Visitation

by kalimecat

Loki has returned to Asgard and is imprisoned for his crimes. While in prison he has the occasional visitor, will the love of others bring back the fallen prince or is he truly too far gone?

53. One Day More

A/N: HEEEELLLLOOOO READERS! HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Dear Readers I am so happy to deliver this story to you on Thanksgiving Day! For those who have celebrated Thanksgiving I hope you all have had the wonderful opportunity to enjoy celebrating with friends and family. We all have so very much to be thankful for. I consider one of the things I am most grateful for is the opportunity to share this story with all of you. Your enthusiasm and interest has been an encouragement to me to continue to use my talent and I am truly thankful for each and everyone of your follows, favorites and reviews. This chapter was tricky to write. It is a long chapter and I thought it would cover different topics than what it actually did, but the story has a mind of its own and progresses at its own pace. LOL Well I won't hold you any longer. As always, happy reads, happy writes and most of all God Bless.

*Also I think that a great song to listen to while reading this chapter would be One Day More from Les Miserables.

Chapter 53

All was quiet when Loki slipped through the walls of catacombs and back into the palace. He quickly shed the skin of a wrinkled old man. He patted his pale, albeit, dirty scarred skin once again noting it smooth and supple form. Perhaps he should have been grateful for the opportunity to wear an elderly man's disguise, he doubted he or many in Asgard would get to know such years after tonight. He gulped and shuddered with the thought firmly planted in his head. He was still riddled with guilt. They had such a small chance of being able to stop the great apocalypse from descending upon them all. Honestly, he didn't know if they even could stop it. The odds were certainly stacked against them. The Imperial City had few troops to spare and fewer citizens, some were just children after all others were elderly and incapable of probably carrying out the level of battle that was required. He didn't know for certain that Southern Palace would send soldiers and they'd probably need every warrior from across all of the realm if they were going to defeat Malekith, let alone...Thanos. There was also the problem of the Convergence itself as Convergence drew closer, Malekith and the Aether would grow stronger. The barriers between worlds would grow ever so thin, with just a small amount of energy from the Tesseract it would be easy for Thanos to slip through the atmosphere and make his grand entrance back into the branches of Yggdrasil and enact his sinister plan. There was so little time...no time really and there were an endless number of variables that could end in failure and catastrophe and could give way to the nightmarish future he had been privy to behold. If that happed it would be all on him. The blood would be on his hands.

Green eyes darted down toward his palms, they were filthy caked with blood. Could they ever be clean? He thought of that woman, that woman who was a member of his brother's newest band of playmates, The Avengers. What was her name? He snapped his fingers until it clicked. Natasha...Natasha Romanoff, Black Widow. Their brief banter had certainly been entertaining. She was slick, clever, deadly, lovely. They had things in common. She'd done a lot of wrong. She'd done evil, oh she'd done terrible and unspeakable things and then she'd changed, she was no saint, but she'd tried to do right, to make amends for all the wrong that she had done, but she wasn't sure she could. He wasn't sure she could and he'd taunted her for it. He'd mocked her for her feeble attempts to find redemption. It was a mortal's goal, they had so little time. Now, he too was filled with the same fear, could he wipe out the red that was in his ledger? So many innocent lives had already been lost in his crazy quest for a throne, a throne that he'd never needed to fight for. His heart broke as he recalled Thor's tortured scream from the deepest pit within the palace prison. "I WOULD HAVE GIVEN YOU THE THRONE!" the blonde had screamed raw and ragged, tears pushing from his swollen blue eyes and he knew it was true. But he hadn't wanted a hand-me down throne, he hadn't wanted to be Thor's charity case, he'd wanted to take it by force, to prove that he could. And he'd proved that all right oh, how he had proved that. He'd proved it and had allowed good men and women of Asgard to pay the price. People who were simple bakers and millers, school teachers and children, philosophers and merchants, soldiers and palace workers they'd died. Dagmar. "Dagmar," he dared to breathe her name. She'd died, died for nothing because of him, could he ever right that wrong of having his beloved's blood on his hands. And what about Odin, Asgard's great king, had he driven his own father to his grave? Mother? Sigyn. Granted, she was alive, but she was a delicate young flower that he'd trampled on for no reason at all. He was glad that he had gotten to see he one last time to tell her as best as he could how sorry he was and how much...how much he truly thought of her. It had taken him a long time, too long to even recognize the feelings himself. And he'd always thought of himself as so perceptive. He could hear his mother's voice in the back of his head. Warm, but firm and nearly sad as she reminded him, "so perceptive of everyone, but yourself." His thin lips twisted into a scowl. He'd squandered Sigyn's love and affection. He'd meant every word that he'd said to her. She was well rid of him. She should go on and live her life...if she could. Live it happily, move on and forget about him. He didn't deserve her.

Loki let out a pent-up sigh. The images of Sigyn's beautiful face, that was cut up and scratched and filled with bruises, that had been inflicted on her by him. He had so much guilt, but somehow knowing that he had hurt Sigyn, that he'd wounded her body and soul, that he'd broken her heart, that seemed the worst of it. He shook his head, ran his fingers through his sweaty, wet, jet black hair. Pulling his hand from his hair he examined the dirt, the grime on his black locks. His pointed nose curled. He looked at his hands grimy and caked with dirt, stained with blood, Lady Sigyn's some of that from Sigyn no doubt, when he'd ruthlessly flung her against a coffee table or maybe it was his own from when she'd bit him. A hint of a glimmer of a smile spring forth on his severe lips as he thought of the fight that she had in her. She was willing to do anything to protect herself, to save Asgard and to save the people that she cared about...amazingly enough that had still included him, she was willing to fight to the death to save him from himself. He touched his face and bit into his lip. He didn't deserve her.

The King of Asgard looked down at his disgusting bloody hands once more, he could sure use a bath. He was absolutely filthy! He truly looked like he had been crawling through the muck and grime of Bedlam. He thought of that awful place, that vision of the dreadful future that Dagmar had shown him. A place where people lived like animals and culture had been reduced to savagery, his clothes were bedraggled and slimy and his hair was scraggly and unkempt. He looked like a swine himself. His bones and muscles ached, his whole body felt stiff and exhausted. He could only imagine how good it would feel to sink himself into one of his relaxing myrrh baths with the healing herbs and spices and extract from the seeds of Idunn's Apple's, such a natural tonic would have him feeling right as rain in no time. Loki cursed himself for such thoughts. He thought of the people who were hiding deep within the catacombs underneath the city. He thought of how the healers were running around like chickens with their heads chopped off. Desperate to find any tonic, any potion, any elixir or remedy for the poor injured souls who had found their way into the infirmary. But the healing pools were dry and all the healing crystals had already been broken into the tiniest fragments and rendering it impotent. And even if they did have a million healing crystals what could would they have done for those who had lost limbs and eyes, for those who had been infected with the Aether ash and were being torn apart from the inside, now riddled with tumors and degenerated tissues. All of that was because of him. His head pounded like drums and cymbals were being banged and clanged inside his brain. He was tired. He couldn't remember when he'd last slept, truly slept, or eaten. Dawn was swiftly approaching and there was no time to rest. A sideways grin played across his face. "You can rest when this is all over," he reminded himself. "Or when your dead," he added ruefully for good measure. He blew out his nostrils. "The latter is the more likely," he reminded himself as he straightened his collar.

He needed to get to his laboratory, it was a mere two hours before dawn came bursting forth with glorious light but maybe in the few moments that were left there was something he could find in his old tomes and leather-bounds. Surely, there was something in the sanctum of his private study that he could use to find a way to contain the power of the Aether. It was possible that both the power of Gungnir and Mjolnir combined could put the liquid gem into a state of stasis where its naturally ooze and flow could be contained, but that would give them mere seconds. Minutes if they were luck. He'd need some type of container.

The enchanter noted that the coast was clear. He blinked and transported himself into the Southern Tower, it would have taken far too long to walk there. The Southern Tower was practically on the other side of the palace. There truly wasn't a moment to spare. When he opened his eyes, he found his feet were firmly planted on the polished green marble floor of his old study. Loki clapped his hands and the torches along the wall instantly lit. With that, the study came to life, the ancient trinkets that Loki had collected for a millennium began to sparkle a glow, his gizmos and gadgets and models took to their animated states. His flying contraptions whizzed about. The pool with water from the Dragon Well bubbled and gurgled. The vials and beakers and burners started to smoke and the liquids of multiple colors started to flow and wind its way through the tubes. The Magic carpet which was lying just by the doorway moved a wiggled toward his feet. His emerald eyes scanned around the room. He couldn't help but notice that the place wasn't covered in cobwebs or overrun with maggots and rats. It did not have the musty smell of an old tomb, yet it was just as he had left it. The books and scrolls were all in place, perfectly alphabetized. The shelves were polished. He could detect the scent of his favorite wooden polish. His floor had been properly waxed. He was meticulous, much to the worry and aggravation of the palace servants, but he always liked to be able to see his own reflection in the floor. The corners of his mouth just barely managed to curl upward as his observed his wane and dirty visage. Everything was just as he had left it maybe even better. He shook his head. He thought...he thought surely, surely all his things would have been gone, sold or...just left to rot and collect dust, but they weren't.

Loki flicked away the tiny tear that started to form in the corner of his eye. He hadn't time to get choked up. His family, his people, the Nine Realms needed his to focus. Although his eye did wander over to the large black velvet upholstered couch in the rear of the expansive laboratory. How many times had he gotten lost in his studies, so engrossed in his research that hours had just flittered away? Sometimes he could spend a whole weekend locked in the chamber toiling and tumbling over his mystic workings. He supposed he would just collapse after a time. He wouldn't remember going to lay down he'd just find himself nestled and curled up on his comfy couch. It called to him now. Its plush upholstery and soft cushions and cozy pillows all seemed so welcoming and the all seemed to beckon him to rest his weary, overwrought mind, settle his aching body for just a few moments. His brought his thin hand up to his cheek and slapped his own face, to wake himself up. It jolted him for just a minute, his eyes grew wide, his posture straightened out. His senses seemed to spark into alertness, but as quickly as the jolt had taken over it faded away. His eyes once again began to droop. His lids heavy as if they were weighed down by sandbags. He yawned and could feel his whole body shaking with how bone-weary he was. It didn't help that the magical harp called Calliope was playing an enchanting lullaby. The Calliope Harp was a power acquisition. It taken from the Sirens of Alfheim. It could play any melody to suit a person's mood and put them under the musician's sway. Loki snapped his finger as he hummed an ancient tune and the harp which played of its own accord was instantly silenced.

The master mage wondered over to his basin. He turned on the faucet and nearly freezing water ran between his fingers. He splashed the frigid liquid on his face several times. He looked up at his face in the trick mirror that hung above the basin. The mirror could be used to pull off many illusions. Showing people their ideal selves, their worst selves, but this time it showed no lies. It showed only Loki's own haggard, filthy face, full of scratches and bruises, blood smudges and lumps on his forehead, his split lips and his bloodshot eyes. He pushed away from staring at himself. He certainly wasn't an impressive sight. He sneered, pushed away and made his way over to the bookshelf.

His slender finger scanned over book after book and he checked the titles very carefully. He knew that the old book had to be somewhere. He could distinctly, remember it...it was an ancient manuscript that looked like it had been written at nearly the dawn of time. When he had met Thanos he was obsessed with the Infinity Stones. But at the times his obsession had been mostly a futile quest that made him nearly insatiable and although the Titan had a cool exterior his patience had grown thin at the fact that his "children" had yet to procure him one of the priceless gems. He had been in Thanos' stateroom. Thanos was a curious being. He could enjoy both opulence and grandeur and that which was dank, dismal and downright squalid. The stateroom was a rather lavished setting that was reminiscent of the cultural war rooms of Titan. There were statues and monuments, the last little trinkets left from the race long gone. There were weapons and the heads of rare beasts that hung on the walls and portraits of the Mad Titan himself. In the center of the room was a large metallic table that was oblong in shape. The table had panels and dials that Thanos could manipulate to show an outline of the cosmos and plan his conquests. At the table there were seats for his "children" to sit at and his thinly weighed allies when he had his council meetings. The Chituari, who served as servants darted in and out of the chamber bringing dishes that were much to Loki's delight. They served them Asgardian delicacies. Loki looked curiously across the table at the overlord of The Void. Thanos was merciless and calculating, he had learned that at the Titan's hands, but he was wise and manipulative as well. He would break and build people sometimes within the same hour. He'd seen him do it to his adoptive children. He'd make them fight like animals to the point of nearly killing each other, then he'd reward one and punish the other, but all the while as he rolled out his punishments, he'd tell them that it was for their own good. And Loki was wary of Thanos' new found offering of the familiar comforts of Asgard. Time blurred in The Void. Day was night and night was day. Loki wasn't exactly sure how long he had been with Thanos now, but it felt like eons. He didn't trust Thanos, he glared at him through shifty green eyes from across the table, but at the same time he couldn't control the way his mouth salivated at the sight of his favorite pickled herring, roasted wild-boar cutlets, turnips and fresh breads.

Thanos noticed, he noticed everything. They ate for a while without much of a word uttered between them. Thanos ate with composer. Slowly, munching and nibbling each tender morsel of the delicious meal. Loki did his best to eat with reserved refinement. In Asgard, he had been known as a finnicky eater, picking over his food and not indulging in a hearty feast the way a Viking prince should. He was sure his friends and the members of court would have been pleasantly surprised to see him nearly scarfing down the food presented to him. His taste buds danced and sang upon his tongue as the food seemed to have been prepared to perfection. Or perhaps it wasn't that the food was that amazing perhaps he was just starving. In time, Thanos rose from his high-backed chair and crossed to the other side of the table where he offered Loki a bit glass of mead. "I trust everything is to your liking, Prince Loki," he stated. "I took great pains to make sure that we had all of your favorites," he expressed.

Loki's inky eyebrows raised ever so slightly. "Quite," he responded as he took a large bite of a barely loaf. "How did you know?" Loki asked. As soon as he said it he regretted it. Thanos did not like to be questioned. He expected to be carted away, back to torture, but instead the warlord simply looked at Loki with an indulgent smile,

"I have my ways," he stated. Loki's face reddened ever so slightly. He'd endured much at the Titan's hands and he'd been brought so low he could only imagine the things that he'd muttered and uttered and begged for in his frenzied, feverish and delirious states. "I hear it is a fine vintage," Thanos said almost jovially. Loki looked up at the tankard.

The prisoner of The Void looked up into the dictator's large purple face. He gulped. Then he ran the back of his hand along the corners of his mouth. "Yes," Loki finally spoke up breathlessly, "Legend tells that it was the same wine that was drank during the battle of that ended the 1000-year war between the Frost Giants and Fire Giants. It was given to the Aesir to thank them for establishing peace," he explained.

"Fascinating," Thanos said as he sniffed the mead. It was so well fermented that even a whiff of the strong drink could leave one dizzy for a time. He poured some for Loki and then they both partook at the same time. Loki smacked his lips as he detected the faint hints of honey that were blended with the mead. He then quickly guzzled the remaining contents of his goblet. The mead burned and bubbled as it spilled down his throat and it was indeed a delightful feeling. Perhaps Thanos poured him another glass. Perhaps he had poured it for himself. Either way he drank and dined sufficiently on all that was before him. When he was finished, he leaned back in his chair, nearly slouching, belly full. "You know much, young Asgardian," The warlord had even taken to offering him another cup of mead. Loki offered a lazy hand to symbolize that he'd hand enough to drink. He half way expected the Titan to snap at his refusal of his generosity. He could practically feel the slimy, scaly, clammy hands of one of the Chituari coming up and accosting him roughly. He could feel them gripping his up and yanking his head back and pulling on his long black mane, while another manhandled his face and forced his mouth open while another would pour the mead down his throat. He flinched, a kneejerk reaction, as he waited for their cruel hands. Instead, Thanos merely tapped him on the shoulder patiently, offered a smile that could almost be perceive as kindly and lumbered back to his own seat. "Very well," he responded as he pulled out his chair and plopped his massive body right back down. "More for me than I suppose," he insisted as he refilled his own goblet. He took a long, slow drag of mead from the golden cup. "Truly fit for the gods," he expressed. "And there's enough to go around for all?" he inquired.

"Asgard is rich in abundance," Loki explained.

Thanos nodded. "Titan once has such sumptuous finery, if you can believe it," he began. "Until the scarcity was upon us," he expressed and his tone went tone an octave and his eyes turned to a shade that reminded the enchanter of a storm. "Very soon...all had so little...even the wealthy...and when I tried to right those wrongs and injustices, when I tried to end the suffering of all by having the weak serve the mighty and putting some out of their misery...hahaha," he started to chuckle, he shook his bulbous cranium, "They called me 'mad',"" his fingers that looked like eggplants made quotation marks in the air. "Not so long after your ancestors decided to banish me to the outskirts of the cosmos," he laughed. "But what does that matter now," he shrugged. "They did the same to you after all," he mentioned only to watch Loki's eyes flicker. He studied the young enchanter's expression. Loki was good at hiding his emotions, but not so good. Mention of Asgard could make the young Asgardian have a certain tender, longing, mournful look. Disgusting. Dreadful. Sentiment. His daughter, Gamora used to have the same look in her eyes. It finally, seemed to disappear when they received word that her people had all been wiped from existence. Then he told her that he had taken her from her people to spare her the same grim fate. He had seen something in her and he had spared her. She dropped down to her knees and kissed his hands and feet and thanked him for his kindness. In her eyes, there were tears as she'd done so, but they weren't tears of sorrow or deep mourning. They were tears of resentment. He smiled to himself as he sat back on his throne. Knowing that he had driven such weaknesses from her, finally, was a mission accomplished. Now he looked to Loki's entrancing emerald orbs to see if they still housed the pitiful remnants of sentiment. The young mage's eyes had narrowed and darkened. Silently, Thanos' lips curled into a smile. "But you understand," Thanos began again. He reached across the table and grabbed at a few of the grapes. He plucked the off of the vine they were connected to and started popping them into his mouth ever so slowly. "I'm sure you understand that, Prince Loki," he inclined his head toward the young enchanter. "You understand what it's like to have ambitions and wisdoms that exceed those of those around you. How limiting that can be."

