*I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THESE CHARACTERS EXCEPT CADE AND HER FAMILY. ALL OTHER RIGHTS GO TO MARVEL*
*This is a retelling of the First Thor Movie and the First Avengers Movie*
Water rushed into my lungs washing away any air I had left, washing away any hope that I was going to survive this. At least I would be able to join my family in Valhalla, that's all I wanted, to be able to see my father again and hold my little sister one more time. I struggled against the ropes that bound me to the wooden chair, floating lazily in the river. My wrists were rubbed raw, tiny streams of blood rose around me. I was sinking fast, too fast. There were so many things I had wanted to do, and I had so much life left to live, all taken away with a sweep of the current. My body constricted, trying to fight the water invading my lungs, but I knew it was too late. I shut my eyes ready to succumb to my fate.
I was tired of fighting, tired of trying, and I bowed my head, ready.
It's funny, no one ever thinks they will die a violent way, they always assume that it will be in a comfortable bed at the end of their life. I never thought about my death though, I thought it would be a long way from now, but I was wrong.
I felt a tug on the leg of the chair I was tied to, and hope surged through me. Maybe my captors had a change of heart, maybe they were not afraid of me anymore, maybe they would accept me.
My head burst out of the surface of the water, letting me take in a gasp of air. The cold winter wind struck my face, pushing a chill through my body. I glanced to the shore expecting to see Damen. He was the one that started all of this, he's the one that revealed what my family was to the town. I will regret telling him the rest of my life. I though it was love, I though he loved me, but every kiss, every touch was a lie. Damen never loved me, and I was just an idiot, an idiot in love.
But when I looked to the shore I saw my grandmother. Relief washed over me, followed by shame.
I had betrayed my entire family for him, because I thought that he would accept me, accept us, but I was wrong.
My grandmother was swiftly pulling me to shore, I could see the powerful muscles in her biceps straining to bring me in. The chair washed up on the riverbed, and my grandmother rushed over to me, pulling off the ropes that bound me. I purged the water from my lungs, retching it out onto the sand. I felt my grandmother's hand on my back, softly rubbing.
I looked up into her familiar face.
Her blue eyes were rimmed with red and her usual tidy brown hair hung in snarls around her shoulders. She looked years older, but she looked relieved that I was okay. She doesn't look like my grandmother, and when we came to this town we said she was my aunt. Asgardians don't age the same as everyone else, especially ones that possess magic, a trait that I inherited among other things. Everyone tells us that we look alike, we have the same hair and eyes and even carry ourselves the same way. She brought my pregnant mother and me to Midguard after Hela destroyed all the Valkyries. My grandmother is the last surviving one, and I think it hurts her sometimes. She hasn't spoken a word since she left Asgard. Hela really hated my grandmother, and to hurt her, Hela killed my father, my grandmother's only son. My mother would never talk about it, the day we left, but I remember it. I remember screams echoing around us, people crying out for help and their loved ones, bodies strewn on the streets. I was only 2, but some things stay in your mind forever. We were supposed to start a new life on Midgard, and we have been living here for a while, well a few hundred years, and all those years we were careful, that was until we moved here, to Salem, Massachusetts. We moved here and everything was okay, my family wasn't the only one that was gifted. The normal people started asking questions and some of the town told them, told them that we could do things other people couldn't. At first they were nice about it, made a document that would identify what families were special and they said it was for their safety. That's when everything went wrong. One day a goat died, and a normal blamed a special and suddenly it was us vs. them. My family didn't sign it, we thought it would be safer to remain anonymous. But I was the idiot that fell for the preacher's son. I didn't know that he would tell his father, I didn't know they would come for my family so quickly.
I stood up to my feet and looked around me. None of the townspeople remained, they had left me to die and that was it. My grandmother looked at me with sad eyes, eyes that had seen so much, eyes filled with pain. She took my hand in hers and led me towards our home, quietly ducking behind the trees, staying out of sight.
We arrived at our home quickly, and it wasn't hard to find at all. The smell of burning attracted us to the house we once called home. My mother had chosen this spot because it was a little bit out of town, where no one would find us, no one would see something they weren't supposed to. They wouldn't see my mother lift something that was too heavy to be lifted by one woman, they wouldn't see my little sisters levitating objects inside the house, and they wouldn't see me and my grandmother fighting with swords as big as we were. I looked to the right of the once well kept house and saw the pyre clearly. It was still smoking, sending ash and smoke into the air, like it was the most normal thing in the world. The birds were swarming what was left of my family. My little sister was only 6, another bad relationship on my mother's part, and they had still burned her alive, feeling no remorse. That's when I lost it. Huge tears rolled down my face, and sobs wracked through my body.
What had I done?
I don't know why they wanted to drown me instead, maybe I was to be killed alone, because that is what I feared the most.
I wondered if Damen was happy now, if he was proud of what he had done. Anger blazed through me at the thought of him being happy.
My grandmother touched my shoulder softly, and moved me towards the house once more.
