull was going to rip in two. She shook her head and stared out the balcony window awaiting her triumphant hero to return quick as a flash saying how he'd vanquished the foe. Soon her eyes were pulled from staring out a window where once she could see a gorgeous city skyline and now she just some demolished and crumbled tops of once beautiful temples, where smoke and ash rose into the atmosphere. But her eyes were pulled away from the horrible scene as she heard a pitiful whispering and faint coughing in back of her.
Jane's eyes went wide as she swirled around. "Dagmar!" The young scientist pushed herself to her feet and hobbled over to a battered body lying by the queen's elegant wading pool. "Dagmar! Lady Dagmar!" she echoed as she raced with staggering steps toward the Vanir noblewoman's body. It seemed to take an eternity to simply cross the room to be by her friends side. "Ohnoohnoohnono," Jane muttered helplessly as she fell to her knees taking in Dagmar's visage. Her silver eyes were closed and tear stains rolled down her ashy cheeks. She was naturally fair skin, but now she had turned a ghostly white. Her hair that earlier in the day had been curled in elegant black tendrils, placed in a style that was flawless was now whipped and wispy about her head, disheveled and unkempt looking. A thick sheen of sweat shined on her brow furrowed deep with pain. Jane surveyed her whole body. She found the gaping hole torn in Lord Audric's daughters side. She was bleeding so profusely. The area of floor around her was saturated with the bright red liquid. The very sight of it made Jane scream out. Dagmar's right arm was contorted horribly, dislocated from the shoulder the limb seemed to be dangling from her flesh. The arm was starting to discolor as no blood was able to properly circulate to the disconnected limb. Jane felt so helpless staring at Lady Dagmar in such a broken form.
Jane bit into her lip feeling overwhelmed and feeling the water behind her eyes ready to well up and leak from behind her brown eyes. She didn't know what to do. Why hadn't she paid more attention that one summer when her mother had forced her to go to sleep away camp instead of allowing her to go to the science camp held at the local high school. They'd taught them wilderness survival skills things like how to set an arm, make a splint out of branches, how to stitch up a wound. Things that had seem so unimportant and irrelevant then, but now literally were matters of life and death.
"Help! Help! HELP!" the panicking astrophysicist yelled at the top of her lungs not even knowing who was around to hear her cry. Slowly, Lady Dagmar pale eyelids fluttered open revealing bloodshot gray eyes. Her trembling fingers managed to reach and wrap around Jane's wrist. The grasp was so light that it took Jane a moment before she even noticed that she was being touched. Immediately her light brown eyes that had welled with tears darted up to look at the raven-haired maiden's face. It was grimacing with searing pain, but still she was cognizant. "Lady Dagmar!" Jane replied overjoyed as tears immediately began to pour down her cheeks. Her olive hands instantly linked with Dagmar's and she gave the cold sweaty palms.
"J-j-jane," the silver-eyed enchantress stuttered through gritted teeth as her breathing became more labored. She attempted to nod, but ended up only being able to swallow.
"Shhh," Jane immediately quieted the woman laying on the ground. "Don't talk!" Jane instructed. "Save your breath," she continued as she patted down Dagmar's shoulders and tried to soothe her. She ripped off another piece of her gown, a larger piece and gingerly attempted to raise Dagmar Audricdottir's head and carefully lower it back down onto the tattered pieces of silk. "I need to get help," Jane responded after trying to make sure that Lady Dagmar was comfortable. She chided herself immediately for the thought seeing the way Dagmar hissed and winced with every tender adjustment that Jane tried to minister. 'Sorry, sorry," the mortal continued to apologize as she fluffed the makeshift silk pillow beneath Dagmar's head. Dagmar's eyes were closed and her breaths were coming out in hallow, shallow puffs. " I must get help!" Jane repeated to herself starting to get to her feet. She felt Dagmar's weak hands clutching at her wrist once more. She was midstream stand and she felt the Vanir healers slight tug, it was so fragile and light it reminded her of a baby wrapping its chubby fingers around ones shirt. Still the gentle cling forced Jane back to her knees.
"D-d-don't g-g-go," Dagmar pleaded as her milky eyelids feverishly batted as if it was a struggle to stay conscious. "I...I...I don't want to die alone," she explained as she exhaled a shuddering breath and bit her lip as tears slipped from behind her silver eyes.
"Don't talk like that!" Jane scolded! "...you're not going to die, not here... not now not like this," Jane lied as she looked over the wound It was gushing blood and the sides of her creaming skin were filling with a frothy, green pus from the poison.
The silver eyed enchantress concentrated on her breathing as she shut her eyes. "I...I always thought I'd die an only woman, in my bed, I'd return home to after helping my great granddaughter give birth to her first baby," she expressed panting. "I'd tell my husband that it was a boy and they named the child after him...he'd smile and kiss my forehead... I'd say thank you for the beautiful family he gave me... and when I woke up the next morning I'd be in Valhalla," Dagmar explained her voice becoming breathy and strangled. She gasped and coughed!
The scientist shook her head feeling tears welling in her large light brown eyes. "You need help," she said as he voice squeaked in panic as she tried to press the torn off piece of her silk gown into Jane's bleeding side. It did nothing. The silk cloth was already soaked with blood. Jane gasped as she felt the warm, sticky liquid dampen her fingertips. "You need help," Jane muttered helplessly as tears started to splash down from her earth tone eyes. "Please, Dagmar let me go get help," she pleaded taking the porcelain skinned woman by her cool trembling fingers and begging. "Please," she whispered desperately and she started to get to her feet. She felt Dagmar's cold hand still lightly clasping at her wrist entreating her to stay.
"it's too risky for you to be seen... they... they... they could still be out there" Dagmar panted her gray eyes fluttering as she fought to speak. "They'd take you!" she declared. Her eyes sparked wide once more and she squeezed Jane's hand tight, "Then all would be lost," Dagmar rasped. She was winded and slumped harder against Jane's arms.
The auburn haired Midgardian shook her head, "But you need help," she insisted. "I...I...I don't know what to do" she tried to explain through her sobs. "Can't..can't you heal yourself, Lady Dagmar" Jane asked hopefully, he light brown eyes still glistening with tears.
Dagmar shook her head weakly, even the slight motion caused a grimace to traced across the Vanir woman's lovely face and left her moaning in pain. Her eyelids remained closed and her voice was low and breathy her lips trembled as she spoke, "The poison...the poison," she stammered..."it effects my powers...they grow weak... I can't self-heal," she elaborated as she huffed and puffed to take in air.
"HELP! HELP! HELP!" Jane screamed out in panic still clutching Jane's hand.
With ever second that ticked by Lady Dagmar's breathing became even more labored. She managed to return the clinging grip on Jane's own hand. Sluggishly, ashen eyelids started to bat open revealing pale silver orbs. "Crystal," she rasped.
"Crystal?" Jane asked back her eyes getting wide. "What... what Crystal, Dagmar?" she demanded of the Prime Ministers daughter. Her eyes roamed around the room. Searching for what the Vanir maiden could be referring to. Lady Dagmar could offer no more words. Every breath was agony now and her world reducing to trying to focus on breathing. Her one arm still lied twisted and contorted and lifeless she was in so much pain from the broken bone. Her only chance was the healing crystal. Dagmar managed to fight pass the pain long enough to point out the position of the healing crystal. Her right arm stretched back with much effort and her index finger pointed somewhat in the direction of Queen Frigga's inner bedroom.
Just as Jane was about to go to the Queen's bedchamber and search out the Crystal Dagmar spoke of Thor landed back on the balcony with a loud thud. He staggered holding on to the banister and holding his side while panting and being out of breath. He was exhausted after chasing after Malekith and his Kursed henchman. He chased after them with a furious only to watch them and one of the elfin battleships escape and vanish into thin air. He'd chased after the gothic black ship furiously, following a sightless trail off into the wild blue yonder. Thor had always been a pursuer of that which he hunted, never giving up, but eventually he realized that his pursuit was futile . They'd vanished without a trace.
Prince Thor's eyes carefully scanned the queen's chamber making sure that the perimeter was safe, if he saw any more of their ilk he'd ripped the white-faced demons limb to limb. Instead his blue eyes fell upon a most horrifying sight indeed; he the side of the pool he saw a frail looking female figure shivering and barely breathing, covered in blood. Thor dropped his mallet. It landed with an earth-shaking thud upon the porcelain tiles as he dashed toward the wounded. Sliding to his knees on the opposite side of Lady Dagmar's bleeding form he clasped at her trembling, pale fingers. His eyes were bewildered. They swirled with so many emotions as a fresh spring of tears welling up behind the lips. "What happened?' He demanded furiously of Jane.
The mortal looked up at the Viking prince her soft brown eyes swollen and red from her recent weeping. "A healing crystal! She said she needed a crystal," Jane explained his sputtering gasps of sentences. She couldn't think her whole system was overloaded with fear and panic and sorrow and guilt an all-consuming guilt.
The prince's chest tightened as he looked at Dagmar's face. Her elegant, softy, beautiful features were pinched together contorted with pain. Her skin that had once been as pale as a beautiful moon in midnight was now a ghastly gray pallor. Her rosy cheeks had lost all their coloring and were now drenched with sweat. Her supple mouth that was always ripe and full like a fresh pomegranate was now dried and cracking. She was slipping away slowly before his eyes. His old friend was dying. Immediately, the leader of Asgard's Einherjar jumped to his feet and rushed into his mother's bedroom. Surely, his mother had one healing crystal tucked away within her cupboards.
"Jane?" Lord Audric's daughter whispered as her misty gray eyes managed to focused in on the sweet-faced woman before her. Dagmar winced the poison was strong and she could feel how it had drained nearly all her energy, she had no strength left within her to fight off the effects of the death tonic. She swallowed hard; tongue thick and mouth dry. She managed to offer a smile to the astrophysicist, but even the slight movement of her facial muscles was excruciating. "Jane?" Dagmar whispered. "R-r-read...p—p-please," she asked in distress as her breath hitched and her pulse rate dropped. "Read...it t-tTo me," the silver eyed maiden gasped through every word. Her quivering hands fingered at the hilt of a scroll that she wasn't even able to pull from the inner folds of her cape for how weak she was. Her hand fell limp at her side after only a few seconds of fumbling with with th golden edges of the parchment scroll. Jane caught her hand and placed it down with tenderness. Her own hand shook as she attempted to take hold of the rolled up piece of parchment . It was sealed and the white papyrus was spotted on the edged with Dagmar's blood. "I...I...I... need. To. Know," Dagmar choked out as coughed and wheezed. "My... child..." she explained. Dagmar bit deep into her lip feeling a stabbing shoot through her bleeding side. Reflexively she gripped Lady Jane's hand trying to fight the pain, but failing miserably. She started panting and kept her eyes closed tightly, "m-m-my ch-child," whispered through her stammering, a shiver racked her body. She felt so weak and so cold. She could feel so much energy slipping away from her. It ran from between her ribcage like the dark red liquid. "My child," Dagmar's tongue felt thick and slow even speaking was becoming laborious. "My child," she nodded slowly and took one more shuddering breath, "My child... and Loki's," she confessed her silvery voice growing softer and softer and her hold on Jane's hand growing lighter and lighter.
"Loki!" Jane railed, confusion and horror were present in her tone and her brown pupils dilated.
"P-p-please read it," Dagmar begged, before her eyes Jane watched as Dagmar's beautiful supple alabaster skin slowly faded into a hideous dry looking gray color. She was fading fast and Jane couldn't bear it. She reached out holding Dagmar's hand tightly, she couldn't hold back the large tears that started to flow once more. "Jane... Jane please," Dagmar croaked. Noticing as she gave a coughed burgundy liquid spewed from her mouth and was caught on her plump lips.
Jane dabbed at the silver-eyed enchantresses mouth wiping away the sickening crimson liquid. The raven-haired maiden weakly shook her head. "Shh," Jane ordered, "Thor will be back any minute," she tried to calm the Prime Minister's daughter.