"Perhaps," Loki said cautiously as his green eyes kept an intense watch on the Titan.

"We share that, Loki, you and I," Thanos motioned between them. "I see some of myself in you," the ancient warlord commented. Loki wanted to snap back that he was nothing like the murderous Thanos, but he wasn't even sure if that was true. So, he just continued to eat. While Thanos looked on with intent interest. "And I am impressed with your knowledge of the mystic arts," he complimented. "They rival even that of my son, Ebony Maw," he explained.

"I have already bested your son, in such combat," Loki replied stiffly.

"Indeed. For that there has already been judgement on him," The titan explained. Loki inwardly winced. Maw had suffered at the hands of his father. A painful scourging. It had been a long time since he had failed Thanos. But Thanos did not spare him. The worst of it, was as Thanos whipped him and ran dark magic through him all the while Maw cried and blubbered and thanked the Titan for his benevolence. "That is why I have a task for you, that I think will be quite to your liking."

"And that would be?" Loki's inky eyebrow raised.

"Ah-ah-ah," Thanos wagged his eggplant finger chidingly, "My question first," he pointed magnanimously at himself.

"And that would be?"

What do you know of the stones?" he asked as he took a slow sip from his goblet.

"What stones?" Loki asked blinking dolefully as he felt the room start to slide around him.

"The Infinity Stones, little prince," he stated testily.

"I know some," Loki responded. "But the information about the stones has been scattered. Some information is lost," he shrugged. "One document resides in my own study in Asgard," he explained as he dusted his fingernails on his tunics. To this information Thanos let out a slow irritable growl. He couldn't get to Asgard, the Void was outside of the branches of Yggdrasil and because of the curse that had been placed on Thanos for 3000 years he could not enter into the branches of Yggdrasil.

"And what of the other documents?" the purple giant inquired. or the info on a way to contain. "Do these documents say where the stones are?" he pressed.

"It's possible," Loki shrugged. "I haven't read all the documents. Their locations could be located in Nornheim, In the Nornish King's vault...the Vault of Time," Loki elaborated. "I procured one once. The very same one that I have in my study," Loki explained. "But we can't reach it. Not here, not now," the raven-haired Aesir let out a long sigh.

"And what knowledge did it possess?" Thanos demanded. His large purple fist pounded the table and made the plates shake."Tell me!" The titan insisted as he leaned over the table.

Loki looked on at the titan through suspicious emerald eyes. "Tell you what?"

"Tell me of its power," Thanos said as he leaned back in his high back chair and crossed his arms over his chest. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply like he was inhaling a wonderful aroma. "Tell me everything you know," he spoke slowly once more.

"The text is ancient and I haven't read it in quite some time," Loki stated as he took a tentative sip of wine once more.

Thanos thick, purple lips twisted into a smug sort of grin. His eyes remained closed. "All those litter experiments that you participated in Prince Loki of Asgard were not merely for my amusement, although I was entertained seeing you squirm so," he admitted. "but they were to test you, see what manner of man you really be," he elaborated. "And I was impressed," he remarked. "You're incredibly strong and durable physically, you're powerful, enchantment runs deep in your veins, but more so than that I observed your fierce intelligence. You're cursed with knowledge. There are only a few of us in the cosmos who bear such a burden. Your ideas are revolutionary and they are too much for the typical traditional Aesir to understand. Indeed, I understand where you are coming from. I was the exact same way on Titan. I made proposals, wise and learned proposal that would have kept our people safe, but they were deemed to "radical'" Thanos explained as he put up two quotation fingers. "They labeled me Mad amongst my brethren. What did they label you, I wonder?" he said as he stretched. Loki immediately thought of every childhood taunt that he had ever faced. He was reminded of the stares at court and in Council meetings. He recalled the fact that he, a prince of Asgard, a Son of Odin was practically rejected from joining the ranks of the Einherjar. "I know that you have a photographic memory, Prince Loki," Thanos continued. "That means that the knowledge is in there somewhere, even if it is buried down deep. Now," he said his eyes still closed, "You can give me the information willingly, by simply telling me or I can take if from you by force," his eyes finally opened and he put his elbows on the table as he stared into the emerald pupils of the Asgardian across the table from him.

And Loki did try to tell him. Because he knew that Thanos was not a patient man. He did not accept no or I don't know for an answer. He'd hook him up to a vile and wicked contraption that could tap into forgotten memories. "The tesseract used to be on Asgard, but in a battle in which some Asgardian soldiers went to Midgard during their middle-ages, the tesseract was lost."

That was where it had begun, his plan for revenge and his conquest to take over Midgard. That was where it began, but that wouldn't be where it ended. If Thanos had his way he'd be able to have two of the Infinity Stones and he'd be one step closer to achieving his ultimate goal of gaining all six and becoming the most powerful being.

"While Loki had been lost in the vicious memory, his hands inadvertently stumbled upon what he had been looking for. Delicately, Loki plucked it from its place on the shelf. "There you are!" he said as he blew the dust from the old tome and fingered through the musty pages that had the perfect smell of ancient text which Loki love. He flipped through the pages ever so quickly until his thumb landed on the right page.

The illustrations on the scroll were similar to that in the books of wives- tales that his mother used to read to he and Thor in the night. The text however was not quite as pleasant. The words were ancient. The dialect was one of the first written forms of the Vanir language. The way the runes were scrawled on to the page was light and the old text was slightly faded. The letters weren't exactly identical to some of the newer variations of the Vanir writing, but with careful study they were easy enough to decipher.

Loki's tired green eyes roved over the parchment and he landed on a detailed depiction of a type of box, a containment chamber of the Aether. The Aether's very nature was change. The Reality Stone. Its fabled abilities were legendary and for an enchanter like Loki, he had to admit they were beyond intriguing. The raw illusionary power possessed in said stone was practically tantalizing. Loki had always been partial to enchantment that manipulated people's minds, making them see what they wished to see. The Aether could magnify such powers 100-fold, but that was only the half of it. It could cast an elaborate illusion, but more so than that it could actually alter reality. It could be used for good, Loki supposed although in its history most had not sought to use it that way. The Dark-Elves, had certainly never used its powers for good. The more he read the more he understood the complexities of the Aether. It was the only one of the Infinity Stones that could take on a liquid form. It also had a parasitic nature. In its raw state the Aether naturally sought out host bodies. It fed off the bodies. In some beings, like the Dark-Elves, it made them stronger, but for most creatures throughout the universe, those that were not made from the fragments of primordial darkness, the Aether was a leech, sucking life and draining them of their energy. One had to be careful when dealing with the Aether, it was attracted to certain hosts had it was hard to fend against it. Malekith was a willing host and Jane Foster was just a victim, who had gotten a little too close.

Loki grew nervous, his palms started to sweat. The more and more he read about the Aether the more worried he was becoming that there would be no way to contain the power crystal, but then he looked at the diagram of the containment box. "Everwood overlaid in platinum, with the extract of rubies and pixie dust plasma," Loki read aloud. The box would need to be relatively small in size. The Aether could not be given a lot of room to grow and ebb and ooze within side the container, the more it flowed the stronger and more potent it would become.

Loki read the list of raw materials over and over again. It had been such a long time since he had been in his lab. He could hardly remember all the things that he had in his lab. He had collected all manner of rare mystical artifact from all over the Nine Realms. He had plenty of jewels that much he was sure of. He went over to his golden treasure chest. He flipped it open and it banged against the side of his cabinet. The bobbles within wobbled and looked as if they would topple, but he held out a steadying hand and the cabinet rocked back in place. Loki tore through the wondrous contents of the treasure chests. He dug and whipped through mounds and mounds of pieces of gold and sparkling silver coins. He ripped through crowns of illustrious gold and pearl and diamond necklaces. He scattered through and tossed them aside as if they were nothing pieces of paper or bits of scrap metal. Finally, his long, cold, pale fingers landed on the gem of choice. It was beautiful sparkling red stone. It was fashioned perfectly. It was a big as a man's fist. There were so many facets. Each one of them glistened and shined when it turned to the light. Loki caught glimpse of his own reflection. He scarcely recognized it. So, wane and haggard, he looked like he hadn't slept in days and truly he hadn't.

Was this the face of a man who was really willing to double cross Thanos? Then this was the face of a dead man. He rubbed his hand across his cheek, his skin was dry and ashy and scarred. He had become better acquainted with the Mad Titan than he would have ever liked to be. He knew that to cross him was to court death, but after all the evil atrocities he had committed maybe death was better than what he deserved. There were, but a few moments left until dawn came and fate...his fate...his family's fate...Asgard's fate and the fate of the Nine Realms would be sealed. He had to make a stand. He had to do something.

The young mage once again took a good look a shiny red rock that was in his hands. He had received it years ago, from the high priestess from one of the many tribes of Musepelheim. It was called the Eye of the Tiger. It should suit his purpose well. He pushed up off his knees, he stood and walked briskly to another corner of the tower. There was a machine, machine that he had that could heat to temperatures high enough to melt gems and so much that the properties would split into different goos. He needed that machine now. He pressed on a loose plank on one of his shelves. That caused the shelf to open up and fold back upon itself and make a deeper cabinet. In the expanded cabinet Loki pulled out a small little contraption that was round like an egg. He blew the thick layer of dust off of it. He twisted the top of the egg-shaped device, it hummed and buzzed and started to light up with a faint electric, blue light. Loki placed the large gemstone inside the machine. His bony fingers tapped the buttons on the sides and he put it on the proper setting. It started vibrating fiercely and it was getting warmer and warmer to the touch. Soon it would be scalding hot. Loki released it from his palms and then floated it over to a stand near the wash basin.

He bit into his severe lip. He had placed the ruby into the refiner and set it on the highest setting. Honestly, he didn't even know if it was safe to melt down the priceless jewel at such a rapid rate. Even on the highest setting the complete process would take longer than the time alotted before the sun would rise up over the Imperial City. Loki slammed two palms down angrily on the desk. He leaned over, hunched and exhausted. He panted, his long ebony locks flopped in his face and he had to push them from his emerald eye. He rubbed his eyes, his tired, blood shot eyes. Eyes that hadn't seemed to have caught a wink of sleep in ages. As his long hair hung in his face and his eyelids flapped, he could slowly feel them starting to close. he desperately wanted to close them and keep them closed. No. He reminded himself. He couldn't do that. There was work to be done. Oh, so much. And still and even on every turn no matter how close he got. No matter how many steps he took to do good and right all his terrible wrongs there was always another hurdle.

"Not enough time! Not enough time!" Loki muttered miserably as he shook his low hanging head. "The stone!" he gasped as he looked up at the mini furnace. "There's not enough time!" he yelled out haggardly. "I can't stop the dawn," He said with a shallow breath and his voice shook and maybe it was just tiredness, but there were tears in his eyes. He rubbed the back of his hand swiftly over his face and went to the window in his tower. He flung back the dark drapes and pushed open the shutters. That high up the Aether ash had begun to swirl and fester in the form of dark, turbulent thunder clouds that were full of frightful red lightning. The dark crystalized Aether ash whipped about on violent winds and blew into the tower. It hit Loki in the face and caused him to cough and gag and gasp. Loki was dazed and staggered backward flapping his hands in front of his face and coughing to clear his lungs. He slammed his eyes shut and fought his way back toward the window to close the shutters. He closed them breathlessly. He went to the other window where the glass was still in place. He looked out at the city that was already decimated. The sky was dark, thick with the contamination of the Aether, but even the darkness of the Aether wouldn't shield them from what sunrise would bring.

"Think! Think! Think!" Loki admonished himself as he slapped his forehead. At dawn Thor was due to be executed, but Convergence wouldn't take place until noon. That gave him hours, several hours to arrange the containment box to hold Aether. Granted, he didn't know exactly when he would have the time to build the containment box, but he'd have to worry about one thing at a time. The most important thing was making sure Thor survived long enough to wield Mjolnir once again and keeping Malekith from using the Tesseract to allow Thanos to enter this realm.

Pixie dust was easy to his hands on. He had a jar full of it. The Light-Elves and the Fae Peoples both inhabited the woods of Alfhiem. The Fairy Queen Titania was a generous and benevolent ruler and was quick to give gifts to those who found favor with her. She greatly enjoyed children as almost all fairies did, but the Fairy Queen had a special fondness for children as she had never been able to have any for, she had not taken a king in many, many centuries. Queen Frigga had paid her dear friend and visit and Loki had accompanied his mother. They had just stayed a little over a week, but he and Frigga went a lone and without Father or Thor. It was so rare that he got to spend time away from Thor, that he leapt at the opportunity to be an only child for a few days. Especially in a kingdom as magical as that of the fairies. Queen Titania was a dream. She was always singing and dancing about with her ladies. She would play her lute as she walked through the forest and birds would start to accompany her. Frigga shared with her that her younger son was interested in learning enchantment and Titania offered him a very rare gift. A gift not often afforded to outsiders. When Loki had bargained with the queen for use of Aesir soldiers she knew that such provincial things would not appeal to the young mage. She offered him a rather large supply of pixie dust. It was contained in a small blue vial. When her delicate hands presented the gift, he nearly scoffed at the small quantity, but she assured him that the dust would not settle in the jar until such a time as Ragnarök should befall them all. Loki gulped. "Perhaps that is such a time as this!" his eyes grew wide and he rushed to his crystal cabinet where he kept his most valuable possessions. He flung the crystal doors open. His hands all too eagerly clasped at the pretty, sparkly, sky-blue bottle. He immediately pulled the cork from the mouth of the bottle. It got stuck for only a moment and then came out right quick! Immediate, brightly colored particles spring forth from the inside of the bottle. It smelt like a bouquet of island orchids, the sparkles as colorful as glitter and confetti. They tickled Loki's pointed nose and caused him to sneeze. As he did so he soon became airborne. His feet hovering just above the ground surrounded by swirling pink dust.

He started to laugh as he remembered many days as a lad when he had taken pixie dust and tormented Thor by soaring here and there and out of his reach, up in the trees. He'd steal a hat right off of his older brother's head and fly away with it, laughing wildly as Thor chased behind him leaping in the air trying to catch him by the foot and just when his fingers got close, he'd fly a little higher getting out of dodge. He'd often employed the pixie dust when he and his brother played games like tag and hide and go seek on the palace grounds. They'd be searching for him for hours, Sif would become so frustrated often enough that she would start to swear and usually her mother or one of the other ladies of court were out and about making their rounds across the palace grounds and if they heard her using such language they'd snatch her up and give her a good talking to, much to his delight. It was then that he'd reveal himself to the gang. He'd fly down just low enough so that Sif could see him pointing and laughing at her misfortune. Her eyes would widen and she'd yell and fuss and try to point out that he was hovering just under a tree, but it would be too late.

He'd fly away from his nursemaid Helga when she'd try to get him to come to bed. Sometimes they'd find him dancing on the palace spires. She'd squeal and scream something fierce. She'd shout for him to come down lest he break his royal neck. All the while he'd be laughing and snickering behind his fingers. One time she became so worried for his health that she actually started climbing the terrace to try to get to him. He was amazed as he watched her climb higher and higher. She called out to him not to move because she didn't want him to fall. The funny thing was that she actually thought that he was going to fall. She didn't know that he had doused himself in pixie dust and couldn't have fallen off the roof if he tried. She stretched and strained and reached out her stubby limbs every which way. She was all red in the face, her hair had fallen out of the pristine wimple that she always kept it in and gray strands were flowing everywhere. "Hang on. Loki, my dear boy," she called out of breath. For the life of him he couldn't figure out why she had persisted so, why she hadn't just gotten the guards to come after him. Then it dawned on him that she actually cared. Stodgy, old Helga, who he and Thor never found to be much fun actually cared about him. She was always making them eat their vegetables, sit up straight, practice their instruments and calligraphy and get to bed on time and take a dose of daily tonic before they went to bed. She cared about him. Her foot slipped as she continued in her treacherous climb. His youthful eyes widened. His heart stopped for a minute as he saw his nursemaid dangling from a balcony that was nearly 80 feet high.

"Helga!" he yelled as he leaned over the edge with his hand outstretched toward her. He was surprised to realize he cared too.

Lady Helga tried to pull herself up as best she could, but her old arms were shaking and her fingers were starting to slip from the balcony that she was tightly clasping.

