Family, Friends, and Enemies

by mystiquewitch

For the past century, all Saphira wanted was to go home, back to Asgard; with her father gone, she and Loki wouldn't have to keep their love a secret, so, when Thor is banished to Midgard, she gets her chance without having to feel guilt with leaving her sister behind. Unfortunately, like everything else in her life, it doesn't exactly go the way Saphira wants.

21. Chapter 21

AN Not too much happens in this chapter, but Loki does figure out what happened to Saphira, and to do this story, I added some more back story to this character, something that isn't canon, it also changes Thor Dark Word plot a little, and gave Saphira's mother's family some back story, and add something to the Ljosalfar, which trying to find out something about them was almost impossible as far as I can tell they are barely mentioned.

Disclaimer: I own Nothing

Chapter 21 Sentence

Loki stood on top of Stark Tower in chains, power-damping collar, and muzzle, waiting for Thor to take him back to Asgard; at the moment, he was off to the side, talking to Enid, who showed up only minutes ago, to see Thor off. It was just Enid and the so-called Avengers here seeing Loki and Thor off to Asgard, the X-MEN as they called themselves, had left gone back to wherever they go, all but LeBeau, who, to Loki's displeasure, accompanied Enid in following the SHIELD agents in taking Saphira to jail. Enid had told Thor, LeBeau was still there at the prison with Saphira, keeping an eye on things until Enid returns. The thought of his wife locked up in prison stung at Loki's heart, so did thinking about how bad she took it when they showed up to arrest her and separate them.

Loki has since found out that Nick Fury was the one that contacted the X-Men asking for help; he had called Charles Xavier, their leader after Enid mentioned Saphira befriending Remy Lebeau, who he recognized as the X-MEN known as Gambit. Loki found Remy LeBeau annoying and didn't understand why Saphira liked him.

Loki was worried about Saphira and her safety, along with whatever was happening to her. While Loki was locked in a room on Stark Tower while everyone else went and ate, he did a lot of thinking; after failing several attempts of escaping, he tried to picture the firebird Saphira saw, and the only thing he could think of was it being a Phoenix. But would a simple Phoenix be that powerful, and what the hell was it planning with his wife? Loki had a feeling Saphira hadn't seen the last of it. And he secretly agreed that whatever that thing had, it put it in Saphira, and that is where that blast came from, but why and what was it, what could it do to her, and how the hell will Loki get it out?

And Loki thought all he had to worry about was Thanos and his minions, as Saphira calls them, but the more he thought about him, the more Loki figured he wouldn't come right away; too busy killing people and tearing apart the galaxy looking for the infinity stones, Thanos had none now that Loki lost the mind stone to SHEILD in his scepter. Thanos is more likely to go after that first, seek his revenge on Loki at a different time; most likely, after he succeeds his goal, Loki was hoping anyway. He was so mad at himself for getting caught and getting one of these collars on his neck, Loki should have tried to escape; when he was comforting Saphira, and the others were drinking, they could have tried to sneak out, why they didn't he would never know.

Loki closed his eyes to hide his tears, thinking about what Saphira must be going through right now was more than breaking his heart. It was shattering it, and it was all his fault; Loki should have never involved her until after he saw if he won; should have broken her from Asgard prison and took her to Enid until it was over, then she wouldn't be heading to jail right now, he could only hope Midgardain prison was better than the dungeons on Asgard, where Saphira was drove almost mad locked in a tiny cell.

Thor finally came over, and Bruce Banner handed him the thing holding the tesseract. Thor held it out to Loki, and he hesitated to take it, wary of using it after what happened to Saphira; his eyes glanced around at everyone, Stark smirked at him, Rogers had no expression as he looked back, Romanoff was glaring, and Barton was smiling, almost gloating at Loki, who doubted Barton would find it amusing if it were him separated from his wife. Loki turned from Barton and looked to Banner, whose face turned red and looked away; Loki smirked under the muzzle; Loki doubted Banner would ever get over his embarrassment of finding himself without clothes in front of him and Saphira. And the look on his face when Loki had refused to touch his jacket when he tried to give it back. Which made Saphira giggle, and Loki was happy he was able to get her to smile, if only for a moment.