Dagmar's ivory hand trembled terribly as she covered her mouth trying to keep her bile and blood from spewing about, she carefully swiped the access away from her lips before trying to speak again. Her voice cracked and trembled and so did her whole body. She managed to open her sweet sparkling silver eyes. . Her white eyes drooped she was so tired now...so very, very tired. "please," she panted her mouth hanging open. "I need to...to...kn-kn-ow, before...I before" Dagmar Audricdottir inhaled deeply for air. "Iwannaknow," the raven-haired healer slurred as her hand weakly pressed the blood stained scroll deeper into Jane's palm. Jane's lip shivered as she slowly unraveled the parchment scroll. Dagmar's blood had started to coagulate on the edged of the paper. Her hand was shaking. She finally looked at the scroll she was horrified to find she couldn't read it. Her eyes bulged out of their sockets as she beheld the rune script. It was like looking a gibberish or Chinese, a whole bunch of line characters that meant nothing to her. The auburn haired earthling wanted to slap her herself across the face. Her old roommate in college hand been a linguistics major...she remembered her roommate studying ancient dialects one of them had been old Norse. Her roommate had tried to ask her to take a class with her. Why? Why? Why hadn't she. She had said that she couldn't imagine a time in her life when she would need to know Old Nose. She could slap herself in the face for it now. Now when it mattered most she had noting to offer Lady Dagmar. She couldn't healer her, she couldn't comfort her and she couldn't even answer a dying woman's request.
Jane could feel Dagmar's hopeful silver eyes looking up at her. Jane shut her eyes, she couldn't look the ebony haired healer in the eye and confess to her the dreadful truth. Jane mashed her lips together and inhaled through her nostrils. "I can't read this," she announced and broke into sobs. "Just hold on. Just hold on," she pleaded fervently. "THOR!" Jane hollered as if her own was in jeopardy. "THOR PLEASE!" she screamed from her seat holding Lady Dagmar's limp body.
Dagmar's sparkling silver orbs slowly dimmed and her weak milky white eyelids lacked the strength to stay open any longer. "G-g-givitoS-sigyn," she murmured sluggishly, her pale fingers tapping gently on Jane's hand that was clutching the bloody scroll. Lady Dagmar bobbed her head, "Tell...her...to...give...it...to...Loki," she instructed each word a struggle to utter. Jane merely nodded to give an affirmative response as she squeezed tighter to Dagmar's frame. Dagmar gulped, Jane watched the thick lump roll laboriously down her throat. Her mouth opened as she panted. T-T_Tell-L-l-lo-k-ki...I-I -lovvv," Dagmar began her voice growing. Her graying eyelids fluttered and her eyes rolled so deep into the back of her head that only the whites of them was revealed
"Dagmar! Dagmar No!" Jane protested her hands frantically fumbling feeling around Dagmar's body pressing her hand into Dagmar's side once more trying to stem the blood flow. She kneaded her flesh for the pulse. "NO!" she broke. "Please! Please," she patted Dagmar's pale cheeks. All the color was completely drained from her cheeks. "Y-y-you must hear about your child," she entreated the midnight locked healer. Jane's hands slowly caressed Dagmar's slackened face. Jane's face crumbled as she watched Dagmar's eyes fall shut one last time
"I Have the crystal! I have the crystal!" he declared triumphantly. He came running toward the two women with the large blue and purple gem held securely in his strong bronzed palms. Jane looked up at him, hear tear-stained face said it all. The blonde prince's smile immediately turned to a stricken visage as he slid to his knees by Lady Dagmar's side. "Dagmar! DAGMAR!" The crown prince screamed. He pressed the crystal toward Dagmar's bleeding side. He and Jane Foster watched with bated breath as the crystal glowed with an ethereal blue light. The wound began to glow as well. Thor held Lady Dagmar's body securely in his arms as her body trembled under the power of the crystal. Jane bowed her head praying silently for the woman who in these few weeks she'd come to love and trust like a sister. She was finding that the Asgardian's were not gods, but there was a God and only he could save Lady Dagmar now. The deadly wound slowly started to close. The blood erased and the flesh being drawn back together.
The city was in an uproar. Shock, fear, panic and uncertainty ran rampantly through the streets like a flame through a forest. When the smoke cleared from the battle a great moan rose up from the city streets. Age old temples and towers were left decimated. Golden bricks had dissentegrated into gold dust. Fire broke out throughout the Imperial City destroying homes and courtyards, businesses and museums. Blood rand down the street like water running through a stream. It was ghastly. The city smelled like a war-zone, all ash and rust, all dirt and smoke, all blood and bile. Never had an attack left Asgard so defenseless, so broken and crushed.
The death toll was staggering. Children who had that day been coming home from their schooling watched in horror as the sacred structures they once knew as pillars of safety in their majestic world came crumbling down before their eyes. Some had crumbled upon their tiny bodies. Simple peddlers who had pushed their wares into the market-place square had been shot down by red blaster bullets. The young and the old, women and men were sprayed down by a rain of terror, their bodies left in the alleyways. Women were without their husbands, mothers stripped of their sons and daughters, husbands left without wives, children made into orphans. And the sacred walls of the glistening, gilded Imperial Palace were no exception.
The palace had lost its luster. It went from being a shining beacon of hope for all the realms to see into looking like a mountain of jagged and torn and dented. It was covered with soot and peppered with holes from the onslaught of the blaster bullets. Some of the balconies had been split, the towers blown to smithereens. Just as bodies lined the streets, inside the palace even more were found dead. The greatest warriors in all the nine-realms had been defeated by this long forgotten enemy. So many dead. Good decent soldiers, some just rookies, some experienced general, some innocent maidens. And the battle had left Asgard without a king.
The people of Asgard clamored at the gates of palace, weeping and sobbing dressed in black morning clothes, crying out for their king to avenge them. Prince Thor looked over the balcony, he looked over at the sea of people lined up at the palace gates begging for him to do something. Begging for him to save them. He knew not how to do so. He couldn't look at them. They were his people. His sheep. He was to be their leader their shepherd, but he was a poor shepherd at best. How could he assume the title of king, how could he take on the name all-father. He was a poor shepherd and not a father at all. He had allowed his flock to be stripped and ransacked by vicious wolves. He hadn't protected the children of Asgard as was his sword duty as the leader of the Einherjar and as a king. Thor's hands gripped tightly on the railing over his balcony he shut his eyes. He had to go to meeting with the delegates from Asgard's high council as well as overlook the preparations for the mass funeral ceremony that all the Imperial City would attend to mourn their loved ones.
"We have had to shut down the Bifrost, my lord" explained Frandal solemnly as he brought forth a projection. "And we have failed to reestablish power to our shields. My king, we're are all but defenseless," he reasoned. Thor frowned as he took in his friends words. Frandal was an expert swordsman and one of the most well-known in all of Asgard, but he was also an astute student of strategic defense. It had been his concentration during his years at the military academy.
'This is a catastrophe!" Delegates began to rail.
"A calamity!"
"There hasn't been an attack on Asgard since before even my time!" pointed out one of Asgard most elderly members of the high-council.
"How could this have happened?" demanded Lord Algrim. All of the faces of the elders and council members looked worn, horrified and despite their austere exteriors he could see the fear there. He could no longer hide the truth. Not from the council, they had a right to know. They had a right to know why their sons and daughters were dead. So Thor told them. He told them of Lady Jane and the Aether. It was a hard confession and it did not go over well with the council. They were outraged.. They broke out in outbursts and fits, hollering and shouting, starting to smash things like tantrum throwing children.
"Please delegates! Delegates! Order! ORDER!" Lord Algrim called to the council members as they raged.
"How could this have come to pass?' a panicking elder of one of the clans of the south continued to demand. She looked toward prince Thor. Her wiry white brows knit together with an intensity that would not yield without an answer.
"The Dark-Elves were supposed to be extinct?' shouted out an Einherjar Lieutenant.
More frantic questions were called out among the crowd of officials. Thor could take it no more. No answers, would lead them no where. It would only incite terror and speculation among the populace. The burly ruler of Asgard shook his head and finally stood to his feet. "The Dark-Elves were never extinct," He finally answered.
The heads of the squabbling delegates turned to face their masculine and muscular leader. "What are you saying, my liege," Lord Algrim spoke up. His voice was apologetic for even raising such a question against the young heir to the throne, but what Thor was saying contradicted all reason. "Your own grandfather, The Great Bor All-father defeated the Dark-Elves and destroyed their dark crystal," the Elfin Minister explained. The Elves knew well the history of the war raged by Asgard against the Dark-Elves. When the Dark-Elves started with their plot to cast the realms into utter darkness they started with Alfheim. If it wasn't for Bor and the Forces of Asgard all the Elfin kingdoms would have been lost. It was for this reason that the Light Elves had been ever faithful allies to the Aesir.
Thor shook his head. "Bor defeated the Dark-Elves but he did not destroy the Aether," Thor confessed. A hushed gasp came over the crowd of leaders. The golden prince tried to maintain a firm stance as his bright blue eyes surveyed the chamber full of elders. They looked stricken and shaken by this revelation. "It could not be destroyed," he went on to explain. "It is a power crystal and thereby impossible to destroy."
"Nothing is impossible to destroy!" a warrior shouted out raising his sword to the ceiling and growling.
The wielder of Mjolnir raised a sturdy and steadying palm silencing the enraged soldier. "They way to destroy such a power source was unknown to King Bor. He did the best that he could and decided to bury the crystal. He buried it after Convergence had past and because of this the Aether remained dormant for 2000 years waiting for Convergence to awaken it once more. Convergence is a mere week away... the Aether awakened and it awakened a small group of Dark-Elves who survived.
"Why would King Bor bury the Aether on Asgard, knowing that when it awakened the Dark-Elves would seek it out.
"He didn't bury it on Asgard," Thor informed them. "He buried it on Midgard."
"That woman is a curse upon us!" the very elder lord cried his voice cracking as he raised a bony wrinkled fist in the air. "She has come here to destroy us!" he continued to rant and the Aesir nobles rallied behind him.
"NO!" The thunderer protested rising to his feet as soon as he heard a cross word toward Jane. "I brought her here," the golden warrior declared. "She is an innocent victim!" Thor protested in defense of the lovely auburn scientist.
"No!" a slender man dressed in regal purple garbs stood to his feet. His gray beard was a bit unkempt and his eyes were sunken and bloodshot, shining with tears. "My daughter, Dagmar was an innocent victim!" Lord Audric yelled back at the prince. "Now she is gone!" he railed/
"Prime Minister," Algrim spoke up, the Light-Elf's tone was refined but no less stern. "We most assuredly share you pain... but you will not speak that way to..."
"I will speak as I please, Lord Algrim!" the Vanir delegate barked. His eyes old eyes flaring with a fury that was nearly volcanic. "I will speak as I please!" he declared his voice cracking but his eyes never faltered from staring down the crown prince of the realm "I have lost my sweet child." his voice shuddered. "Now you say it is over this mortal...this mortal woman," he spat. "I demand that this Midgardian woman be removed and be given over to the Dark Elves!" Lord Audric persisted.
"Lord Audric, no one could mourn for Dagmar more than..."
"I!" the slender Vanir noble man interjected bold as he pounded his palm on his chest. "No one could mourn Dagmar more than I!" he reminded the strapping blonde prince. The look of pure agony in his eyes pinned the prince to silence. "I am her father! She was my only child! My very line dies with Dagmar..." he expressed. "My child... my poor sweet child," Lord Audric whispered before dropping to his knees and covering his face as he sobbed for his beloved daughter in front of all the men and women of the high council. A few rushed to console the distraught Prime Minister. They patted him on the back and tried to hoist him to his feet. He thanked those of his friends who assisted him as he rose to a standing position. "I demand that... that mortal woman be given over to the Dark-Elves," he shouted before the assembly and pointed accusingly in Prince Thor's face.
"NO!" Prince Thor stated flatly he raised his hammer as if to threaten the Vanir Prime Minister, an old family friend.
