Hey, everyone. As you can see, I finally got over my laughing fit from the last chapter, and I have a new one to present. I might have been a bit late with this one: my Earth's Mightiest Heroes dvd with this and the remaining episodes finally killed itself (after so many times of being watched) and getting a replacement was like hunting for hen's teeth. Sorry about the wait.

Anyhoo, enjoy everybody!

The Casket of Ancient Winters

Normally, I'm never one to gripe about the weather; it's just nature doing its job for the planet, whether we humans like it or not. After all, Earth was here long before us, so all we can do is learn to adapt. However there are days where you swear that someone in the Upstairs Management is intentionally messing with you, or is really peeved off and wants the tiny little flesh-bags to suffer along with them. Yeah, those are the only days where I will gripe or complain, but with not a whole lot of effort. But I have my limits, and today's weather was seriously pushing the much worn thread that was my patience. Especially now that it's the height of summer; me and stupidly hot days do not, under any circumstances, go together by any stretch of the imagination.

The main reason I hate the really hot days (or at least this one) is because –for Heaven only knows why—everyone seems just do darned determined to make me go outside into the unbearable heat. Chief amongst them all would be Hawkeye and Wasp, the persistent buggers. Wasp's reason to get me outside was so I could get a tan or something to bring some colour to my skin. Just because I'm a tad pale doesn't mean I should be outside baking myself till I was burnt and crispy. In any case, I burn real easy without copious amounts of sunscreen.

Hawkeye, on the other hand, had a very different reason for getting me out in the sun. Ever since the Pony-con, he's been out for revenge. Normally, Hawk's a really good sport about things, like his punishment for taking T'Challa away from me on date-night, but silly little me made the giant mistake of telling him that a certain one-eyed man would be keeping a close…uh, eye on the days' event, and probably getting as much photographic evidence of Hawkeye/Pinkie Pie as possible.

So, yeah, Clint wasn't all that impressed about that, and is on the warpath…so to speak.

The saving grace that stopped them pestering me any further was one of two things. Either they know that I can and will unleash unspeakable terror on them if I was nagged too far, or T'Challa had cornered them both and politely told them to back off. Personally, my money's on the second one.

T'Challa—oh, I am blessing everyone heavenly being that had a hand in creating him! That lovable sweetheart clearly remembered from an earlier conversation (long before he officially joined the team) that I don't handle extreme heat all that well. Ever the doting boyfriend, he kept me secluded in the cooler parts of the Mansion or the Wakandan embassy. Ok, yes—those times we were busy sparing each other (and occasionally I trained with the Dora Milaje if T'Challa was busy) but at least it was at a bearable temperature.

Something to come out of it all—the training, I mean—is that I've gotten a lot better at fighting, to the point where T'Challa doesn't hold back all that often anymore. Not that I'd ever tell him or anyone else but I felt rather proud to make him finally break a sweat.

Mind you, it probably helps me the more that I've also been training with Merlin. Merlin, due to her heritage and 'side job', has been taught to give it her all during a fight, and bringing it on. And boy, does she bring it?! I feel sorry for any and all the people on her team that should tick her off, and anyone else in her home dimension.

Speaking of Merlin and home…

######

"You're ready to go home?" I repeated, raising a small eyebrow at my younger friend. Not that she needed to say anything—it was getting obvious, especially the last few days. Sometimes when there's a quiet moment or two, one of us would catch her daydreaming in her own little world, probably thinking of her family and friends…or maybe just a particular male friend who has been her rock since she met him, and maybe as more than just a friend. T'Challa and I actually have a bet going on to see how long it'll take her to make the lad her boyfriend.

So, all in all, it wasn't all that hard to see that Merlin was getting homesick.

"It has been good to get away, even for a little while." She admitted sheepishly, her hand gripping at her other arm. "But I've been away from my family—and my duties—long enough, I believe." The little angel side of me knew that she was being serious, but the little devil on my shoulder just had to poke a tiny bit of fun at her for another reason.

"Uh-huh, sure," I teased, "And your decision had nothing to do with an alien global invasion, or crazy purple archers hell-bent on revenge." Like a good sport, Merlin answered my smile with one of her own, though with a little less cheekiness, and a small chuckle.

"Well…those incidents may have crossed my mind at one point." She joked back. The pair of us had a bit of a laugh before I slung my arm around shoulders, and felt her return the gesture, as I walked her out of my personal lab.

"If you're really ready to go home, then I'll call Alenka for you," I promised her, "Though given her job, it may take a few days to get back with a reply." The word and definition of 'chaotic' didn't even scratch the surface of what her job was really like: it was crazy hectic at any given point in time.

