Chapter 11.
Eventually, I cried myself out.
I was lying on the bed after stripping off the dress and took my hair down. I washed my face and put on the shift Aimee left out for me and buried my face in the pillows and sighed. I had made a total ass of myself this evening and I just wanted to hide myself away for the rest of eternity, I couldn't believe what I did and I was paying for it in spades.
I tried to think how to better fit in. But after tonight, I just wanted to leave this world and return to the one I was born on. I didn't belong here any more it was painfully obvious, and I was tired of being kept in Asgard.
A few knocks came at the door, and someone walked into the room eventually. I pretended to be asleep and a gentle hand touched my side and vanished, whoever it was smoothed the duvet over me and gently folded the top down from my face. I heard the door click shut again and opened my eyes and stared into the darkness in front of me. I groaned into the pillow and eventually dozed off.
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I dreamed of the trees at night outside Leavenworth in Fall. I was sitting in a patch of stinging nettles, and I heard screams in the distance and saw the fire. In primitive fear I cried out and ran from the flames as fast as my five year old legs could carry me away from the danger. I slapped my hands over my ears, but the screams found their way through the cracks in my fingers. I started screaming myself to drown them out. I cried and sank to the ground and tried not to hear anything.
If I listened long enough, my mind would splinter and I would never come back.
I felt hands grab my arms that burned me through the sleeves of my dress, and my legs kicked and thrashed against the body that held my up. I opened my eyes and looked into the burnt face of my father, and could smell the booze on his breath. The booze that meant I was in for a bad night. I knew that smell well, and I cried out in fear when it hit me in the face.
His hands gripped me harder and his cracking skin was hotter than the sun, I cried out in terror as he gripped me harder and I could feel the blisters start to rise on my skin.
"You did this you little bitch." My father said and His breath reeked of alcohol, burnt flesh, and death. I shook my head as he opened his eyes to show milky orbs that had melted away in their sockets.
I cried and thrashed in terror and tried to get away from him.
"It should have been you. Not her!" He screamed at me and I returned it with my own terror laced cries, pleading with him to let me go. I wanted to wake up desperately, but the primitive side of my brain made me stay locked in this moment with this terrifying demon.
He threw me and I hit the ground as he stood over me, my small body struggled to recover. His fist crashed into my stomach and I lost my breath and cried as I tried to get back up, but he put a foot in the middle of my chest and it left a burn mark where he crushed my ribs and towered over me in the darkness. He grabbed the front of my shirt as he moved his foot away and held me off my feet as he began to stretch his arm back, his fist a ball of fire and I screamed into the darkness.
"Time to burn you murdering little bitch." He said and I screamed as the fire consumed me, and I breathed it in and screamed more and more as the sparks filled the night sky.
I screamed and fell.
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I jerked awake with a scream lodged in my throat and looked around me shaking. The cold predawn light filtered into the windows, and I saw that someone had taken away the dress and left a fresh change of clothes of a pair of black leather pants and a royal purple short jacket on the stool next to the tub. The blankets and pillows were thrown all over the immediate area thanks to my nightmare, and I shivered as sweat dried on my body. I pulled my knees up to my chest and sobbed into the shift, using the hem to dry my face as I rocked back and forth.
Eventually, I crawled out of the bed and pulled the shift off over my head as I looked in the mirror, and cried as the memories of the nightmare and the night before flooded back. I couldn't face anyone here again, and I was leaving today.
I washed and dressed, putting the pendant back over my head and grabbed my books and stuffed them all down into my backpack. I debated putting my bracers on, but decided against it and wrapped them into a cloth and shoved them on top of the mass of stuff I had and zipped everything shut angrily.
Shoving my arms through the sleeves of the thigh length jacket, I laced it shut and braided my hair down my back and looked at myself in the mirror one last time. I was a mess, my face and eyes were puffy from crying, and my hair was barely held in place by the one hair tie I owned. I walked over to the vanity and put all my hoops back in and replaced the cartilage piercing in my right ear, looking around the room for anything I may have forgotten. I found nothing and sighed, thinking about how some of the people here tried to break through my shell and tried not to cry again.
I shrugged my backpack onto my back and took a minute to enjoy the familiar weight and headed out into the hallway and toward the main stairs. I slipped my Ray Ban sunglasses on to hide my puffy eyes behind the mirrored lenses. I saw Aimee rushing toward my room and she stopped in front of me, she frowned at my backpack and I waved at her while holding the glasses in my hands.
"Catch you on the flipside Aimee." I said and walked around her and kept moving. She opened her mouth a couple times and followed after me as I kept going.
"Where are you going Lady?" she asked me and I started down the stairs and she walked around in front of me to try and stop me form moving further.
"Back to Earth, and my already screwed up life in progress. Hopefully my old boss will not put a bullet in the old brain pan, he kind of holds a grudge." I replied and slid down the railing of the stairs on my butt and continued to walk down the hall.
"I heard what happened last night," She stammered out as she followed me and grabbed my arm. "Leaving will not make it right, the other woman will be the true winner. There are more reasons for you to stay with us, than there are for you to leave."