"Loki," Thor said, bringing him out of his thoughts; he looked down at the handle held out to him, and after a second, grabbed it, and he and Thor were off to Asgard.

They appeared on the rainbow bridge, and Thor took the muzzle off Loki's mouth; he almost sighed in relief, one for having that thing off him. Second, it was less embarrassing when a few guards walked down to join them as Thor grabbed Loki's arm and led him towards the palace; his adoptive brother handed him over to the guards just outside the throne room and went another way without a word to him, the guards then took over and led Loki in and towards Odin sitting on his throne trying to look intimidating.

"Loki," Frigga said from where she was standing at the side; Loki stopped walking and looked toward her. He could tell she wanted nothing more than to hug him, happy that her adoptive son was alright, But the fact she wouldn't go against Odin to do so made Loki's already sour mood worse.

"Hello, Mother." Loki smirked."Have I made you proud?"

"Please don't make this worse," Frigga begged.

"Define worse," Loki replied.

"Leave us, " Odin ordered, Frigga looked toward him, then back to Loki, and to his surprise, she walked up and hugged him before turning and leaving the room without another word. The guards pulled Loki farther until he was at the foot of the throne. Then Odin made the guards wait outside while their King talked with his adopted son. Odin looked down at Loki with a disappointed look a moment before speaking. And to Loki's surprise, it did not affect him, not like it once would have.

"The day I found you near-frozen and crying in Jotunheim." Odin begun, making Loki narrow his eyes at him. "I admit I had reasons for saving you; Frigga fell in love with you almost immediately, so did Thor, happy to have a little brother to play with; I too grew fond of you, may not have shown it as I should have, but I did, I admit I did favor Thor, a mistake I see that now. But I had no way of knowing how you would turn out because of it."

Loki laughed. "I am the monster you always knew I would become."

"You killed a lot of innocent people on Midgard." Odin said, "Before that, you tried to kill your brother, old friends, your lover's sister. You dragged the woman you claim to love down with you, and for what? Because Loki desired a throne?"

"It is my birthright," Loki said. The remark about Saphira stung, but he wasn't going to let Odin see that.

"Your birthright was to die." Odin yelled, "Frozen on a rock. If it had not been for that woman, I never would have found you."

"Woman?" Loki demanded, "What woman?" Odin went quiet for a moment before speaking again.

"There was a woman," Odin explained. "The day I found you, I did so because of a woman; she was not Jotuun, which is why I grew curious about her. The battle was mainly over; we were winning. Bard and I were riding our horses from Laufey's palace when a relatively young-looking women ran out in front of us. Beautiful lady, long black hair, I remember it like it was yesterday, she wore a white dress with a belt that had a skull in the middle. I barely missed running over her. She just stood and stared at me for a moment before turning and running off towards a temple, curious; I jumped off my horse and chased after her; Bard called out to me, then followed, thinking I was running into a trap. By the time I entered the temple, the lady had disappeared somehow; then I had found you, lying on a rock, crying and nearly frozen; nothing else was in there except for the blue snake lying on the ground, hissing up at me. I ignored it, picked you up, and though Bard tried to talk me out of it, I took you home."

"Raven," Loki whispered to himself; it had to be his birth mother. She may not have cared enough to keep him, but it sounded like she did care enough to make sure he lived. He wished there was a way he could find out who his biological mother was. What happened to her, and how she died. Though he would never know why she had so willingly given him up.

"If I had not found you, had not taken you in, you would not be here to hate me now," Odin said.

"If you are going to punish me, punish me," Loki demanded. " It's not that I don't love our little talks; it is that I don't love them."

"Frigga is the only reason you live," Odin said, hitting Gungnir on the ground, the door opened, and the guards came walking back in. "You will live the rest of your days in the dungeons, and you will never see Saphira ever again, no matter her punishment on Midgard."