"For the meantime, why don't you and Kilgharrah go sight-seeing? Just the two of you this time," I offered, "And maybe pick up a few souvenirs for people back home." Merlin turned the thought over in her head before giving a nod, and dashed away to find her equine companion. I, on the other hand, went up to my room to get changed and head out. Apparently there might have been a 'small' problem at Stark Tower, though that may be just the usual bug in the system.

Anybody could go through the whole system to find the glitch, but somehow it always gets foisted onto me. It must be due to me being able to find said hiccup relatively quicker than the entire IT department. Meh, c'est la vie.

Of course, there was just one hitch in that theory: it would mean having to go out during the hottest part of the day, on the most horribly stinky hot days of summer…great.

######

…Ok. This is a new one for me, even for my very open-mindedness being.

When I had been at the Mansion, the weather had been sweltering hot, so I had donned my lightest short-sleeved sundress and a broad brimmed hat before setting off with Voltaire in tow to Stark Tower, stopping every so often for a cool drink for the both of us. Normally, Mr. Foxworthy would keel over in his grave (figuratively speaking) before letting me walk in such heat, and drive me to wherever I needed to go, but even today's heat had him beat so I was left on my own.

Then somewhere between here and there, the weather decided to throw a big curve ball that kept on snowballing, with heavy emphasis on the 'snow' part. Voltaire and I hadn't even reached our destination yet when out of nowhere it began snowing, and more and more of it was coming down.

My first thought—other than it was freaking cold—was to give Merlin a call about the oddity: she had admitted that she causes the odd weather conundrum when highly emotional. With that in mind, I pulled my mobile out and dialled her number.

"Before you ask, no this isn't me," was the first thing out of her mouth, "and it's not just happening in New York—it's all over the world." Well, that put the kibosh on my hopes for the weather returning to normal…at least until after I reached Stark Tower.

"Is there any chance of you knowing what's going on?" I asked her, bracing against Voltaire's warm body as a gust of wind picked up. If we didn't get out of the cold soon, there's a very good chance that Voltaire and I will turn in popsicles.

"I do, in a manner of speaking: my magic can more or less tell me about the situation, to a degree. At the moment, I can tell you that it's definitely magic in nature, it's quite powerful and quite ancient, but I am not familiar with it." She supplied at length, "I suggest talking to someone with knowledge of this realm's magic, like Thor perhaps." That would make sense…and if I remember correctly, the alert from Stark Tower said that Thor was there, along with Tony and T'Challa. Now, there was just the matter of getting there before being turned into frozen statues.

"Just to quench my sense of curiosity, whereabouts are you, Briar?" Merlin asked me. I was about to reply when a sudden breeze went by, and not only was this breeze cold, it was able to lift the hem of my dress up enough to freeze everything from mid-thigh down. And the result of that experience was a loud high pitched squeal, plus a few words that would've made a sailor blush.

As I braced myself against Voltaire and tried to regain the feeling in my legs, I barely paid attention to whatever it was that Merlin was saying, but then I was engulfed in a swirly blue light. When the display finally died down, I looked down at myself and found myself wearing a completely different outfit. My new winter outfit was a light-grey parka with a hem that went down to mid-thigh, thick dark grey pants, and very warm, comfy snow boots and gloves.

"I love the outfit, but I don't remember having this in my wardrobe." I remarked out loud as I gave myself a further look over.

"But I do," Merlin replied, "So I duplicated it and made for certain adjustments. By the by, your magic staff is in the left pocket of your parka." My hand automatically went to the pocket and felt the reassuring piece of magical wood, doing much to alleviate my worries.

Merlin also added that she would go around the city, in case people needed help, while Voltaire and I carried on to Stark Tower. Once my call to Merlin ended, I pulled my magi-staff out and split it into eskrima sticks.

Voltaire looked up at me and gave me a soft whine, his ears folding back against his head.

"Hey, I hate this as much as you do, buddy," I spoke gently, "but that can't be helped now, so we might as well push on." Voltaire gave an almost grumpy sounding whuff, but followed me as I carefully blasted a path for us.

: I just hope that T'Challa, and everyone else, is ok. :

######

"Ok, I'm definitely starting to get sick of winter now." I grumbled out loud as I finally pushed open the double doors of Stark Tower, almost being pushed to the ground as Voltaire barged his way inside.

It wasn't so much the walk to the big building that was a problem for us, it was more like the supernatural amount of snow all over the place, and that it was almost hitting the dangerous temperature zone and getting colder by the minute. Though it didn't help matters when really tall ice creatures were popping out of the snow, even if they went down pretty easy: one fireball at their heads and they shattered into thousands of pieces. Since I was on a bit of a tight schedule, oftentimes I had to sneak around them to get to my destination.