"Aimee, do you want to not grab at me this early in the morning?" I sighed at her and she dropped my hand quickly.
"You can't leave, there are people who care about you, and they wish you to stay." She stammered out again as I laughed bitterly to myself as she grabbed my arm again.
"Good pep talk Aimee, I was almost convinced." I said and jerked my arm out of her grasp. "I have to survive, and I'm leaving for the only place I know how to, the only place where the wildlife does not try to eat me."
I turned and she stayed behind me as I continued down the hall and out the main doors, and across the courtyard toward the road to the Bifrost. The posted guards watched me as Aimee followed me, I ignored them and shot one a look that dared him to do anything to stop me. Aimee turned and ran back through the doors, and into the castle.
I blinked in the bright sunlight despite the sunglasses and turned, walking toward home.
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The maid nearly crashed into Volstagg as the group of them rounded the corner, and Loki and Sif had to calm the mouse haired girl because she was talking too fast and in broken sentences. Loki wanted to shake the girl in his exasperation and he resisted the urge to do so, and the girl took a breath. Her hands shook as Loki looked into her eyes and she focused herself to make herself understood in her panic.
"She took all of her things and went to the Bifrost." Aimee gasped out. "Lady Lilliana wishes to go back to Midgard, she said something about someone killing her there if she did not do work."
Loki released the maid and started running immediately, remembering her talking about the slaver and the illegal things he made her do. His boots screeched to a halt briefly and he turned back to the group.
"Calm her and fetch Thor!" Loki shouted. "Do not bring him to us, the last time he interviened was a disaster. Let me reason with Lilliana before she does anything rash."
He began running again and pushed a woman out of the way carrying a tray of food as he ran across the courtyard and down the central road after the girl.
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"I cannot open the way for you Lady." Heimdall said and stood firm behind his statement as I groaned audibly at him and threw my hands out in exasperation.
"Why the hell not, Odin said I was not a prisoner. I want to go home." I said and he stayed silent and looked at me with a trace of sadness.
"I cannot open the way for you." He said kindly and I closed my eyes. "Please do not ask me again."
"Then tell Odin, he will let me go. I don't belong here, and I never will." I said and crossed my arms and dared him to deny me again. He sighed and looked at me and I felt more and more frustration building in me. I turned and debated begging him, and I felt hot tears starting to spring forth again.
"You do belong here." Heimdall said. "One is coming now who wants you to stay, a friend who cares. He is followed by others who care."
My mouth opened and I looked at Heimdall in disbelief, and he looked down at me with kind eyes. I looked up at the dome and groaned with my hands on my hips and tried to not scream, and settled for throwing my sunglasses. The clattered off the wall in front of me and I turned on my heel and threw my arms out.
"Oh great, Fandral is going to get a chance to say platitudes and throw himself at my feet." I rolled my eyes and picked up the now broken sunglasses. "This should be so much fun. I'd rather be hated by a rabid Koala."
"Would you settle for me scolding you and calling you an imbecile?" Loki asked as he entered the room and stopped to catch his breath and glared at me. I pointed at him and shook my head as he collected himself, and I stomped toward him as my anger rose.
"Even worse, you!" I said and pointed at him as he smirked. "You should have let me wipe the floor with that blonde bitch."
I looked around for something more to throw, and settled on the broken sunglasses in my hand and chucked them at him. He blocked them with the palm of his hand and he looked at me angrily and put up a finger to warn me against doing that again, he stepped toward me as the glasses clattered somewhere off to the side. I backed away and tripped over my own feet in my sudden fear as he kept coming. I threw my arms up over my head and curled into a ball. Loki crouched down next to me and helped me stand back up, I looked at him in shock and he put a hand on my shoulder.
"What she said was inexcusable, vile at best, but running away will change nothing that was done or said." He said and stepped back from me, smoothing his hair back and sitting down on the steps to the platform.
"What do you fucking know?" I said and leaned back against the wall and looked down at my feet, I hated when people came off all wise without knowing the struggles I went through. Like they ever knew what it was like to walk in my shoes, I paced back and forth like a caged animal and glared at him.
"I know being hurt, being made to believe one thing, and having lies fed to you, one after another, until you cannot see truth. I know the anger in you, and you said it yourself, you hold it in long enough it is allowed to fester. It becomes all you know, and eventually it is all you are." Loki said and leaned forward on his knees and he looked up at me as I paced, confused and feeling lost.
"You don't know me, and you never will. Who the hell are you to judge my life and tell me that you know what I have been through? You wouldn't last five damn minutes in my shoes." I spat out at him and he looked at me coolly. I was annoyed he tried to get into my head, and I was even more annoyed now that he was sitting there letting me pace and judging me as if I need his condescending ass right now.
"Then tell me who you are." Loki said and I shook my head to say no. No one was getting in that easy, and I was sick of people trying to.
"Who made you feel worthless, who told you that you were to blame for the death of your parents? Who made you feel pain and humiliation?" He asked me and his questions were a punch in the stomach. I put my hands up to my face and looked for an escape, and found none.