The elderly Vanaheim nobleman merely smirked seemingly unruffled by the prince's might declaration. He brought his wrinkled dark blue eyes to stare back defiantly at the golden locked man who sat upon the throne."If you will not grant me recompense by avenging my beloved daughter's very life," The Prime Minister began his shoulders starting to heave as his breathing grew ragged. "Then Asgard and Vanir will end their alliance this day and you will stand against the Dark-Elves alone," Lord Audric threatened with a stiff-upper lip snarl before his turned on his heals and marched out of the throne room.
"Lord Audric come back!" the pointy-eared minister of court called out his bony hand stretched out toward the nobleman who was swiftly leaving. The Prime Minister didn't heed the words of the court official as he stormed out of the chamber. "Prime Minister! Please let us reason!" Algrim the scrawny Light-Elf who had lived in Asgard all of his life beckoned behind the slamming gold an onyx doors of the throne room. The doors closed with a loud and echoing thud that rang throughout the throne room. No one was allowed to storm out of the All-father court when it was in session. The delegates had to wait to be dismissed. To turn one's back on the king was an offense punishable by banishment from court.
Murmurs broke out among the already anxious and on-edge courtiers and nobles who were assembled in the throne room. Their voice rose to startling volumes as they panicked hearing Lord Audric's threat. To lose the support of the Vanir would be disastrous! In this time of crises the Asgardians could not afford to be without allies. Who knew when the Dark-Elves would return? Who knew what type of violence anarchy and chaos they intended to spread to the realms if they were not stopped? The high-ranking members of the council were extremely worried it had been proven by the massacre from the attack just days ago that the Aesir forces, the strongest forces throughout the nine realms were not enough to handle the threat of the Dark-Elves. Convergence was nearly upon them. When Convergence occurred, if Malekith and his band of black-eyed monsters got a hold of the Aether than they would be unstoppable.
Only a few hours later that evening, Prince Thor met with an old friends. It was a secret meeting away from the palace and the ears of the courtiers and delegates of Asgards high council. It was a secret meeting though far from a private one. They met at a local rustic tavern, that was very crowded. The people were too lost in their grief and too down in their cups to notice a few distinguished figures slip in and take seats in the back. "You summoned me, my lord," A husky baritone voice uttered as it approached on heavy footsteps. Thor looked up from the wooden table where he'd sat playing with a tankard of strong ale. He'd only take a few sips of the alcohol his spirits were in no mood for strong drink. He looked up to see bright gold eyes staring back from a chocolate hued face. The golden-haired king in proxy offered a faint smile and extended his hand toward his old friend gesturing for him to sit. Immediately, Heimdal sat down.
"I'm glad you were able to come," Thor said as he pushed back a dark blue hooded cape from shrouding his golden features.
"I am unoccupied, my prince," Heimdal admitted. "The Bifrost has been shut down, what good am I, then," the massive dark-skinned gatekeeper shrugged.
"You have done great service for Asgard in the past," Thor confirmed. He'd never heard the gatekeeper so disheartened. Heimdal was always resolute and unyeilding. He was a mentor to Prince Thor. Thor remembered as a boy how Heimdal had been one of he and Loki's tutors teaching them much of the cosmos. Even after he'd out grown Heimdal's tutelage he'd often still sought the Bifrost Guardian's advice and counsel. He appreciated Heimdal. Heimdal saw much. He saw much of mischief that he and Loki caused as boys and even into their adulthood and he rarely told the all-father of their antics. He trusted Heimdal.
"Much good the past does us now," Heimdal confessed grimly. "My years of good service have not atoned for my failures now. I let those monsters into the city. I let them slip right through my fingers,' Heimdal explained sternly to the son of his beloved king. A king he had let down. Heimdal could not hold the prince's gaze for long, what if Thor had been injured to because of his incompetence, then Asgard would be without a leader. "Perhaps I have served my years as Asgard's gatekeeper," he sighed his chest sagging as he did so. Heimdal gave a snort of a smirk, "Perhaps," the deep voice warrior confessed. "Loki was right..." he mused as a cool glass of ale was poured from a pitcher carried by a particularly unenthusiastic barmaid for the giant man. "Perhaps my senses have weekend after my many years of service," He confessed with a grimace on his think brown lips. He looked down at his drink with disgust, before he shrugged and downed the cup. The alcohol burned going down. It had been quite sometime since the guardian of Asgard partook in strong liquor. "It could be time that I retire, my prince," Heimdal went on. His deep amber eyes shining. "I have a few young seers I have observed and trained for quite sometime who would be excellent for my position," Heimdal said as he swallowed hard once more trying to rid his throat from the burning sensation of the ale. He reached down by his side and picked up his heavy gilded helmet and placed it upon the wooden table with a thud.
The blue-eyed prince looked down with horror at the helmet upon the table when it should have been upon Heimdal's head. He'd not accept such a resignation. Thor immediately pushed the helmet back at the guardian. "You are not going anywhere, Heimdal!" Thor declared. "It was not your fault, old friend," Thor admonished as he reached out his hand to touch Heimdal's. "Their ships were invisible. You cannot be expected to see that which is unseen," Thor explained. "I was pursuing them and I watched them vanish before my eyes...I am just as much to blame for what has happened as you," Thor confessed to his old mentor. "I am more to blame for what has happened. Father warned me...warned me that Jane could not stay that it would bring calamity, I did not listen...now Jane is locked away and the delegates are clamoring for vengeance," Thor went on his voice was worried at his brilliant blue orbs.
"All of Asgards wants vengeance upon those dark creatures," Heimdal's voice grew darker and his gold irises flashed as he looked the next in line square in the jaw.
"And vengeance shall be ours," Thor responded intently. "But not in the way the delegates want," Thor added.
Heimdal thick dark eyebrow's quirked at the prince's word. He knew all that the delegates had in mind. They were ready to launch a full-out war against the Dark-Elves. And why shouldn't they the Dark-Elves had declared war against Asgard. They could take them. Though the white-faced monsters had caught them by surprise it seemed plausible that they could take them. If they called on all of Asgard's troops all of their young men and women who had all trained in forms of war in their youth. They could defeat this enemy. If they utilized their allies, there would be no way that this small faction of Elves could plunder them. "What do you have in mind?" he asked and leaned on his elbow to listen to young Thor.
"The delegates want to surrender Jane to appease Lord Audric," Thor whispered leaning over.
"We cannot lose the support of the Vanir," Heimdal warned.
"But we cannot surrender Jane!" Thor declared pounding his fist. Heimdal kept a steely gaze on the young ruler "It is not for the reasons which you thing," He immediately responded. "You know as well as I that if the Dark-Elves take the Aether there will be nothing to stop them," Heimdal snorted his agreement with the fair-haired son of Odin. "But I do not want us to wait it out and lure the Elves back here," Thor rationalized. "Even if we call in 10,000 reserves we will still be putting our people at risk. I want as little Asgardian blood shed as possible. Too many innocent men and women have given their lives. No more!" the golden locked son of Odin declared.
"I agree, there should be no further fighting on Asgardian soil. The results could be catastrophic. Even if we were to defeat the Dark-Elves the battle would be far too blood to consider a victory," the ebony hued man confirmed. "But you have yet to tell me what you have in mind, my prince," he urged.
'I will take Jane to the Dark-World. I will allow the Dark-Elves to draw the Aether out of her there, away from out people. Once the Aether is exposed I will destroy it," Thor explained his voice still hushed he was practically leaning over into Heimdal's ear.
"And how do you intend to accomplish this?" Heimdal questioned. "The Bifrost is closed and greatly damaged. It would be unwise to open the Bifrost. Even if It could muster the energy to transport you to the Dark-World, there is no guarantee that I would be able to bring you back," Heimdal expressed cautiously. The prince's face grew grim, but Heimdal did not relent. "It would also create panic in the people if they thought that the Bifrost was being reopened. The closed Bifrost is a security measure for the citizens of Asgard. Even leaving the Bifrost open for a few hours put Asgard in a vulnerable state."
"I understand," the wielder of Mjolnir protested putting his hand up and silencing the gatekeeper. "It is important for our people to feel safe and secure and for them to know that the delegates and myself our on the same page. I do not wish for this to be a public matter, I will not outright challenge the high-council on their wishes...I seek to do this secretively," Thor blue eye gave a wink.
"Secretly?"
"There are hidden pathways between the worlds," Thor expressed.
"Known only to a few," Heimdal pointed out. 'Perhaps one of the mages could transport you and Lady Jane, but you will need more than just yourself to vanquish this foe," Heimdal cautioned
"I don't intend to go alone. I want to go with a small war party, 50-100 men, no more," Thor expressed.
The prince's plan tumbled through Heimdal's mind. He racked his brain thinking. "Prince Thor, there are only a handful of mages who know of the secret pathways between the worlds, even few who could transport a battalion to the Dark-World," he continued as he shook his head.
"Only one," Thor qualified with a glint in his eye.
"Well...well Thor, how kind of you to drop by," the Frost Giant with in the chamber uttered. He didn't miss a beat in tossing his wooden ornament up in the air and catching it. "Have you come to check on me to see if I survived the prison riots?" Loki inquired as he still kept his lounging position on his cot. His wrist flicking with ever catch and toss. "You took your time," he added his tone a dig, Loki's lips curled with mockery. " Hmm," the ebony coiffed Jotun hummed. "Better late than never I suppose," he chuckled mirthlessly.
"Enough!" Thor commanded raising his mighty hand to silence the chatty inmate. "I did not come here for this!" He stated staunchly as he started to walked back and forth along the line of Loki's lonely cell.
Loki gave a loud crisp click of his tongue. His rhythm with throwing and catching his carved knickknack never-ceasing. It was becoming quite tedious. "No?" the emerald eyed enchanter inquired as he arched his snakelike brows. "Your concern over me, Thor is truly near the point of doting, you need to stop," Loki flagged sarcastically.
"I come not here to jest with you, nor do I come to play your games," the blue-eyed Crown Prince of Asgard warned he raised a strong finger in the air.
"Then why are you here," Loki remarked back.
"I came to inform you," Thor stated. His broad shoulders finally falling and he blew out of gusty breath that sounded like a balloon deflating.
"How kind of you," His tone feigned excitement.
"I tire of your mockery," Thor growled testily. "This is serious, can't you see that," Thor ranted his muscles in his shoulders back and forearms tensing as he tried to keep his temper.
"I see nothing, remember!" Loki's silver-tongue lashed out. His words were harsh and he head Thor suck in a breath and take a few steps back as if his words were a dagger which hand pricked his flesh. It delighted Loki to do so."state your purpose and be gone," Loki retorted in a sharp tone and he finally stopped tossing his wooden figurine only so his blue finger tips could shoo the blonde.
"I CAME!" The first son of Odin erupted furiously. He noticed the way Loki's stance shifted with pleasure at the rise he was getting out of him. Loki was infuriating. He was insufferable. The sapphire eyed prince sunk his porcelain teeth into fleshy pink lips. He took a relaxing breath and calmed his voice although his bronzed fingers strayed to grasping at the handle of Mjolnir, he was tempted to hurl the magnificent hammer at the golden shield of Loki's crystal prison. "I came," he exhaled all the anger and anxiety as he continued to try to talk to the powerful enchanter in the cell. "I came to tell you what has occurred," Thor's deep voice became a whisper.
"Even in my sightless state Thor I can gather that there has been a riot. I was in the dungeons when the outbreak happened," the prisoner retorted.
"You pompous, arrogant fool!" Thor spat enraged.
"Pompous?" Loki arched an elegant black brow over blazing, fiery pupils, "my, my, brother what big words you have," Loki remarked.