Once Voltaire and I had shaken the snow from our bodies, I led the way into a nearby elevator and headed straight for the top to Tony's office. In the back of my mind, I was glad that the elevators were still working, at least for the moment they were. When I get the chance, I'll have to warn whoever's left in the building to avoid the elevators if the weather became extreme enough to freeze the pulleys.

DING. Oops, better focus now.

The second Voltaire and I got out of the elevator, I could hear three men discussing the crazy weather outside, and I could hardly contain myself when I heard the deep dulcet tones of my darling boyfriend…who I really hope was toasty warm and up for sharing that heat. My bouncy puppy was probably just happy to hear a familiar voice and bounded into the room with a happy yip, which was answered with a few chuckles.

"I'm here too." I chirped as I rounded the corner, unzipping my parka as I walked. The three men looked up at me, each with a look of surprise on their face. Well, as much as Tony could manage past a dog licking his face.

"Hey, sis. Good to see you." He grunted, trying so very much to escape the long reaches of Voltaire's tongue, only to have said tongue in his ear. I couldn't help but snicker at his misfortune, even though I knew I was probably going to get the same treatment from a certain big cat.

"Lady Briar, we did not expect to see you." Thor commented as I draped my parka and gloves over the back of the couch, "Especially in weather such as this." As if to emphasis his point, another gush of wind buffeted the large window behind Tony's desk.

"No kidding; I didn't have any plans on leaving the Mansion at all today," I answered him, "But then I got a computer alert that Stark Tower was under attack. I swear, the computer system here glitches like crazy every time someone bumps into it." The silence that followed my statement was deafening, and when I looked up at them…ye-ah, talk about shock and alarm.

"You mean you were coming here, alone and unarmed?" T'Challa finally managed to ask me with a thick voice. That, plus the looks everyone was giving me, finally made my brain go PING and raise a question that I knew had a bad answer to.

"I take it I wasn't responding to a false alarm then?" I asked calmly…or as calmly as a high-pitched squeak can be.

"Uh…let's get back to that one later." Tony quickly intervened. He finally pulled himself away from Voltaire and walked towards that giant TV screen on the wall, snatching up the remote as he did. Once Tony had given me a quick one-armed hug and walked away, T'Challa pulled me into his arms and held me tight against his (thankfully) warm body, pressing his mouth against mine in a deep kiss. The heat coming from his kiss, and from his body, was more than enough to warm my body up to the point I could wrap my arms around his neck and respond to his ministrations with a soft sigh.

"Ahem. As I said, let's move on and focus on the bigger problem?" Tony sarcastically asked, cutting through the haze that formed in my mind. Regretfully I pulled away from my boyfriend and turned around in his arms so that my back was pressed snugly against his chest. T'Challa settled his arms around my waist and stomach, and rested his chin on top of my head.

"Thank you," My brother nodded at us both. He pressed a button on the remote and a large satellite view of the Earth appeared, showing the giant cold weather systems that now covered the surface of the entire planet.

"I spoke to Merlin just before I got here," I informed them all, "She said that whatever is causing this is definitely magic based, from our dimension, and pretty ancient at that. Maybe you've got an idea, Thor?" I asked in a somewhat hopeful tone because (let's be completely honest here) if he doesn't then we're pretty much screwed.

In response to my question, the big Asgardian warrior gained a deeply thoughtful look on his face, crossing his giant arms over his chest as he pondered on what could be the answer. As Thor did so, I could feel T'Challa pressing a kiss to the back of my head, and then nuzzle the spot with his nose. I weaved my fingers with his and tilted my head to the side to smile up at him. He returned the gesture just as Thor came up with something.

"In all the nine realms, only one thing I know of could cause this: The Casket of Ancient Winters." He theorized out loud, which admittedly didn't do much way of explaining itself or the situation at hand.

"Well, thanks for clearing that up." Tony muttered under his breath, and then gave a short cry as one of my gloves mysteriously hit him on the head. Voltaire looked suspiciously innocent while Thor paid no attention and carried on.

"The Casket is an ancient Asgardian artefact that contains the infinite cold of Niflheim." He explained. The name of the realm caught my attention, and sent my cogs spinning as I tried to remember where I heard that name, and what I heard about it.

"Isn't Niflheim the real of the dishonoured dead?" I asked him. Four sets of eyes turned towards me in slight surprise, though it was Thor's reaction that held my attention the most. I guess Norse mythology isn't that far off the mark then.

"Indeed, Lady Briar." He nodded, an impressed glimmer in his blue eyes, and he continued his narrative. "My father Odin hid it long ago, but only he knew where."

"Earth seems a likely location." T'Challa spoke up, his chest rumbling against my back pleasantly.