"Let me go home." I said and Loki looked down and sighed.
I sank down to my butt and wrapped my arms around my knees and tried not to cry, and rested my forehead on my knees and tried to think of a way out of the mess I was currently in. My brain worked in circles and I rocked back and forth as I tried to think, I looked up at Loki and he opened his hands to me.
"You have nothing there for you Lilliana," He reasoned and I looked up at him. "If you go back to the life you once had, you will be alone again. And your future will be a hard and lonely road."
He looked at me with open hands and I felt so deflated under the weight of the truth.
"Answer my questions first," I said, and backed against the wall until I felt my bag bump it, and I leaned my head against it sorrowfully.
"And don't lie." I said in challenge and he opened his hands again to me and raised his eyebrows.
"Fair," He said and pressed his lips together. "A truth for a truth."
I crossed my legs in front of me and rested my elbows on them and looked down at the floor and began to scratch my hand. Loki cleared his throat and I looked up at him and he made the motion of scratching his hand, and I stopped and rubbed my palms over my knees.
"Why did you try to take over the Earth?" I asked him and he stood up and turned his back to me like he was going to leave. I stood up quickly and watched him and he stopped moving and removed his knee length brown leather vest and set it aside.
I watched him, afraid of what he was doing, but he never made a sudden move. He then took the hem of his tunic and raised it over his head and I gasped at the sight of his back. Standing on shaking legs, I walked forward and put my hand on one of the multitude of scars that crossed his back, from his shoulders to the waistband of his pants. My fingers traced one and I felt a lump rise in my throat as he stood quietly, his personal hell marked out for everyone to always see in his skin. He jumped a bit as my fingers traced one that stretched from his left shoulder and down his back to his waist and I stepped back to let him put his clothes back on.
"Who did this to you?" I asked with a thick voice as he turned back around and shrugged his vest back onto his shoulders. It took every fiber to fight back the tear that rolled down my cheek, and I still lost that battle. I wiped it away quickly and he studied me for a moment and sat back down.
"A being tortured me, or had his men do it." He said and looked at me and I wanted to scream and hug him, but I stayed rooted to my spot.
"I was forced to lead the Chituari and my mind was poisoned by a power you will never understand. This being wanted to remove Midgard as a threat to his plans and I broke under his cruelty, I agreed to do so. He promised me a crown for serving him, and demanded my loyalty in return. Eventually, I failed so there is now a price on my head. I told you it was unpleasant business." Loki said and looked at me sadly.
"I'm sorry that happened to you. But even you know that truth is sometimes horrible." I replied and he nodded at me.
"I ask that you keep this in your confidence." He said and I frowned at him not fully understanding.
"Anyone can break under torture, a person can take only so much cruelty before they agree to anything to end it. Even someone like Thor would eventually break. Everyone would understand if you just told them, give people the benefit of doubt and just try to make them understand." I said and he smiled sadly at me, I looked down and stopped talking.
"I will reveal it to them in my own time." He said and looked back up at me and waited patiently. I sat back down, and crossed my legs, resting my arms on my knees and looked at Loki.
"People will surprise you if you give them a chance." I said, and he opened his hands again. A thin smile played across his lips as he looked at me and raised his eyebrows.
"You are avoiding my question." He said and looked at me. I took the queue to start talking, but I couldn't bring myself to spill that part of myself. I struggled with my inner self for a moment and looked up at him in fear, some parts of myself were off limits to everyone.
"I don't want to play Whose Life is More Messed Up." I said and swallowed. "I want to go home."
"We had a deal Little Mouse, and this is not a game." He said and his eyes glanced down briefly as I looked at him.
"Promise not to judge me?" He looked back at me, and I took in a breath.
"You have my word, I will not judge you or make you feel inferior." He said and I sighed and looked up at the circular patterns on the domed ceiling and worked up the courage to walk a road I tried to put a fence across a long time ago.
"My dad was a cool guy when he was sober." I said and Loki watched me as he listened, no judgment crossing his face.
"Like, really cool. He was smart and had a great job as a NASA researcher, it is a a government science dedicated to studying space. He could do the most amazing stuff too. He could design the most intricate circuits for computer components, and he was like me, way too smart for our own good, photographic memory like mine. He told me that my Mom made him feel like the world was amazing, even when he did not see it that way. She was not overly smart, but she could make you feel normal by just standing next to her. She was diagnosed with Stage Four Small Cell Lung Cancer the same day she found out she was pregnant with me. The doctors told her that she should terminate the pregnancy and begin treatment immediately. But Stage Four is a death sentence and she knew it, and she chose to carry me to term."
'I overheard a couple of his coworkers say at his funeral that my Dad started drinking right after she died and I was born." I sighed and tried not to bawl.
"He was the worst kind of person when he was drunk, he was cruel and he hit me, told me that it was my fault and that she should have just aborted me when she could to save her own life. But sober, he would cross oceans for me, and he laughed more." I paused and took in a breath and shivered at the memory of my dreams from last night. Loki said nothing, and had a pained look on his face as he shifted in his seat.