"Stay back, my prince," she instructed him. "Stay where you are!" she ordered to him on the roof. But there was no time to delay. Helga needed his help. She'd fall and break his neck all for some silly prank. Loki jumped off the roof quick and nimble. "Prince Loki, NO!" Helga screamed at the top of her lungs. Instinctively, she let go of the banister as she tried to catch her young charge. Her shrieks turned even louder as she realized that she was rapidly falling to her own doom. He pudgy arms and legs were flailing wildly in the air. It seemed as though finally the servants and courtiers heard the commotion and rushed to see what all the matter was about as they gathered on the palace lawn. Helga soon felt something strong beneath her back pushing her back up in the air. She continued to scream her head off all the while as she floated back toward the balcony. She craned her neck to look behind her. She couldn't believe her eyes when she found that Loki was pushing her back up. He pushed her back up so that her feet landed back on the balcony. Helga was huffing and puffing on her knees, practically sobbing as she kissed the balcony floor and thanked the Norns. She looked up and saw Prince Loki, tip-toeing on the banister. "You!" she exclaimed as she pointed a shaky finger in his direction. Prince Loki winced. He was tempted to leap back off the balcony rather than endure a scolding from his nanny or worse have her tell his father. He was about to go, but her old hands were too quick. She caught him by the him of his tunic and snatched him from dancing upon the railing. She pulled him into a tight embrace. She smothered him with her large chest. She showered him with kisses. "OHHHH," she let out a sigh that sounded like a growl. "Prince Loki, you're an imp!" she declared. "Oh, I'm so glad you didn't break your royal neck, but you're an imp! How'd you learn to do that? Oh, no don't tell me! You are in big trouble!" she told him and she stopped planting sloppy pecks on his cheeks and took him by the ear and dragged him down the hall.

Loki broke himself from his reminiscing only because his head had bumped against the tall cedar beams of his ceiling. He looked up and rubbed his head, "Oh yeah, happy thought," he chuckled. Loki refocused his mind. He sobered as he thought of the fact that Lady Helga had long since retired from being governess. Once she'd said that Thor had driven her to retirement. She remarried in her old age, she was quite wealthy from her years of service to the royal family and she now resided outside the city in a quite elaborate estate. He hadn't paid a visit to his old nursemaid in more than 30 years, she was firm and strict and she certainly hadn't been his favorite nanny, but he realized later in life that she had been the most dutiful. When he took his Mage Trials, she came and told him how proud she was of him on the day when he and Thor received their crowns and she was in the crowd that thronged the palace on Thor's coronation day. If this ended well, unlikely as that was, perhaps, he would pay her a visit one day, She had to be ancient, she was old when she was a lad, but he wouldn't mind if Helga resumed her service for the royal family as a caretaker for his own child.

Loki shook his head as his feet touched the floor. There'd be no child, no Helga, no Asgard if he didn't stay focused. He was so tired, his eyes so heavy. It was hard to concentrate but he knew he needed to. He had to get all the components to make containment box. He placed the bottle of pixie dust next to the melting crystal as he thought of the other items he needed. he thought that there might have been an Everwood tree in the palace garden. Correction, he knew there was an Everwood in the palace garden. His mother and the palace gardener had taken care to collect an example of some of the rarest flora throughout the Nine Realms. The Everwood was never to be chopped for if an Everwood tree was chopped it was said that it would immediately die, but these were desperate times and whatever was made of Everwood was said to be uncorruptible.

Loki paced back and forth nervously as his active mind turned and overturned his new plan. He could still assemble all the pieces necessary to make the containment box. "Platinum...platinum," he mumbled to himself as he snapped his fingers. He had plenty of priceless platinum jewelry. He could easily retrieve the item from his bedroom. He'd need quite a bit of platinum for this undertaking though. He thought that within his room he had a coat of arms one that he had only worn once or twice. Once was when he was granted the title of Master Mage of Asgard for his induction ceremony and the other might have been for his betrothal ceremony to Lady Sigyn, he could scarcely recall.

The last thing that he needed was the Tesseract. He had to make sure that in the process of the Convergence that Malekith was not able to deliver the Space Stone to the Mad Titan. Convergence only lasted for one hour. The portals between the realms would only be open for so long and it would take time for the Convergence to penetrate through the Void, but if Malekith used to the Tesseract he could make the portal as wide as he wanted to and hold it open long enough for Thanos to get through. If Thanos got through, then Ragnarök would be unavoidable.

That was it. First, he'd get the Tesseract, then he'd gather the rest of the items needed to complete the containment box. A crocked half-smile played across his lips as his plan started to align. Then, it dawned upon him that he needed to get Thor out of the palace. There wasn't much time but perhaps if he could get Thor to the healers in the underground bunker, they could patch him up him up just enough so that he could stand and fight with the people of Asgard. The people needed to see Thor. He'd get the Tesseract, get Thor and then the rest of the items he needed for the Aether's containment box. His eyes shifted to stare at an hourglass that sat upon his writing desk. He squinted as he gazed at the way the black sand seemed to rapidly drip down to the bottom half of the hour glass. A mere hour and a half were left before sunrise.

He hadn't a moment to spare. He sprinted from his tower. His long legs moving at lightspeed. He ran down the steps to get to the Weapons' Vault. He moved swiftly down the hallway, but just then he noticed the stocky built body of the illustrious Dark-Elf general emerging from his bed chamber. Loki was just about to make himself scarce, but the Elf's senses were heighted by the power of the Aether that was residing inside of him. He turned sharply, his visage nearly frightening as half of his face was dark as night and his eyes glowed with the intense red of the liquid Infinity Stone itself. The general's bloodless lips curled into a smile, he showed the sharp edges of his pointed teeth, Some black and some yellow. He proceeded to stomp over to the king of Asgard.

"Your Majesty, " Malekith greeted. There was a sneer to his tone, but overall Loki would had described the Dark-Elf's demeanor as jovially and that was a first. "Couldn't sleep?" he asked speaking in the language of his people.

"There is much to think about...much to do," Loki replied in the Dark-Elf tongue.

Malekith kept a shrewd eye on his ally, "Second thoughts Asgardian?" he questioned. He had no eyebrows but the skin about his red eyes was raised.

"I have none...now,"

"Ah, but you admit that you have had your reservations?"
"I admit nothing, Lord Malekith," Loki said as he turned his head and no longer faced the Dark-Elf's ugly mug.

Malekith glowered. He balled his metal mesh gloved hand into a fist. "It would be a shame for Thanos to get the impression that you were not fully committed to the cause …"

"I have proven myself to Thanos," Loki responded . He crossed his arms and his tone remained placid.

"Have you? In what way? With your mishaps on Midgard?"

"With everything that I have done that has led you here! It seems as though you forget that I have the Tesseract and that is the only thing that will allow the Aether to flourish long enough to consume realms and the only thing that will allow Thanos to re-enter the branches of Yggdrasil once more," he spun on his heels and faced the leader of the army of Svartalfheim. All the while Malekith was simply grinning.

"Just don't forget the plan," Malekith declared , "Thanos won't tolerate any slip up and neither will I," he rumbled. He rubbed his hands together. He started to stroll down the hall. He took long strides. He walked toward one of the great windows. He flung back the dark scarlet drapes. He looked out on to the smoldering city. The dark ash filled the air. It was hot and heavy. Flames consumed every rooftop. The fire danced high into the air lapping up everything in sight. Malekith watch with pleasure as he saw buildings collapse on top of each other. He sent out a blast of the Aether straight from his chest. Loki watched with interest as the dark shot forth. It cast a wicked red shadow over everything in its path. This is a moment I have dreamed about for ages. The stories that my father and his father used to tell me as a lad of a universe consumed in darkness where we Elves will rule over all. The Aether will make the world the way I see fit !" Malekith slapped his chest for emphasis. "And I will paint it black!" he gloated. With that Malekith concentrated. His closed his eyes tight and focused. It had been a long time since he had wielded the dark power in such away. It was hard to focus one's energy in such a precise was, but Loki watched as Malekith reached out a shake hand as all the buildings that were under the Aether's dark glow began to revert to a dilapidated form. The buildings crumbled they became like ancient ruins. Places that hadn't been inhabited in centuries. They faded from even the pure shades of gold and silver and they turned black. The masterful architecture that was so true to the style of Aesir art was replaced. It was replaced brusque, gnarled and spiked buildings. The giant monuments that had always been depictions of the great heroes and leaders of Asgard's past. Now they became misshapen beast fit for nightmares. Grotesque, three-headed beasts, dragons and every kind of horrible monster imaginable. Malekith cackled wildly as the Imperial City started to resemble the very gates of Helheim. It took all within the young king to keep from screaming out as he watched how in seconds Millennia of rich history were made as though the never existed.

Emerald eyes opened up wide. In all his years as an enchanter he had been able to cast many illusions. He had been able to manipulate people and make them believe all sorts of lies, but never, never had he seen such pure raw power to change the very fabric of realities. It was terrifying and yet tantalizing all at once. Dreadful and delightful. This was no trick, no façade, no glamour, nor misdirection. This was real. With just a thought, Malekith could change whatever he wanted. Loki mashed his lips down deep. In the wrong hands the Aether was a weapon that could destroy all life, but in the right hands or if used for the right purpose...maybe even a very small purpose...like making a Frost Giant into Aesir it could change a life for the better. His heart started to pound, his mouth grew dry and in the back of his mind he could hear the slippery familiar voice. "You could take it, Loki," the voice whispered to him. "You don't have to keep it for all time you don't even have to use it for any evil purpose," the voice hinted. "Just use it to make your dreams come true. You still deserve to have your dreams come true," It taunted him. Loki's mouth watered. That was where it has all began wasn't it? Wishing for things that were not. He shut his eyes and drowned out the voice.

Loki caught Malekith by the wrist and he roughly pushed his hand down. Malekith spun around like a viper

"Don't forget, my friend, that Asgard will remain under my rule," Loki insisted with a genteel smile creeping over his face.

Lord Malekith's glowing, red eyes narrowed. "If you think for even one second that Thanos is going to let you spare ...them..." Malekith's voice came out furiously fast and angry. He cursed and mumbled profusely in his mother tongue. He started to laugh wildly. Loki calmly raised his hand to halt the insane dictator midsentence. For amount Malekith obeyed. He found himself somehow compelled to follow Loki's smooth and effortless natural leadership. Then he thought better of it. He let out a growl that was aimed at himself as he realized he was following a command. He swallowed his silence and immediately began again. "Because he's not!" he barked. "He's not!" he shot once more. "Thanos knows that the universe has a natural order. The weak have no place in it but to be subservient to those who are strong," Malekith spewed.

"The Aesir are strong," Loki reminded Malekith.

"I knew you still harbored an affinity for them!" the general accused as he pointed at the king.

Loki shook his head. His dark mane slapping him in the face. "Trust me, Lord Malekith, I am just as eager for this Convergence as you are. "I can't wait!" Loki turned on his heels and expressed with crisp, articulate speech, staring into the pit like eyes that flickered with red crystals like hellfire. "I am an anxious for the Aesir to get exactly what they deserve," He explained and there was a steely look in his emerald orbs.

"Then for once we are on the same page," Malekith stated and he revealed a knife-like smile.

"Indeed," Loki nodded. "Perhaps we should review the plan again," the new minted king of the Aesir stated. "Just to make sure there are no slip ups."

Malekith's eyes narrowed. He continued staring out the window looking at his handy work. He watched intently for subtle changes in the horizon hue. "At dawn we will execute, your brother. I say a swift beheading, but there is something to be said for a gut wrenching," he explained. He pulled out a wicked looking device from his armored side. It was a dagger with a single hilt and 5 jagged blades that formed a circle. The blades were intended not only to puncture skin, but rip out innards. "Of course, we could get it over with rather quickly with one of these," Malekith manifested one of his matter sucking bombs in his hand. He continued smiling as he proffered the weapon to Loki. Loki didn't immediately respond and so the general tossed the grenade in the air. Loki's hand immediately reached out to grab it and keep it from exploding. Malekith sucked his teeth for a moment. Then he turned to Loki with the blackened side of his face. Once more he put on a grin that was most unpleasant. "I suppose I will let you pick the way he should die," he added as he sheathed the dagger. He turned from Loki's direction. "After all he is your brother." The Dark-Elf waited. He waited and listened to hear a pent-up sigh. Some sort of gasp or inkling that the new king of Asgard was becoming uneasy about the execution. Loki didn't make a sound. "Course if you aren't up for doing it..." he began again after a moment's pause. "I'll be happy to. His head spun around like an owl as he faced Loki once more.

The trickster wore a cool unflappably staunch face. His tired eyes blinked boredly. He let out a small sneer, "No, my dear Lord Malekith, that won't be necessary," he stated. This time the king of Asgard did manage to offer back the slightest of smiles, but the smile came quick as a flash. So quick that Malekith wasn't even quite sure that he'd smiled at all. "I want to be the one to swing the axe," he licked his lips. "I want to be the last thing Thor sees in this life. I want him to see me for what I've truly become. And I want the Asgardians to see," Loki stated intently.

Malekith turned up his nose. He rolled his eyes. "if you insist," he stated with boredom, and swooped his dark, red cape over shoulders.

"But what of the Aesir?" he questioned indignantly as he flung his cape back out and nearly wacked Loki with it. "You promised me no uprisings, Loki," railed. "How can we be sure?" He rubbed his chin.

Loki tossed his head back and laughed. "What have they to fight for? What have they to fight with? Who is left to fight for them? Our last battle quite literally decimated the forced of the Einherjar and Valkyrie. Even the average citizens were not spared from the wrath. Even if they wanted to send troops from the other cities all the communication towers have been knocked down. No word is going in or out of the city," Loki explained.

Bloodless lips curled into a smile, "Good. Good," his words tumbled off his lips in a purr as he rubbed his hands together. "Ahhh, but that's not good enough!" he warned.

"Not good enough?"

"We need to make sure absolutely nothing can go wrong! This is our moment of triumph from everything that Aesir have taken from us! We have waited over 2000 years for this day. The Asgardians took the power of Convergence from us once," he clenched his fist. His mind went back. Went back to that day from thousands of years ago. The sky was putrid gray cast, the Kursed was unleashed and was slashing through the Aesir forces left and right with reckless abandon, it was growing strong from its fearsome rage as it tried to satiate its bloodlust. The barriers between worlds were giving way to the alignment. Malekith was glancing up at the sky seeing all the beauty of each of the Nine Realms. And he was becoming filled with fiendish delight as he thought that he would have the opportunity to snuff out all that light. "We were so close," he grumbled with both his hands clenched and his eyes closed. They flung back open and he looked intently at King Loki, "I'll be damned if I have them do it again," he snapped like a rabid dog.

"You have nothing to fear. I'm telling you that the Aesir are weak and scared and practically hopeless. They put all their hope in the royal family. Prince Thor is there only hope and once he is executed, they will not try to revolt they will fall on the ground weeping and they will be more than willing to be slaves. Even if some try to run and flee, where will they be able to go? All the Realms will be facing the same dilemma and Bifrost is down," Loki reasoned.

"Even still! I have to make sure! I have to see it!" Malekith was practically fuming. He gripped Loki by his smooth tunics.

Loki flicked the Dark-Elf's hands off his clothes. "I have seen in," he emphasized.

"How? How have you seen it?" Malekith demanded.

Loki could see that Malekith was suspicious. The new king could have kicked himself. "I saw it in a trance," he lied all too nimbly. "I saw them. I saw them all holed up the crumbling underground sanctuary. They have no provisions and no medicine. The death toll rises by the second," Loki explained.

"I'm about to wake up my men and have them smoke those maggots out of there. You know where the bunker is do you not?' Malekith questioned.

"Why waste the time of your troops? Let your men rest well tonight, with sweet dreams of their victory. I am telling you the Aesir have no intention to fight. Not now."

"This is beyond their intention!" he threw his hands out. "I am going to make sure they can't! I know the Aesir, I know their ways," he began. he turned abruptly and started pacing around," There is always one. Always one among their ranks who is willing to stand up and fight. Is their way. They are a stubborn and stiff-necked people and arrogant to boot," Malekith added.

Loki smiled to himself, "You've got that right."

"To haughty and stupid to know when they are bested and surrender quietly," Malekith went on. There's always one among them, One strong man. But we will bind him too!" He declared as he slammed his fist into his palm.

Loki's eyes darted down and he pulled a golden sundial device from his pocket. He fiddled with it. "Perhaps you are right. Perhaps, there is always one with a trick up his sleeve."

"Well the trick is up my sleeve," Malekith pointed to himself. "We will smoke the rats out of there hiding place. We'll send the ones who are strong enough scurrying for their lives and then I'll have my men surrounding the escape tunnels and we'll clap them in irons! We'll make sure that they are there to watch Prince Thor die like a dog and they'll be there to witness you as well, King Loki of Asgard," Malekith expressed. "What say you to that, your highness?" Malekith asked as he gave a sweeping bow.

"I say it's a bloody waste of time and an act of futility. I do not approve as king,"

Malekith's large nose curled. "Your approval is not what I seek!" the Dark-Elf spat

"My approval is what you need to do any act! I'm king!" Loki reminded the general as he turned to his and grabbed his arm.

The warlord growled and yanked his hand from Loki's grasp. He was about to bust and to yell. Then he stifled himself. He pushed his anger down. Loki was remaining calm and cool. He'd not have this young enchanted upstage him. This was his moment of glory. This was the moment that he had his people had been waiting for since the long before Loki was even born. He'd have his way. He'd see to it that this day was executed in the way he wanted. "Well perhaps it is just better to have the slaves ready for Thanos when he comes. He will need slaves to fight in his army and help to build his empire," Malekith added. "Do take care to remember, oh king, that you are just a regent for Thanos. Your whims don't override his needs for his master plan" the leader of the elves. "Besides," Malekith swiftly turned his face and rolled his eyes. He raised his head high. "I've already dispatched my lead battalion to go to the outskirts of the sanctum." He swiveled around and faced Loki with a smile that was nearly as devious as the famed trickster himself.

"How dare you give that type of command without my approval!"

"Oh mercy, mercy me, dear king," The elf raised his hands in the air feigning innocence. "I wouldn't have imagined that you would have disapproved. Especially since dawn so swiftly approaches...what qualms could you possibly have had," he shrugged.

"It is a waste of the troops time," Loki snapped.