Loki winched at the part about Saphira even though he knew Odin had to let them see each other. "And what of Thor? Will you allow that oaf to be King as I rot in chains."

"Thor must strive to undo the damage you have done to the nine realms, and then yes, he will be King, I will allow him to go to Midgard and fetch Enid, they will marry, and they will get the happily ever after they deserve," Odin told him. "You and Saphira will never get that happy ending. You only have yourselves to blame."

Loki's eyes narrow, and he took a step as if he was going to attack Odin, but the guards pulled him back.

"You are just like him." Loki accused, voice rising. "Her father, always wanting to keep us apart. That day in the library when he found us together and tossed me to the ground and dragged her off, he was hurting her, he was hurting her arm gripping it too tight, you were there, you were King, you could have said something stopped him, but you did not, you held me back you would not let me help her either, all because you did not want us together."

"No, " Odin replied," I wanted you two together; I was happy at the idea, but Bard threatened to tell the secret of you; I could not let that happen; I should have realized then that he was not trustworthy."

"You let him hurt her so that you could keep your secret," Loki demanded.

"Stop being so dramatic." Odin snapped. "So he tried to keep her in the house, ban her from the palace."

"He would lock her in her room," Loki yelled.

"And you snuck her out anyway." Odin replied, "Besides, it's not like he ever hit her."

"So, the abuse did not matter because it was emotional and not physical?" Loki demanded, giving Odin a sickened look.

"I did not say that, and it does matter, but.."

"The only reason he never hit Saphira is that Bard was scared of Heimdall, afraid he was watching, Saphira told me, that day Bard dragged her out of the library he went to strike her face, but Heimdall stopped him," Loki said.

"That does not surprise me. Heimdall always was fond of you children." Odin said. "I remember when you were little, all of you used to run down to the Bifrost to see him."

"Saphira loved getting him to tell her what was going on in the other realms," Loki mumbled, then shook his head like he was shaking away the old memories. "You can not keep us apart, just like Saphira's father could not keep us apart, no one can, we will be together again."

"You both did terrible...terrible things," Odin said. "You deserve punishment, and keeping the two of you apart seems to be the only thing that works; you two are too dangerous when together. " He frowned when Loki started laughing. "There is nothing to laugh about here." Loki laughs more. "Have you gone insane?"

"Perhaps," Loki replied, grinning. "I became insane with long intervals of sanity."

"Oh, for Asgard's shake." Odin swore, "Tell me what you find so funny because I see nothing to laugh about."

"For me, there is." Loki answered, "You see, you can not keep Saphira and me apart because we are married, got married the moment we appeared on Midgard, we used Asgardian vows and, you, Allfather, have to obey them."

Odin couldn't keep the surprise off his face as he saw the truth in Loki's words; he said nothing for a long moment, just stared down at Loki's grinning face, he almost felt respect for Loki and Saphira's determination to stay together, always to have a way back to each other. Odin searched Loki's chambers while he was attacking Midgard; he saw all the pictures and letters, how they were still in contact with each other somehow while separated. He tried to tell Bard long ago there was no trying to keep the two apart, but his hatred wouldn't allow him to listen to him.

"It would seem you two got one over on me." Odin said, after a moment." Heimdall told me that from what he has seen of the Midgardain court, Saphira would most likely get a lengthy prison sentence." Odin took a breath and went on. "If so, once her punishment is over and she is free, then and only then will I allow her back on Asgard, and she can spend the rest of your days visiting you in the dungeons. I may not be able to keep you two apart permanently, but I do not have to let you free to obey the laws to allow you two to see each other."

"You asshole." Loki snapped, using what seemed to be Saphira's favorite thing to call people in anger. "You have a way around everything, don't you? I should have known you wrote the laws. Why should you have to obey them?"

Odin said nothing, just glared down at Loki, then finally looked away from him and turned to the guards.

"Get him out of my sight now." He ordered.