"You speak wisely, T'Challa." Thor agreed, "Midgard is beneath the notice of most Asgardian." Unfortunately for us, the one who do notice us are the type who are likely to cause really big trouble—and/or danger—that the Avengers have to clear up. And to be really honest here, I still have a bit of trouble with the fact that Enchantress managed to dig up someone from my past and throw him at me. On the odd occasion, I still get nightmares about him attacking me, and hurting Voltaire. Those times, and the times that it got really bad, T'Challa was gentle in coaxing sweeter dreams into my mind and setting me at ease.

"This storm will rage for all eternity unless we can find The Casket and close it." With that little bombshell dropped on our laps, it became all the more important to find out where all this winter madness originated from. Odds are if we find the start of this epidemic, we find the Casket. A simple plan, but one that might work.

"Ok, so I may not know what the heck "magic" is," Tony spoke out, "but I've learned to trace its energy signature…except, for instance, when the entire planet is covered in it." That…is not the most helpful thing to come out of Tony's mouth thus far to date. "So this is your thing." Tony addressed Thor as he tossed the remote to the side and went to sit behind his desk again. "How do we find it?"

"I…I do not know." Thor reluctantly admitted, "Legend tells that only the dead could find it." Again, that isn't the most helpful thing for us right now.

"Ah, well, that's just great." Tony griped, and after this point I tuned him out of my mind; when Tony gets cranky he tends to lash out at people, and I don't feel like biting at whatever bait he may shoot at me.

"JARVIS, display all weather data for the last hour." T'Challa asked of the A.I, sparking my interest.

"Care to share, my teddy bear?" I asked playfully as he pulled away from me, scooping up the discarded remote and stand in front of the large screen. He didn't answer my rhyme, but I've long since known that whenever T'Challa gets scientific he becomes quiet and almost blocks out the world around him as he thought of equations. While he worked sums over in his head, I silently slipped up behind him and wrapped my arms around his stomach and pressed my cheek to the back of his shoulder.

As T'Challa worked, I dimly became aware of the argument behind us: clearly Thor took whatever bait Tony had used. "You should form your own team: 'The Crazy Magic People'!" Tony declared, making me wince and hope that T'Challa—

"The Casket is in Norway."

—found an answer soon. The argument was silenced as both Thor and Tony turned to my boyfriend in confusion.

"Come again?" My brother inquired in quite the dumbfounded tone.

"You should try more Chaos Theory, less failure." T'Challa remarked with some cheek as he looked over his shoulder to smirk at my supposedly genius brother. And I really couldn't help myself and rubbed salt into a proverbial wound.

"Hmm: tall, strong yet gentle, handsome, good with animals, and incredibly intelligent." I mused out loud before looking at my brother with a cheeky smile, "Looks like I've found the perfect boyfriend." The look my brother gave me suggested that I go someplace with brimstone, even as T'Challa and Thor chuckled, the former turning in my arms and hugged me back.

"And it seems that I, too, am fortunate to find the world's most perfect girlfriend." T'Challa purred deeply, not even looking as he effortlessly tossed the remote to my brother. Before I could argue that I wasn't all that perfect, or fully notice that Tony caught the remote, the computer system beeped an alert.

"Excuse me, gentlemen and Miss Briar. There appears to be trouble within the city." JARVIS informed us all, nicely serving as a whack to the head for me to forget mentioned this sooner.

"Ah, yes. I—uh—sort of forgot to mention something earlier."

######

Once I rectified my mistake and told them what I saw earlier, we decided to get a hustle on to Norway and close the Casket, unless we really wanted the entire world to super-freeze over. JARVIS was prompt in sending over a Quinjet, as well as winter-proofed armour for Tony and similar garb for T'Challa.

It took a bit of convincing to get myself and Voltaire to come along as well, but in the end I won out—mostly by pointing out that I'd be in danger no matter where I was, and that I had (some) control over fire magic; something that may come in handy.

So I once more donned the winter gear and filed in after the guys, taking a seat behind Thor, with Voltaire lying down at my feet. Iron Man got a hold of the other Avengers to let them know about what we were doing and that we had it sorted. At least that was my hope.

Privately, I admit that I feel more than a tad worried right now. We were heading to the epicentre of a super winter storm cell, to close some magic box. The thing that really stuck to the forefront of my mind was probably the most obvious question we should have asked first: who opened the box? The second most obvious question we should also be asking is where said trouble-maker (or the plural) is hiding while the whole world suffered.

My thoughts began to fade into the back of my mind as the Quinjet started to fly over the ice-covered lands of Norway. The closer we came to our destination, the more nervous I felt. You know something, I'm starting to feel way out of my depths with all this magic, even with all the magic lessons I've been getting from Merlin and Kilgharrah.

But it was too late to do anything about it now, except hope for the best.

I brought my attention to whatever topic Tony had chosen to talk about…though I should have known that it'd be magic bashing of a sort.