"Eventually his family started avoiding him, and I got the same label as not being worth their time. I grew up in a family that hated me, and the guilt by association became too much. So I'm a black sheep, I guess every family needs one. But when no one will take you in because you don't cry at your Father's funeral, it tends to really drive the point home."
"On my fifth Birthday, my Dad took me to a costume parade in a town in the mountains called Leavenworth. He bought me my first ever Halloween Costume and I was so excited to pick it out, and carry my pumpkin bucket to get treats."
"Halloween?" He asked and I laughed forgetting that they probably did not have the celebration here.
"It's a celebration that we have, we wear costumes and silly clothes. We go to peoples houses and they give us candy and treats. Kids love it, and we carve faces into pumpkins to scare away ghosts and tell scary stories." I said and he nodded and smiled.
"I was going to be a princess, and Dad was one month sober. It was the best month of my life, and he was happy to take me out and parade me around. I walked in the parade, got so much candy I was sick, ate apples, and won prizes in the games. I even had a stupid plastic crown I wore and I looked completely ridiculous. Dad found a bar, he got hammered and I sat in the car while he drank."
"When he came out of the bar, he smacked me around and I started crying. All the way down the road, he kept telling me how he was tired of me, how I cost him too much, and how he should just find a river and drown me. The worst part, I believed every word of it, and could never figure out how just being born could make someone hate you so much. I would have crawled over broken glass to get out of that car and be free of him."
"My own father wanted to kill me, and I almost welcomed it." I said and held back tears as Loki looked at me and Heimdall shifted quietly, listening as he turned his head and looked at me.
"He passed out and the car went off the road, I unhooked my seat belt to grab the wheel, but I was not fast enough, and I was thrown through the windshield when the car hit the tree and stopped. I was scraped and cut, but out of the car. He was pinned by the engine and the car caught fire. I sat in the leaves, surrounded by Halloween Candy, bleeding and listened to him scream as he burned and died. The man who taught me I was nothing, and would never really be anything, screamed my name in his last minutes of life as I sat and watched."
Loki stood up and looked at me as he paced back and forth, processing what he had heard and looked at me. I stood up and backed toward the wall, he looked at me and I stepped back again in instinct. He approached me and put his hands on my shoulders and looked at me.
"Never believe the words of a drunken man, especially one filled with venom and rage." Loki said and removed the bag from my shoulders and. "Trust is a horrible thing to loose in a person, and yours was ripped from you with words and fists."
"Michael hit me too. And did much worse." Loki looked at me and Heimdall stepped forward. His hand out in case I needed help.
"He forced himself on you?" Loki growled and I stepped back quickly at his anger. Shrinking as I looked up at him, I could see him look over at Heimdall and he looked back at me and held his hand out for mine.
"No, but he tried." I said and put my arms around myself and felt my back hit the wall, guilty in my confession. Some big powerful being I must have looked like to him.
"Please don't tell anyone any of this." I begged him, and he turned and looked at me and smiled.
"Of course Little Mouse." He said and set my bag down and wrapped his arms around me. "You have my confidence, and my word that any of this will be never said again."
I sighed and relaxed into his hug and he let me stop shaking and he pushed me away and looked at me seriously, and put both of his hands on either side of my face.
"You have a strength in you that I appreciate." Loki said. "And you have a mind I wish to nurture. I want to show you so much, but if you leave I cannot open you to a universe that is yours to hold." I looked at him and I put my hand up on his wrist.
"Will you stay, you are not the only person here who feels they do not belong, but you will find your place. I promise you that." He said to me and the crazy part of it all….I believed him.
"And If I don't?" I asked Loki and he smiled.
"It is a big Universe, we will find your place." He replied and I smiled at him and nodded.
I looked at Heimdall who had his back to us and I groaned a bit and walked over to him. He looked down at me and I touched his arm and he smiled as he looked out the window.
"I betray no secrets." He said and I smiled and let him return to his duties of watching the universe.
Loki picked up my bag and walked me toward the entrance to the bridge and I sighed and looked down at my hands and saw the familiar red twinkle on my thumb, the memory of a ghost that I had carried for too long and I slipped the ring off my finger and walked to the edge of the bridge and looked out at the vast nothing in the cosmos. Loki tried to grab my hand and I pulled away as he walked up and I put the ring out in my hand and he stood nearby and watched me as I held the ring out and watched the garnet twinkle in the sun.
'Lilliana?' Loki said and I stood there on the edge of the bridge, and held it out over the void, and I could sense him growing concerned.
I let go of the ring, and watched it as it tumbled away into the darkness, and eventually became nothing as it fell. I watched it and Loki put a hand of my shoulder and he understood why I did it, I had to let go if all those years of guilt and insecurities.
I had to say goodbye and put that part of my past in a grave and cover it over.
"I had to let go of a ghost that haunted me." I said and he stood next to me as I watched the stars dance in their own way.
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The impossibly shaped battle cruiser traveled through the nebula dragging a cloud of cosmic dust and ionized gasses in its wake. Its gyrating wings out and moving silently as it passed, propelling the army and The Presence on toward an ultimate goal. He stood on the deck of the bridge and could nearly taste her screams as he ran his hand over his bald head, his eyes scanning the space ahead.
