THE LAST MIDGARDIAN


HEAVENS


Jane bit back her disappointment when she realized there was no burst of sunlight outside the doors of the museum. There was nothing "natural" at all to behold. In every direction she looked, she saw mammoth metal scaffolds, dark and dank streets, and artificial lights as numerous as stars. It was a city, but one contained within a synthetic space without so much as a moon or a plant or a breath of fresh air. There were steaming ponds of a viscous liquid that resembled canola oil and stank of sulfur. Everything stank, actually. It reeked of unwashed bodies and putrid trash and forgotten corpses. Strange, alien beings loitered around flying ships and opaque windows and busy shops.

She momentarily panicked as she imagined remaining trapped for eternity in this cockroach hole of a city. She felt a bit melodramatic after when her companion returned to where he had stashed her in a corner of an alley. He withdrew a filthy cloak and draped it over her head. It fell to the ground and drug behind her as she walked, but it was warm and she was grateful for that. He covered himself with a second cloak and she decided she didn't want to know how he obtained them.

He motioned for her to follow him and led her through a maze of passageways. She did the best she could, careful not to step onto any of the piles of unrecognizable foreign matter littering the metal grating of the walkway beneath her feet. He moved as silently as a shadow. When footsteps or voices came too near them, he pushed her back into the ever-present darkness clinging to the walls. When he ensured they would not be noticed, then they continued again.

They walked for hours upon hours in this manner. Her atrophied muscles began to burn and ache and it was not long before her entire body began to shake. She grit her teeth and fought to continue following, fearful that if she proved too much of an encumbrance, he would abandon her to continue alone. However, when her head began to swim, she stretched out an arm to steady herself, but not soon enough. She stumbled and fell onto the unforgiving ground. Sagittarius knelt before her and watched as she tried to steady her trembling arms. He frowned. Then he lifted her up to carry her again. Even supported as she was, her head felt inhabited by a swarm of bees and before long, she was unconscious.

ooooo


The next time Jane woke, she was lying on a cot. Bright lights blinked red and blue overhead and interrupted the dim light of the small space which housed her cot. The gentle thrum of engines filled her ears and vibrated through the cot supporting her weight. Her entire body felt as though it were on fire and she did not have the strength to lift her arms over her face. She cried out and stumbled over her own throat as she did. Quiet footsteps approached from behind her head and a dark shadow stretched over her body. A blue hand placed a cup of something sweet to her lips and gently held her head up so she could drink it.

She was asleep again before the cup was emptied.

This strange routine continued for an indeterminable period of time. There was little more to track the progress of time than in the museum. She knew she was brought some sort of hot broth over and over again. The sweet juice sent her to sleep again and again and each time she woke, the fire had receded from some limbs like shadows receding from the journey of the sun overhead. Her breathing, also, became less labored and the curiosity began to gnaw on her nerve endings instead of the burning pain. Sagittarius came and went from a doorway whenever he noticed her wake, but he was a silent companion and she startled more than once to find him near.

When she was able to sit up and hold the cup for herself, she had to bend her head to keep it from bumping against the low overhanging wall surrounding her on three sides. Her feet hung off the cot and she would need to jump to reach the floor. She tried to get out of the cot once or twice but her companion stopped her and gently pushed her back onto the cot with a shake of his head. She blew her breath out with frustration and swung her legs back and forth instead. She felt stronger, but she thought the probability of her collapsing again was higher than she would have liked.

The next time he came, he did not bring her a cup of juice, but a clear bag filled with a slightly fruity, diluted juice. The burning grew, but it did not become unmanageable. He watched her carefully with his head arched to one side and his long frame leaning against the wall. When she finished the juice, he covered his hand with a towel and took her hand in his. Then he helped her down from the cot.

With weak, shaking legs she struggled to stand upright, but she managed it. He supported her as she paced the tiny room - four steps to the right, four steps to the left. While his lips could only produce a tight, stitched smile, his eyes grinned broadly down at her. He pressed his hand to a glass panel on the wall and the silent door withdrew into the walls. He helped her through the doorway into what turned out to be the cockpit of a small spacecraft. Glass panels surrounded four chairs on each octagonal edged wall. Beyond, she could see outside. She gasped and her hand found its way to her mouth as she took it all in.

Millions of stars.

A multi-colored nebula glowed before her in all its brilliant wonder.

Constellations she had never seen spread across the heavens.

Planets drifted past her in their leisurely orbits around their own stars.

Tears trickled down her cheeks as she collapsed into the nearest chair with her hands pressed against the window. She forgot everything else in the universe for that moment and basked as contentedly as a cat in front of a warm hearth.

She nearly jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Concern sank Sagittarius' face into an even deeper shade of blue and she realized he did not understand her reaction. She wiped at her tears with the back of her hand and gave him a wide, honest, cheek-shattering grin and motioned to each of the panels of glass.

"The stars! I never thought I'd see them again. They are so beautiful!" she said, knowing full-well he couldn't understand, but she allowed her emotion to overflow into words anyways. He shed a few layers of concern as he interpreted her response as one born out of happiness and not sadness. He continued to watch her as she shamelessly gaped through the windows, unwilling to turn her head away for fear of missing something or waking to find it all a dream. When he was convinced she was not losing her mind or about to fall apart again, he sat in the pilot's seat and tapped buttons on the control panel.

As incredible as travelling by Bifrost had been, Jane could honestly say she liked this better. While the Bifrost had been a rush of exhilaration and flashes of color and shattering of preconceptions, it robbed her of this: days upon days of touring the cosmos. She didn't bother to hold back her softly raining tears.