"Well if there is truly no risk of sabotage or resistance than my men would be bored to tears," Malekith shrugged once more and brought a hand to cover his yawning mouth. "My people have waited thousands and thousands of years for this day. I want to make sure they got to be a part of it and revel in it as we," his bloodless lips formed a grin across his teeth that were blackened with the taint of the Aether.

'Don't act as if you care for your people!"

Malekith nodded at the remark. One of the reasons his king had at one time tried to strip him of his high rank as general was because he thought that he was too ruthless, too reckless in battle, sacrificing lives unnecessarily. He had sacrificed nearly their entire race, his own wife and children included for the simple chance to one day rise again and defeat Asgard. He didn't regret it either. Now that he was this close to completing his quest. He could scarcely remember their faces now. Now all he thought of was the glory of conquest from what the Aether would bring. "Don't act as if you care for yours," the general retorted. "Unless...of course, you do?" Malekith chimed.

"I told you where I stood," Loki said through gritted teeth and narrow eyes

"Then I really don't see why we are still carrying on with this conversation when there is but an hour to spare and much preparation to be made if the Aether is to be released," Lord Malekith crossed his arms over his chest.

"The reason we continue to have this conversation, Lord Malekith is because you have yet to learn your place," he glared at the short iron clad Dark-Elf. "I'll call you ally, but never equal," Loki stated as he squared his shoulders. His tall and proud physique towered about the Dark-Elf. "I am king here, and you are the general. Your force is mine to command and you best start to understand that..."

"You arrogant bastard!" Malekith cursed in his mother-tongue. "How dare you presume..." The Dark-Elf general was never able to finish his statement as all too quickly he found his white throat at the wrong end of Loki's dagger.

"Ah-ah-ah," Loki said clicking his tongue and pursing his lips. He shook his head. "That's no way to address your king," he expressed as he pressed the knife's blade deeper against Malekith's exposed skin. Malekith's soulless eyes gleamed with a heated rage, he immediately produced one of the Dark-Elves' famous matter sucking grenades. He started to give out a wince thinking that he had bested the enchanter. "Go ahead," Loki teased. His lips dangerously close to Malekith's pointed ear. "If you honestly think you can set it off before I slit your throat," said Loki his dagger's point already starting to draw inky, black blood from Malekith's neck. The general hissed. "it would be such a shame for us to end our alliance prematurely," Loki added with a good-natured smile. "Such a pity for you not to see the Convergence." Malekith withdrew his grenade and place it back on the belt of his armor. Loki slowly released him. He removed his knife from Malekith's throat. His lips formed a tight lip smile. He methodically scraped his dagger across Malekith's armor to clean the blade before sheathing it once more. "Now go and wake the rest of the men," he said boredly, not even bothering to look up at Malekith. "I will give you their positions," he noted.

Malekith was huffing and puffing. His hand massaging his neck. It was only a matter of time. Just a few hours. He simply needed the Asgardian to use the Tesseract to hold the Convergence portals open long enough to allow the darkness of the Aether to spread throughout the Branches of Yggrdasil. Then he'd slay him. And he'd take pains to make sure it was merciless and he'd revel in it. "As you command, my king," Malekith grumbled. He gave a dutiful bow. 'I'll go get my men. I have an army, a people who are loyal to my command," He added over his shoulder as he slinked away.

The Dark-Elf warlord's comment had not gone unnoticed by the enchanter. He knew Malekith's troops were loyal to him. Malekith had an army, a people, kin. What did he really have now? He couldn't truly expect the Aesir people to stand with him after all he'd done if they were able to rise up, in the back of his head Loki knew that they'd kill him if they had the chance. They'd see no difference between him and Malekith. As if there was one. He was a villain same as him. He couldn't expect to live through this. He honestly didn't. The young wizard tried to remind himself that this wasn't about his life. His life was forfeit anyway. Whether he died at the hands of Malekith, Thanos, Lady Sif or if by some miracle he survived today and was given a proper trial, Odin would have no choice but to have him executed. If Odin was even still alive. He sighed. Odin's voice had been so weak, barely there, his spirit seemed to just fade away. Something cold moved across Loki's skin with the thought of Asgard losing the all-father and all because of him. Thor would have him killed for sure if their father had died. And he wouldn't deny him that. He wouldn't rail against it or ask for mercy. He'd accept the punishment that his crimes deserved. That was justice. He nodded as he resigned himself to the thought. Once again Loki reminded himself that this wasn't about his life. This was about the life of the Aesir about them surviving, it was about all the people of the Nine Realms surviving. It was about his friends and his family. Mother and Thor and Sigyn and the child...the sweet little babe who had only begun to taste the sweetness of life...

Loki looked at his time piece. One hour left. Just one hour until the dreaded dawn. Until they met their destinies. Dread it or run from it destiny would arrive. He surely hoped his plan would work. He hoped that the soldiers from the Southern Palace would come and stand and fight and rally the troops from across Asgard. He hopes that his message had stuck in Sigyn's brain and that she would deliver the message. He had to believe. She'd never failed him before. He just had to do his part. He had to get his hands on the Tesseract to make sure Malekith and his ilk didn't get their clutches on it. He had to get the wood and the platinum. Loki gave a lopsided grin to himself. He figured that he better put on his finest armor. If it was to be his last stand, he might as well look his best.

---

"Lady Sigyn, Lady Sigyn," a healing woman hovered over her waving a light in her eyes. Everything was blurry and way too bright as Sigyn came to. She let out a frightful gasp as if she had been submerged underwater. The healer dropped her healing crystal as Sigyn had startled her so. "Relax, relax," she said as she pushed her back down on the cot. The cot was nothing but straw with a few towels sloppily slung over it. There were so many injured and not enough beds. "Relaxed," the woman cautioned once more as Sigyn looked around wildly. The healer quickly scrambled away to retrieve the healing crystal from off of the stone floor.

"Loki?" Sigyn mumbled from the bed. Her voice so low and breathy that no one could hear. She felt puzzled. The last thing that she remembered was talking with that old man. That strange old man. He was the oldest man she had ever seen, which was saying something because the Aesir were extremely long-lived, but few of them ever showed their age. She could remember him talking to her. He was speaking so kindly to her, praising her as few people ever did. But it was all so strange and urgent and desperate. He made it as if he needed to convey all these sentiments to her but she didn't know why he would feel the need to do such a thing. Surely, she had never seen him before. He wasn't of the noble class and he didn't work in the palace. He hadn't been one of her family's servants. He was just a peddler a very old tinker. Queen Frigga hosted a charity banquet every year for the oldest citizens of ASgard, as one of Queen Frigga's ladies in waiting she was expected to attend all of the queen's functions. She talked with the elders and presented gifts and awards to them, but she'd never met that man before. Perhaps he was just an old man, an old lonely man who was afraid that even his seemingly limitless years were drawing to a close with the coming of the new dawn. Maybe he had no friends or family and just wanted to say goodbye to someone. She tried to convince herself of that, that was reasonable and logical and all those good things. But there was something about his voice, the twinkle in his eye that was just too familiar, unnervingly familiar. And then there was that voice, that message that he had conveyed into her mind, somehow, she wasn't exactly sure how, but it reminded her of...it felt just like.."Loki..."

"Lady Sigyn, did you say something?' the healer asked as she came back to the cot hold the crystal.

"Yes. No," Sigyn said

The healer raised her brow, but didn't say anything. "You've lost a good bit of blood, you have stab and puncture wounds," she expressed as she took Sigyn by the arm and pointed out the fresh scars. "Multiple contusions, a mild concussion and two cracked ribs, not to mention a broken ankle," she pointed out.

Sigyn threw her head back and laughed. "Is that all?"

"All I can detect with the naked eye. We don't have a lot of equipment to spare, besides most of the instruments are outdated," the healer rinsed her hands in a small wash bucket.

"Your injuries are substantial enough, but there are many who are having their legs amputated because it's been infected with the either, some have fester lung from breathing in the Aether ash, there are those that have 3rd degree burns all over their bodies..." the healer explained. She shook her head. They were out of most medications and they were starting to lose people.

"I know, I know...my injuries are nothing next to theirs's," Sigyn expressed. "please go and treat them!"

"I'm not saying that, Lady Sigyn, you still need tending to. Besides I'd rather have a patient whose life I can actually save rather than …" her voice broke off and she shudder. She gasped, covered her mouth and tried to keep the tears from escaping from her eyes, but she couldn't, they just slipped out and once they started, they didn't stop. Sigyn reached her hand over to touch the healer's other hand. The woman quickly withdrew it. "My best friend is still unaccounted for. She's a Valkyrie. They haven't brought her in the healing ward yet...i...I starting to think that she may be buried under all that rubble. She could be suffocating with Aether ash...or just bleeding out, screaming for someone to help her and no one is there, you know," she blinked back tears. Finally, Sigyn's hand managed to cross the threshold so that she was able to hold the other women.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "She might be ok..."

"Stop," the healer held up her hand. "Don't," she cautioned as she quickly wiped the tears away from her eye. "It's nearly dawn...and there's not much hope," the healer sighed. "Now hold still," she instructed. "This healing crystal is nearly worn out, but there are so few left. Your injuries aren't so severe so maybe it won't deplete the crystal's ability." she shrugged.

Sigyn watch carefully as the healer wielded the crystal. The crystal started to glow with a deep purple glow. The healer closed her eyes. And the crystal floated out of her hands and like a magnet it moved along her skin to the spots where she had been cut by Loki's daggers. It felt tingly and good to have her wounds healed, but the process was slow. Painstakingly slow.

"Mistress healer, I must go," Sigyn explained as her eyes grew wide. She had to tell the council. She had to tell Asgard's High Council about what had happened between her and Loki. She had to get the message to the council. The message that was in her mind that she wasn't exactly sure how it got there. But Somehow, she had this crazy idea come into her head.

"Shh," the healer scolded. Her eyes were still closed as she focused on the task at hand.

"But," Sigyn spoke up a tiny peep.

"Shh," the healing woman rebuked once again. "I must concentrate."

"I have to tell the council something," she insisted frantically.

"It can wait until this is over," the healer stated as she inhaled deeply. She shifted her hands and the crystal obeyed her commands and returned to her. She put the crystal back in her pocket and dipped her hands into the bucket of water. The water hovered slightly around her hands engulfing them like a bubble. She hummed and her palms started to glow with a warm, pulsating light that reflected in the bubble. "Hold up ur dress she instructed," she brought her hands toward Sigyn's side.

"No, no, no...I don't think it can," Sigyn insisted as she shook her head.

"It will only take about 30 minutes," she explained.

"We don't have 30 minutes!" Sigyn practically screamed. She could feel the pressure of the healing waters on her ribs. The water was warm and hot and she could feel her ribs being pushed back into place with an intensity that was nearly painful. She hissed as it burned her.

"You are becoming too excited. You must remain calm."

"Please," Sigyn pressed. "There are only minutes to spare until dawn," her breath came out quickly. "I have to tell the council. We have to save Prince Thor!"

The healer paused momentarily. Prince Thor was locked in some dreadful dungeon, probably dying from the merciless torture that the Dark-Elves had given him. The healer swallowed a lump in her throat. Their poor prince. He was their hope. Their future. He was their champion and hero. He had always been and now they didn't even have him. "Sigyn, it's nearly dawn. There's no time," she shook her head.

"There's still time. I just have to hurry. I just have to get to them." she started to swing her legs from the cot.

"Sigyn," The healer's voice was stern. She caught the queen's handmaiden by the arm. "It's over!" Her eyes were still watering and her lip trembled. "Over. Don't you see? We've lost!" she pointed out the dozens lying on makeshift cots, writhing in pain, sapped of all energy. There's no time left," she said as she finally sighed. "It's hopeless," he shoulders slumped.

Sigyn's breathing was heavy. Her golden eyes darted around. No. No, it couldn't truly be really hopeless. It certainly looked hopeless. But it was never truly hopeless, was it? "If...if you truly feel its hopeless, why even bother healing me?"

The healer blinked. Her brows quirked. Her brow furrowed. She bristled and straightened her shoulders. "I'm a healer. It's my job," she stated.

"But it's a waste of time..." Lady Sigyn countered. "If you truly feel these are your final hours why not spend time with the people you love?"

"I...I...I" the healer faltered.

"You wouldn't truly do this if you believed there was absolutely no hope left, would you Mistress Healer? You're much too smart for that, aren't you?" Sigyn questioned.

"My duty to the people of Asgard is to heal them...to show them such an act of mercy is my final duty. It would be cruel to let so many die in pain...it's my job," she sputtered.

"And this is my job," Sigyn stated. Her eyes plead with the other woman to understand. "I have to deliver this message," she pressed. "If I don't... it would be cruel to let so many to die unnecessarily," the blonde-haired woman straightened herself up.

"Your ribs are cracked, you've lost a lot of blood, you've had multiple blows to the head...I don't even know if you are coherent on delusional, Lady Sigyn," the healer said shaking her head. "You're a strange woman, Lady Sigyn," the healer said wagging her finger in Sigyn's face. "I always heard you were a bit off your rocker. But my lady you could be positively daft," she rambled on. "It's against my best judgment as a healer to let you leave this bed without proper tending to," she shook her head.

"Please," Sigyn pressed once more. "For Asgard?" she entreated her with pleading eyes.

Finally, the healer recanted. She released Sigyn from the tight grip. She nodded. "For Asgard. For the fallen." she said thinking of her friend.

Sigyn smiled up at her caretaker. She placed her hands-on top of hers. They exchanged a glance and a thoughtful nod. "For the future," Sigyn muttered back softly as she gave the other woman's hand a gentle squeeze. With that Sigyn swung her legs off of the makeshift cot. He bare feet slid across the dirty cobble stone floor. Her foot immediately slid into some brown puddle and she didn't even want to imagine what that was. Her ankle ached terribly and she could barely put her weight on it. She wanted to scream out. Actually, she wanted to just fall on the floor and collapse and give into the pain. She bit her lip and pressed forward. She limped as quickly as she could toward the inner sanctum that the council was using as a meeting room.

"Merciful Yggdrasil, I hope she knows what she's doing," she heard the healer mumbled behind her.

Sigyn gulped. "I hope I do too," she whispered to herself as she moved onward.

The catacomb was still teeming with people. No one was really sleeping, but as the time had grown late and their chances of survival had grown slimmer there was a kind of settled somber attitude that had come over most of the Aesir. Sigyn made her way through the sanctum and pushed through the rooms full of people who had tried to find ways to preoccupy their time at this dark and distressing hour. In the amphitheater where most of the Asgardians were still gathered People had gathered together holding hands by lit candles and shrines of their great warrior ancestors. They were singing their sacred hymns and telling the stories of old glories. Their mournful songs were haunting and powerful. They urged her on. Most people were still trying to cling to some semblance of courage and of morale. They still had belief in the Norns and in their ancestors. She heard the children singing about how Asgard was beloved and golden and how it would not perish, the dreams of these faithful children could not be set asunder. She had to try had to press forward for them.

She moved quickly through the amphitheater, all the while softly singing along with the rest of her people "One more longing backward glance." She maneuvered as quickly as possible through the storage rooms where others still busied themselves quietly trying to count out the provisions which the ancients had left for them. The storage rooms were full, but thousands of years ago the population of the Imperial City had been much smaller. They had crates and barrels and tankards and most of the fruits and vegetables had been frozen. They had no livestock and the few crates full of salted and dressed meat would not be enough to provide for so many for so long. She heard someone mumbling that if rationed to one meal a day held up underground that citizens of the Imperial City might make it a month or two if they stayed underground. The thought almost made Lady Sigyn feel slightly hopeful. Then she reminded herself that they weren't the only people. What about the other citizens of Asgard, those who lived in the shires and the mountain country and the seaside cities and the Dales. What about her own parents in the Dales? And Theoic? Her groom-to-be. She had promised that when this was all over that she would return to him and she would. She would keep her word. She wasn't much, but she was a woman of her word she reminds herself as she politely pushed through the lumbering men who were carrying heavy sacks of wheat and meal on their back and placing them into groupings. She would come back if she could, but quite frankly what if there was no one to come back to. Once Convergence came and Malekith was allowed to spread the Darkness of the Aether like a virus across the Nine Realms, the sun would be blotted out. Darkness would consume the land. Slowly wiping out life. Nothing would grow and if the people didn't die from being strangled by Aether ash it would only be a matter of time before the starved to death. Her resolve grew stronger. She had to get to the elders and the high council members.

Sigyn pushed through the crowd there were people walking through the halls just wailing. They'd ripped their clothes and has ashes on their heads and in their hair. Women and children and men just wept and screamed as they walked in a processional. Sigyn looked at where they were headed. They were going into the morgue. The healers had done their best to try and heal as many as they could, but most even by the time they'd been dragged into the safety of the catacomb were too far gone. Their wounds were too severe. There was a stack of bodies piled high.

Lady Sigyn turned around and gazed up in horror as she beheld the room filled with so many fallen warriors and some who weren't warriors, some who were simple millers and carpenters and merchants, teachers, children, bankers...people. Good Aesir people who had just been trying to live their lives. They had just been off to start another day. They had thought the worst was over. They had thought that there would be no more attacks on Asgardian soil, but they were wrong. They were very wrong. Had they known maybe they would have stayed inside. Maybe they wouldn't have left the safety of their homes, maybe they wouldn't have made their way to the Imperial City to come and trade or do business or attend meetings or shop or go to school or attend a concert or whatever they had planned to do. But all the while Sigyn couldn't help but wonder if it would have made a difference. The Dark Elves would have still been led back into the city by Loki.

"Dark-brown hair, dark-brown hair and spectacles," a woman said frantically to a one of the city officers. "We were together...and then...there was an attack...the ground spilt a building fell...we were separated...I've been looking all over...I know...I know he has to be here!" she was screaming as she clutched on to the officer's tunic.