The male body he occupied was human, a disguise to easily attract the girl in like the sticky sweet sap of the Venus Fly Trap. Only camouflage meant to attract so another body could be consumed and he looked down and adjusted his long black robes as he watched, sensing her before him and desiring the power inside her.
A Kree soldier approached him and gave him a salute and bow. The Presence turned and looked at the pathetic creature and smiled.
"One more jump to Asgard sir, the army is prepared to attack, and the ships are waiting to be launched on your command." He reported and The Presence smiled. The battle brave Kree soldier nearly recoiled in horror from the smile and collected himself quickly.
"Tell your men that no prisoners will be taken, except for one. They may kill as they wish, but the girl is to be brought to me alive." He replied as activity began all over the ship. Docking bays began opening their outer pressure doors, and regiments of ground troops began to fall in for the invasion and attack. Weapons and armor were double and triple checked and The Presence watched as the last Jump Gate opened in front of him.
He focused his thoughts and found her among the Asgardians, he found her much changed and frowned at her new found strength. It would be no matter in the end, for she would gratefully hand over her power to him eventually, and he would absorb it.
Two violet eyes opened in his mind, and he imagined cutting them out of her face as she screamed.
Silently, the ship passed through the Jump Gate and he used his abilities to hide himself and the ship from the watcher, no sense in alerting them until the attack began.
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"What is a Jotun?" I asked Loki as we walked the dirt road and he obviously did not want to answer my question. I shrugged and I kicked a rock and it skipped off into the woods and turned around again quietly on the dirt path, swinging my arms out as he stood still.
"You remember that from last night." He said to me and I let his statement hang in the air, and shrugged again.
"I've heard it a couple of times." I said and nodded. "Not that it is any difference to me what you are. I'm part Japanese and neither one of us really look any different from anyone else." I looked at him and held my hand up next to his face and made my point by comparing skin colors. I turned and started walking again, but he stayed still and I turned back.
"You don't have to answer if you don't want to. I just was wondering, everyone is different on Earth, and we celebrate it instead of being bigoted and total assholes about it." I shrugged and stepped up onto a low rock wall and balanced on it and slowly turned around to see Loki standing with blue skin and red eyes. There were ridges and markings on his face and hands and I looked at him and stepped down from the wall, curious and smiled at him as I walked around his back. He watched me circle for a moment and I reached up to touch one of the ridges on his face and he flinched back.
"Jotun is another word for Frost Giants." He said and I looked at Loki and he looked away from me in shame as I stepped around and looked at him.
"Can I touch your skin?" I asked and he turned his red eyes to me and looked shocked at my question and rolled up his sleeve and held his arm out to me. I put my hand out and touched his cold skin and smiled.
"This is so cool." I said and I turned his arm in my hands to look at the markings that traced his hands. 'You are cold, but warm when you are in your other form."
"Why are you not afraid?" He asked me and I looked back up at him and gave a snort and looked at the markings on his face. I shook my head and laughed to myself.
"Why should I be? This is so cool, and you are still you in there aren't you? I am guessing that people here are not so accepting, and that is their stupidity there. On Earth, people have different races in their blood all the time, like I said, I'm part Japanese. It is probably why I am so short, but it does not make me something horribly bad. We have people who are part African, and we accept them because they are cool people. If anyone tells you suck because you are who you are, tell them to deal with me. I will tell them to eat a bag of dicks." I said and crossed my arms over my chest as he looked at me and he shifted back into his normal skin tone.
"I am not a monster to you?" He looked at me and swallowed hard as I tilted my head at him and laughed.
"Really? I so need to tell everyone here off. Because it looks to me that Asgard is a bunch of bigots that needs a bitch slap. And look at Sif and Thor, they accept you. Even if I think you are a major pain in the ass, you are still a manageable pain in the ass." I said and he gave me a scolding look about my swearing.
'Little Mouse." He warned me as we began walking again
"I know Magic Dance, the language. But I will cuss people out if I have to, so just accept it." I sighed.
"It diminishes your intelligence, and is not becoming." He said and I stepped back up on the wall and balanced on it carefully.
"I will work on it." I said and did a handstand on the wall idly, yeah I was showing off, and then swinging my legs backwards to bring myself back upright. He watched me mildly impressed, but still looked worried about showing me what he was.
"I know you don't really believe me yet, but it really does not bother me." I said and hopped down off the wall.
"It does explain why you are so tall though. Like massively tall, how is the weather up there?" I said and he laughed at my joke and relaxed himself.
"I will only tell you if you tell me how the ground looks." He quipped back and I looked down and laughed.
"It is still there." I said and he looked around him and squinted.
"No rain." He replied and I laughed and threw my head back and he joined in as we walked a bit more and I had to stop to catch my breath for a bit. As we walked and started singing "Let it Go" from the Disney Movie and laughed as I came to the end. Loki rolled his eyes and I had to lean against a tree as I caught my breath again, and I wiped my eyes.
"And you call me the obnoxious one." He said and I laughed.