Loki sent Odin a glare then allowed the guards to lead him out towards the dungeons; he'll figure a way to escape no matter how long it takes him. In the meantime, he'll get his mother to bring him some books, anything on the other realms and space, and creatures, real, legendary, even fiction; he needed to research that bird thing, while he's plotting his escape, find out what that was that Saphira saw and what it did to her. And try to figure out what it wants with her so that he can stop it.

A week after, his punishment Loki was sitting in his cell flipping through a book and almost didn't notice when his mother sat more down in front of him as a guard closed his cell back after allowing her in; Loki glanced up for a second then looked back down with a frown.

"Still nothing," Loki said, slamming the book shut, he went to toss it across the cell, but Frigga grabbed it.

"Try one of these," Frigga replied; sitting across from him, she set the book down and picked up another one and began to look through it. "Out of all the books and all the libraries in this palace, there has to be one that has that bird Saphira saw."

"I wish Thor had brought her with us," Loki said, picking up two books to pick one. "I could be protecting her, taking care of her."

"You do realize some of the books you requested are legends and fairytales, right?" Frigga asked.

"All legends have some truth to them." Loki replied," We are living proof of that."

Loki has spent all his time in the dungeons going through the books Frigga has been bringing him on her once-a-day visits. Loki has been studying and researching every book they have about space and different beings and life forms but has yet to find anything out about the bird that had captured Saphira through the tesseract, the one she described as a fiery bird thingy. Loki thought it was a Phoenix, but if that's what it was or what it wanted, he was no closer to knowing than when he first got here. Yeah, Loki has only been here a week, but he was not patient when it came to certain things, and figuring out what was happening to his wife was not one of them.

"Loki, could this be it?" Frigga suddenly asked; Loki looked up to see Frigga holding up a book opened to a page of bird made of flames, above the picture read The Phoenix Force.

"May I see that?" Loki asked, closing his book and setting it down, Frigga handed it to him, and Loki read aloud. "Born of the void between states of beings, the Phoenix Force is a child of the universe. It is the nexus of all psionic energy, also known as the guardian of all creation, Guardian of the M'Kann crystal, and Protector of the Infinity Stones." Loki stopped reading and frowned deeply in thought. "This has to be it, Mother. But it says here that the Phoenix will bond itself to a person, but Saphira said it went through her, so, it did not bond to her."

"Maybe it was choosing her for something," Frigga suggested.

"I hope not." Loki answered," I could never fight and win against something this powerful to protect Saphira."

"Maybe it is not something terrible," Frigga replied. "But needs her to do something or to choose her to do something."

Loki said nothing; he just reread over the page and frowned once more as it got to a part about the Phoenix will sometimes pick another powerful being to watch over the infinity stones. Then he looked at Frigga and lowered his voice.

"Do we have any books about the infinity stones?" Loki asked. He knew what the infinity stones were, about their power, and a little bit of their creation, but that was about it, and he has never heard of this Phoenix Force before now.

"Not in the library; your father removed them many years ago and hid them in his vault." Frigga replied," I could probably get them but will not be able to until tomorrow." Loki frowned at first, then nodded his head.

"Tomorrow is good enough; give me a chance to read and study this," Loki replied.

"There are not many, though," Frigga told him. "But I will bring you what I can find."

"Thank you, Mother," Loki replied, his mind already back into his book. Frigga smiled and stood.

"I will leave you to your reading," Frigga replied; she leaned over and kissed the top of Loki's head, then turned to leave when Loki called out to her.

"Mother?" Loki asked, "Do you have any more of that shadow thread we got that time we took a trip together?"

"I might." Frigga answered, "But what would you need with something like that?" Loki looked up from his book and smiled at her, trying to look innocent.

"I just wanted to make my wife a gift, is all," Loki replied. Frigga gave him a suspicious look before turning to alert the guards she wanted out.

"I'll bring it when I bring the books tomorrow," Frigga said, leaving the cell; Loki grinned as he looked back down at his book.

Loki's grinned turned into a frown as he started reading again. He did not like the sound of this Phoenix force, not the sound of it being so powerful, not the part where it said that the Phoenix had the power to regrow and cut parts of the universe; there has to be something he wasn't getting a missing piece of the puzzle.