Her one lingering regret which itched within her rusty, neglected brain was that she didn't have her notebook. She would have given her right arm for a piece of paper and a pen so she could take notes along the way.

ooooo


Sagittarius woke her. Was it days or weeks or months later? She couldn't tell. It didn't matter how long it had been. She was no longer trapped in a cage, surrounded by the forgotten curios of the universe, and gathering dust within her solitary existence. She could choose to eat or abstain. She could lay down or jump up and down. She could rummage through cabinets and storage bins within the spacecraft and hang upside down off the cot, just because she could. Sagittarius indulged her and only grunted in disapproval when she discovered what must have been a potentially dangerous item of some kind or another. Mostly, though, she sat in the co-pilot's seat in the cockpit and watched the stars. More than once, she fell asleep there, only to wake hours later, stretched out on her cot and covered in a blanket.

When he woke this time, the cockpit window revealed they were nearing the surface of a hazy green dwarf planet. She gasped and clapped her hands in delight. For all the time she had spend on Asgard, she had never been able to see the Realm Eternal from space and had to content herself with diagrams from books. Here, she was able to see the yellow, gaseous haze of the atmosphere that clung to a rolling, pitted expanse of green foliage. She had to remind herself to breathe as they descended. It was heavily forested with towering, umbrella-leafed trees steaming with vapor. They narrowly flew between two rocky canyons before landing beneath the mouth of a giant cave.

A panel on the side of the spacecraft opened a hatch in the back and a ramp descended onto a surface thick with moss. For a moment, Jane was overcome with fear, wondering if this atmosphere was compatible with her human lungs, or if she would take one breath and die. She didn't have time to fret about it because her lungs soon filled with the sweetest scent imaginable - growing things. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes to take it in. It smelled so very alive. It was like wet clay mixed with morning jasmine and orange blossoms and grass after a rainstorm. It was different than Asgard or Earth, but after the unliving, unbreathing air of the Museum, it was heaven.

When her bare feet sank into the soft moss, she laughed in delight and knelt to the ground so she could feel it in her fingers. She pulled some up to examine the texture and marvel in the feel of something alive and not made of metal or glass. A grunt brought her back to her feet and Sagittarius beckoned for her to follow him through the cave. The cave proved to be more of a well-hidden tunnel. On the other side, hidden behind a thick canopy of vines, the tunnel opened into well-protected escarpment. A grassy meadow was surrounded on three sides by high rock formations and only the cave and a small break between the rocks across from the cave gave entry to the meadow. In the center, nearly hidden within the cliff face lay a grass-roofed bunker carved into the rock and descending below the ground.

With a bit of prying and cajoling at a side panel with a knife, Sagittarius forced the door to open. A rush of stale air mixed in with the scent of the meadow and Jane's eyes struggled to adjust to the sudden darkness. She did not struggle for long. Her companion felt along a wall until he found the means of turning on a row of lights embedded along the ceiling overhead.

It was a single room. A metallic table and four chairs sat in the center. Four bunks lined the farthest edge of the whitewashed rock wall. The far right was lined with shelves and storage cabinets and overflowing with crates and barrels. To the far left, a simple kitchen sat next to the bunker's only window. Heavy shudders kept out the light and the fresh air and Jane shuddered to think of how dark it would be if the door suddenly shut and locked them in without the overhead lights.

Sagittarius pulled out a chair for her and she sat. She was grateful. Her hands and knees were shaking so badly, she didn't think she could have remained standing much longer even if she wanted to. Despite her many footsteps pacing the spacecraft, she had hardly had the opportunity to develop her stamina and develop her muscles. The walk from the spacecraft to the bunker had not been long, but it had been long enough. She lay her head on the table and closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of open, non-vibrating space and solid ground beneath her feet.

She heard the banging of cabinets and drawers behind her as Sagittarius perused their contents. Clanging of objects followed until he had compiled a stash in the center of the room. Before long, a plate of warm, but bland, food was placed in front of her. She was too tired to care what it tasted like and ate it without a second thought.

oooooo


When she woke next, light poured in through the open door and window. A crash of metal against the floor startled her awake and she nearly knocked her head against the bunk bed directly overhead. She sat upright and jumped out of bed.

"What was that?" she asked.

Sagittarius was sitting on the floor, entirely surrounded by clutter. He must have emptied every single crate and cupboard while she slept and he was now glowering at a metal file in his hands. He threw it against the wall with a grumble and picked up another long tool made out of a glowing blue light with a serrated edge. He forced it under one of his metal bracelets and pushed against it with all his strength. He struggled and strained until all the muscles in his arms and chest quivered, but it made no difference. The bracelet did not shift or dent or seem to notice his efforts.

The wall farthest away from him was littered with bent knives, shattered pipes, and blackened rods. The blue-lit tool soon joined them with a resounding clatter. Jane walked to where he sat and knelt before him. His red eyes were fierce in their frustration and he turned away from her.

"Can I help?" she asked. She placed one hand on the bracelet and nearly cried out at how cold they were to the touch. He pulled his hand away with a grunt and shook his head vehemently while pointing at himself. In his outstretched palm, a small bundle of white formed and grew and branched out into any icy sculpture. He held it out and pointed and motioned to her hand again, all the while shaking his head.

"I get it. You're cold," she said. "Still, that's a neat trick. I wish you could tell me how you do it."

He let the pillar of ice fall onto the floor with a crash. It shattered into fragments that quickly melted into little puddles across the room. Then he walked to his pile of discarded tools and withdrew one. It was a sharp knife ending in a very fine tip. To Jane's surprise, he handed it to her. Then he sat on the floor before her and pointed to his lips. He opened his mouth just wide enough to show the seam of stitches binding his lips together.

"Oh, boy," Jane whispered to herself. "I guess it's worth a try."

Then she brought the razor-edge of the knife to his lips and tried to cut the first stitch.

ooooo