The elder prince growled."Asgard is in trouble," Thor explained the words tumbling from his lips with an urgent sort of panic and vulnerability. He was surprised how easy it was to naturally slip back there. In front of the court her had to be strong and resolute not allowing the counsel to sway him in his decisions. He trusted his friends whole heartedly, but still even for them he had to put on a brave front. He was their friend, but he was also their prince and acting king, he had to be their fearless leader. Jane was so scared and frightened he could not even show a the slightest traces of doubt or unease. but with Loki somehow he'd always been able to express his insecurities in his direction. He was desperate for an outlet now. Thor's eyes were wide cerulean pools of emotions. And although the blonde-haired prince was unaware, Loki's bright red eyes could see them all. Thor's large, muscular shoulders fell into a dreadful slump as he rattled off the details and started to pace about. "It wasn't just a prison riot," the son of Odin continued he marched back and forth, his footfalls heavy enough to wear a hole into the cobblestone cellar floors."That beast that freed all those scoundrels from their cells was merely a decoy to distract us from a much bigger invasion," The prince elaborated. "The Dark-Elves attacked! They came out of no where!" Thor expressed. His shoulders starting to heave, his breathing getting heavier and his pace across the slick stones becoming more furious. "They attacked the city, their ships were too fast, their guns were too powerful, they over ran the palace," Thor continued to rant as he gestured wildly with his strong mallet wielding hands. "The streets are marred with blood," Thor ground out. His face twisted in pain with the confession. Never had this type of destruction befallen the Aesir not in 5000 years had their been such bloody battles on Asgardian soil. "A great cry goes up throughout the city," Thor lamented the great golden prince shuddered and his breath hitched the echoes of the men and women mourning right outside the palace's broken gates was a heavy weight on his shoulders.
Thin, inky eyebrows arched, Loki's already creased brow furrowed as he mulled over Thor's words while lying on his cot. "Really?' Loki inquired his cool tone hiding the smirk on his thin blue lips. He hadn't known what exactly the creature, Kursed had been planning. The monster had not seen fit to share the details and he'd not been interested enough to ask. It didn't matter, no matter what he was ready and willing, to be an accomplice to the dark creatures plans and purpose. The Kursed was a mean to an ends, he was key to his freedom and his entrance into Asgard would mark the beginning of Ragnarok. The Other had said he would know the sign when he saw it and that he should seize the opportunity for then Asgard would be his. Loki rolled his tongue over his icicle lips, the thoughts of power were so delicious, savory he was so close now. He could almost taste it. Still he hadn't exactly expected for the Kursed to be leading an armada in the ransack the city. He merely thought that the creature would start a prison riot and maybe pillage and plunder the palace, perhaps the beast would take a few lives, but...
Loki gulped. His throat felt thick, as he pictured all the Asgardians dressed in sackcloth and ashes to symbolize a time of mourning. He could hear the mournful ballads that he'd learned as a child ringing through his ears. It made his heart twist. Was this what he had wanted? For the Imperial City to be nearly decimated? 'No,' a small voice whispered in the back of his mind. The tiny flickering of his conscience startled him. He sucked in a sharp breath and listened intently waiting for that tiny ember within his soul to rekindle.
Thor paused nervously. He thought of the warnings of his friends. All saying that going to Loki was a mistake. He could hear Frandal's cautious tone warning him that Loki would betray him. Of course it was a risk, but it was a risk that had to be taken...For Asgard. "Brother, I.. I..I need your help," the hulking blonde prince confessed quietly.
The raven-locked, frozen skinned prisoner scoffed. He shook his head his unkempt ebony mane spread across the pillow he rested on as he did so. A sickening straight smile spread over Loki's stark teeth, "You must be truly desperate to come to me for help," Loki chuckled still shaking his head.
Thor nodded earnestly in agreement, he tentatively stepped closer to Loki's cell. He was only arms length from reaching out toward the shield of the cell and touching it. "Yes, yes Loki I am," Thor explained frantically. His tongue was heavy and laden. His sapphire, baby blue eyeballs trailing down to look at the slime slick floor shamefacedly. "I should have listened to you... to you and to father," Thor confessed. "Father told me it was dangerous to keep the Aether here, so close to Convergence," Thor muttered more to himself than the fiend trapped behind gold bars. "Now, Father...Father...father" Thor stammered with hesitancy. "Father has fallen into the Oversleep," Thor announced as he straightened himself up. He could change his physical posture easily enough, but that didn't change the lost look in his eyes. Thor's lips twisted feeling hurt and rejected when he needed the most support. His bright blue eyes dropped down like a wounded dog. "Father has fallen into the Odinsleep," Thor breathed his voice small and still. He was hopeful the confession of their father's fragile state would rally something deep within his brother.
The words were familiar to Loki. In a different time, in a different place Loki had once revealed the same information to Thor, the difference was that Thor became devastated . The Frost Giant faced trickster's dead looking eyes went wide. Odin had a most convenient time of choosing to allow his stress to push him to breaking point. Still Loki couldn't act completely unphased by Odin's sudden Oversleep. It hadn't even been 5 years. The all-father was indeed growing weary. "How typical," the son of Laufey remarked staunchly.
"W-what?' Thor stammered with disbelief as he brought shimmering azure eyes to gaze at the blue skinned prisoner.
"He always has a tendency to fall asleep at the most," Loki paused his articulate tongue giving punch to the "T" at the end of the word as he paused for dramatic effect and started to saunter along the edges of the his cell his ice blue finger tips feeling along the edges of the cell to keep up his blind ruse. "Inconvenient...of times," Loki explained cruelly having the nerve to actually part his icy lips and crack a smile.
"You make light of what has happened! Our father could die!" Thor yelled.
"Odin has never been my father," Loki remarked the slick grin on his face never faltering.
Thor face contorted his brilliant blue eyes growing wide and welling with tears. "And who is your father then?" The blonde-haired son of Odin screamed. "Laufey?" he accused. "That monster who left you on a frozen rock to die as a child?" he questioned ruthlessly. "Answer me!" Thor continued. "You never keep silent any other time! Father raised you and loved you! He couldn't even give the words of last rite at your funeral service for he was overcome with grief," Thor tried to explain. Loki's blue face remained unflinching. "Does that mean nothing to you?" Thor questioned harshly as he gazed on Loki's cold stoic expression that was intensified by the frosty tint of the Jotun flesh that Loki wore.
"No," Loki confessed with a pop of his split ice lips. Thor let out a thunderous roar as he hurled Mjolnir at the glittering shield of Loki's cage. The hammer hit against the glowing gold force-field with velocity the hard smacking sound echoed through the empty dungeon, but still it didn't break the barrier of Loki's enchanted seal. Thor was panting and feral, enraged to the highest degree. Loki's frightful bloody eyes grew wide with a devilish glee. "oh goody," Loki chanted his voice a mock of childish giddy as he patted chipped ice hands together, 'Hit it again brother! Hit it again," he cheered. "Set me free," he taunted!
, "Asgard is still your home!" Thor countered back his voice no longer a tempest but a gentle wind rustling in Loki's ear. "This is still the place where you grew up, where we were raised, where you've spent all your life. I know that does not mean nothing to you," he insisted.
For the first time since their conversation had begun Loki sat upright on his bed. Revealing his Frost Giant form fully to Asgard's beautiful, golden prince. His skin tattooed and carved and hideous. His face was snarled and set viciously making the already harsh Frost Giant features look positive frightening. His fingers set like talons as if he was ready to jump through his gilded cage and pounce on top of the burly, bulky blonde and rip him from limb to limb. It was enough to make Thor recoil. Loki's nasty snarl changed instantly into a wicked gri n. As he perceived Thor's shock at his visage. Thor had seen him in the Jotun form several times and yet still he staggered backward at the sight of him. It was delicious. How Loki relished it. He repulsed Thor. Good. Soon Thor would fear him.
Thor wasn't truly repulsed by Loki's Frost Giant features though, no underneath the blue skin was still his brother's face, but what repulsed him was that he had done that to him. He'd made his brother to look like what the Asgardians would consider a monster and he made it so that his brother could never live a normal like in Asgard. H He'd caused his brother to go blind. He blamed himself for this. "I am not of Asgard," he declared as cobalt hands gestured at his outward appearance. "Do I look like an Aesir?" He demanded harshly pointing to his face that showed his origins were that of Jotunheim. "Do I look like an Odinson?" he huffed out through slim nostrils..
Prince Thor shook his head and closed his eyes. "Our people..." Thor started to protest his voice growing louder with each syllable.
"Your people!" Loki qualified with his voice unnervingly even keel.
"Innocent men women and children have suffered Loki. People who have done nothing to yo," Thor tried to explain.
'Everyone here has done something to me!" Loki roared. "Everyone in Asgard has been apart of the elaborate illusion that was my life!" the fallen prince spat.
"Loki, please," Thor begged dropping his head, strand of gold falling in his face. He blew an exasperated breath and swiped the stray gold locks away from his eyes. Loki recognized the look reflecting in Thor's sea blue pupils. It was the same look that Thor used to use when they were boys. When Thor was asking Loki to do something that he knew Loki wouldn't agree to. His eyes would get larger and wide, sad, he'd bite down on his lip and look back up at him with trembling puppy-dog eyes. Loki had to concentrate on not rolling his eyes to keep from giving in to the familiar look. "Do not allow the realms to suffer because of the anger that bear toward me and Father," Thor insisted. "Please," his eyes still begging like a dog asking for a bone. "Please," Thor ground out once more his head twisting as he bit deeper into his fleshy bottom lip. "Everything will be lost if we do not act soon," Thor pleaded. "The Dark-Elves will return for the Aether, they will not rest until they have it. They will destroy us all. If we act now together we can spare the realms from this unleashing of evil,"
"It is of no consequence to me," Loki responded callously. "Whether Asgard be burned to the ground in a night or flourish for another 1000 years, I will rot in this prison either way," he shrugged.
"You will rot in this cell!" the wielder of Mjolnir declared, he bared his teeth like a rabid dog. "But it is only by your own doing!" Thor boomed once more. "You'll rot in this cell because that is the fate you have chosen for yourself!" he yelled even more belligerently. "I came down here to offer you a chance! A chance to regain your honor...a...chance... a chance to prove to Asgard... Prove to the realms..." Thor rambled on furiously shaking his massive hands. "Prove to me," he whispered his bright sapphire eyes shifting only for a moment. "I wanted to offer you redemption," Thor confessed. The words came out thick and confused.
"Who said I wanted your redemption." Loki snapped his cold blue nose held high in the air and his bony shoulders straightening in a taut thin line.
"Who says you are even worth redeeming!" Thor shouted back as he raised his mighty mallet threateningly.
"You are the one who keeps coming down here trying to grant me redemption," the silver-tongues Jotun retorted.
"Every time I have come to see you I have come with a hope that my brother was still in there somewhere," Thor shook his head he started to laugh only to keep from crying. "But you have finally extinguished that hope," He sighed. "I...I...I see now...what other's have seen all along about you," he confessed. "I need my brother, but I see that he no longer exist," Thor shook his head with bitterness. He looked one last time up at Loki. Loki was gaunt, his skin was cold, hard and indigo in color. The markings of Frost Giant royalty crisscrossed his frozen flesh. His eyes were blaring, brilliant red and they saw nothing. On the outside he didn't look like the Loki Thor knew from so many centuries. On the side he was a complete stranger. Thor nodded convincing himself of the obvious truth. He nodded and turning on his heels, his dark crimson cape swinging as he started toleave. Thor was a few feet down the hall, he was several steps past Loki's cell. He kept his back turned to the man he had once called his brother. "I thought you would want to know..." Thor uttered slowly. He brought his solid hand to touch at the slate walls of the prison. Thor swallowed the thick heavy lump in his throat, "...Lady Dagmar died in the attack you care nothing about," Thor stated. "Her funeral along with the funeral of 2000 other Asgardians is due to be held tomorrow at dusk," Thor reported succinctly.