By the time Frigga brought him the shadow thread and books on the infinity stones the next day, Loki had read the text on the Phoenix front to back and knew everything there was to know, or at least everything the book had.

"These are the only ones we have," Frigga said, handing four books to Loki, who took them eagerly; he sat at the table as Frigga sat down across from him and watched as Loki flipped through the first book as if looking for something, he set the first book aside and picked up another one, came to a page that mentioned the Phoenix, which was what he wanted to read.

It was a chapter on the Aether and the battle Asgard had over it against the Dokkalfar or Dark Elves, the story told of Bor, Odin's father and King at the time, sought help from the Ljosalfar, when Malekith had turned his warriors into Kruse ones, making them stronger and almost impossible to beat. Asgard and Alfhiem had been allies at the time, so the then King of Alfheim, Alistair, and his young wife Queen Aurelia rushed in to help, help they did, they drove back Malekith and his army. They were winning until Malekith got his hands on the Aether, Aurelia called forth the Pheonix force, which the Ljosalfar once worshipped as their God, and allowed it to take over her mind and body long enough to win and beat the Dokkalfar and take back the aether.

Aurelia's story didn't have a happy ending though after the Phoenix left her body, she placed the Aether, which housed the Reality Stone, inside her, Aurelia agreed to host it and guard it; sadly, the Queen had not been powerful or strong enough to do so, and it slowly drained her energy until Auerlia's body gave out just a few months after the battle. She died, leaving behind her husband and one very young son.

"If this book is correct, then the Aether is an infinity stone, in liquid form," Loki replied. "It's all rather interesting, but what does it have to do with my wife?"

"Keep reading; you're an intelligent person; you'll figure it out," Frigga told him. Loki smiled slightly at his mother's prise before going back to reading.

Loki got a bit of a shock when he turned the page in the book to see a picture of the Ljosalfar Queen and the striking resemblance she had to Saphira; the only difference was the ears, as the queen had tall pointy elf ears, Saphira's ears were different. They weren't as sharp or tall. But everything else was exactly like Saphira, eye shape, curly hair, tall, slender figure with long legs; her face even looked like Saphira. Loki figured the resemblance made sense she would be one of Saphira's ancestors. Her great-grandmother, to be exact. Loki thought about the Phoenix on the necklace Saphira had been wearing a lot lately, and he was sure it was the same one that the Queen in the photo wore around her neck.

Loki smiled a little as he thought about his wife and looked over at the photos of her sitting next to him. He had always loved the fact Saphira looked more Ljosalfar than she did Asgardian. He wasn't sure why, only that it made Saphira stand out, different from the other women here. More beautiful, Loki thought she was anyway. That thought made Loki look back down at the Queen's picture; it read that she was a kind and brave Queen. Loki found it sad that what sounded like a great Queen died so young.

"I do not understand what the Phoenix wants with Saphira," Loki said. "But I do not think she bonded to her, and hopefully it is not planning to, but when I showed up on Stark Tower and found Saphira frightened and shaking, she had more power coming from her than usual; it did not feel like her, like the natural power she has always thrown off, it felt more raw, like the way the power from the tesseract feels, or that that came from my scepter, almost as if..."

"As if what?" Frigga asked when Loki stopped talking.

Loki thought about what he just told Frigga, back to how Saphira seemed to have gotten more powerful since meeting the Phoenix; Loki thought of what his mother had said about it choosing Saphira for something. The Phoenix's connection to the stones, what he just read about the Aether, how it is usually housed, by a living host, about the queen who looked so much like his wife, and it all seemed to click, falling into place like a puzzle in Loki's mind as his eyes widened.

"Loki?" Frigga asked, reaching across the table and gripping his arm. "You don't think..? She stopped talking as Loki looked up at his mother with wide, frightened eyes, a look she's never seen on his face before.

"Dear God, please no," Loki whispered.

AN Hope what I did makes sense, and more will be revealed later.