"I'm just saying it's ironic." He innocently commented to Thor, "All the complaining about technology, and now an eternal Asgardian super-winter is threatening to destroy all life on Earth." You know, I'm really starting to wonder how he and I are even related to each other, if he's going to act like a child about these sort of things.

"You have irony, right?—In Asgard?" No sooner had he asked, the Gods decided to flip the table yet again, this time by freezing the engines, making for an incredibly bumpy flight.

"External temperatures are dropping exponentially," T'Challa reported to the rest of us, "The engines are seizing."

"Indeed, we do have irony." Thor quipped to my brother, "Just as you are having some right now." Ok, even I had to have a bit of a laugh at that, at least before the Quinjet ploughed into a large snow mound, skidding some distance on the ground before coming to a complete stop. Once my world stopped spinning rapidly—and my stomach stopped asking to toss itself—we pulled ourselves out of the jet and assessed the injuries. Aside from dizziness and a few bumps on Voltaire, we were fine, so we began the trek to wherever the Casket lay. Our luck was still working, thankfully, because the source of winter magic was coming from a large mountain only a short distance from where we crashed. And true to form, where there's a mountain, there's a creepy tunnel that begged to be walked through.

Voltaire walked ahead of T'Challa and me, with Iron Man and Thor taking up the rear. The tunnel soon led into a cave, which was typically dark and scary looking. Thor did something to make his hammer glow, providing us with some light, and definitely not taking away the spine-tingling feeling I was getting the further we walked.

At one point Voltaire looked around himself, never stopping once, his ears madly twitching as he listened to whatever he was hearing. Finally he paused long enough for T'Challa and me to catch up, and walked on my other side, effectively putting me between two safeguards.

"That doesn't bode well, does it?" I whispered to T'Challa, knowing that he had also seen Voltaire's actions. He didn't say anything in reply, but his actions did the talking for him. T'Challa moved closer to my side, his hand seeking mine and linking fingers with the two.

: Oh, this is going to hurt. : I almost groaned out loud, but all the internal musings were put on hold when the tunnel gave way to a giant cavern; the location of The Casket. It also didn't help that I was beginning to feel like we were being watched by none-too-friendly eyes. From the depths of my hood, I looked about the room to find the source, and found the Casket…and the person who had opened it.

A pathway of stairs led up to the middle of the cavern, to a throne of ice and the person sitting in it. The Casket hovered beside whoever it was; its lid fully open to allow all of the magic it contained to be expelled into the word. I could even start to taste a strange tingle on my tongue—Merlin did mention that she had the same feeling when she first felt powerful magic.

Out of the quiet, Voltaire gave a low growl even as Thor gasped in shock. The rest of us turned just as he said the name "Amora!" and there, frozen in ice, was the Enchantress herself. Her usual bodyguard Skurge was nearby, also frozen in ice. Seeing the Enchantress like that, and with her face contorted in fear, did not make me feel any better or less nervous about this situation.

"Greetings, Thunderer." An oily voice called from the darkness, "Fancy meeting you here." My eyes pulled away from the frozen green witch and back to the throne, to the person who clearly knew Thor. I'm not really a betting person, but I'd put good money down that this is another crazy Asgardian.

"Malekith," Thor responded, his tone filled with contempt, proving my theory right. That just left us with what is Malekith capable of doing.

"Ok, I'll bite. What's a Malekith?" Tony asked Thor, asking the question on every mortal mind in the room.

"Malekith the Accursed, the Master of the Hounds." The Asgardian prince explained to the rest of us, "A Dark Elf from the realm of Svartalfheim." Svartalfheim…I know that name, but that didn't really help us with knowing this elf's weakness, let alone how to stop him, something Tony echoed out loud for me.

"You and your people were destroyed by the Frost Giants; how did you come here?" Thor demanded from the evil creature. Wait, did he say…Gross! That thing's a zombie?!

"I walk in both worlds now, Odinson; the living and the dead." Malekith slyly replied, leaning forward on his elbows and knees. By the light of the winter magic escaping the Casket, all of us got a better look at the monster: garbed in some sort of red and black armour, the Dark Elf's skin was bisected into two different colours. One side as dark as the nothingness of space, the other an icy shade of pale blue, effectively making my stomach feel like heaving all its cookies at the mere sight of him.

"Then I shall send you back to where you belong, Elf!" Thor declared and began to spin Mjolnir by its leather strap. Malekith didn't make any move to stop him, but the Casket's magic was bent to collide with Thor, the rest of us diving away from the blast. Once the rush of ice disappeared and we could see properly again, out Asgardian heavy-hitter was encased head to toe in ice, just like the Enchantress.