"W-what?" Loki let out a breathy stammer. His voice was light and faint and trapped in his throat, the sound almost indistinguishable. "Wha-wh-what?' he panted once more as he shut his eyes for a moment. When he opened his eyes, he saw no traces of his brother. Thor was gone. Loki's head swung rapidly as he looked from left to right trying to find traces of the blonde to clarify the words he had just spoken. But there was no sign of the crown prince. Loki swallowed, slowly calmly as his eyes took in nothing but the empty cells around him. His tongue darted out to lick his chapped lips, suddenly his mouth felt incredibly dry. His hands still holding the mirage of Frost Giant skin smoothed over his thin green garments as he paced on nearly silent feet toward the edge of his cell. Despite his cold exterior Loki felt hot, over heated to hot like he would explode. His heart pounded frantically with panic in his chest. His quickening pulse resounded in his ears. The sound of the rapid beating battered his ear drums. He turned to face the clean white-washed wall of his cell. He brought his fingers to run through his raven locks he allowed the palm of his hand to linger on his forehead as he tried to control his emotions. He felt feverish, faint. One silent tear slipped from his vermillion eyes. The warm salt tear washed away the frozen flesh front that he kept on for Thor and allowing his warm, porcelain skin to be revealed along with his gorgeous emerald eyes that pooled with crystal waters. He gasped a swayed before his knees gave out and landed him on the ground. With that he burst with a blast of energy that rippled in his containment chamber and an ear-splitting scream that no one heard.
Loki woke up from a fog. His emerald eyes batting rapidly trying to reorient himself with his surroundings. His small prison was ransacked. It looked like a war zone. His bed had been over turned and so had his chair. His wash basin fallen to the floor and the water sloshing on the floor, The golden-goose feathers in his silk pillow were flying wildly across the chamber. His books ripped into pieces. The floor of his cell full of crumpled pieces of parchment in tiny particles. Smear marks of ash and soot lined the white walls. Beastly claw marks stretched across the wall like some wild animal had been let loose in the prison. The furniture was all broken. There were thick dots of red plotted on the floor in random order. Loki found strand of long dark hair scattered in clumps along the ground.
Loki's breathing was ragged, his body was in a cold and clammy sweat. His head was reeling, throbbing, pounding. He started to push himself up off the ground, but his knees felt to weak. He crawled toward the wall on his hands and knees. He leaned heavily against it his porcelain hands started raking dangerously through his tangled ebony mane. What had just happened? Everything was such a swirling whirlwind in his head. The only prisoner in the dungeons closed his eyes to keep the room from spinning and trying to think about what happened. The images came back like a flood. Thor arriving, talking of Asgard, death, attacks, Aether, Odin, help, Dark Elves, Dagmar...Dagmar...Dagmar's death. Dagmar killed... murdered by the creature... that Beast...that Kursed! The animal that he helped. He told that monster which way to go to avoid the guards. Thereby leading him to Dagmar quicker. It was his fault. He hadn't thought everything through. He'd been so eager to enact revenge upon Thor and Odin so quick to give them a taste of the Ragnarök they thought he was prophesied to bring upon them...he was desperate to fulfill his agreement with The Other and Thanos that he hadn't considered any other possible outcomes.
He'd killed her. He'd. Killed. Her. Loki dug his long nails into his scalp, it was painful and he liked it. He deserved it. He wanted the pain, begged for it. Pleaded for it. He could feel his nails digging deep into the skin of his scalp and finally puncturing it. He could feel his blood oozing from the inside of his head and running to meet his finger tips. Such a feeling was relief after experiencing his heart feeling like it would burst. He started to feel dizzy, maybe it was from the pain, still Loki shook himself, he couldn't fall asleep, he didn't want to dream about it again. He didn't want to picture Dagmar's mangled body dead at that monster's feet.
He batted his jade eyes as other images filled his consciousness of how he had spent the past few hours...days...weeks even. He knew not how much time he'd spent writhing in anguish since Thor had so bluntly given him the news of his beloveds demise. He saw himself flinging his body against the wall. Throwing himself into the force-field that kept him at bay. The force-field kept shocking him and somehow he kept ramming himself back into it. He flung himself down at the floor screaming and hollering like a madman. He clawed at himself ripping his garments to shreds. "THOR YOU'RE LYING! YOU'RE LYING!" he cried from the floor of his cell. "SHE'S NOT... SHE'S NOT!" he screamed relentlessly in the air. "NO! NO! NO!" He barked. "DAGMAR! DAGMAR! I'M SORRY!" Loki sobbed like a child until he had no voice left.
Loki gasped as he pulled himself from the nightmarish memory. His vivid jade eyes darted around his cell as her heard swiftly approaching, soft footsteps. He started to panic. He didn't want anyone to see him like this. He was so completely exposed and vulnerable in his grief he didn't want the palace guards jeering at how pathetic he was. He didn't want the heckling of the courtiers saying how he was nothing more than a low life animal, a savage incapable of any true feelings. He scuttled patting his hands over himself in attempting to clean himself up, he waved his hands and used what little energy he had to try to push his furniture back in place, but the footsteps were drawing closer and he hadn't the time to tidy up and put on nonchalant airs now.
"Loki?" a hooded figure questioned as it walked quickly down the nasty halls of the dungeon. The hood of the cape the person was wearing swung slightly as they walked through the cell. Finally, after walking several feet in a darkened dungeon the visitor was able to spot one tiny lit cell in the back of the prison. The person was covered in the finest silk, the colors were dark and morbid, Mourning colors. The cape worn was coated with black ermine fur, the skirts beneath the cape rustled and shifted as the figure slowly, cautiously approached. The skirts were a deep, silver color. "Loki?" the voice whispered timidly once more. They kept their head bowed.
Loki recognized the voice. It startled him. It was the last voice he had expected to hear. In fact he'd thought he'd never hear that sweet voice again. He couldn't blame her. He'd acted so monstrously toward her. He'd rejected her love and sound words. He'd lashed out at her like a venomous viper. He was poison and she had every right to never look back in his horrid direction. It was easier that way. Better that way. But still it had hurt. She'd said she loved him so and all though he hadn't expected her to descend to the depths of the dungeon to see him after what he'd done, he'd surely been hopeful for it. He saw soft, long blonde tendrils fall from beneath her fur-trimmed, black hood. "Loki," He voice was timid, but oh so relieved as she looked up at the cell.
Loki stood close to the glowing golden force-field that held him at pay. He was standing up tall and in his full Frost Giant glory. His skin frigid and blue etched with spirals and rings and carvings of all kinds running through it. His tattered evergreen tunics tattered and torn and hanging from him. The nails on his hands sharp and gnarled and long and black. His eyes glowing fervent red like burning embers. "After all this time... now you come to visit me," Loki replied coldly as he glowered unforgivingly at his visitor.
Her hand's rose with gracefully to swipe the hood from obscuring her features. "Loki," she breathed his name as she gasped seeing his form.
"Why have you come?" the Jotun questioned harshly of the woman "Come to stare at the beast!" he challenged immediately without giving the blonde woman a chance to answer. He leaned over his sharp icicle nose nearly scraping against the shield as he glared down at her. "Does this look familiar?" the silver-tongued trickster taunted the sweet-faced woman. "Is this how you found me?" He continued to dig his glaring, hateful red eyes were unblinking as they stared down condemningly at her. "Do you wonder..." Loki continued his breath hitching with a type of fiendish glee. "How...how" he panted excitedly his slimy black tongue darting out to run over his cracked icy lips. "How you ever held such a despicable creature in your arms?" he pressed relentlessly.
The fair-haired queen closed her eyes for a moment, she turned away she could bear to look at him like this any longer. He stared at her back. A sick smile rolled over the Jotun's blue mouth. "Enough, Loki!" the queen declared though her back was turned she threw out her arms in a commanding and authoritative way. "Enough," she ordered once more as she turned to face him. Her face was firm, but tears shimmered in bright sapphire eyes. "Do you think this is the first time I have seen you like this?" she returned her son's incriminating tone. Loki smirked slightly as he slowly straightened. "It is not," she informed him taking triumphant steps closer to the shield. "There were many nights..." she started the Queen of Asgard's voice broke with frustration and pain. She averted her gaze. "Many nights," she expressed in a softer tone. "As a babe, as a child when you took this form when you sick...oh so very sick" she explained looking him square in his blood-red eyes. She looked around at the cell chamber. The room looked nearly immaculate. "Did I ever once recoil from you?" she asked sharply. She stomped her foot as she proceeded to come closer. "No. You were my son, my beautiful child, I stayed by your side day and night through any sickness that befell you." she informed him her noble chin quivering slightly as she tried to hold back her tears. "You want to know why I have come?" Frigga asked softly. Loki's smug grin fell from his face as he backed up by the sincerity of her words. It was disarming and it frightened him. "I came to see how you were faring," she stated with a tone Loki knew oh too well. It was a tone that could bring a cackling mischief-maker such as himself into a simpering shamefaced whelp. It was her tone of disappointment. "Enough of this, Loki," Frigga declared and waved her hand dismissively. "No more illusions."
With that the image of the Frost Giant dissipated into thin air. The clear and clean cell fell into a shambles of wreckage where all Loki's destruction lay out in front of her. Loki was sitting like no more than a shell of himself huddled in a corner, his clothes tattered and hanging by a thread on his skeletal frame, his hair was disheveled and his body was bloodied. Bloodshot green eyes stared back at her hopelessly, his pale face wet with tears. He looked so pitiful and helpless, it broke the queen's heart to see her son in such a state. She couldn't help but let out a squeal and she looked at his bloodied and bruised, thin, porcelain body. She shuddered and gasped and covered her pretty mouth with her bejeweled hand. The floodgates of her eyes could no longer hold back her tears and the liquid crystals over flowed as Frigga staggered forward, daring to touch the outside wall of the cell as she stumbled to her knees. Such was the love of a mother that she was easily overwhelmed by her son's grief. "Oh Loki," she sobbed for him.
Loki sighed as if all the life had been zapped from him, listless emerald eyes rolled to look in her direction. "Now you see me mother," he confessed. He allowed a pained sarcastic smirk to fall upon his dried thin lips. His voice was hoarse and harsh like gravel.
"Son," The fair-haired queen whispered softly as he hand pressed against the outside of the golden shield that kept her from wrapping her arms around the disheveled young man before her.
Loki shook his head and managed to let out a dry, callous, humorless chuckle. His scraggly midnight locks fell in his face as he shook his head with slow, drunken movements. He flipped his wet black hair back out of his face forcing his eyes to find Frigga once more. He looked at her with lost eyes. "Did she suffer?" he questioned jade pupils misty and lost.
Queen Frigga's lovely mouth drew into a deep frown. The loss of life in Asgard was still unbearable for her. So many of her people were gone. They had died senselessly. She took the loss of Lady Dagmar personally. The Vanir maiden had been like a daughter to her for many years. She'd watched her grow up, it was heartbreaking, but her heart was nearly obliterated as she gazed upon Loki who had nearly destroyed himself with grief. Frigga swallowed a painful lump in her throat. She shook her head sorrowfully. "I was not there," she confessed.
Loki bobbed his head in recognition and acceptance of her words. He allowed his head to slam back against the white stone of his cell wall. For a moment he sat there quivering lips tightly mashed together as he stared up at the ceiling. Finally, the young mage broke heaving sobs once more. Immediately, Loki found a pair of warm, tender hands reaching out for him. The soft fingers tightly wrapped around his shoulders and pulling him into the folds of an embrace. For a moment he tried to resist. He tried to fight against her grip, it wasn't rough or harsh or even necessarily forceful, but was strong and he was too weak not to yield to her power.
He fell into her arms bonelessly, allowing his body to sink into the comfort of her hugs. Her arms wrapped around him like a security blanket on a cold winter's night. It had been so long. So long since they'd hugged. The last time she'd reached out to him with such love he'd spurned her and slapped her away. This time...he wouldn't...couldn't. He'd forgotten how wonderful and safe and whole it felt to be wrapped in her embrace. She still smelt of lilacs and plums. The smell embodied her, fresh, warm, feminine, beautiful. He allowed her to caress his head and push it toward her chest like when he was a child. And Loki was surprised at himself that he didn't try to fight it. That he allowed his head to lay there as he sobbed like a little boy. For awhile his body was limp against hers and she was doing all the holding, but finally he broke from his stubbornness. He'd nearly lost him mother for stubborn pride. And Dagmar...well he'd completely lost her now and their last moments had been filled with bitter words and twisted lies. He hadn't even told her that he loved her. Desperately he flung his arms around Frigga's waist. He squeezed her tighter and she returned the squeeze and she rubbed soothing circles along his shaking spine while she started to hum and sway gently. The motions so familiar he buried his face into her chest and cried harder and louder, stronger. He blubbered like a child and in the moment he didn't care. She continued to rock him gently her fingers straying to run through his tangle ebony hair. For a long while they didn't say anything. The only sounds were his endless wails and choked sobs and Frigga's gentle cooing and sweet shushing interchanged with a few quick pecks to the crown of his head. Soon his crying quieted the rocking motion slowly, but surely started to lull him into a drowsy state just like it always had in times passed. He could feel his weary eyes starting to shut as he lay in her arms. Just as his eyes were shutting her felt the queen slowly, gently pull her arms away. Loki's heavy milky eyelids immediately sprang open. He looked around wide-eyed and fearful as he saw the queen stand up. His hand instinctively stretching out in earnest to catch the hem of her silk skirts. Was she leaving? Fear of abandonment rose up with in him. She couldn't be leaving now! No now. He didn't want to be alone. His pleading jewel colored eyes followed Asgard's mourning queen as she padded across his messy floor.