"Yeah, well, I guess we are friends now. I can so teach you some pretty obnoxious things too." I said to him and he smiled.
"Now that sounds like fun." He replied and I laughed.
"You know, this place is not quite paradise, but it feels like home sometimes." I said and he smiled at me and we walked on and I turned another handstand and walked a bit on my hands, he grabbed my ankles and pushed me over and I flipped around and stood up. Dizzy as the blood rushed from my head. I gave him a snarky look as he smiled at me, and turned again as we both walked through the gates to the palace and I groaned and looked as I saw everyone standing and waiting in the courtyard and the looked up at me. I threw my hands out and rolled my eyes.
"Is this in intervention? Because if it is, I am throwing myself off the Bifrost." I said and Fandral and Thor both looked at me in a panic. And I put my hands up in a defensive gesture and stepped back silently.
"Can anyone here understand sarcasm?" I said and threw my hands out, eliciting a few nervous laughs from the group, and Sif uncrossed her arms and walked toward me and smiled.
"We are just glad you chose to stay with us, we would have missed you if you had left." She said and hugged me as everyone watched.
"I think this is turning on the men in our messed up family." I said and Sif laughed into my hair and held fast. She pulled back and smiled at Loki and he shrugged as she began leading me back to the group.
"What did ye say to the lass ta keep her here Loki?" Volstagg asked, and Loki looked at the group. I let my smile drop in panic and my heart sank into my shoes.
"True things. And I will not break her confidence." He replied coolly and I smiled at him and the ground began vibrating under my feet.
I looked up confused, and everyone else joined in as we looked at the sky and around us. Everyone jerked to attention as sirens began wailing above our heads and guards scrambled around us to close the castle doors. Loki grabbed my arm and we all ran through the archway and down the halls, we all ran as fast as we could. I tripped and hit the marble ground hard and yelped in pain and felt Loki picked me up and kept running.
"What is going on?" I asked him as he carried me through the halls, diving to the side as armed men ran the opposite way past us. I shook in fear as he put me back down and pulled me through the doors to the Throne Room where Odin stood and looked out a window with concern crossing his face. I scanned the room, finding everyone in a state of panic as Odin barked orders and men ran about.
"We are under attack." Thor said and addressed Odin, Loki put his hand on my shoulder to steady me and I looked up at him and tried not to cry. Everyone suddenly pointed at an open window, and I turned to see what they were looking at.
I broke free from Loki and ran to a window and watched as a dome of light began forming around the castle and the shrieking sirens silenced. I took in heavy breaths as an elongated black ship broke the atmosphere, and watched as it propelled itself forward and smaller drop ships and fighters began leaving it like beetles and gnats against the blue sky. I stepped back in shock and watched in horror of the war that began to open up before me.
I felt a stab of pain like a needle pierce my brain and I shrieked, clutching my head as my nose suddenly began to bleed. Thor and Loki grabbed my arms and it went away, I felt someone clean the blood off my face and I shook my head as a ship crashed into the shield. I threw up my arms by instinct alone to protect myself as it exploded ineffectively, and a scream ripped loose in my throat as panic took over.
"Who are they? What do they want?" I asked Loki and he looked at me and helped me stand back up.
"The Kree, a formidable race based on military tactics alone. They obviously want you, and we are going to prevent that." He replied and I watched as the turret guns of Asgard returned fire and tried not to cry or scream at what I had brought to this world. I slipped my hand into Loki's and he looked down at it and gave it a reassuring squeeze as his clothes changed in front of me into battle armor.
"This is my fault, once again I'm screwing everything up just by being alive." I said and Loki turned on me and grabbed my shoulders.
"Your life is not the only reason they are here. Stop making yourself the blame for calamities you cannot control. They may have come for you, but there will always be someone out there who will hunt you, this entire castle will not allow you to be taken." He said as another crash against the shields made me jump and yelp out.
A hand crashed down on Loki's shoulder, he spun and shoved me behind him defensively, the tails of his coat whipping against my legs as he turned and locked eyes with Thor. He looked down at me as I wrapped my hand around Loki's arm and he made it his business to ignore my fear and sudden need for another breathing person I could trust. I screamed as something below us exploded and tightened my grip on his arm and Loki pulled me around next to him. I was like a small child, scared and defenseless, and Thor looked at me and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
"Get her to safety Brother, you know secret ways out of Asgard and can hide her better than we." Thor said and I shook but moved forward to protest.
"I can fight." I said, but the shaking in my voice betrayed me and I tried to hide that I was scared out of my wits.
"Betray us or her, and we will hunt you until the end of time, there will be no safe harbor for you." Thor warned, and Loki rolled his eyes as Thor reached out again and put his hand on my shoulder.
"You are not ready for full combat," Thor said and looked into my eyes. "Defend yourself, but do not seek out a fight. You are my sister in my heart, and I will look for you, trust in all of us Lady" He grabbed me into a hug, and crushed me to him as something else exploded in the castle and Loki pulled me away from Thor.
"Time is not on our side it seems." Loki said and he ran with me toward a part of the castle I had not seen before. He handed me my backpack and I slipped my arms through the straps as we moved.