: Oh, that's so not good. : My inner self needlessly said. I didn't need the commentary to know that our chances of defeating Malekith just took a serious nose dive. Now all that stood between the Dark Elf and the end of all life on Earth were three Avengers and a super dog, one of those Avengers with a very tentative grasp on her own magic. In a word: fantastic.

"What do you want, Malekith?" My boyfriend bravely demanded from the Dark Elf, "Why have you unleashed this winter upon the Earth?" The Dark Elf didn't seem all that upset by Panther's question—quite probably because he didn't see us as anything of significance—but answered it all the same. Mind you, the answer wasn't something I really wanted to hear.

"I had heard that Thor had turned his back on his father, choosing this mortal realm over Asgard." Malekith answered in a slightly intrigued tone, "I, too, wish to make my home here. I will bring my people back to the realm of the living in Midgard. In fact, it had already begun." Begun? But what did—oh. Now those creatures back in New York made sense, and took on a whole new meaning.

"The Casket's power will destroy you pathetic mortals, and I will cut off Midgard from the nine realms." Malekith finished up, "This land will become a paradise for the Dark Elves, ruled by me." Unfortunately, my big mouth got the better of me.

"But cutting a realm off from the rest will unbalance the entire universe." I protested, "You'll destroy everything!" The Dark Elf's mismatched (and creepy as all hell) eyes turned to me, and I felt disgusted by the look of lust and greed in his features. Malekith disappeared in a puff of smoke, sending all of us on edge.

"You may be speaking the truth, my lovely prey." His voice echoed around us, which made the tingles in my spine multiply, "But what does that matter to one who is already dead?" He finally reappeared, this time right in front of me. Before I could back away—or the others come save me—Malekith wrapped his hand around my neck, not tight enough to kill me (yet) but just enough to let me know that he'd be capable of ripping out my trachea.

"But of course, I now see a flaw in my plan." He mocked sorrowfully even as his hand tilted my head back so the hood fell off, revealing my face to him. "As the future ruler of the Dark Elves, I shall need a queen, and it would be a great shame to let such exquisite beauty like you meet such an end."

Did he just?—did he?—did?—did—did—EW! ON SO MANY LEVELS, EW!

"No!" I gurgled in protest, kicking out against him even as Tony and T'Challa raced to save me. They were beaten to the punch by Voltaire: my faithful dog suddenly appeared from nowhere and latched onto the Dark Elf's arm, pulling downwards. If he were mortal, I'm pretty sure Malekith would have lost his entire arm. As it stood, Voltaire's surprise attack only hurt Malekith enough to weaken his grip on my neck, allowing me to escape. Once he was sure that I was out of the elf's grasp, Voltaire let go and bounded over to me, standing protectively between me and the danger, all teeth and snarling.

"Good boy." I panted, my hand rubbing against my throat. I felt more than saw T'Challa slid over to my side and covering me in his arms, effectively turning his own body into a shield.

"Touch my sister again, you dead creep, and you're gonna regret it big time." Iron Man warned the evil creature, clearly making it known that he wasn't going to tolerate me being a dead creature's bride. Malekith gave us all a look of pure rage and utter contempt, finally having enough us mortals. Then from behind us came a sound that would haunt my dreams forever.

"Very well; since you will not be my queen, you shall die with your friends." Malekith snarled at me, and the cause of the extremely disconcerting sound stepped into the light, and chilled my blood with pure fear. What the noise turned out to be were three large dogs, and I don't mean the size of Voltaire: these things looked like they could take on Diego and give the demi-god a good workover. That's when what Thor said earlier hit me hard.

"Oh, we've got a problem." I informed the other two and Malekith's hounds slowly stalked towards us.

"No kidding?" Iron Man remarked sarcastically, prompting me to drop the bomb.

"Malekith is controlling those dogs, numb-nuts, and what's Voltaire?" My meaning ticked over in their brains as the turned to look at Voltaire, all of us suddenly afraid that he may turn on us. Those three bigger dogs I may be able to take on but there's no way I could make myself hurt my own fur baby.

As it turned out, we didn't have to worry. Voltaire stood in front of the three bigger dogs like they were no bigger than a Shih-Tzu, and got really hairy himself. Then without warning he lunged at the middle dog, and the fur went flying. But while we were (or maybe just I was) distracted by the dogs, Malekith called over the casket and used its powers to send a snow flurry at us, with the intent of flash-freezing us like he did Thor.

Thankfully Iron Man was paying attention, and put up a shield to cover us humans. Once the snow died down, Malekith looked outraged that the three of us were still standing unharmed.

"Chilly. Is that all you got?" My brother mocked, further adding insult to the Dark Elf. Now that the initial shock and disgust had gone (somewhat), I was more than ready to bring my game on and ruin his day.