She found his wash basin and a small pail of water that amazingly enough had not been overturned in his fits of rage. He watched her through tired jade eyes as she carefully poured the water from the pail into the wash basin. She found a few tattered towels, that were somewhat clean. She brought them over to him and soaked them in the water and she began cleaning him. She cleaned him up from head to toe. Doing her best to scrub out the dirt and grime from his disheveled black hair she rubbed the cloth over him tending to the nasty wounds and bruises that he'd inflicted on himself and soothing them with the touch of her cool cloth. She took her embroidered handkerchief and bound up his bleeding foot. She cared for him in the same way she had cared for him when he was but a little lad. He remembered many times as a boy, no more than a toddler, he and Thor playing in the gardens. He'd fall down and tumble while chasing after his sturdier, quicker sibling. Thor was always helpful, but the sight of his own blood always frightened him and he'd soon burst into tears. Once her became hysterical there was no moving him. He'd stand there wailing. Instantly, he'd find himself scooped up into Frigga's loving arms and she'd kiss scabbed knees and boo-booed fingers. She'd stroke his black girls and he'd lean his head on her chest feeling soothed and comforted he'd start to suck his thumb. Usually, at that point, Frigga would decide it was time for he and Thor both to take naps before midday meal. Thor would grumble that he was too old for naps, but Loki was always relieved because he was drowsy, warm and content snuggling in mother's arms.
Loki's emerald eyes stared back at her with amazement. How had she even brought herself to still care about him at all? He was so despicable and hateful. He'd been so cruel to her even daring to say she was not his mother. He bit his lip regretting the times when he'd let the term 'Frigga" slip from his lip as he'd tried to hurt her. And he's seen the hurt in her shining sapphire eyes when he'd said it. He'd relished it then. But even when he was everything that was vile and cruel she remained loving and kind and constant...there was a word for that and he'd call her by it now. He shook himself and reluctantly tugged away from her embrace. His tear stained face looked up at her. Frigga smiles sweetly seeing her, gentle, frightened little boy once more. "Mother," Loki mumbled timidly looking up into the endless blue eyes of the woman who'd nurtured him all his life. "I...I...I" Loki choked. "Oh mother," he began as he shook his head and clutched tight on to Frigga's silky silver garments that glistened like Dagmar's sparkling eyes. "IlovedherIlovedherIlovedher," Loki shuddered as he broke into tears once more burying his face against Frigga's shoulder.
"Shh," Frigga cooed softly hand silky hands rubbing over his pale cheeks and wiping away the tears. "I know, I know," she whispered back nodding. Indeed she did know. She thought back to a fateful day so many centuries past.
"I...I... It's my fault," he confessed glancing down at his bloodstained palms.
"No, no, no it's not," Frigga argued. Loki gulped his mother's eyes looked at him with sincerity. She was doing her best to reassure him, absolve his guilt, but she could not. If only she knew how much of his fault it truly was. He bit his lip to keep from screaming out the truth to her. To keep from telling her about it was he who knew that the Aether was going to be unleashed. He who waited patiently for this moment when Ragnarök would be unleashed. It was he who saw that monster for what it was when it first arrived in the prison. He who said he was the one it was seeking. And he was the one who had inadvertently caused the death of his beloved. He couldn't tell her. She could never know. For then he'd lose her love too and he'd be left to be consumed by the darkness that welled up inside him. "You did nothing to make this happen," she soothed running her hand through his dark tresses.
"No, Mother I did... I did," Loki protested with a growl pulling his head from her face. His thin lips tight in a snarl that made the Queen Mother gasp. "Thor came to me asking for my help and I refused," he explained furiously. He pounded his bloodied fist against the floor. Feeling like he wanted to beat his whole head against the white tiles of the floor until he was senseless and couldn't remember what had been done.
"Loki! Loki! Loki! Stop!" Queen Frigga yelled trying to grab her son's flailing fist. She couldn't bear to see anymore blood. Her hands reached out and caught his balled up hands.
Loki's limp wrists were held securely in the queens strong arms. His chest was heaving and he was out of breath, "It's my fault! I didn't help...I let this happen I...I...I" he started to rant again trying to pull away. "I didn't help...I didn't" Loki continued to ramble furiously.
"Then help now!" Frigga commanded gripping Loki's thin face between her warm palms and looking Loki squarely between his shimmering jade eyes. "You can help your brother, go to the Dark-World and do what must be done," Frigga declared, her lips growing firm and her mild ocean blue eyes growing stormy. They flickered with the determination and zeal. He could see that in her younger years his mother had been a prime candidate for the Valkyrie and shield-maiden just as fierce as Lady Sif. "And you can avenge her," she assured son.
"I can't," Loki choked out twisting his narrow face out of Queen Frigga's loving hands.
"Why not?" the warrior queen demanded of her younger prisoner grunted as he managed to rise to his feet. Putting pressure on his bloodied foot, hurt, but not so much so that he couldn't manage to hobble away and face the corner like an errant child. His mother frowned as she picked up her skirt and followed behind him. "Loki, why not?" the golden locked wife of Odin inquired this time her tone was gentle and laced with concern. "Child, what is wrong?" she whispered placing a steadying hand upon his thin heaving shoulders. The Once Prince gritted his teeth against the woman's touch. What could he say? Could he tell his mother that he had been in cahoots with the very monsters that had attacked Asgard. That he had for weeks now been well endowed with his powers by ancient enemies. That they had promised him the throne of Asgard if he released the Aether into their hands and that he'd sworn he'd do so. That he'd bring Ragnarok snarling at Asgard's door. "Darling, just...tell md," she began one hand resting on his shoulder as the other went about to carefully pet and smooth down, his wicked wiry midnight tendrils. Loki yanked his shoulders from her clasp and shooed her meddlesome fingers away.
Queen Frigga immediately withdrew her hand she gasped feeling as if she'd been scalded. She took a deep breath and clasped her hand in front of her. She dropped her gaze. "Your brother needs your help," she explained shaking her head. "I know Thor came to you and asked for help. He needs you Loki and he knows that," the queen explained. "He wants you by his side. He believes that together that you both can save Asgard," the wife of Odin glanced up but still she was met by her son's back. "And...and I do too," she went on, her voice light. "You boys were so close," the queen reminisced aloud wistfully. "Always getting each other in and out of trouble," she laughed. "There were times when the two of you would worry me to death with your misadventures, but somehow I was always at ease knowing that you were by each others sides. I knew that you would look out for one another and not let any harms come to each other. From the moment you became part of this family you have been as good a brother to Thor as any child I could have birthed through my womb. You have been as good a son as I could have asked for. Your brother needs you, Loki... Your father needs... Asgard needs you...I...I...I need you, Loki" Queen Frigga confessed as she started to cry. It was just a few glistening tears. For the first time in their conversation she pulled her hands away from Loki and swiped away the tears in her eyes. She sniffled finally breaking into a stream of tears.
"Mother," Loki said as he turned around finding Asgard's queen openly sobbing into her palms. "Do not cry, Mother," Loki offered now it was his hand reaching out to comfort her. She tried to stifle herself, but she started to cry harder. She had tried to be so strong, for Thor and for the council and Odin. "I cannot bear it," Loki confessed to her taking her and cradling her in his arms. Loki's lanky arms pressed her against his chest. Her crying stilled ever so slightly she thought how strange it must be the moment when a mother takes comfort in the embrace of her child. She allowed her head to rest upon his shoulder. She felt Loki press a cool kiss against her forehead. "Do not cry," he told her once more.
"We will you help, Loki?" the Golden Queen questioned. "You are Asgard's most powerful enchanter...I fear without you, Thor will not be able to accomplish his ends. Thor seeks to transport a small team to the Dark-World, they will need you to do this. Your brother has asked that I leave for the Southern Palace to keep safe, but I...I cannot in good conscience leave, not leave Odin here, not leave our people and not leave Thor if I don't know that you and Thor are on the same side," Frigga confessed her watery eyes looking up at her younger son.
The dark-haired prisoner swallowed hard as he kept protective arms around his mother. What could he say? What could he do? He had sworn an oath to The Other that he would aid Malekith in the retrieval of the Aether and the conquering of Asgard and then Asgard was to be his. He could not break his word to the Other, not break such a word and live, but no could he lie to his mother. He could not look her in the eye and tell her an untruth like that. Even the prince of lies was powerless not to render truth to Asgard's beautiful queen. "I will avenger her, Mother," he promised. It was the only promise he felt he'd be able to his beloved mother.
Queen Frigga smiled up at him as she wiped her weeping azure eyes. "You do that, Loki," she commissioned as she cupped Loki's damp cheeks in between her warm hands and nodding vigorously. "Do this, my son and come home," she encouraged. "You will be a hero, my son and you will earn your rightful place as prince of Asgard again, and that is all that I want for you," she pressed as she started to rise to her feet. She once more caressed his cheek tenderly with the back of her hand. Loki followed her lingering fingers as they moved off of his skin. "
"Mother," Loki timidly called behind the wife of Odin. The golden-maned royal stopped just outside Loki's cell. "I want to see her," he confessed.
Late, in the dead of night, Queen Frigga made her second visit down to the dungeons that day. The guards had been given relief from many of their post for the evening being that many of the wakes were taking place that evening for the fallen. Many families had wanted to have private memorial services for their loved ones before the final send of into eternity. Still Queen Frigga took care to hide herself as she descended the palace steps. By all accounts letting Loki out of his cell was still a treasonous act. Even though Thor was acting as king while Odin slept, but as long as breath remained in Odin's body his words were still law. Still, despite the risk that it was for Loki to set foot out of the dungeons especially at this critical time, she could not deny her son this simple request. She could see the yearning in his eyes. He needed this moment of closure. She had known how much her son had loved the Vanir maiden.
"Mother!" young Loki called early as his thin knuckles rapped upon the door to the queen's sewing room.
"Loki!" the golden queen exclaimed with joy. She was so excited to see her son out and about. He'd been studying so hard for his Mage Trial that she had hardly caught glimpse of him this week. He'd locked himself in his private study in the Southern Tower and had scarcely come out of the room since he'd began his study. She'd been so worried about him. Naturally, she wanted Loki to do exceedingly well, but not at the point of exhausting himself. "Darling, I'm surprised to see you," she went on to state as she finished on her loom and beckoned the younger prince to her side. Loki trotted over to her, more pep in his step than normal. He looked well, cleaned and polished eyes clear. He was dressed in some of his best tunics, wearing supple leather and expensive emerald velvet with a few golden adornments. He looked handsome. Odin's wife thought she detected a little added color in Loki's cheeks, he son was so fair skinned, but she suspected there was a certain warm glow to his thin cheeks. Loki took a seat next to his mother. Her tanned hands immediately caught his slim, pale fingers and gently tugged him to sit by her side. "I thought you'd still be engrossed in study," the queen explained with a shrug and a grin. "The trial is in merely a weeks time, this is a pleasant surprise indeed," she went on. "I've seen so precious little of you, these past few days...I'd say I scarcely forgot what you looked like," she teased and laughed bringing her soft palm to stroke against Loki's smooth porcelain face.