"Follow me and stay close, if you fall I will carry you. Do not try to engage anyone you see but defend yourself." He said and we ran down a cramped hall that felt smaller than it was, we turned down a corridor and I followed him and we slowed our pace to a walk.
"Where are we going?" I asked and tripped over a piece of masonry that had fallen down from one of the explosions, Loki grabbed my arm to help me stay upright as some guards ran past us back the way we had come from and I jumped as something exploded outside the castle.
"I am taking you someplace secure, and if needed, to a portal between the realms I know of." He said and looked at me, taking my hand in his and pulling me along. He checked around the corner of a turn cautiously and then began pulling me forward again when the whole world exploded around us and I was thrown back against a wall painfully.
I hit the ground hard in a heap, and Loki flew into me slamming me back down as he was thrown backwards. I saw stars and groaned in a bit of pain when small round device rolled past us and his eyes went wide, I understood his expression as he threw himself on top of me and I threw out some energy to protect us both. I covered my ears and opened my mouth to protect my eardrums from the concussion as the fire and explosion traveled up and over us ineffectively and let the shield down and Loki looked down at me in surprise, and embarrassment.
"I got your back, and you got mine." I said, he chuckled and helped me back up as two blue skinned men walked around the corner and lowered their weapons at the two of us. I gasped at them as Loki pushed me behind him and from somewhere in his coat he produced two knives in each hand and threw them expertly, catching each of the men in the chest. In the reflex of dying, one pulled the trigger on his weapon and the shot went past my ear and slammed into a statue behind me, causing it to explode in a haze of dust and stone. I coughed and covered my eyes as the dust settled, and found Loki turning on me, he moved my hair and turned my head, studying me as his hand found my shoulder. I slapped at his hand instinctively before he could touch further down my body, and he looked at me.
"Are you hurt?" Loki asked from far away as my eyes fixed on the dying Kree and I shook, the first waves of nausea hitting me and I fought the urge to vomit. I had never seen anyone die like that before, and Loki turned my face to his.
"Are you hurt?" He asked me again. "Don't look at them, and tell me if you were hit!"
I snapped out of myself and shook my head and tried not to be sick, as I focused on his eyes and tried not to scream as another explosion rocked the castle.
"No." I said and his hand closed around my wrist and he pulled me another direction as more Kree soldiers entered the castle, firing their weapons at us as we ducked around a corner, one shot missing Loki by inches as we ran.
Loki swung me around and pinned me up against a wall again as the stonework exploded above us and he used his power to freeze the men, encasing them in ice as they advanced. I screamed out as another explosion shook the masonry around me, and he pivoted again to stab one in the throat and pulled he knife out as the dying man gurgled around his own blood, he then pivoted around and gripped the soldier's head and shoulders and broke his neck with a sickening pop as I shoved my fist up into my mouth and tried not to scream.
Loki looked up at me and I backed away scared of everything I saw, I tried to step away from the blood that was crawling slowly toward me. I shook my head in shock, and looked up at Loki who put the knife away and scooped me up and carried me over the bodies, and continued running with me.
"No more, no more." I said into his neck and he stopped and put me down and grabbed my face with his hands, and looked me in the eyes.
"Calm yourself." He said and I looked at him. "All this is a temporary horror, I will allow you to fall apart later, but now you have to keep you wits about you. I cannot carry you all the way. I need my hands free should we be attacked again."
I took in a deep breath as he looked at me and I nodded my understanding, and nausea threatened to make me vomit again.
"Where are we going?" I cried out again as my lungs burned in my chest from the running and I stepped back from him as he stood there. He reached out for my hand and I pulled away from him as the castle shook again, and I looked around me in fear.
"We need to keep moving, the weapons vault is heavily fortified and secure. No one can get you there." He said and another, closer explosion rocked the hall we were in and masonry rained down on me again as I covered my head. Someone screamed in the distance, and I shook.
"I can't." I gasped and he grabbed my arm and began to run, but I planted my feet and shook my head to say no. I pulled back and tried to fight with him, and he looked at me with annoyance.
"It will be safe." He replied, but I refused to move, and I started shaking at the thought of being in an enclosed area with no escape. Panic shook me to my core, and I trembled again. He lifted me up over his shoulder and I fought against him and kicked, I wiggled free and stood across the hall from him and he grabbed for me again.
"I'm claustrophobic!" I screamed at him as panic really set in, "Please, I can't go in there, don't make me go into a room with no windows!"
I tried to make him understand, and he reached out for me and grabbed my arm and led me down a different hall.
"We have no other choice!" He shouted out and he lifted me over his shoulder again in a fireman's carry as my fists beat at his back and I screamed as he walked across an open courtyard. Raw panic wrapped a fist around my throat and I screamed and thrashed as I heard him open a door, I couldn't handle the thought of going into that room.
"Please don't make me!" I begged him again and he put me down on the walkway and stopped. He looked at me and I gripped the edge of the wall and shook and cried, repeating my plea over and over until it became my mantra.