"My hounds-tear them apart!" Malekith commanded. While Voltaire wrestled with his target, the other two were joined by a hidden third and leapt to attack. My magi-staff flew into my hands and split, just in time for me to slam both ends onto the head of one dark hound, directing his attack into the snow behind me. One pinned Tony to the ground, while the other two chased after T'Challa. After the initial attack, I lost track of everyone's movements in a bid to stop Mega Fido from using me like a chew toy.

Eventually smacking them didn't do too much to help me, so I began using my fire magic. Silently apologizing to the poor dogs, I conjured a stream of fire from both ends of my magi-staff and flicked them like a whip. It worked better than hitting them; these dogs really didn't want to be touched by the tongues of flame, and backed away from me with loud whimpers.

Something that really surprised me then was Voltaire leaping between me and the other dogs, and growled so deeply—deeper than I've ever heard—and sent those dogs running with their tails between their legs. In my shock, the fire puttered itself out with a soft hiss just as Voltaire turned to me with a proud sort of look on his muzzle. I was just about the praise him when I heard T'Challa scream in pain.

"Panther, hang on!" I spun around to find him, only to see him trapped in a column of rising smoke. I rushed over to save him, only to be knocked to the ground by another dark hound, and trust me this thing weighed close to a tonne. Thankfully I sank into the snow, so it took most of the beast's weight, but if I didn't get this dog off me and soon, I'm going to lose body parts.

Voltaire was lightning-quick on his paws and body slammed the hound off me, just in time to see Iron Man shoot a repulsors beam at the frozen Thor, effectively shattering the ice that held him prisoner.

"Thor, get up!" Iron Man pleaded to the Asgardian warrior, who slowly did so—being flash frozen like that can't be good, even for an Asgardian like Thor.

"Metal is bane to the Dark Elves." He chattered as he began to recover his strength, "Iron is his weakness." Iron, huh? Well, the only iron on hand was Tony and his armour: would that really be enough?

My thoughts were dashed when I heard the sound of vibranium, soon followed by Malekith's cry of pain and the column of smoke trapping T'Challa was gone. My boyfriend slumped onto his knees, and I was there just in time to stop him from falling any further.

"T'Challa?" I whispered frantically, cradling his head against my chest while Voltaire came to stand watch over the pair of us.

"Vibranium would seem to work as well." He grunted painfully. I know that the vibranium in the Black Panther habit was blessed to repel magic attacks, but I guess no one counted on Asgardian black magic. T'Challa sounded like he just got run over by a dozen elephants, and probably felt worse than he sounded.

"This isn't going well, is it?" I asked as I carefully helped T'Challa to his feet. Yeah, he was definitely feeling whatever Malekith put him through.

"Not as much, no." Panther replied. The pair of us turned to see Iron Man grab Malekith and fly into the Casket's magic path, but Tony was easily thrown away like a rag-doll. Thor then stepped up to deal with the Dark Elf, but even the power of Mjolnir couldn't bring him down.

Then things turned really bad when Malekith unleashed a storm within the cavern, and everything turned cold insanely fast. As much as my freezing limbs could manage, I half stumbled/half dragged T'Challa behind a wall to escape the worst of the wind and snow, but even huddled close for warmth and Voltaire curled on top of us wasn't enough to stop us from eventually freezing.

And of course, with extreme cold came the beginnings of hypothermia.

My eyelids became so heavy…and my body felt so numb…and tired…so…tired…

"Rose? Rose, wake up." My eyelids twitched slightly before they fluttered open, letting me see T'Challa looking down at me. Beyond him, the snow and cold had gone.

"Did we win?" My voice sounded so groggy, it didn't even remotely sound like me. T'Challa nodded and carefully helped me stand up. Now that the room was warmer, my blood coursed easily again, making everything spin for a few moments, and I found that leaning against a sympathetic T'Challa made it all the more easier.

"Does this mean we can go home now?" Home to a comfy warm bed, a hot meal, and cuddles with my boyfriend sounded like the best thing in the entire universe right now, I could hardly wait to get started. T'Challa chuckled softly (and with some pain) as he gingerly put his arm around me and helped me to walk over to my brother and Thor, who looked like they were making peace with each other about their differences on science and magic.

"Wow, will wonders never cease?" I joked to T'Challa, who found it rather amusing. Tony looked at me and made to retort when out of nowhere Thor was thrown backwards, and the rest of us were bound by green swirling mist…all too familiar green swirling mist.

"Oops. Guess we forgot about her." Iron Man belatedly remembered as the Enchantress and her bodyguard walked over to us. With barely a look to the rest of us, the green witch picked up the now closed Casket. That can't be a good sign.

"Amora, what are you doing here?" Thor demanded from his fellow Asgardians (and I use the term loosely), "Tell me you are not in league with Malekith?"