"Lady you must calm down..." he urged her.

She started to hyperventilate. "Calm down! Calm! Calm down! Calm down! I can't!" she yelled. "That's my baby! That's my baby!" she was sob him. "Find him! Find him! Find him!" she slapped the officer right across the face. Her hands were muddy and bloody. They shook something fierce. The officer gripped her by the wrists and tried to restrain her, but she fought fiercely against his efforts. "FIND HIM! FIND HIM!" she hollered recklessly in his face.

"You just bludgeoned an officer, my lady, now calm down!" he insisted. "That's grounds for you to be arrested!" he reported to her as he wrestled her and tried to get her to keep her hands behind her back.

"FIND HIM! FIND MY SON!" she yelled all the while. The city watchman started to pull a pair of cuffs from off of his buckle. Just as he was about to clamp the manacles on her wrists another officer approached.

"Wait!" the other officer called as he carried a floppy body in his arm. "We found him," he expressed breathlessly.

The woman tore herself from the first city guard's hold and frantically ran with her arms outstretch. "Hans! Hans!" she exclaimed as she met the second guard. "Hans?" she looked down at the limp dirty body in the guard's arms. "My child, wake up, tis Mama' she urged as she brushed her hand over a smudged cheek and pushed back matted locks. "Hans?" her voice grew weak. "Hans no! NOOOO! HANS!" she screamed as she dropped to her knees. The officer who had been about to arrest her was soon behind her. He caught her as she was about to pass out.

"Come, my lady," he urged as he supported her and held her hand. "Follow the procession," he pointed out the what seemed to be hundreds by the score going off in the same direction. "They are all going to give last rites to the dearly departed, why don't you join them and say goodbye to little Hans there?" he said.

The mother walked on like a zombie. She carried her child and wailed as she did so. Sigyn watched in horror and true sadness as the large processional of mourning mothers and fathers and husbands and wives, brothers and sisters and friends' neighbors were led to a morgue chamber. Some people had taken to stripping the dead. They took their armor and tunics and shoes and gathered them into piles. Mostly old women were doing that. Some were scrubbing the bodies clean for the pyres.

Sigyn couldn't take anymore. She couldn't watch anymore. If she didn't relay her message to Asgard's High Council then that would be all that would be left of any of them. Too many were gone. Too many were gone, gone for no reason at all. This was their last stand. The last thing they could do to save their world and all the other worlds. She didn't know if she had made the right decision before. Now even more so she was starting to have her doubts. Loki had been there, helpless and unconscious and at her mercy. She could have done it. She could have done it easily and quickly and no one would have known. She wouldn't have had to tell and then maybe all would be saved. But she couldn't imagine taking, Loki's life. Besides, somehow, she didn't know why, but she just had a sinking, gnawing feeling somewhere deep within her gut that they needed Loki. Thor was incapacitated and most of their military was too wounded to fight. Besides you had to fight fire with fire after all. The Aether wasn't just a physical weapon it was magic and they needed some magic on their side. But was Loki on their side? She didn't know. She couldn't be sure. She could only...hope.

She ran. She ran as fast as she possibly could with her broken ankle and busted ribs. Her ribs pressed into her stomach and made it had to breathe. She clutched her side. Gasped and even yelped a bit from the pain, but she didn't stop. The doors to the Council Chambers were closed. They were great iron, metal doors. They stood so tall and stately. They towered over Sigyn. There were two palace guards posted on either side of the door as Lady Sigyn approached. She tried to right herself. To not look so flushed and flustered and haggard and in obvious pain. She didn't guess that she was doing a very good job of pulling off the act as she hobbled forward. She looked at the guards squarely in the eye. She did not flinch as she reached a hand forward to touch the door and push her way in. Immediately, two spears crossed in front of her and blocked her entrance.

"Council is in session, how dare you think you can enter," the guards barked.

"I am Lady Sigyn Arndottir, Lady-in-waiting to Queen Frigga and I will speak with the High Council of Asgard," she expressed as she stood up tall and straight and set her face like flint and walked closer to the door.

The guards exchanged glances at one another. The looked the dirty, ragamuffin looking woman up and down. Filthy as she was, she certainly didn't look like the lovely blonde lady-in-waiting to the queen who was normally dressed to the nines in Asgard's latest fashions. "Sorry milady, but even still, the Council Chambers are closed off to you, right now," the expressed.

"Closed off," Sigyn did a double-take. "Closed off! No, no, no" Sigyn shook her head. "The Council Is expecting me! I had a secret mission," she expressed nervously shaking her hands. "You have to let me pass" she urged them as she lunged forth toward their spears.

The palace guards held their spears steady. Then each one caught her by the shoulders and held her back. Sigyn struggled against their might. "Lady Sigyn that's enough," they insisted. "Now you must go. We can inform you when the chamber doors open and the council is taking questions from the public, but until then these doors will remain locked and off limits."

"But you don't understand," Sigyn railed. "There isn't enough time!" she was practically sobbing. "We only have an hour! Please!" she cried. The guards didn't heed her earnest pleas. They simply turned her around and gave her a quick shove. Dismissing her and sending her on her way. Sigyn's shoulders slumped. The chamber was sealed up tight. There was only one entrance. There were no windows or side doors, but she couldn't take no for an answer. Not now. Not when this was the last moment they have. Sigyn clutched one hand by her side. She felt around within the folds of her cloak. Her hands desperately fumbling as she walked away ever so slowly. Her heart started to pound further and her hands started sweating profusely as she tried to find her quiver. She had to have it. She didn't think that she had taken it off. Why would she? She bit her lip. Oh no. Was it lost? Just before she could give into panic she felt the the arrows that had been neatly snuck into the hidden deep pocket in the folds of her cloak. Her eyes watered as she looked up with gratitude. She turned back around with a fierce look in her amber eyes. She pulled out one arrow and her bow and she quickly went running back toward the guards.

"Lady Sigyn! Stop!" she heard them bellow but it was too late. They came to accost her. They roughly attempted to grab her with their big, heavy hands. Sigyn folded and dodged and spun around and slipped through guards. With her bow she struck them in the heads beating their helmets. The guards were stunned and their ears rang from the metal rattling against their heads. In their moment of daze Sigyn found an opportunity to shoot her enchanted arrows. She pulled one arrow out quickly placed it snugly between her fingers and the string of the bow and released she took aim for the one soldier's shoulder sleeve. The arrow didn't graze him, but its power knocked him back and pinned him to the wall for a moment.

"What the hey?" the other guard cried as he grabbed his head and looked at his fellow guard on the ground. His eyes blinked as he beheld the golden locked maiden standing over his friend. "Sigyn?" he asked in confusion.

Sigyn turned to him and shrugged her shoulders. "Sorry," she whispered with a wince. The other guard came up on her quickly. He wrapped her in a bear hug. Lady Sigyn screamed as it put too much pressure on his broken ribs. Her thin arms managed to wriggle free of the grasp. She still had her bow in her hand and she proceeded to inflict several quick blows to the soldier from the helmet. She kept whacking him over head on the head until he finally released her. She went crashing to the floor gasping on her hands and knees. She bit her lip as she clasped at her aching side. The guard had also fallen back flat on his back. His hand was placed on his throbbing head, he removed his helmet not knowing what hit him.

Lady Sigyn stumbled to her feet and limped toward the door. "Halt!" the guard attempted to shout once more. He too was getting his feet fast. Sigyn reached for her bow and arrows once more. She launched two arrows right at his boots nailing him to the floor. With that she hobbled her way toward the door. She pressed on the heavy metal doors with her entire weight and flung it open.

The door slammed. The large metal knobs ground against the old weathered and water logged stones. The sound made a frightful echo in the nearly empty room. The members of Asgard's High Council all immediately turned their heads to stare in the direction of the intruder. "What is the meaning of this?" demanded Lord Algrim and he stamped his staff against the stone.

Sigyn stood, nearly toppling over, breathless and pained. She wheezed and she gasped as she squinted to make out their figures. The chamber was huge, but there were only a few members of the High Council present. She wanted to approach the Council bench. As was the proper protocol when one was becoming before the High Council of Asgard, but her legs felt to weak, her ankle ached abominably and the Council bench seemed way too far off. It took all the strength within her to stay upright. "Lords and Ladies of the High Council forgive my intrusion, but..." Sigyn started.

"Lady Sigyn?" questioned one of the council's illustrious members from his lofty seat. He cupped his hands over his brow as he gazed down at the dirty, little figure that had just entered. Sigyn nodded. She smiled and waved pleasantly. She started to will her aching legs to walk once more. They were just about to obey her command when she heard the clanking of metal and the rustling of armor. The footfalls were coming fast and heavy toward her. Before she could even react, she felt large, strong hands come and wrap around her wrists and shoulders and forearms.

"There you are!" one of the guards growled in her ear as he grabbed her.

"Get her out of here!" the other shouted. The two soldiers easily began to cart her away. "We are sorry, Lord Algrim, she just slipped right passed us." he explained as he bowed, his hands still on Sigyn.

"No, no, no" Lord Algrim shook his head. "Let her go! Let her go" the old elf called out. "we've been expecting her," the chamberlain expressed. His face was nearly white in color and rather sallow, there were deep bags under his eyes that looked as if they could have carried heavy sacks of flour. Lord Algrim was already very thin, but he looked unusually gaunt and wane. His hair, which was already white with age, seemed to float about his hair as a gray and ghostly sheet. It was wiry and wild and all about his head. The pointy-eared elf who was normally dressed in fine silks and velvets and expensive linens was now in nothing but a simple under tunic which was ripped and rent and he had traded in his pointy-toed golden slippers for a pair of old, muddy sandals. Despite his distraught appearance he managed to offer the tiniest glimmer of a smile.

The two guards exchanged glances. Their hands flew off the maiden immediately and at the same time. "Right away, sir" the echoed simultaneously. With that they took their leave of the High Council's chamber.

Lord Algrim drifted down the steps and made his way toward her most of the council seemed to follow suit. About twenty of the members gather around Lady Sigyn, including master Heimdal. The gatekeeper observed the young woman shrewdly. His large arms gathered her up in a tight embrace. He pulled her in with eyes shining. "Lady Sigyn, we are so happy that you have returned to us safe and sound," he nodded as he held her steady. "This far away from the Bifrost and with the Aether's power tainting everything around us, my own powers grow weak and dim," he explained as he looked down. "Truly, I began to fear the worst," he said as he took a deep breath. He looked back up at her and examined her once more. There were scratches all over her face, bruises on her arms and chest and his glowing, golden eyes detected that there were more severe injuries that she was hiding. But she was there, before them all, very much alive, perhaps not well, but very much so alive and that was what mattered most. They'd lost so many. They'd lost so many good and valiant Asgardians. And he, he felt responsible. He was their gatekeeper. It was his sacred oath to the eyes and ears of Asgard. To be their look out and their guard and their guide, but he had failed, he had failed the royal family and the good people of Asgard and so, so, so, many innocent people, but somehow the thought of Lady Sigyn becoming another casualty of this war was a weight that he did not want on his conscience.

The golden-locked daughter of Admiral Arn gave an affectionate smile at the gatekeeper. "I'm alright, Master Heimdal, truly" she assured him and this time she placed her hands on his shoulders.

"Lady Sigyn, where is Prince Thor?" immediately demanded one of the council members, Commander Frell.

"Prince Thor..." the Aesir maiden stammered with wide golden eyes.

"Yes, Prince Thor, child!" Lord Audric shouted as he came up toward her. "You went to find him? Don't you remember? Don't tell me that this woman forgot the mission," his purple eyes were wide as he turned around with his arms out stretched and rallied the rest of the delegates to his side. Sigyn withdrew, she shrunk back on herself. It was only feeling Lord Heimdal's massage arm as strong and a sturdy as a piece of pine wood wrapped tightly around her that enabled her to stand her ground. "Did you forget, Lady Sigyn?" he asked desperately.

"What? NO! Of course not!"

"Well, where is he? Where is the son of Odin?" Lord Audric kept on ranting.

"We need our prince. We are never going to win this battle against the Dark-Elves and Loki without Thor on our side," Commander Frell spoke up and specifically to Brunhilda, the general of the Valkyrie.

"Besides," Brunhilda turned back to the other commanders and spoke, "at this point we have very little chance of being able to rescue Prince Thor," she expressed.

"Yes! Yes! Indeed! Quite! Quite!" the voices of the many delegates rose up and started to blur together in Sigyn's ears. It happened all at once they were all shouting at her and demanding answers. They came up and grabbed her and tugged on her and pulled her in every direction. They swirled around her like a sea of faces. All of them wearing distressed, angry, worried, fearful, expressions. Her heart started to pound in her chest. It beat wildly against her rib cage and it caused them to throb violently. She started to feel a headache come over her as well. Her throat grew dry and sore and her tongue became thick as lead. She had been so desperate so earnest to come and give her report. She knew it was what she needed to do. It was what she had to do, but all of a sudden it was becoming oh so hard to do so. Everyone had been depending on her. All the members of the council, the leaders of Asgard, the people of Asgard had been depending on her.

"I knew we should never have let this woman go!" Commander Frell threw a condemning finger in Sigyn's direction. Sigyn sucked in a sharp breath.

"I could have sent a stealth squad of Valkyrie," Brunilda expressed as she grabbed her head. "My ladies would not have come back without Prince Thor,"

"What now then? Do we perish?" cried another member of Asgard's council cried. He was a particularly old man with a long beard.

"We are doomed! We are doomed!" yelled out the Prime Minister as he grabbed Lord Algrim, by the collar of his tunic.

Lord Algrim looked around. The High Council was falling into the rancor. Granted, their predicament was particular precarious, practically perilous, but they were Asgard's leaders and they could not just become a babbling mass of sobbing children. The still had to had some semblance of the order of their station. "Order! Order! Order!" the Light Elf called. He made his way back to the steps and stood behind the podium and banged a rock against the stone. Somehow the frenzy and fury and panic seemed to taper down.

"We must give Lady Sigyn a chance to speak," Heimdal once again spoke up. He pushed Lady Sigyn behind him. His massive, body glad in tarnished gold shielded her from the onslaught of incriminating stares, dirty glares and foul words.

"We should have never let her go!" a noble woman yelled out. "Lady Sigyn is no warrior, no politician, she's nothing! Nothing! Nothing, but a foolhardy whore!" the woman shouted over the crowd. All of a sudden, all the murmuring and frightened voice grew still. And the nast named echoed and reverberated off the stone walls and filled everyone's ears including Sigyn's.

Sigyn immediately covered her face. Tears started to flow; she pressed her forehead against Master Heimdal's shoulder. Heimdal's fiery gold eyes turned bright right. He gritted his teeth and unsheathed his massive sword that was used to open and close the Bifrost. He raised it high and pointed. "Watch your tongue, Lady Tiponi!" he commanded. "Or it shall be removed" he threatened.

For, but a moment, the magistrate's expression seemed to pale. She gulped as she played with her tongue against her teeth. Immediately she swallowed. "Well-being that we are about to die thanks to lady Sigyn, I must say that's not much a threat, Lord Heimdal," she snapped from her seat in the stands. Heimdal's eyes narrowed as he faced the impudent woman. He pushed Sigyn further behind him. He let a tamed growl escape from his lips. He stalked over toward the noblewoman on legs as powerful as two cedars in the forest. Sigyn grabbed him by his large brown hands and tried to pull him back he was far too strong for her. 'No, no, master Heimdal!" she called as she tugged in earnest on his hand. He kept marching closer and closer to the stands. His blade drawn in a vicious position. She jumped in front of him. She pressed her hands against the breastplate of his armor. Her large gold eyes trembled as they looked up at him filled with tears. "Please! Please...pplease!" she begged her voice a fragile whisper. "We mustn't fight" she insisted. "We mustn't fight," she pressed her voice growing stronger. "That's not what I came here for." she expressed. "It doesn't matter...it doesn't matter what anyone here thinks of me...I know what I...I...am many things, but I am not a whore!" Lady Sigyn declared boldly as she turned back around and faced Lady Tiponi.

"Order! Order! I will have order!" declared Asgard's Prime Minister as he slammed his makeshift gavel against the old stone podium. "Now that is quite enough! This council sounds like a group of squabbling children!" he declared. "We haven't time for this! This is a waste of time!" he repeated and wiped his brow with a dirty handkerchief. "I'll not tolerate any more of this foolishness." his thin hands flapped and fanning himself. "This council decided that Lady Sigyn would return to see if she could rescue Prince Thor. The decision was ours not hers. She risked her life so in case the worst should come we would not lose more of our warriors. The Norns know that we haven't many to spare now," he pointed out. "Therefore, whatever has happened is because of us. Our lapses in judgement and it is no fault of Lady Sigyn's" the Prime Minister stated. There was a gasp among the crowd, but no one dare contradict the Prime Minister. "Lady Sigyn, your bravery is to be commended," he said to her. Sigyn finally turned around from facing Heimdal. The gatekeeper's facial expression softened once more to the state of strength and serenity that she had always known her to bear. She faced the council.

Lord Heimdal, put his hand on her shoulder. "Go ahead, Lady Sigyn" his deep baritone voice whispered in her ear.

Lady Sigyn nodded to her longtime friend. She placed her small bruised hands on top of his one last time. Then she gently stepped out of the hold that he had on her shoulder and out of his shadow. Sigyn stood flatfooted in the makeshift council chamber. Hundreds of eyes looking down at her, critically, skeptically, but also hopefully. "Thank you, Lord Algrim," she announced with a curtsey. "I have much to report," she spoke up. "But there is little time to reveal everything. That's simply time we do not have," she explained.