"Oh mother," Loki chuckled slightly, nervously, dare she say giddily.
"I'd forgotten how handsome you are," she sniggered behind dainty manicured fingers as she patted his hairless cheek. She saw how her comments were making Loki's cheeks flush the more. She inhaled for a moment to compose her own laughter. "ooh you smell nice, Loki," she pointed out. "What's bringing all this about?" the queen inquired slyly.
"Lady Dagmar has invited me out tonight," Loki explained breathlessly.
Queen Frigga's eyebrows arched. "Oh really?" she questioned with playful curiosity, "And where is she taking you?'
The dark prince chuckled and shrugged, "I don't know," he confessed broad smile on his thin lips. "It's supposed to be a surprise," he expressed.
"Well I'm sure you are dressed to impress no matter what the occasion," his mother told him as she looked him up and down. "I'm glad to see you getting out and getting some fresh air," the blue-eyed royal stated as she patted Loki's chilly hands. "I must admit I've been a bit worried about all the study you've done. Working yourself so hard," the golden-haired monarch let a small concerned frown form creased in her forehead.
'I'm alright, Mother," the raven-locked prince stated. "I'm actually beyond alright. I...I...I feel wonderful," he burst into all smiles. "Mother," he began again clasping her hand in his, "You know Dagmar and I have been friends for a long time," he started. "And...and...and...I...I mean she is my best friend and I want to give her something special tonight," Loki rambled his eyes dropping down shlyly. "That is...I mean to say...I want to offer... I've just begun to feel so strongly about her... I...I love her mother!" Loki finally gushed.
"Loki!" Frigga gasped.
"I do...I do, Mother," Loki panted. "I...I'm when I'm with her I feel...I don't know...I can't even get it into words...I feel excited and strong and brave...sometimes she looks so lovely that I can't even think straight," the green-eyed son of Odin elaborated wildly his eyes dancing with energy and excitement. "She's so kind and smart and talented and...and I want to court her," he finally stated. "I...I think...I think I could...I could marry her, Mother," Loki confessed like he was asking a question.
Frigga instantly engulfed Loki in a tight squeeze. "Mmm," she said as she folded him into the hug. "Darling that is wonderful!"
"Really? You think so, Mother?" Loki asked his vivid green gems bright with shock as she pushed away slightly to look at the queen.
"Why of course!" she encouraged. "I have watched your friendship grow and blossom over the years and I've known you've had strong feelings for her for quite sometime," Frigga winked.
Prince Loki gawk. His expression was somewhat bewildered. 'But how did you..." Loki started to phrased. He didn't even know how he felt about her until recently.
Queen Frigga smirked and brought her hands to cup his cheeks. "I am your mother, I know you," she giggled.
Loki nodded and beamed back at her. "You don't think I'm being irrational saying all these things?' the magic wielding prince questioned.
"Well," Odin's wife paused tapping her chin. "Love should always be a little irrational," she assured him.
"Thor was suggesting that I give her some jewelry as I tell her how I feel tonight...I don't know what to get for her... I don't know if I have time to run to the jeweler and have them fashion something for her...Could the world even by such a jewel," Loki swooned bringing his hand to his heart. "Is there any jewel that would not pale in comparison to her sparkling silver eyes or luscious ruby lips," Loki gushed.
"Oh my!" Queen Frigga stated trying to suppress her laughter. "Well," the queen went on, "Perhaps this will do," she expressed as she slipped a ring off of her finger and placing it tightly in his palm. Loki looked up at his mother with his mouth slight ajar before his bright green eyes darted down to look at the trinket she had bestowed upon him. It was his mother's ring. A royal artifact that had been in the family for generations. It was a most priceless ring. All gold and gleaming sapphires. Their colors combined.
"Mother, no..." Loki started. "I couldn't..." he shook his head in refusal.
"Why?'
"I...No... Thor's wife will have it...she will be the future queen of Asgard," he tried to drop the ring back in his mother's hand, but Frigga kept her hand a fist.
"I always wanted to give this to my daughter," Frigga confessed. "I never had a daughter, I had two wonderful sons. You are my son and your wife shall be princess of Asgard. Dagmar is just like a daughter to me and she is most worth or wearing this jewel if my son says she is the maiden that he wishes to share his life with," Queen Frigga nodded.
"Oh mother! Thank you! Thank you!" Loki exclaimed as he clutched the ring tightly. " I know she won't say no now!" he confirmed as his lithe body sprang to its feet. He planted a sweet kiss on his mother's cheek. "This means so much to me," He grinned looking down at the royal artifact. "I love you, so much," he swore to her planting one more kiss upon her cheek before he darted from the chamber. The dark-locked young magician turned back to his mother and waved the ring at her. "I hope this ring will serve as a blessing t o our love so that it may be like you and father's and last for all time," he explained still grinning foolishly.
Frigga rushed to him one more time wrapping her arms around his neck. "That is all that I have ever wanted for you, Loki" she whispered in his ear lovingly as her strong tanned hand stroked his black hair. The pale-skinned son of Odin pushed away from the queen only to look in her eyes and see them shimmering with tears. She noticed Loki's concerned expression as he watched the water leak from her sapphire baby-blues. She instantly began to swipe the moisture away from her eyes. "Oh don't mind me," Frigga expressed as she waved her hands, "I'm just such a hopeless romantic," she explained through a watery grin.
"I know," Loki replied with a sigh. "I think I get my romantic side from you," the youngest prince confess as he took her by her bronzed hands and gave his green a wink in the queen's direction. His charming gesture coupled with his dashing straight white smile made the blonde-haired ruler burst into truly joyful laughter.
She pulled her silk smooth hands out of his cool palms and flagged at him. "Go on, go on, my dear," she shooed. "You must be ready for tonight," she instructed wagging a finger in his face. "I can't wait to hear all about it!"
The memory made her more result in her decision to set her son free to say his final goodbye to the woman he loved. She as she set him free from the crystal prison. "The wake is just ending," she began. "Most of the guests of cleared out and there is no guard around the casket chamber, now. But soon the guards will return to remove her body to one of the river boats for tomorrow's ceremony," The queen elaborated as she took him by the hand and lead him out of the cell.
"How was it?" Loki tongue felt thick as he asked the question. He'd never pictured this he'd never thought he'd ask about Lady Dagmar's wake
Frigga gave a pained smile as she lifted shimmering blue eyes toward Loki. Her velvet gloved hand softly caressed Loki's jawline. "It was beautiful," she reported. "So many had such remarkable things about Lady Dagmar," Frigga explained as the two of them walked quickly through the dark dungeon corridor. "It was hard for Lord Audric," Frigga went on as the slinked up the winding and twisted stairwell that lead from the dungeon to the palace floors.
The Lady Dagmar's body had been placed in a viewing chamber inside the palace chapel. The palace chapel was a beautiful and ornate room, and one of the oldest in the palace, but the viewing chamber was cool and vacant. The funeral pyre was unlit but the lingering smoke from the few burning candles set around her body still wafted through the small stone-walled room. There were sheer, pale blue drapes placed around the pyre and it looked like one of her fancily made beds. Loki gulped as it dawned on him that this was the place where Dagmar would take her final rest. The room was draft and the breeze from the hall caused the curtains to rustle. It was peaceful. Too peaceful. The young mage felt his palms grow sweaty and his mouth felt dry. Flowers littered the funeral stand. The colors gave the cold tomb some life, but that was a false life it mocked the life that once was, the life that had been, Dagmar's own beautiful vibrant life. Green eyes snapped shut as the breeze blew Dagmar's curtain's back and he caught sight of just the tips of her silver sandals. Instinctively, for support and reassurance Loki squeezed his mother's hand, the queen matched the squeeze and placed her free hand on his shoulder to steady him. She could feel the slight shudder of his body. She stood silently for a few moments her before she patted Loki's right hand. "I'll give you two some time alone," the queen stated. "Don't be too long, Loki" she cautioned as she slowly pulled her tanned hand from out of her son's chilly clasp. "Loki," the queen called drawing his emerald eyes from staring at Dagmar's lifeless form. "I brought this for you," she said as she slipped her palm open and revealed a marvelous, priceless royal artifact. It was a sparkling gold and sapphire studded band. Loki's green gem pupils batted with disbelief as he gazed down at the royal ring. He had not seen it in so long. Not since. His mouth hung open once he recognized it.
"Mother?" he questioned.
"I gave it to you many years to ago and you gave it back to me," Queen Frigga remarked she wore a smug little smirk on her face. It was a look very similar to one that Loki would give. Her lips were turned in a smile, but the smile didn't make it to her eyes. Tonight was not a night for warm laughter and mirth, it was a night for mourning, for mourning those that this terrible attack had taken away before they bid the brave souls goodbye before they road into the Forever Sea into Valhalla. The golden locked queen held up another bejeweled finger commanding her silver-tongued so to silence. "It is yours," she expressed as she placed the dazzling ring in Loki's porcelain palm. She gently folded his long thin fingers over the ring. Slowly, she lifted his knuckles to her lips and lovingly she kissed the pale fingers. "It is yours to give to the maiden you believe worthy," she explained. She looked up at him and smiled with tears shimmering in her sapphire blue eyes that were so wondrous that the only thing that could compare to them was this beautiful ring.
Loki broke into a water grin, despite how he'd tried to be so strong the tears ran without restraint from his jewel toned irises. "Th-Thank you, Mother," Loki whispered bending down and pressing chilled lips against her forehead. Queen Frigga smiled contentedly for a moment as she allowed herself to lean into the display of affection. She slipped her hand up the side of his cheek and planted one last kiss on the underside of his chin she softly patted where she kiss before she quietly walked out of the chamber.
The once prince of Asgard heard his mother's faint footsteps until they faded into soft pitter-patters and finally into nothingness. Then he was left alone in the silence of the ornate tomb. He'd sat in silence for a long time now. Days...weeks...months had stretched by when he'd been trapped in a cell with nothing, but his own thoughts for companionship...but this...this...he would have chosen to stay chained and fettered to slime-slick walls in the lowest, dankest, filthiest recesses of the palace dungeons than be in this clean, polished-marble, incense filled mausoleum. The thin trickster lingered by the entrance his back pressed to the wall with apprehension. He waited silently. His emerald eyes darting back and forth over the room. He looked at the flowers, he looked at the candles and lamps and gold ornaments that had been placed around her pyre. He looked behind him, checking over his shoulder with ever rustle and creak he heard across the golden tiled floors to make sure no one was coming. He half way hoped a guard would come marching down the halls on rounds see him and attempt to accost him. It would give him a reason to run, to flee from this dreadful chamber and ne'er come back, but of course no one was coming. Frustrated, Loki mashed his thin lips together so much so that his mouth disappeared and the bottom half of his face became nothing but the tip of his long nose and the point of his narrow chin.
He lowered his gaze looking at his hands. He felt like little boy fiddling with his fingers, bashful about being introduced to a new person. He remembered the first time he met Dagmar. He'd been so shy and awkward, but so anxious at the same time. He didn't know any other children his age who practiced magic. He played with his hands and fidgeted where he stood. But after that their friendship seemed to blossom instantly. There had only been one other time he could recall feeling so nervous about talking to her. The time when he'd...his eyes glanced down at the sparkling ring placed in his in his palm. His index finger on his left hand reflexively, started to trace along the grooves and curves and bends of the royal ring. He thought of that night so long ago. The opera songs still rung in his ears. The taste of the salty herring dinner they'd had at the Frozen Lake Restaurant still lingered on the palate. The chill of the cold night air as the snow softly fell while they strolled through the gardens still made his skin tingle. The magical look of the three silver moons rising into the midnight sky was burned in his memory, but only because he marveled at how the natural phenomenon seemed almost common place in comparison to the spectacular vision of Lady Dagmar that night. Her brilliant silver eyes out shined the eclipsing moons and dazzled him. He remembered slipping the priceless trinket onto her silky, ivory fingers. His hand shaking her had trembling and his eye filling with tears. He didn't know why he was even crying then he was just so overcome with so many emotions that tears seemed the right response. He recalled dropping down to his knee in the frigid snow, but her felt so warm and fuzzy that he felt he would melt into the snow. He kissed her hand. Then he kissed her lips. Their first kiss. It was clumsy at first he hadn't exactly known what exactly to do or how she would respond, but it had been glorious it was all rush and joy and rapture and ecstasy even from the slight brush of their lips. Her lips felt like the inside of a rosebud. They'd tasted like nectar and wine, plump juicy pomegranates. . Loki's tongue darted out over his mouth as he remembers. His jade eyes slid closed and his lips took that same timid purse that they did when he was a youth.