"It will all be over soon." She promised him, caressing his face like a lover would, then stood with her executioner and vanished in a puff of green smoke, the magic binding us lifting afterwards. As soon as the binds were gone, Thor rushed forward and spun Mjolnir in his hand so fast that it began to glow and zap at the air, before using his magic to create a portal of some kind.

"What are you doing?" Iron Man asked, sounding concerned and worried about our friend's actions. I just hope Thor doesn't do anything stupid.

"I am opening a portal to Asgard." The warrior answered, "The Enchantress must pay for this affront." And that was pretty much all that I remember, aside from a great big wall of red hurtling towards me—after that, I blacked out.

#####

"Uhh~, oh."

"This is starting to sound rather suggestive now; should I be worried?"

"No-ohhh, not at all-hull." I couldn't help myself and laughed at my boyfriend's reactions, not stopping my ministrations on his broad back.

Once I had woken up on the Quinjet, with T'Challa hovering above me, I was brought up to speed on what happened after I passed out. Apparently Thor's portal had no inclination of admit the Asgardian prince, hence why he was thrown backwards. Unfortunately, I was in the way and ended up being sandwiched between a rather dense snow mound and an Asgardian. Anyone who's ever wondered what being squished by a 640-lbs Asgardian feels like, I found out for you: it's not pleasant in the least.

Thor did apologize greatly for what happened, but I can hardly blame him for something he had no control over, and I especially wasn't going to kick him while he was down. T'Challa told me—before Thor came to apologize—that the poor guy was locked out of Asgard by a greater power than his, meaning that Thor was trapped on Earth. So like I said, I can't blame him, nor was I going to kick him while he's down.

When we got back to the States and to the Mansion, everyone else was pretty much ok—aside from a few bruises. Merlin and Kilgharrah were telling us what they were up to when Alenka appeared out of nowhere. As happy as she was to see us, she came to collect our magical friends and take them home –apparently Alenka was about to have a busy rush in her job, so she'd have to get Merlin and Kilgharrah home now, otherwise they'd be stuck in our dimension for another few months (plus there was no way of telling how much time had passed in Merlin's dimension, since Time wasn't always fluid).

So after saying our goodbyes to our friends, and getting all their belongings together, there were gone. Admittedly, I felt a little sad to see them go, but I knew that this was what they wanted to do in the first place.

Knowing that I needed a distraction of some sort, T'Challa invited me back to the Embassy for dinner and a movie…only those plans went pear-shaped when I saw the bruises on his upper body: Malekith's magical attack was stronger, and more painful, than we expected. Even though T'Challa insisted he was fine, I managed to bully him into letting me treat his injuries…and he easily succumbed when I began to give his shoulders and back a deep tissue massage, hence all the moaning.

"So I take it that you don't mind your girlfriend looking after you, huh?" I teased him, digging my fingers and palms into a knot in his shoulder. All he could answer with was another deep pleased-sounding moan, signalling that I had effectively reduced him to a puddle of moaning-yet-relaxed-goop.

I spent a few more minutes gliding my hands over his back and shoulder to check if I missed any other knots, and just to feel the strong muscles twitching underneath my fingertips. Then I lied down beside T'Challa and snuggle as close as I could to his side. T'Challa pouted at me for not touching his back anymore, but lifted his arm for me to move in closer, and folded his arm around my body and rest his head in the crook of my neck.

"Feeling better?" I asked, lightly running my fingers through his short dark hair, and felt his purr of contented pleasure.

"Absolutely." He mumbled sleepily. Hmm, I wonder how long it'll take him to—ah, never mind. T'Challa must've been sleepier than he let on, because he was now completely zonked out.

Voltaire clearly had the same idea, and gently jumped onto the bed to curl on up my other side. He laid his great big head on my stomach, and wrapped his tail around himself and followed my boyfriend's example.

: Since when did I agree to be a human pillow? : I rhetorically asked myself, despite the smile on my face. I lightly kissed the top of my boyfriend's head and settled as much as I could on the bed before joining them both in the lands of dreams.

Against my neck, I felt T'Challa rub his cheek against my shoulder and inhale deeply. "Love you, Rose." He murmured sleepily, making my smile grow a little bigger.

"I love you too, T'Challa." I love you with all my heart.

And that's a wrap for chapter 21. Just one more interlude to go, and then the rest of the episodes. Wow, I'm nearly at the end of the story. And it's taken me how long to get here? Well, here's hoping that I don't take so long ever again (I can count on you guys to help, right?).

So, review and comments please-nice ones otherwise Hulk will be having words with you. Also, at this point in time, I would like you guys not to try asking for spoilers (too many of them, at least) otherwise I'll have nothing to give everybody when the time comes.

Later, taters!