We had to get out of here now, before the raiders came to take what was ours. She rushed through the door and up the stairs quickly, moving with purpose. I dawdled behind her, stuck in my own head. I slowly made my way to my room, and stopped. My room door was open, and I was sure that I had left it closed this morning. I took in a deep breath and kicked open the door.
Damen was standing with his back to me going through my stuff.
"Haven't you taken enough from me!" I shouted at him, grabbing his shoulder and turning him to face me.
He screamed loudly and jumped away from me. "You," He stuttered raising a finger and pointing it at me. "You are supposed to be dead! Demon!" He screamed at the top of his lungs.
"If anybody else is going to die today, it's going to be you!" I roared.
He backed up against the wall, fear flashing in his eyes.
"Now Damen, did thou even love me? Did you even care for me?" I said softly.
"No," He spat. "How could I ever love you? You are a witch, an abomination."
"I am not a witch." I countered.
"Yes thou are! A witch, a demon, a mystic!" He shouted louder.
I smiled at his jeer. "Mystic, I like that." I mumbled under my breath to myself.
"And my father will destroy thou!" He spat. "Just like he killed your family."
"You killed my family Damen, not your father! You need to realize that!"
"No my father did this." Damen responded.
"No Damen he didn't." I yelled. I could hear my grandmother on the stairs, she was quickly coming towards me. "You did this! You told your dad everything about me! I thought you loved me Damen, I thought-" My voice broke as anger and pain flashed through my body.
"How could I ever love you?" He spat, his face red.
My grandmother was suddenly in the doorway, clutching a giant sword. It wasn't like any sword I had ever seen. It seemed to glow in the shadows, and it was almost as big as her.
"Stay the hell away from me demon!" Damen shouted backing away until his back hit the wall.
My grandmother was staring at him coldly, her grip on her sword tightening. She took a step into the room slowly deliberately, raising her sword in front of her expertly.
Damen tried to shrink back, but there was no place to go, no place to hide. "Do what you want to me, but nothing can save you demons. You will perish, my father will destroy you."
"Let them come, we will destroy them too." I rasped, a sneer on my face.
Her sword slashed cutting down Damen where he stood.
And I felt nothing.
I stepped around his body and grabbed my bag from the small cubby where I stored my clothes. I grabbed everything I could, shoving into the knapsack that I threw onto my shoulder. I turned to face my grandmother, she was still holding the sword. It was still glowing, almost hypnotic in the dark of my room.
"Grandmother we have to go, we have to keep moving." I said solemnly. But she only stood there absorbed in her thoughts, and I wondered what she saw.
I placed my hand on her arm, and her eyes shot to mine.
She pressed the hilt of the sword into my hands, and as she did it began to shrink slowly, getting smaller and smaller until it became a small silver bracelet that wrapped around my wrist.
"What the-" I stammered, touching the bracelet. It seemed to get warmer against my skin as I touched it.
Sword. I thought to myself and suddenly it lengthened into the sword I once saw. I examined it running my finger across the edge of the blade.
Too bad it's a sword, I'm more of an ax person.
Suddenly the sword shifted in my hand becoming a giant ax.
"What the hell?" I shouted, holding the ax in my hand. I looked up at my grandmother, she had a small smile on her face.
"Was this your sword when you were a Valkyrie?" I asked her, getting out of town suddenly forgotten.
She nodded and smiled. She then pointed at me.
"You want me to have it? Why?" I said suddenly suspicious. The sun was going down quickly, darkness blanketing the room.
A dark look crossed over her face.
"Grandmother why are you giving this to me?" I pleaded.
That's when the screaming started. I saw in the shadows of the trees, people begin to filter out waving pitchforks and rope, torches glowing brightly in the night.
The ax grew heavy in my hand, and I swallowed
My grandmother reached out and grabbed my arm pulling me from the house, and running into the woods.
Branches truck me across the face, drawing blood. We wove in and out of the trees, but the townspeople were right on our heels, I could practically feel the heat from their torches against my skin.
Finally the woods opened up and deposited us on a cliff.
And I knew we weren't going to escape this.
I turned around slowly, ready to face my death.
"You killed my son, and for that thou shall pay!" Damen's father yelled. His long grey beard swishing in the breeze, coming from the cliffs.
"Your son was a demon and deserved to die." I spat, raising the ax in front of me, ready to attack. The ground around me trembled and cracked beneath my feet.
My grandmother's grip on me turned hard and I looked up into her eyes. Love flickered in them, plus a thousand other emotions I couldn't identify. She shook her head slowly, as if to say that there was no way.
I opened my mouth to speak, but in one fluid motion my grandmother threw me backwards off the cliff.
A scream ripped from my throat, echoing off the cliff wall. The ocean was approaching quickly and I closed my eyes ready for impact.
But for the first time in hundreds of years my grandmother spoke.
"Heimdall open the Bifrost!"' She screamed.
And my world was suddenly absorbed in white light.