"Tell us the details, Lady Sigyn, we will decide what is relevant or not," stated the Prime Minister of Asgard.

Sigyn gulped. Her heart started to flutter. "Very well," she said simply. "I did find Prince Thor," she said. She looked around and watched as the faces of the delegates brightened ever so slightly. "He is badly wounded," she explained. Her eyes started to water as she thought of the terrible condition that she found Thor in. "Broken bones, heavy bleeding, eyes swollen shut. He had received a brutal beating with and electro whip and he was convulsing and having seizures when I found him," she stopped as she heard an audible gasp from the crowd of delegates. "It took a lot to rally him...and he couldn't stay conscious long when I did. He was bound terribly. There were large heavy chains wrapped around his ankles and wrists and even his neck, he could hardly move," she continued. "I...I...I...I didn't know what to do...I had no key to free him from his bonds," she expressed.

"This is dreadful! Simply dreadful," said the captain of the guard. "If I would have sent some of my men, we could have easily freed him," he cursed beneath his breath.

"Well what did you do Lady Sigyn?' the Prime Minister asked. His jaw was tense. Lord Algrim was a thin waif of a man. He was nothing but skin and bones. And one of the veins of in his forehead started to protrude as he listened to Sigyn's report.

"Well... well... well that's just it my lord, I really wasn't able to do much because well you see without a key I couldn't even unlock Prince Thor's chains and I did think about going to get some coat of arms and seeing if there was some type of sword or axe that I could use to break the chains by cutting them in half..."

"That was a good plan Sigyn, why did you not follow through with it?" demanded Captain Frell.

"I did think about it sir, but I didn't really know if it was such a good plan because in all honesty I don't think I would have been able to carry him. I mean I'm almost positive that I wouldn't have and I definitely wouldn't have been able to carry him safely, not without exacerbating his wounds or making it worst."

"By the Norns," Captain Frell swore as he threw his helmet down. It clanked against the stone. "Had we actually sent soldiers," he pounded his hands. "People who were actually trained to do this type of evacuation," he railed as he turned to Lord Algrim. "We could have had Prince Thor, here with us! The healers could have had easily restored him."

"Well you sent me, Captain Frell," Sigyn called to him. She commanded his attention and his head swung to face her. The dirty, little ragamuffin, with no shoes and hair so matted and dirty that it looked like she had brown dreadlocks instead of waves and tendrils of long, sunshine locks. "And I did the best I could," Sigyn barked back.

Captain Frell's eyes narrowed as he stared her down. "Well with all due respect, Lady Sigyn," he said as his clenched his fist and teeth to keep from screaming. "We appreciate what you did, but we are on the brink of fighting for our very survival! "Our lives hang in the balance. Our very civilizations, hangs in the balance!" He leaned over the railing of the podium where his seat on the council was placed. "So, I'm not saying that you didn't do the 'best you could do,'" he mocked as he scrunched up his facial features and rudely tried to mimic her delicate expressions and dainty features and high-pitched soprano voice. 'But maybe your best wasn't good enough!" he spat. "Maybe other's could have done better!" he shouted. "And that needs to be acknowledged," he grunted when he finished and flopped back in his seat.

Sigyn bowed her head. She wiped her brow. "Aye, sir, that may be true. But as it has already been said, others weren't there. I was." her golden eyes flickered as she stared back up at him. Her amber pupils weren't angry or glaring or vengeful at him for how he had berrated her, but they weren't shrinking back either. They weren't apologetic. They were stern and strong. "I'm not so sure that even your men would have been able to do much else, because the Dark-Elf guards came. They came and they took Prince Thor away, they roughed him up and they dragged him down to the same subterranean cell where Loki was kept. And that cell...it...it...it can't be entered through the catacombs. It had no way of escape," Sigyn explained.

"Loki," Lord Audric muttered. "Cold blighter!" he grumbled.

"So, Prince Thor is lost to us?" asked Lady Brunhilda.

"He's not dead,, Lady Brunhilda," Sigyn tried to assure her in earnest. "At least...at least he wasn't when we parted. See, Prince Thor was in pretty much darkness and obscurity when the Dark-Elf soldiers came down to get him. You know the Dark-Elves love the Darkness and they prefer to have as little light on as possible. They didn't even carry torches down to the cell, but anyway, my prince ordered me to stay quiet and since the Dark-Elves weren't looking for me...I guess they didn't notice me. I waited in the darkness for a little time and then...well then when I finally mustered up the strength and courage to crawl out of the dungeons using the catacombs...I decided...I decided to go and get my weapons..." Lady Sigyn explained.

"Weapons? What weapons? Lady Sigyn, you have weapons?" The Prime Minister of Vanaheim asked.

"Yes, Lord Audric," Sigyn expressed as she tried hard not to crack a smile. "Right, here..." she said as she pulled out her enchanted bow and arrow.

"And she knows how to use them, too" called one of the guards who had been standing outside of the council chamber door. Everyone marveled at her beautiful golden arrows. They were a lovely piece of craftsmanship. No doubt they had been made by one of Asgard's most famous smiths and armories, but most in the council didn't know that they were just as lethal as they were lovely.

"I figured that if I couldn't free Prince Thor then the next best thing would be to try and stop our enemy," Sigyn explained. "So, I intended to kill Malekith or Loki, which ever came first," she reported.

Lord Algrim leaned over the railing. He was practically dangling off the banister. His lanky body could have fallen from the podium. All was silent and all eyes were on the lady-in-waiting. An there was not a flea-breath amongst the crowd of delegates. Sigyn had always relished being the center of attention. She'd fed on it, but now she wanted to vomit. "And did you?" Lord Algrim asked intensely. His pointed ears twitched.

"I...I...I..." her voice somehow became lost in her throat.

For a moment all waited. There was a nervous, silent pause. Sigyn kept right on stammering. Her amber eyes shifted up and down and left and right as she stared at the sea of endless familiar faces. Faces of people who had been leaders of her kingdom since before she could crawl. People who she trusted as some of the wisest and bravest souls in all of Asgard and maybe even in all the cosmos. . It was so scary how they had put their faith in her. Honestly, looking back at it she didn't know that they had actually made the best decision in doing that. Her father used to sit on this esteemed council. He had a seat of honor in the court of Odin. He was a friend of the king. And because of her he had lost that seat. Because of her foolishness. Her father had trusted her, too. He'd trusted that her good looks and charm would have been enough to capture a prince's heart and that in doing so she would have made them members of the House of Odin, aligning their bloodline with royalty and he'd have a seat on Asgard's High Council forever, but that wasn't really the case now. Her father left court not as a retired general who wanted to live in the country, but as a disgrace. And it had been her fault. Sigyn tried to remind herself that it wasn't really her fault, that it was Loki's. Yes, it was Loki. It was Loki who had lied on her. He beguiled and connived and had lured her into another's bed. It was his fault. Just like it was his fault that Asgard was burning now. It wasn't hers. Yet, she couldn't help the residual feelings of guilt that bubbled up. Because knowing everything that he'd done and when she had the perfect opportunity to rid herself and her world of him and she still couldn't do it. She cursed herself for that. She failed the council. Just like she'd failed her father.

'Lady Sigyn!" Lord Algrim called to the young Aesir woman gently. She was just standing there, blinking like a rabbit corralled by a group of hunters. "Lady Sigyn!" the light-elf's voice grew more urgent as he tried to rally her.

Sigyn's breath came quick. Her palms were so moist she thought she'd just watched them, "Lady Sigyn?" a different deeper voice started to speak to her. It was connected to hard, strong, large hands cupping her elbow.

Confess. Confess. Confess! Sigyn's mind screamed out at her. Confess like you are supposed to do as a part of your last rights. Say it. Tell them all that you are reason that they and their children and their loved ones and everyone is going to end up in a world of darkness, where the lucky will end up as slaves. "I...I..." the one letter word kept squeaking up out of her mouth. Maybe Loki will come through. Maybe...she tried to believe. But she felt like such an idiot for even thinking that.

"OUT WITH IT GIRL!" shouted Lady Dagmar's father.

"I wasn't able to," she blurted out with a blink of her eyes.

"So, what now we perish?" someone yelled out.

"I'm sorry," Sigyn muttered.

All of a sudden there was an uproar from the High Council. Once more squabbling and bickering and screaming and crying broke out. "Quiet! Quiet!" Lord Algrim demanded as he slammed his rock down. Obediently they all grew still. Lord Algrim's eyes were watering. Sigyn watched as he took his long bell sleeves and wiped under his eyes. "Sigyn..." he said addressing her. He stared at her. He pinned her with the same looks that she used to give her when she was one of his university students studying more about government. She'd stand up and say something that she'd think was prolific and astute and he'd just stare at her baffled, perplexed by her conclusions. Some would snigger behind her back and others were just as clueless as she would nod along. Lord Algrim would bite his lip, shake his head, run his long fingers through his white mane and say, "Thank you for that, Sigyn" he told her the same thing now. "We must prepare for the inevitable now," the Prime Minister confessed sorrowfully as he faced the people of Asgard. "I think...I think...I think we should dismiss now," the Prime Minister's voice was very quiet and still. His head lowered and his pointed ears were flopped downward.

The members of the High Council rustled and made murmurs and some started to throw out a few ideas, but most simply gathered belongings and proceeded to leave. "Wait!" Sigyn yelled out. She threw forth her hands. She held them up in the air as she intended to stop the council in their tracks. "We must evacuate the catacombs!"

"What?" It was Captain Frell who turned around and glared at her. His mustached lip curled. Sigyn was sure that within the day some gray hairs had entered into the intense red of the hair over his lip.

"We must evacuate!" she reported once more.

"What are you talking about, Lady Sigyn, there is absolutely nowhere else to go!"

"I know...I know, but we can't stay here! The Dark-Elves know that we are here and they intend to smoke us out and they'll slaughter us all!"

"And if we go out into the atmosphere we are as good as dead anyway," shouted back Master Omri. "My son is in the healer's care now, they say he's got fester lung and spores growing right inside his esophagus right now because of being exposed to the Aether ash and those deadly clouds," he explained. "He can't breathe! He might die," the master builder explained. "My boy may die," he stated once more. He shook his head. "Now you are suggesting we all go out there? It's suicide," he protested.

"If Sigyn's words are true then it is suicide to stay in here as well," Heimdal stated.

"But there are hiding places in here," Lord Audric countered. "Some of us can hide, under the blocks and behind the doors, we can barricade ourselves in some of the smaller chambers."

"Exactly, the old and the infirmed and the children could hide and then The Einherjar that I have, they can fight off against the Dark-Elves," Captain Frell expressed. The delegates seemed to like the sound of Captain Frell's plan much more than Sigyn's. She supposed that it did make sense. She couldn't shake the message that she had in her head. The message about all the people getting out and taking strange reactor type contractions out and surrounding the palace and giving the Aesir and the rest of the Nine Realms a fighting chance.

"But what about the reactors?" Sigyn pointed out. Her breath came out quick and ragged. "The little inventions that Lady Jane came up with?" she pointed out.

"We haven't even heard back from Lady Jane and or Master Bardok or even Lady Leoma," Algrim said as he sunk his long fingernails deep into the wrinkles in his brow.

"They are probably still working on them. Everyone has been working, but there wasn't enough time," Brunhilda explained.

Just then there was a bit of commotion outside of the large stone doors that kept the council cloistered from the rest of the population. "What is all that? What is all that clatter?" demanded Asgard's Prime Minister as he weary, bloodshot eyes looked up.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry Lord Algrim," said the guard who had initially been posted outside the door. "I'll go see to it. I'll go see to it. I have good men posted out there and they won't let anyone in here that's not supposed to be in here," he insisted as he ran back to the door with his hand on the belt with his sword.

"You let her in," mutter Captain Frell, but it was said so loudly and proudly that one could hardly catch it as being mumbled under the breath. He tossed his helmeted head in Lady Sigyn's direction.

Lady Sigyn still held her head high. "I'm supposed to be here, Captain Frell," she called back to him. His head swung around and he stared at her. He looked her up and down. He stared at her dirty, swollen, bloody feet and her tattered gown that even revealed some of her legs, he looked at her arms that were covered with mud. He came to her face. Sigyn was a pretty woman, but her face was so full of scars and scratches and so covered with all manner of filth and dirt and blood that no one could tell. Finally, Captain Frell's eyes fell on Sigyn. The woman's pretty eyes were not hidden under her messy visage. In fact, they looked all the more radiant. There was fire in the gold of her irises. " I came to deliver a message to you," she informed him.

Captain Frell was bristled. His blood started to boil; he was desperate to do anything that he could to keep Asgard safe. But time was out minutes were ticking away. They had no time. He was about to say something to Lady Sigyn, he thought of scolding her for her outright disrespect, but before he could even formulate the rebuke. The large, iron and stone door swung open once more. It made a terrible grating sound as stone slammed against stone.

"WHAT IN THE NAME OF YGGDRASIL IS GOING ON!" Shouted out the elfin Prime Minister of Asgard. He slammed his rock against the podium once more. "This council meeting is not adjourned, keep those civilians out of here!" he declared. But when he looked up he didn't see a group of angry civilians come toward him. He didn't see an unruly crowd raising torches and pitchforks and demanding answers or hurling the few fruits and vegetables that they had at the council for being poor leaders. He wouldn't have blamed the poor citizens of Asgard if a group of them had formed a squad. But instead he saw a most welcome sight. He saw Lady Sif and Jane Foster, the mortal and he saw Bardok, the young mage and a team of what seemed to be about 50 or so others and they came in bearing machines in their arms. They were carrying 5, 6, 10 at a time. "Lady Sif?" he blinked at her as if she was a ghost. "What is the meaning of this?" he inquired of her.

"Forgive me, Lord Algrim," She said, she couldn't quite give him the proper bow that a warrior should show to the Prime Minister, but she thought that she'd forgive him when he heard the news. "But there's no time to spare. The reactors...the reactors are ready," she reported as she looked between Bardok and Jane who came and stood on either side of her.

"Oh, my goodness!" Sigyn gasped. The sight of all those beautiful silver rods was the most beautiful sight she though that she had ever seen in her life. They looked like a treasure. Seeing all the different men and woman Asgard weighed down with those glorious machines was enough to make her want to cry. They were like merchants' ships bringing good and spoils from afar. And those rods, made of iron or steal or maybe some silver well they might was have been made of gold. They might as well have been jewel studded and dressed in silk and scarlet.

"How is this possible?" asked one of the council's leading scholars. A woman who always kept an abacus on hand. She pulled a tiny one out from a small parcel that she had wrapped around her. She moved the buttons and beads on the machine up and down. "The feat wasn't mathematically possible!" she argued.

"Does it really matter how it is possible, Lady Leoma?" asked Lord Algrim. "The point of the matter is they are here. Here they are!" the Light-Elf leader rushed from his lofty position and came down to the center of the room, his thin, pale hands were trembling as he met Lady Sif in the middle. His hands reached out to take hold of one of the contraptions. Now, Lord Algrim was a very smart man. He was learned in almost all political matters from diplomacy and rhetoric to banking and war. He was an astute historian of both the history of Asgard as well as that of his native people. He spoke several languages with ease, but he never claimed to be a man with a head for engineering or such mechanical things. He didn't completely understand how these machines were supposed to work or how they were expected to work, but if they could work, they gave him hope and hope was worth its weight in gold. "May I?" he asked Lady Jane. Jane nodded and Sif passed him one of the reactors. They were heavier than he expected. The just looked like thin rods or poles with wiring and tubes and gears and knobs attached to them.

He sat one on the ground. "How many do we have?" he asked.

"More than we could carry," Sif proclaimed.

"We sent other workers to go back and retrieve more of the reactors," explained Bardok.

"Our group has estimated that we've got more than 500!" Lady Jane expressed.

"That's way more than you said were needed," Lord Algrim said looking up from his inspection of the machines.

"Yes, it is Lord Algrim," Jane bobbed her head. "It's it wonderful?"

"It most certainly is my child, it most certainly is," he acknowledged.

"This is good fortune, Lord Algrim," Heimdal stated. His face remained somewhat firm and austere, but there was a sort of twinkle in golden eyes. "The all-fathers of the past must still have faith in us. The Norns give us a fighting chance."

"Yes, yes quite!" Algrim nodded, his long, stringy, white hair fell in his face and he quickly brushed it back. "We will not squander it. If...if these inventions work..." he added. He hadn't meant for the skepticism to show in his voice so. He hadn't meant to sound like such a pessimist. He supposed old habits die hard. As the Prime Minister he was expected to be sober minded. Odin was a wise king, but ambitious, he had always tried to advise his king with caution. He had never wanted him to rush into things without knowing that there could be a downside. He had always played devil's advocate during the council meetings if needed. Now he was the one that the people were turning to for hope and for courage. They needed him to be strong and they needed him to believe. He wanted to believe. He wanted to believe that these strange little human inventions had the power to save them. He had nothing else to believe in after all, but it was hard not to have his doubts.

"These are the exact replicas of the reactors that I produced in my lab in London," the young astrophysicist explained. "You had all the materials here," she pointed out. "There are even some things here that I believe will work better than the raw materials I was able to find on earth. I had been using a poly-fiber as a conductor for the remote and the reactor rods, but then I leaned for your powerful mineral quartz," Jane explained.

"Mineral Quartz! Mineral Quartz!" exclaimed one of Asgard's leading scholars. "Why didn't we think of that sooner?"

"It was quite silly not to think of Mineral Quartz, sooner. I had been working with Jane for hours and I don't know why it didn't come to me. The properties of Mineral Quartz can transfer an incredible amount of energy at the electrical and molecular levels. It will basically turn these reactors into mini Bifrost. They'd be able to cause instantaneous teleportative results. Jane's initial theory would have allowed us to move objects a few feet or yards, but this could result in us being able to transfer a person a few miles," explained Bardok.