"Is it that terrible for you?" He asked me gently, and I nodded hard enough to dislodge my brain. He pulled me away from the door to the vault and through another door back into the castle.
"A different plan then." He said and pushed me behind him as the lights shook in their sconces and dust filtered down onto us as another explosion went off somewhere in the castle. I looked at him and his hand came up and cupped my cheek and I knew he understood that I could not be in that space, and that he understood that fear.
"I will take you through to Vaneheim, there is a cramped cave we must go through, so I will have you close your eyes as we pass. It is brief and I am right here. When we get through, it will be an open field." Loki said to reassure me and I nodded as he walked around a corner and motioned for me to stay behind as he pulled his knife from in his coat and put his finger to his lips to tell me to be very quiet.
He vanished around the corner silently and I pressed my back against the wall and closed my eyes as I waited for him to come back, counting each pounding heartbeat until he returned for me. I put my hands on the stone wall behind me and calmed my breathing down as much as I could and began scratching at my hand nervously and stopped myself when a person stopped in front of me, causing my eyes to snap open and Loki grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the wall. I followed him blindly as eight Kree came around the corner in pursuit and I ducked as one of them shot the wall over my head.
"This is your plan?" I shouted at him as a wooden door exploded ahead of us in a shower of splinters that fell on the both of us and got caught in my hair as we pushed ahead.
'Not exactly!" He yelled back at me as smoke filled the hall and made me choke and cough.
"Keep running!" Loki shouted and pushed me in front of him, and we turned and ran down another hall and through an archway that opened in to a garden to be greeted by five more Kree and they turned their weapons on us as I stopped dead.
"I think this plan just backfired." I said and put my hands up to show I was unarmed, Loki turned and kept me behind him and I put my hands on his waist as he kept turning in a circle with the knife in his hand. The group that chased us down the hall charged into the garden and turned their weapons on the both of us and Loki continued turning with me behind him, and I shook knowing we were caught.
"Loki?" I said as I shook and my voice caught in my throat, I I turned and put my back to his. "What do we do now?"
A needle like pain shot through my head again, and I dropped to my knees as my nose bled again, I grabbed my head with both hands and screamed as the pain ripped through my brain. A bald man dressed in all black stepped forward and looked at me as I huddled on the ground and a trickle of blood dripped into the grass between my knees before the pain cut off completely, I cried out at the sudden lack of feeling. I looked up at him and tried not to cry out as the pain returned and I wound my fingers into my hair, trying not to cry as more blood fell over my chin.
"Your fear is delicious Lilliana." The man said as he looked down on me from twenty feet away with soulless black eyes, Loki crouched down behind me and put an arm around my shoulders as he stretched his arm out with the knife and threatened the man with it as he looked at the two of us with dead calm.
"Your pain will taste even better, I imagine." He said and Loki started shaking, the man smiled in a way that made me want to scream in pure, cold blooded terror as he looked at the both of us like we were insects. I wrapped my hands up around Loki's arm and tried to hide under him as I looked up in fear, everything about this man told me I was dead.
"Let me taste your screams Lilliana. Let us start now, while your friend takes you apart slowly." He said and blinked and I felt Loki's hand slip to my throat and his long fingers gripped my jaw painfully, his fingertips digging into the skin and crushing my mandible.
"You can't have her." Loki choked out obviously fighting something in himself and he began shaking and fighting as his muscles contracted and tightened on my jaw further, his knife hand turning white with the strain of his inner struggle. I yelped around my teeth in pain, and the fingers tightened as I tried to get free.
"Unwise Loki." The man said and I cried out as Loki's fingers tightened on my jaw again, bruising me. "For that I will make you cut both of her hands off, and then you may tear her heart out with your bare hands when she begs for death. For now though, start with her eye. Then take the other one, slowly, and listen to her scream."
His whole body went rigid and shook fighting as the knife turned in his hand, I cried out and grabbed the arm holding my jaw. He fought against the control over him and my body squirmed around in his grip, but the knife drew closer to me and I tried to break away from him. His hand on my jaw shook me violently, as he began to sweat in the strain. I shivered and tried not to cry as he gripped me, his elbow digging into my sternum to hold me still.
"Stop." I said but the knife kept coming forward, and Loki began breathing hard and raggedly, his muscles contracting and releasing with his lack of control over them, and I dug my fingernails into his wrist drawing blood and I cried out as he fought further to take back control of his mind.
"This isn't you. Fight it. Please." I said and Loki groaned in my ear as I tried to shove my head through his chest to get away from the knife point. I began screaming as it came closer and closer to my face, wiggling my legs back between his and trying to find any give in the arm that pinned me in place. A tear traced down my cheek and onto the back of his hand and I cried out and shook. The knife point brushed my thick eye lashes and I screamed again. Loki's breathing becoming more and more ragged as panic gave way to acceptance, as his entire mind slipped away and was taken over by the man as he watched the two of us struggle.
Suddenly, in a half second I pictured the Washington Coast and I let my jump take him with me with that familiar, queasy pull in my stomach as I screamed again and felt something soft and pliable under my knees before I passed out against his chest.