Loki's eyes furiously snapped open furiously and his fist clenched tight around the ring. "You brought this on yourself!" Loki ranted boisterously. He pushed to tight-fisted white knuckled hands around his as he cantankerously began to pace about. "Why did you go back for her?" He demanded of the dead woman kept behind the sheer blue curtains. Her marched around the edges, but never daring to venture past the veil. "Why did you go back for her?" he fumed all the more. He threw his hands up in the air. "She'd just one worthless mortal woman! She would have died soon enough anyway," he protested. "Why did you even care?" He grumbled turning his sharp features to look in the direction of Lady Dagmar's corpse. He could see the outline of her silhouette laying flat on the slab of black marble. "I know," he sneered mockingly lifting up his index finger. "You thought you would save the realms by saving her," Loki answered. "Well you can't!" he snapped and started in cold bitter laughter. "You can't!" he continued to cruelly chuckle. "You can't stop this! No one can stop Ragnarök! It is fate! You should have been like me! You should have joined the winning side...we could... we could have...WE COULD HAVE BEEN TOGETHER!" Loki screamed. His face contorted with rage as he faced her pyre. Loki was screaming at the top of his lungs and Dagmar's form was unflinching. The curtains rustled, the flames of the dying candles flickered, but Dagmar didn't move, he chest did not rise with breath. "YOU COULD HAVE BEEN QUEEN!" he continued to yell. His porcelain face flaring bright red. He twisted away unable to bear the stillness of her body. Her movements had always been the epitome of feminine grace. "YOU'RE JUST A FOOL!" He blasted. As soon as the words had tumbled from his lips his hand strayed to cover his mouth.
He rushed toward the curtain that her body was shrouded by. "I'm sorry!" he whispered his fingers reaching out and grasping at the chiffon drapes. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" he pleaded. "I didn't mean it!" he apologized. "I didn't mean it..." he whispered. "It's my fault," Loki relented his hands falling from clinging to the curtain and falling limply by his sides. One small tear trailed down his cheek. He sniffled refusing to let anymore fall. Loki reached out his long fingers once more to brush against the fabric of the curtain. He retracted his fingers then took a deep breath. He wasn't sure if he wanted to see her like this. He didn't want his last image of her to be one of her dead. No, he wanted to remember her as a freckle faced girl, chubby with a few missing teeth in the front of her mouth who had a twittering laugh as they ran and romped about the palace. He wanted to remember her as a youth whose girlish days had faded behind her and who had blossomed he wanted to think of her expresses silver eyes that peaked at him from behind a book at the library or grew stormy with intensity when she concentrated on getting her enchantments just so. He wanted to think of her as a noble woman of grace and beauty decked out in the finest silks, jewels and furs, her eyes dancing and her lovely mouth formed into a lovely smile while she waltzed around the ballroom, her raven locks bouncing off her slender shoulders. He wanted to picture her as a sensual woman, her naked ivory body contrasting with the rich evergreen tones of his bed. Her long ebony locks let down and spread wildly across the pillow. He wanted to see her silver eyes sparkling with the perfect mix of love and lust, while her plump, pomegranate mouth panted for more kisses. He wanted to keep her as such. In those visions she was vital and fiery and alive... she was perfect. That was how he wanted to keep her in his mind...a perfect angel for all time. But he didn't deserve that. He didn't deserve to keep the image of her breathtaking beauty unmarred by the sight of her death. He deserved to have the image of his handiwork be burned in his mind for all eternity. That was his punishment, his curse. With that he pressed pass the curtains.
Loki's eyes remained closed he pierced the veil between himself and Lady Dagmar's lifeless body. It took a moment, a deep breath or two before he willed his eyes open and forced them to stare at her corpse. She was arrayed in the most ornate of garments. A dress of sapphire blue decorated with celestial patterns of suns, stars and moons by lovely pearl colored threads and embroidered white diamonds. The fringes of the dress had elegant silver lace. She wore sparkling silver sandals. Her nails were painted and embellished with precious stones. Her hair was flawless her raven tresses were interwoven with sparkling thread and rare blue orchids. A glittering headdress made of interchanging pearls and diamonds rested upon her head with a single sapphire tear drop that dropped down onto the center of her forehead. Her face was painted up exquisitely. She looked beautiful in peaceful repose. As if she would awake any moment and be whisked away to a honeymoon sweet to meet her bridegroom. A frown flitted across Loki's features. The grave was unloving groom indeed.
The enchanter allowed his fingers to come and rest on the cold granite stone of the funeral pyre. His finger tips not daring to touch her prone body. "Oh Dagmar," He whispered as he leaned over her still form. "I never wanted this," he confessed dropping his and letting out a gusty sigh. 'I never wanted this," he murmured once more in haste. "I never wanted it to go this far! I couldn't have imagined that it would ever end like this," he went on as he looked at her. She was splendid, but she was a shell. "With you... lying here...like this," he gestured at her body. He shuddered. "Things have gone to far, Dagmar," he went on pushing from hovering over her. He began to pace. He wrung his hands nervously as if he was trying to cleanse them. It was futile, his hands could not be cleansed. "They've gone to fartheyvegontofartheyvegontofa," He choked as he swung his head back around. "I would have never thought that the day allowed the Frost Giants to enter Asgard that it would have spiraled into this," he explained. "It started out as just a bit of fun," Loki expressed as he brought his watering eyes to stare up at the ceiling. He batted his eyelids trying to keep the tears from falling. "Fun. Fun. Fun!" He chortled bitterly. "There is no fun in this at all. It is all rage and malice and envy and revenge and death," Loki lashed out flinging his arm. "Your death," he turned his gaze to her once more. "I have caused your death, in my quest for the throne I have hurt so many, so many that I once so deeply cared for I have hurt," Loki's teeth sank into his lips. "First Mother," the black-haired ex-prince counted. "Now you. At-at-at least with Mother...I...I was able to save her, but for you my darling... I have no power to bring you back," he shook his head.
He walked back toward Dagmar's tears clouding his jade eyes. He spread his hand on either side of her listless frame. He finally worked up the nerve to allow his pale fingers to graze her ivory flesh that had taken on the sickly tone of ashen gray. She was freezing cold. Normally, Loki liked the cold, but he hated the way her skin had lost all traces of warmth, all traced of life. His knuckles tenderly rubbed her cold and stiff, powdered cheeks. He felt along the edges of her delicate jawline and ran his fingers through her ebony mane, It still felt silky and luxurious, the spell of midnight jasmines perfumed her body and wafted into his nostrils. "Oh my love," he muttered his head dropping so that his forehead was pressed against Dagmar as his chilly hands cradled her even colder face. "I wish...I wish," he sputtered. "I wish it was like the fairytales where the handsome prince could wake the sleeping beauty with, but a simple kiss," he started as his breath ghosted across her flesh which felt nothing. "But it is not," Loki reminded himself harshly. "It is a nightmare and I am no handsome prince, nor am I a hero. I am a hideous beast," he growled pulling his hands from cupping her cheeks. "and I am a wicked villain," Loki admitted bringing up his hands to claw at his own head.
"What is the worst is that this is how you thought of me in the end. It pains me more deeply than you can ever imagine to know that the last things that you thought of me were as such. That your last thoughts of me were that I was a monster...Just like Laufey," Loki uttered miserably. 'But you were right in your assessment," he nodded. "I can not ask you for forgiveness, my dear," his green eyes darted down. "I am unworthy of that. My stubborn pride has caused you death!" he spat. "Because of my arrogance you are gone from me! Never to return! I cannot forgive myself for that...so I will not ask you to do what I can't," he shook his head. "If I were to beat my body black and blue from now until the end of time it would not atone for this sin. And I have more sends to commit, for I am a vile and loathsome creature," Loki confessed with a blank stare in emerald eyes. "But I wanted you to know I am sorry for the pain I have caused you," Loki relented. "Once," he began wistfully a fleeting grin on lip thin lips. "I had a vision of you and I...we were having a holiday by the seaside...we were happy and married with three beautiful children...We were prosperous and powerful...that...that is what I wanted for us a life of love and peace and happiness, but it was not meant to be my dear. It seems as though our love was born under and ill-fated star," Loki said and his face finally crumbled as his knees crashed to the floor. "That it was not meant to be," Loki thin lips arched down.
Loki fell to the floor clinging to Lady Dagmar's hand clinging to her frigid, limp fingers and tears poured down his cheeks in a furious flood. He fumbled to find to the ring his mother had given him. "I wanted to give this to you," Loki expressed with a shuddering sob as he pulled out the sparkling sapphire ring. "As a symbol of my undying love for you. Know now Dagmar no matter what you may hear of me that my love for you has not faltered and I will avenge you," he swore as he wept openly into her hand. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I love you," he cried pressing hard kisses into her palm. "I'm sorry for how I've hurt you...I'm sorry about the child...I'm sorry I'm not the hero you wanted me to be. I'm sorry I'm a monster," Loki's voice broke as he whispered. "I'm sorry that in the end you hated me... that you thought I didn't care. That you thought I was just like Laufey...that I would abandon you... I'm so sorry," Loki cried. "I love you, Dagmar, I've always loved you, for your compassion and your spirit, your strength of mind, your beauty. Please don't think that I didn't because I do and I always will," he proclaimed to her body as he rose to his feet and leaned over her body kissing her cold, dead ruby-red painted lips. Large salt tears fell on her cheeks as Loki nuzzled their noses together. He opened his emerald pupils and for a moment he was hopeful that Dagmar would awaken. That like with mother he'd find her chest slowly starting to rise and fall once more. She didn't.
"Loki," a soft high-pitched voice called timidly behind him. The dark-mage's posture grew rigid his shoulder's rising almost paralyzed with fear. He spun around his features taunt in a snarl. His rabid face was diffused when he was met with the soft full faced features, puckered pink lips, and long golden ringlets curls fluttering around wide-set amber eyes. Loki sucked in a sharp breath as Sigyn dropped her eyes.
"How long have you been here?" Loki's silver tongue barked.
Lady Sigyn shook her head. "Not long," she immediately answered. "I didn't mean to pry," she responded.
"What are you doing here?" Loki asked sternly. His tone was hard, but his eyes were bewildered and frightened like a child in the night waking up from a bad dream. Even frightened and confuse his emerald eyes were exquisite.
"Lord Audric is coming" Sigyn squeaked as she kept her eyes downcast. "I...I...I if he's sees you" she stumbled to confess.
"I wanted to be alone with her!" He shouted balling his fist by his sides.
"I'm sorry," Lady Sigyn cringed underneath his voice. "But the guards, Loki there isn't much time...I...you have to go," Sigyn urged.
"I...can't...I can't leave her," Loki replied his evergreen eyes still lost and searching. He took a step back toward her pyre as the footfalls of the patrolling soldiers drew closer.
"Loki, please..." Lady Sigyn begged as she gripped him by the shoulder. In a blink of an eye he vanished and Sigyn was left alone with Dagmar Audricdottir's corpse. "Oh Dagmar," the queen's Lady-in-Waiting whispered. "I wish it was me who had stayed behind instead of you. You had so much power, so much influence, you were a great and beloved woman," she explained to the elegant body dressed regally on the granite slab. "You had so much to offer. Loki love you so dearly. I am no more than a disgraced harlot. I wish it was me...For Loki's sake...if it would have made him happier to know you were alive and know I was dead...if it would have not cause his heart as much grief...I wish it t'were me," the blonde-haired Lady-in-waiting confessed. "But I will watch over him, for your sake, dear friend so you may rest in peace,"