"This could be a turning point for us in the fight against the Dark-Elves and Loki," Heimdal stated.

"Exactly," Lady Sif chimed in. "That is the advantage that the Dark-Elves have over us. Their suction grenades and the power of the Aether give them the ability to manipulate matter, not to mention that Loki is a teleporter, but now we can do it too. It evens the odds."

"It more than evens the odds, it gives us tactical advantage," Brunhilda said with wide eyes.

"Bardok, this was an inspired idea on your part,' expressed Lady Leoma. She moved from her seat and went to the youngest mage in their ranks and clapped him on the back. Her eyes glistened.

Bardok's cheeks started to flush, he raised his hand and waved off the praise as many of the members of the high council were starting to clap for the young mage. "I wish I could take credit, but I cannot. Lady Jane...it was she who actually came to me with the idea..." he differed to the mortal woman.

"Lady Jane, how did you know about the properties of Mineral Quartz? You have similar substances on Midgard, but you don't have anything this powerful..." Lady Leoma questioned curiously.

"No, Lady Leoma, I honestly didn't know anything about Mineral Quartz. I was at my wits end. I was so frayed and frazzled, but then this old man came to me..." the astrophysicist started to explained.

Lady Sigyn's ears once again perked to the conversation. "Old man," she gasped. "What old man?" she asked.

The auburn-haired scientist shrugged. "Just an old man, I suppose, but he was incredibly old, he was just as a beggar."

"An old beggar man knew of the properties of Mineral Quartz," Lord Algrim questioned.

"For the love of Yggdrasil!" Captain Frell exclaimed. "We are now going to base are main line of defense of the advice of an old beggar! These are our lives we are talking about here! Our lives and the lives of everyone and everything we know and love. The fate of the Nine Realms has been left to a mere mortal who takes advice from a beggar!"

"I don't care if the information came from a beggar or a baby if it works it works," Jane stated.

"And does it?" asked Captain Frell as he folded his arms over his chest.

"The math and reasoning is sound," interjected Bardok. He turned and face the rest o the council who seemed to be growing ever more concerned.

"Theory and conjecture mean absolutely nothing in the heat of battle Master Bardok," Frell curled up his nose and stroked his long red mustache. "We have one chance! One very slim and narrow window between us and oblivion, between survival and curtains for everyone. And although, I respect the ancient wisdom that you have studied, this will risk all our lives we need more than just sound math," he placed quotation fingers in the air. "We need proof!" he slammed his hard fist into his rough palm.

"You want proof! You want proof!" Jane shouted back. Her face turning red. "It's not just your life! It's everyone's life. It's not just Asgard its every single realm. You think that you're the only person who care's you arrogant, pompous, blowhard!" she bellowed. All gasped at the mortal's impudence.

"How dare you address me that way!"

"How dare you address me that way!" she shot back. "As if my mortal mind didn't formulate this device long ago and as if my mortal hands haven't been working and hammering, and twisting and twirling wire until they've received cuts and blisters," she held up her hands and showed them to the council. She showed the horrible blisters and scars and burns that had gone untreated. Her palms were bloody and raw, dirt and oil and grease had seeped into her wounds and had caused them to fester. Sigyn caught sight of her friends damaged hands and winced. "And what have you been doing? Sitting here? Squabbling? Bickering? To scared to do anything?" Lady Jane Foster demanded. "Well do something now, why don't you? Come here and go ahead if you are not too much of a coward!" Jane challenged. "You want proof so bad, well then come oooonnn dooooowwwnnn," she bellowed imitating the popular television series, The Price Is Right. Captain Frell may not have understood the reference, but he certainly understood a challenge. He was a man of war, the son of a man of war, he could trace his lineage all the way back to the first clans commanded by the Einar. He was a high-ranking member of the Einherjar, a member of Odin's personal war council. There was no way that he would shirk and cower before this uppity mortal wench.

Captain Frell pushed his way out from the crowd of delegate in the stands. His big shoulders roughly shoved past the others. He pushed them aside. His steps were loud, but not as loud as his furious breathing. He sounded like bilgeschnipe bull ready to charge. He stomped down the steps like a petulant child. He lumbered down the steps until he crossed the floor to stand before Lady Jane.

The auburn-haired scientist was breathless when the great warrior of Asgard came to stand before her. Her tongue had gotten the best of her once again, but she didn't regret anything that she had said to the man. Their lives were all in mortal danger, not just hers as a mortal and what was the point of not saying exactly what she felt at this point. Her hair had fallen in her face. She blew her breath up trying to push the hair out of her face. But her hair was so dirty and matted and weighed down that it just continued to lay there in large, dirty clumps plastered to her face. Finally, she gave into pushing her hair back and out of her eyes. Her brown eyes gazed at Lady Sif. Sif gave Jane a quick wink and then picked up the reactor rod with one hand and tossed it toward Captain Frell. Without a flinch the burly Einherjar captain caught the contraption. He looked out it. He studied it curiously. There was much wiring, a few nobs and gears, a small receptor that allowed the device to be controlled by the remotes. It wasn't exactly something to marvel at. It wasn't so impressive. The best Captain Frell could imagine to do with it was to beat the Dark-Elves upside the head with it. The rod did have a rather pointed end. For a moment Captain Frell held it up like a javelin. He supposed some of the strongest warriors could hurl the reactor like a spear at the Dark-Elves. Trusting this mortal astrophysicist was ridiculous. The mortals had provincial means of war. Their weapons were quite quaint. They hadn't the fire power to contend with most of the people of the other realms. And even though this woman had talked a good game and may have convinced many of the council to go along with her notions he wasn't so easily impressed. He wasn't opposed to technology being used to aid the military of course, but wars should never be won by machines, but by men and women. Men and women of skill and stamina who had the blood of lions running through their veins and iron and steel in their bones.

"Captain Frell, you don't have to do this," expressed Lord Algrim.

Captain Frell held up his strong hand. He closed it into a fist. A smug smile curled beneath his mustache. "I look forward to having the opportunity to do this." He said to the prime minister, but all the while he was facing Lady Jane. He towered over her and his massive size was nearly double that of hers. "We don't have time to delay. We need to know if this works," he declared as he eyed the short scientist.

"Hang on," Jane said. She immediately twisted the knob on the remote. She turned it to a setting. That wasn't very high, but far enough that she hoped would give the pompous military man a good jolt. She cranked the knob roughly. Instantly, in a flash of bright light like a camera's flash, Captain Frell vanished.

The entire council seemed to take one collective gasp. All of a sudden there was a scream that came out of the council members. Jane was slightly breathless after the firm twist, she had given to the remote. Honestly, she didn't know where she had sent him. But away from her was good enough. She didn't take kindly to anyone questioning the validity of her work. She wouldn't risk the fate of the universe on a guess or on a machine that hadn't been checked. She spent years perfecting her reactors.

Heimdal allowed a small smile to grace his lips. He turned to Lady Jane and folded his arm across his chest. He tossed his head back and laughed. He laughed loudly. His jaunty baritone voice filled the tight inner sanctum. "Well it certainly seems like it works," the gatekeeper declared.

"Yes, yes, it does!" repeated Lord Algrim. A broad grin ran across his thin face. The crowd of delegates from Asgard's High Council rose to their feet and gave thunderous applause to Lady Jane for her clever invention.

A lump formed in the young astrophysicist's throat. She had never received such respect for her work before. She wished that she could share this moment with Erik, he'd taught her so much over the years and Darcy, she'd always kept her laughing and energized on those long weary nights when she'd been up studying and tinkering and figuring. Or even with her mother, her mother who although supportive had never really understood her passion for science. Or with Thor. Thor. She recalled the words he had spoken to her when they gazed up at the stars from the roof of her mobile home. She had merely thought of him as some type of crazed drifter. Albeit, an incredibly handsome, chiseled and refined crazed drifter, but a crazy drifter none the less. But his voice was smooth and his hands were strong and he had risked so much to get back her little notebook. She would never forget his encouraging words telling her not to give up on her life's work and her research, telling her that she was right. Thor..Thor...Thor! She couldn't just stand their basking in the praise. They still had work to do. They still had to stop Loki and Malekith and the Dark-Elves. They still had to rescue Thor.

"Where is Captain Frell?" a few of the delegates started to question once the rapid applause started to die down.

"Is he dead?" another asked.

"Does this machine kill?" one called out one of the high-ranking officials, his voice as intrigued as it was horrified.

"No!" Jane called out immediately in defense of her reactors. "It's just a teleportation machine, it moves matter..." she explained.

"Then bring him back," ordered the Prime Minister of Vanaheim

"Yes, please, Lady Jane, quiet, quite, bring him back straightway," urged Lord Algrim. "We need Captain Frell." Jane nodded. She immediately began fiddling with her instrument. She turned the dial and pressed the buttons. She put the remote on scan mode. The screen flashed with a little green pulsar as it tried to detect the signal of the reactor, but with so many other remotes and reactors in close proximity it was run jamming the scanner.

It took a few minutes. It was a few minutes longer than Jane had anticipated. The beeping sound echoing off of the remote was the only sound that Jane Foster could hear beside the furious beating of her own heart in her ears. Lady Sif inched her way slightly closer to her. "Is everything alright?" she whispered.

Jane nodded, she licked her lips her, brows were furrowed as she concentrated on the remote and the scanners. "I...I..I just..." she stammered. "I can't a reading," she whispered over her shoulder.

"Bring Captain Frell back!" the crowd started clamoring.

Jane worried her lip. A thin layer of perspiration started to form over her brow, "I'm trying, I'm trying," she responded although only Lady Sif was able to hear with the way the delegates were starting to carry on. Jane kept fiddling with the buttons on the remote. She pressed them rapidly and in different sequences.

Jane was just about to give way to panic, "What's wrong with it?" Bardok asked as he came up behind Jane and placed a hand on her shoulder.

Jane shook her head, "Not sure," her voice was strained as she talked. Young Bardok looked over her shoulders with interest and worry. It wouldn't be a problem if they lost the Dark-Elves, but not being able to bring Captain Frell back was rather alarming.

"I thought you said that these things could be reversed?" he inquired.

"It can be...at least it could...before...the mineral quartz," she expressed. "it's complicated..." Jane went on. "If Captain Frell moved away from the reactor, there might not be anyone to bring back in the reactor's radius," she explained. It made sense to Bardok, a man of science, but he wasn't sure that the council would be so thrilled with the explanation.

There was all of a sudden, a crackling sound that seemed to echo from corners of the roof of the chamber. Everyone glanced around as they heard the fuzzy, fizzing sound of static. "What is that?' asked the Prime Minister of Vanahiem. His purple eyes glanced around.

"It sounds like an intercom system," Lord Algrim stated as he rotated his head like an owl.

"Does this place have an intercom?" asked Lord Audric.

"It's ancient, but our ancestors were very wise and had advanced technology for their time. They made this place to withstand barricade for decades. It is quite possible that they would have furnished it with a simple system for communication," explained Heimdal. His large deep gold eyes glanced around the chamber where the council had gathered. This far away from the Bifrost the great gatekeeper could no longer see to the edges of the galaxy, but his eagle eyes did manage to spot several speakers in the corners. They were hidden by cobwebs. "Look there," he raised a strong brown finger and pointed to the corner.

All the heads swiveled in the direction to which the gatekeeper had pointed. The crackling sound continued. The static grew louder and more annoying. Some of the more sensitive members of Asgard's High Council covered their ears to block out the white noise, but after a while more intelligible sounds started to break through. It started out muffled, staticky syllables breaking up in fragments. "Tes...tes...ing...Test...Testing...1...2...3" the words broke forth from the speaker. "Hello! HELLO! Can anyone copy?"

Lord Algrim's pointed ears perked up and twitched with excitement. A smile spread across his wane and weary visage. "That sounds like Captain Frell!" he practically exclaimed. The elfin leader of the Asgardians darted across the floor of the chamber as fast as his spindly, little legs could carry him. He hiked up his long, dirty and tattered robe. He planted himself right under the speaker. "Captain Frell! Captain Frell! Yes, we can copy. Can you hear me?" asked the Prime Minister.

Jane Foster was finally able to let out a pent-up breath which she had been holding. She gasped audibly with relief as she heard the strong, tenor voice of grizzled old captain. She looked down at the remote and tossed it in the air. It spiraled in the air and Lady Sigyn watched with a gaping mouth as if started to fall. She caught it in her hands making sure that the expensive piece of equipment that so many Aesir had worked so hard to create wasn't just smashed to bits in a manner of minutes after its creation. With that Lady Jane's body relaxed so much that her knees buckled and gave way. She felt herself begin to sway. She fell back. Not unconscious, but just exhausted. Lady Sif's strong warrior arms were there to catch her immediately, a young Bardok leaned over her and fanned her with his tunics.

"Prime Minister Algrim, I read you loud and clear," he replied.

The High Council clapped. Algrim turned to them and patted his hands toward the air to quiet them down. Their hands fell still. Algrim wiped his white brow. "This is splendid, my friend. We thought we'd lost you," he said almost breathless. "Where are you?"

Captain Frell started laughing. At least they all thought that it was laughing, but it could have simply been the static. Frell had not been exactly in good spirits since the dreadful attack on the Imperial City. None of them had been. Spirits were down and with each passing second bringing about more and more dismal news it was hard to keep up morale. "I am alright," the Einherjar Captain stated. "Lady Jane's little gizmo, sure does pack a punch," he expressed. "But it works as promised and I commend her for that," he went on.

"But where are you?" Lord Algrim continued to question.

"She sent me to the communication chamber," Frell stated. "I don't know if she intended to do that or not, but it was a most fortuitous landing," he went on.

"Yes, indeed it is...it is so good that you were able to make contact with us. I had no idea that this sanctum was built with intercoms." Lord Algrim said as he shook his head.

"Oh, it is bigger than that, my old friend," Frell's voice practically sounded excited, but I will let Lord Frandal our communications specialist you about that,"

"Prime Minister Algrim, Frandal here, at your service," the blonde-haired swordsman, charming voice came through the louder speaker.

"General Frandal, it pleases me to hear your voice, son," the elfin Prime Minister announced.

"It is good to be heard. I cannot believe that we got this old rust bucket system up and work. And let me also give my greetings to the High Council, particularly our female delegates," the ladies' man flirted through the intercom.

Sif helped Lady Jane back to her feet as she shouted across the chamber. "Frandal cut the flim-flam we are on the brink of dawn; now do you have something to report to us or not?' she demanded of him.

"Oh indeed, I do, sir," Frandal responded.

"Well..." Lord Algrim gestured with his hands urging the young warrior to speak, forgetting that he couldn't see him through the speakers.

"We've made contact with Southern Palace!"

"What? Come again?" Lord Algrim placed a finger in his elf ears to clean it out.

"You heard me correctly, Council, we have made contact with the Southern Palace and have been in communication with then for about 40 minutes." The council immediately broke into cheers and squeals of joy. The delegates rushed around and hugged each other. Some dropped to their knees and offered praise to the Norns and Yggdrasil and their ancestors it finally seemed as though the tide was starting to turn in their favor and the Ragnarök was not certain so. "Queen Frigga is going to send the soldiers that they have at the Southern Palace to come and aid us!"

Lord Algrim started choking upon hearing Frandal's words. He banged on his chest until breath returned to his lungs. His eyes were watering and he breathlessly asked, "Frandal are you certain of this?"

"Absolutely, Lord Algrim. We received a confirmation code from the captain of the guard at the Southern Palace." he explained.

"This is unbelievable," the elfin Prime Minister stated as he shook his head. "How did you ever get the system to work. That machinery looked like it had been falling apart?" he questioned.

"Actually, the communication system is in pretty good condition considering how old it is," stated Lord Drek. "The problem really was that we were using codes and methods that were too modern for the old system..."

"How were you able to figure out how to get it to work?" asked Heimdal curiously.

"It was an old man," Frandal interjected.

"Old man?" Sigyn's soprano voice questioned a little too loudly.

"Yes, he was very old. Looked like the oldest man alive," expressed Frandal. Frandal went on to describe the looks of the elderly Aesir gentleman who came to him with inexplicable knowledge about how to work the old computer system.

"That's the same way the old man who came to me looked," Jane Foster stated enthusiastically.

"I saw the same old man," Sif confirmed. "When I came into the room where you all were working, I found all of you passed out with exhaustion, but there was this scrawny older man standing over you all. It seemed very suspicious to me, but he insisted that he was just a passerby and that he had found you all collapsed in that very state," the shield-maiden reported as she scratched her head.

Immediately, Sigyn started pointing at herself. She turned to Lady Sif and Lady Jane. Her voice seemed to be lost, caught in her throat. "Me too! Me too! Me too!" she exclaimed when her tongue finally started working again. "I...I...I ran into the same...the very same old man. He was such a sweet older fellow really," she sighed. "he started saying all these things to me. They were kinda deep and personal, he talked like he knew me and...and I don't know...he...he seemed...sorta, familiar..."

"You know in all honesty, he seemed pretty familiar to me too," Sif said her lip twisting. There was something suspicious about all the sightings of this old man. She breathed in deeply. She smelled a rat. The whole thing had an air of trickery to it. That she didn't quite trust.

"Who is this old man?" Lord Audric questioned. "He must be commended by this council. He should be brought to us at once."

"Here! Here!" the rest of the delegates chimed in.

