"Hey, wake up. Hey man, wake up." Said someone, shaking his shoulder. Loki woke, momentarily confused by his surroundings before he remembered that he was in the woman's cell, and why he had been there.

"The woman who brings my food will be here soon - you don't want them to see that you spent the night in here; you need to, to get up." She said as he come completely awake.

"Yes, it would not do well for them to find their hound already here without a master to supervise it." He said, swiftly standing and crossing to the door, where he paused. With a hand raised to the glyphs, he turned back towards her.

"You may call me Loki."

"My name's Emilie."

"Good morning, Emilie." Loki replied with a nodd before he started down the hall. Footsteps were coming toward him, blocking his exit. He stepped back into the shadows of an alcove and wove an illusion that covered his slightly bedraggled appearance and mussed hair. Then he stepped out.

The poor woman almost dropped the tray she was holding in her shock.

"My lord, I was not aware that you were down here." She said, though he could see the string of expletives that blazed behind her eyes. Perhaps it would be best not to push this one, for today anyway. Perhaps another time...

"With yesterday having yielded nothing, I had assumed that we would start earlier today," he smoothly lied, "yet it seems that I was the only one to have thought thus." That part at least was not a lie. The others were most likely still in a drunken sleep. He could just skip them then, and tell the Alfather what he had learned about how Emilie had come to be in their world.

As he walked, the palace was almost silent. Most of those who were the usual source of noise really were still off asleep in their chambers. Well then, it simply meant that he had only to deal with the nervous glances the servants cast out of the corners of their eyes. Like sheep they fearfully stumbled out of his path, as if he were a wolf silently passing them by.

At court he learned that his father was not there, but was rather in a council room. He entered without announcement or knocking.

"Let me speak with her. Loki shall learn not from her, Father. He will try, but his tricks will get him nowhere in this."

"Really?" Loki asked from behind Thor, and for a moment enjoyed the small satisfaction that came with having come behind his brother without the warrior noticing.

"You doubt much, brother." Loki continued.

"It is not doubt when you know it to be true."

"Perhaps, but how do you know such a thing to be true? You were not there yesterday, and are, in fact, wrong in your assumption."

"Then you have learned something. Well get on with it," said the Alfather.

"She said that she was running, and fell, to find herself here. She must have come through a temporary gate, a connection, between our realm and the mortal's. I doubt that it remains. No others will be able to follow her."

"Hmm... possible; sometimes the worlds do brush, however briefly even without the Alignment. Strange it is though, that she should have stumbled across such a place in the brief span that it existed," he said as he cast a scrutinizing gaze upon Loki.

"No matter; if that's all then she can be sent back to where she came from now."

"Father, I... I think that it would be best if she were to remain here, at least for a time." Said Loki.

"And I think that she should be sent back! There is no reason for her to stay any longer." Replied the Alfather, his voice rising in volume.

"Father, you can not -" Sour choice of words.

"Can not? Can not! Who are you to tell me what I can or cannot do? Clearly you have spent too much time with this mortal, for it has addled your brain! Go to your chambers and clear your head, my son." Guards he called, signaling to them that Loki was to have an escort.

"Father, you - please, father; don't send her back there! Father, don't send Emilie back there!" Loki cried as he was dragged from the chamber.

Back and forth Loki paced across the floor like a caged tiger. To the door; cross to the bed, around to the shelves, back to the door. He should not have said what he'd said the way he had, but he'd had to say something. It had not been possible for him to simply stand there, knowing that she was going to be sent right back to that abuse.

But why should you care? A small voice in the back of his mind asked, and he had no answer for it.

A knock came at the door, and he ignored it. His feet continued to trace the same path over and over again, his head bowed slightly as he thought.

Again it came, and again he ignored it. Then the door opened anyway as his brother came into the room, hurrying to close it behind himself.

"You will carve a rut in the floor if you continue that, brother."

"Why are you here? Have you come to invite me to one of your little parties? You know that I am being confined to my room like the bad little boy that I am. Have you come to mock me?"

"Loki, shut up. I came to ask you why."

"Why? Why what?" He said, looking at a shelf of books behind his brother.

"Why speak out against our father as you did? She is being sent home; surely that is what she wants."

"But it's not!" he yelled and turned to look at his brother, "but it's not." He continued more reasonably. "I do not know all the details of it, but she did not mean to come here exactly. She was trying to escape from something. We are the protectors of the realms, and she a citizen of one.

She sought protection; why send her back now that she has found it?"

"Brother, she is mortal. This...this is not like you."

"I know."

"You care for her." Said Thor, a note of something, perhaps wonder, in his voice.

"...I know."

"You care for this woman, and that means that if you believe her to be in danger, than you must go after her."

"I cannot take the Bifrost there, for father has surely already spoken to the guardian."

"Then take your way. Do not look so shocked! Did you think that I would not notice how you sometimes disappear, and when doing so not use the Bifrost?"

"Even if I could get there, there are guards right outside, with orders to not let me pass I am sure."

"You always turn to your illusions; why not use them now?"

"If I were to leave, it would not be long before my disappearance was discovered. They would find me before I could even get to her realm, let alone find her there."

"We can manage something. You do have your illusions, and we have two people here." He said with a smile as he thumped Loki on the shoulder.

"What are you suggesting?"