"Delegates, delegates please," Lord Algrim raised his bony hands and silenced the group. "I don't know who this old man is and truly it is unimportant at this time. Whoever he is he has been of great assistance to us and for that we are all eternally grateful, but this man's recommendations will mean nothing if we don't act. If Queen Frigga is sending us reinforcements then we have to prepare for battle. We have to prepare to fight," he declared as he slammed his fist into his palm. "We have to prepare to survive. With all this new information coming to us, I now believe that Lady Sigyn's plan for us to evacuate is our best chance at this," the Prime Minister of Asgard stated.

"But Prime Minister Algrim, if we evacuate, we expose ourselves to the power of the Aether. No doubt now the air is toxic, we won't be able to breathe out there," point out one of the members of Asgard's High Council.

"But if we wait here, we are sitting ducks!" Sigyn shouted out. "We have already wasted sooo much time!

"I believe I may have an answer to that problem," a silvery voice rose up and spoke. It was Mistress Eir. "In the healing chamber there are several antiquated gas-masks," she stated. "I have had the healers counting them and they reported to me that there are probably enough for half of us," the elderly healer stated. She leaned heavily on a walking stick as she talked.

"What are you suggesting, Mistress, Eir?" questioned Brunhilda, rather indignantly, "That we sacrifice half of the citizens of the Imperial City?"

Mistress Eir sucked in a sharp breath. "I am a healer. I would never suggest the death of the Aesir people, General Brunhilda. But what I suggest is that we quickly distribute the breathing apparatuses that we have to the healthiest and strongest citizens so that they are able to fight with the queen's forces. For the others," she began. "My healers and I, we may be able to provide them with breathing bubbles." she suggested. She opened her hand and produced a bubble about the size of a head. "It's an old healing technique," she explained. "I can fill the bubbles with oxygen, but the air supply will not last long," she explained.

"How long will it last, Mistress Eir?" questioned Lord Algrim.

"It is hard to say," the great healer expressed. "Two hours is the best I can hope provide."

"That does not give us a lot of time," said Lady Leoma.

"No, but it will buy us some time," Master Heimdal offered. "if we evacuate and the Dark-Elves come and find that catacombs empty they may very well leave and go back to the palace. If they return to the palace than we can bring the sick and infirmed and the young and the old back here to hide until the fighting is over." he stated while his large, brown hands scratched at his chin.

"but it's a gamble, there is no guarantee..." Lord Audric said anxiously. "The Dark-Elves might still burn the catacombs and then there will be nowhere to retreat to..."

"There are no guarantees of anything now, my friend," Lord Algrim said as he placed his hand on the other prime minister's shoulder. "We have to try. We have to do something. We cannot just sit here and wait for the inevitable. We have called out to the all-father's of the past and we have hoped and prayed that the Norns had not sealed our fate to end this day. Now, they have given us a fighting chance. So, we have to take the risk. If we die, we die with courage in our hearts and hopefully that will be enough to bring us to Valhalla."

"We don't have a moment to spare," Lord Audric said as he nodded.

"Sir Frandal, send out a message over the intercoms for all the people to assemble in the atrium. Lady Eir have the healers gather the breathing masks and bring them to the atrium. We'll fit as many people as we can as quickly as possible. We'll post guards and soldiers at the doors to start helping to evacuate the people immediately after they are fitted with a breathing mask or a bubble,," Lord Algrim declared.

"We should outfit as many soldiers as possible with reactors and remotes they can form a perimeter around the palace," expressed Lady Sif.

"No," Heimdal spoke up. "The Dark-Elves will be looking to attack soldiers. No doubt Malekith and Loki have prepared them in some way for us to fight back. They won't be expecting the average citizen," the gatekeeper explained. "And that's who'll we'll use," he said in earnest.

---

"Queen Frigga," the commander called to her. "we do not have many troops to spare to aid in the attempt to stop the Dark-Elves."

"We have some men and we will use the forces that we have," The queen stated proudly as she strolled through the communication tower with some haste. She had to get back to Odin's side.

The commander of the guards of the Southern Palace rapidly chased behind the queen. "Your Majesty in all honesty I only have about 300 men. The communication from the Imperial City was so spotty and so cryptic. I'm not sure we can trust it," he muttered. "We could be leading those men right into a trap. Right into certain death, Your Highness," he impressed upon her.

'Commander," Queen Frigga spun around on her heals. The beautiful queen of Asgard looked so tired, so thin and frail. Her royal robes were wrinkled and rumpled. She was not in her normal exquisite finery. She did not have on any of her jewelry and her vestments, she was not covered in her golds and splendid purples. She had not taken the time to even lace up her delicate feet with lovely sandals. Her nails were un painted, her hair undone. Normally her long blonde hair was in a cascade of sweeping endless curls. Now, it hung long and limp. It was somewhat staticky from sweat. She had not even the slightest trace of face paint. The all-mother was a natural beauty, she had never needed the touch of magic that make-up had been known to give, but now, under such dire circumstances even Asgard's queen showed strain. Her eyes were surrounded by dark circles, they were red and puffy from crying and exhaustion. Her skin looked ashen and there were a few more wrinkles that now lined her face. Her hair was not quite so golden anymore, new streaks of gray seemed to appear by the minute from her head. She steadied herself. She tried to steel her voice. She did her best to stand up straight and proud and tall. "Do not forget the stories of our ancestors," she reminded her. "Do not forget the tales of old!" she admonished. "Do you remember?" she asked. The commander could only manage to bob his head. "It was a group of 300 Aesir soldiers who in the time of the great war stood against the much larger forces of the Vanir," she explained. "It was 100 female warriors who were the first Valkyrie who snuck onto the battlefield and pulled the bodies of men from the brink of death. They nursed them back to health so that they could fight another day by their side and they became the first Einherjars," she wagged her finger in his face. "And chieftains united the Aesir people many, many eons ago. And one man! One man...one woman is all that is needed to turn the tide in a war, Commander."

"Yes, my queen, of course," the commander bowed. "I didn't mean to deny the might and the power of our soldiers its just that...what if this is a trap. What If Loki has devised this as a way to lure us in a slaughter the few warriors we have left?" he protested.

Queen Frigga's shoulder's slumped. She bowed her head. She had considered it. Loki was crafty and devious and she had seen firsthand, although it broke her heart, although it was unspeakable, just how ruthless and heartless he could be. She couldn't put it past him. She couldn't act as if the thought of Loki luring men to their deaths was beyond him. It wasn't. Nothing was beyond him now. But she had to believe. She had to believe that somewhere deep-down Loki could still be reached. She had prayed for him. She had ripped the ancient tapestry; she had done everything that she could. The rest was up to Loki now. "Even if it is a trap, Commander and it very well may," she had to agree. "If that be the case then Ragnarök may be certain so. I above all should know that fate can never truly be changed," she pointed to herself. "But at least we will die with honor. We will die fighting and that is the way a true Asgardian is meant to die," she announced.

"Yes, of course, Your Majesty, but a las the time...we don't have much time. Dawn swiftly approaches and we don't have access to the Bifrost, the Imperial City is half a day's journey even if we take the fastest airships its even longer by horse. We won't get there in time to stop Prince Thor's execution," he explained.

Queen Frigga reached out her hand and touched the commander on the shoulder. She took a deep breath. "Loki was lost in more ways than one, Odin's life was hanging by a thread of a spider's web. Any moment now she was so certain that he would draw his last breath. And Thor had merely an hour or so before he would meet the executioner's axe or the hangman's noose and that would be it, all her family could be gone from her in less than a day's time. But there were other families in Asgard. There were other wives and mothers and sisters who had loved ones. This was for them. This was for their chance. Their chance to survive, their chance to thrive and live and love and go on. Even if all hope was lost for her it wasn't lost for all of them. "Yes, I know Commander. But Convergence won't actually take place until noon. We have until noon to get to the Imperial City and to stop Malekith and Loki's diabolical plans. It's still possible."

The Commander winced. He played with the numbers in his mind. "Perhaps with a very powerful tailwind, but the way this storm rages coming from the sea it seems as though we will have much opposition..." he mumbled.

"COMMANDER!" the wife of Odin shouted. The terrible shrill tone in her voice was enough to make the military man straighten to attention. He stood erect and saluted her. "You will take as many men as you can from Kytheria to the Imperial City. That is an order! Do you understand?"

"Yes, my queen!"

"I want to see all 300 warriors that we possess ready to go in ten minutes! I want them saddled and strapped to horse back and at the front gate in 10 minutes. I will take nothing less!"

"Right away your majesty!" The Commander nodded to the royal woman. He gave a bow. His long cape flowed behind him as he turn on his heels and with military precision began to stroll out of the door. He called to his team of soldiers who were stationed in the communication tower. He could get them ready rather quickly and then assemble more warriors he supposed. "You heard her ladyship," he started. "I want all of you dressed and ready for battle in 15 minutes!" he shouted to them. "We have no time to waste. Let's move it!" he commanded.

"But sir, what about the tower, shouldn't we leave some men in case another message come through?' asked one of his right hand's.

"Nevermind that. The most important thing is getting as many soldiers to the Imperial City as possible before Convergence takes place. And we will need a miracle to do that," he muttered under his breath. He looked down for just a moment. Then his eyes looked up. He glanced around at the queen's guards who were still delaying. They looked around at each other with confusion? The seemed hesitant to get up and leave their computers and screens and radios and sound systems. "I SAID MOVE IT!" this time the commander shouted. His face bright red. "LET'S GO!" he yelled once more clapping his hands. "This is for your friends and families, for your communities and homes, for our king and queen and our way of life." He insisted to them. "Some of you may not feel adequately prepared for this level of warfare. You're soldiers, but you're not Einherjar, you're warriors but you are not Valkyrie. Well they are brothers and sisters in arms are in the Imperial City and based on the communication that we have received we now know that their numbers are low. They have suffered innumerable losses from their ranks. The death toll rising hire with each passing second. Some of those who are dead may even be your loved ones. And what did they die for? They didn't die so that some of us could sit and cower and try to believe we will be safe while our stronghold burns. They died to give the rest of us a fighting chance. AFIGHTING CHANCE, you hear! And by the powers we are going to fight. We are going to fight with the strength of 1000 men even though are numbers be but a few. We need every man, woman, boy and girl who is able to pick up a sword to stand and be ready to fight with the rage of a Berserker! Now are you ready?" he asked them. The soldiers stationed in the communication tower exploded into loud chants and ballistic applauding and stomping of the feet. They raised their fists and beat their chest and placed their hands upon their swords and weapons to show their commitment to the cause to fight for Asgard even if it be for the very last time. Soon they all erupted. Hesitancy replaced by great haste as they bolted toward the door. They rushed out practically pushing and shoving as they tried to get to the armory. As they passed Queen Frigga they bowed to her. They kissed her hands and whispered blessings and good wished to her. Her eyes misted as she patted their heads and shook their hands. Many of these were young recruits, well-trained of course, but never having tasted real battle. Most had specialized in communications, strategy, weapons and technology rather than the actual art of warfare. Now their mettle would be tested and they would prove if they had the heart of the ancient spirit of the Aesir warrior.

The Commander followed behind his now all too eager soldiers. He saluted Queen Frigga once more. "I will gather as many as I can Your Majesty, we will not fail you," he insisted to the queen of Asgard once more.

Queen Frigga was choked up. A lump had formed in her throat as she waved goodbye to the last of the young warriors. "That was a stirring speech that you gave commander," she said.

The commander's chest was puffed out. "Well as Commander of Communications for Your Majesty's Guards, I can say I have learned a thing or two of speeches."

"Indeed," The wife of Odin slightly inclined her head.

"Well with your leave, Highness?"
Queen Frigga nodded, waved her hand and dismissed the commanding officer. He left, the heels of his boots made steady and firm sounds and he strode across the floor. The echo of his footsteps grew fainter and fainter. Queen Frigga found herself lingering for just a moment longer in the communication tower. She hadn't noticed the fact that she was worrying her lip or wringing her hands. She paced back and forth all the while her mind was wrought with fitful frantic prayers to the Norns and to the ancestors to let them beat this foe, to not let this be their very unhappy ending. She was pacing and whispering and mumbling prayers when her words were interrupted by the sound of a faint peeping. The more her ears became attune to it. The more annoying it became. The queen immediately went over to look at the machines and monitors to find out where the pesky noise was coming from. Most of the computers and screens had been turned off. It appeared as though all the radios and scanners hand been powered down and signed out of. The walked around the chamber which was oval shaped until she found it. The one little device that had been left on. It was flat panel with a microphone attached. A radio system nicknamed town crier. This system was linked to the loud speakers that were set up in the courtyard and in the town square. It was a way to communicate important message from the palace to the citizens. The queen immediately flipped the switch and turned it off absentmindedly and rid herself of the irritating beeps. She moved on. She halted in her prayers for but a moment. The words of the commander resonating deep within her all of a sudden. "We need every man, woman, boy and girl who is able to pick up a swords to be ready to stand and fight..." she repeated as her voice trailed off. She looked down at her hands. They were shakey and sweaty and a bit wrinkled. But these were the hands of a shieldmaiden. She had taken up such a title in her village long ago in her girlhood. She had trained at the Shieldmaiden Academy and had even considered going to the Temple of Valkyrie to study. And she would have had her parents not found her too comely to be a virgin all her life and sent her to court. Still, her hands were a warriors hands. They had brandished sword and held blade before. These same hands had taught Loki how to wield knives and daggers which now he so proudly wielded against his own countrymen. And if she had to take up a dagger again to stop him...then so be it.

Queen Frigga started to move with haste out the door. Just as she made her way to the exit, she saw Healer Onrac bounding toward her. "Your Majesty! Your Majesty!" he practically screamed at her as he ran down the hall. He was waving his arms something frantic. His eyes were wild and wide and bulging from their sockets. His white garment was ripped and covered with splattering of blood. Frigga's heart stopped. She didn't know how she managed the feat of running toward him. They both caught each other by the arms, breathless. "Your Majesty! Your Majesty," he huffed and stammered as he fell to his knees. He grabbed his bald head. Tears spilled from his chocolate eyes. "The king, the king," he started to wail.

Odin's wife covered her ears. "NO!" she shrieked. "I'll not hear it!"

"Your Highness, you must...you must know..." Onrac said with hiccups as he tried to compose himself to deliver the message.

"Please, Healer Onrac, I can do nothing for my husband now..." she said as she finally removed her hands from her ears and placed them by her sides. She blew out long deep breaths and tried to remain calm.

"Tis true, Majesty, there's nothing more that can be done to him now..." Onrac hung his head.

"Oh Odin," the queen muttered.

"Shall I escort you back to the king's chamber, my lady?" Onrac asked as his voice shook.

"No, Lord Healer..." the queen answered. "I shall go to the armory with the troops and I shall prepare for battle," she said as she wiped the tears from her eyes.

Onrac's mouth fell open. His eyes grew wide and he got choked on his own spit! "What? WHAT NO! Your Highness, you must be by the king's side now," he insisted. "You must! You must!" he shook his head. "What will everyone think? Tis not proper, tis not proper for you to not be by his bedside," he went on rambling. "You have always been at his side!"

The royal woman nodded. "I know...I have...I...I...I want to be there, but...I think...I think this is what Odin would want," she explained.

"My lady, this is Ludicrous! He would want you, his queen safe" Healer Onrac insisted as he took her by the hand.

Frigga smiled patiently as she slipped her hand from his. "Odin always rode with his men..." Queen Frigga said her voice and eyes distant. "into battle..." she finished her thought. She thought of how in the other kingdoms of the other realms sometimes the kings stayed hidden, cloistered up in their castles and strongholds, but Aesir kings were warriors and they never hid from the gore or pain or stench of battle. "and when our sons were old enough," she paused thinking of how as young men Thor and Loki had trained and prepared for war. The pride they both had when they were accepted into the ranks of the Einherjar. Thor hadn't wanted any special treatment, he wanted to live in the barracks and go through basic training and be taken to the Island of Istcar to test himself just like any other young warrior. "he sent them." Yes, Odin sent her sons out to fight to risk their lives and although she had feared for them thinking of them having to risk life and limb, she was also extremely proud of them, because a true king should value the lives of his people over his own life. She had raised them to be true kings. Even if Loki had forgotten those lessons. He was the complete and utter antithesis of a king now. She bit her lip to keep from starting to sob all over. It broke her heart to think about it. She wiped the tears from her blue eyes, they fell without her permission. She sniffled quickly, "It has never been the way of this royal family to not fight by the side of our soldiers. That tradition will not die," she swore.

"Your Majesty, please this is nonsense, we will not allow you to go out there and get yourself killed!" Healer Onrac insisted. He grabbed the queen by her shoulders and held her fast.

Queen Frigga roughly started to push her physician off of her. Healer Onrac's bronzed hands were steady and strong and he held her tight and in place. "Your Majesty as your physician and your friend..."

Finally, Frigga broke free of the doctor's tight grip. She was ragged and breathless and there was a furious sort of look in her eyes. The look was so powerful a terrifying that Onrac released the royal woman immediately. "That Tradition will not die tonight!" she shouted at her physician as she pointed her finger firmly into his chest. "Odin, will not die tonight," she said in a whisper. "We," her voice grew stronger and firmer once more, "We will not die tonight," she declared. "And... If it be our last stand then let it be known that the Queen of Asgard stood to fight for her people. Now tell my handmaiden's to find my armor."

A/N: Hellooooo REaders! Well you made it to the end of the chapter give yourself a round of applause and a pat on the back. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I am sorry if it was not as exciting as we had all hoped it would be, but this next chapter should be pretty exciting, but no spoilers. We are soooooo very, very close to the conclusion of this tale and I encourage each and everyone of you to let me know what you think. Don't be shy. ;) ;)Once again I hope that you had a fabulous thanksgiving! I hope you ate lots of turkey lol. Once more, God bless you.