A/N: Hello everybody! Thanks again to all the lovely reviews, favourites and follows. The next chapter is already completed and will be uploaded in a couple of days.

Enjoy!

They needed him.

They would be fighting against an enemy more powerful than any of those little mortals could even imagine. The Dark Elves were not to be trifled with. Many had thought them dead or weakened by the great wars against the Aesir. No one had heard of them in a long time, but Loki knew better.

They had been waiting for millennia, had crouched and bowed and secretly grown stronger and thirsty for revenge on those who had seeked to destroy their race – the ever-proud Bor and his heirs. Malekith would never stop. He would just kill everyone in his way.

Oh, yes. They needed him. And they knew it as much as he did.

"Why now? Why Norway?" The blonde soldier, Steve, asked. "What could they want that could possibly be in Norway?"

Clint leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. His eyes were lowered in thought. "Maybe they weren't looking for anything and just wanted to scare us a little. Norway was just randomly chosen."

"And waste their time and energy?" Tony shook his head. "No, there must be more to it."

"What interest could Earth hold for them?" Fara spoke softly. Her gaze rose and this time she dared to look straight into Loki's cold ones. She would have flinched, were it not for the others' gazes on her. "Their wrath has always been directed against Asgard, why come here instead if it were not for a greater purpose?"

"Indeed." Thor said. "But even they cannot put the realm of Odin under siege, unless its defence is weakened."He sighed. "Father is under the Odinsleep. No one can predict when he will wake up again."

"And Thor is here on Earth right now." Natasha looked around. "But that's not enough, right? I mean...surely there are enough troops back in Asgard to defend it."

"And Asgard's wall will protect the people." Fara said. "It has stood for centuries."

Thor did not seem to listen. "They knew I would come to Midgard once I thought it threatened. They know I hold it dear." He jumped up, Mjolnir clasped tightly in his hand. "It was a mistake to come here."

Loki walked up to Thor and held his hands up as if to calm the man down, his eyes thoughtful but sll mocking. The younger man shook his head, his eyes impossible to read.

Mentally Loki had a difficult time fighting a roll of the eyes – of course Thor had not thought this through and would immediately rush into assumptions now. And Odin still insisted he was the better choice for the throne.

As he thought that a husky voice laughed inside his head. It sounded distant, as if coming through a tunnel. Instantly he recognized it and tried to ignore it as his shoulders tensed unnoticeably.

"Did you know of this, brother?" Thor looked at Loki, anger at himself boiling beneath his skin. The younger man hesitated, uncertainty in his eyes. Silently he denied and the God of Thunder wished that for once the truth was coming from him.

"I don't believe that." Clint said.

"Hey why hasn't he said anything yet? A few months ago he couldn't keep his mouth shut." Tony raised his eyebrows.

This time, before Thor could react, Fara answered him in a mechanical voice, her eyes somewhere far off. She seemed miles away in thought. "Odin has taken his voice as part of his punishment." The seeress didn't pay attention to the pairs of eyes that instantly flew towards her in silent question. She raised her gaze to meet Loki's, her eyes cold and her voice became sharper if still distant. "After all, who could possibly trust the Smith of Lies?"

Loki took a step towards her, fingers forming fists as his eyes narrowed, firing lightning at her. She would pay for those words. As soon as his magic was restored.

"Calm yourself, Thor. We don't even know yet if this is the case. We need time. Right now, there is nothing we can do." Steve said, not having missed the exchange between the two sorcerers and he felt the urge to drive the conversation to their main subject or otherwise someone might get hurt.

Thor had already opened his lips in protest, but Tony cut in. "He's right, guys. They're gone now and we don't know where they are. There's nothing we can do at the moment."

Everyone was again lost in their own thought.

"I think I should show you your rooms now." Pepper sighed and looked into the round.

Hours later, night covered the vast sky over Canada and everyone had split up around the house going about their own business.

Fara sat alone in her room, a book in her hand. Her eyes were trying to focus on the words in front of her, but it proved to be impossible. Her head was spinning, thoughts and images dancing around her skull until she felt she would burst.

She had talked with Thor hours before. He had been so happy to see her again and had asked hundreds of questions about her life on Midgard. Her happiness had matched his and she'd listened eagerly to him as Thor spoke of Asgard, her sister and his own life.

She'd seen the bright city in her memories as his voice carried her back, she could see the mountains standing tall in the horizon, snow covering their proud summits.

For a moment she had travelled back to golden halls where men laughed loudly at each other's tales, horns and cups filled to the rim with mead in their hands. Women in beautiful gowns, their hair decorated with flowers of various shapes and sizes talked and smiled as the sea of candles illuminated their soft skin. Fandral the Dashing surrounded by young goddesses who hung unto his every word, Volstagg across from him, his eyes trained on the delicacies displayed over the table's length while Hogun the Grim watched him silently. Lady Sif, seated next to her, throwing amused smiles at her friends as she described to her and Sigyn some of the foreign dishes.

As Thor's words lead her away she felt joy and at the same time a pang in her heart. When all this was over he would return there.

She couldn't. She could not defy Freya's orders again.

A knot had built up inside her stomach and as the hours had passed she had found it growing bigger and bigger, until she had to excuse herself. She had told him she was still feeling a bit overwhelmed. It was no lie.

She did not know where Loki was, but it surprised her that they left him to walk around freely.

She jumped when a soft knock echoed from the door.

"Can I come in?" Natasha's voice.

"Of course." Fara sat up on her bed as her friend came in, closing the door behind her and looking at her uncertainly – something extremely rare.

"How are you?"

"I'm fine" The young Vanir looked down, hesitating for a moment. "How did you know?"

"I didn't" Natasha shrugged her shoulders and sat next to her. "But there was always something odd about you and after meeting two gods from Norse mythology I guess there's not much left that could surprise me anymore."

"I'm sorry for not telling you, but I did not think you would believe me."

The Black Widow smiled warmly. "No, and I probably wouldn't have, but that's okay. Everybody has their secrets. So, you're a sorceress? That's how you healed me back then when we met."

Fara nodded, not sure what to say.

"But I thought only your sister was a healer and you could see the future instead."

"We were born with our talents, but there are still spells one can learn, as long as they have magic inside of them." The Vanir explained. "I'm not as skilled in it as my sister, but then you humans are not that difficult to heal either."

"Hey, we're not as delicate as you immortals might think we are!" But Natasha was smiling and Fara knew it was just a jest. The atmosphere lifted a bit.

"And you knew Thor before his brother turned all nuts? What was he like?"

Fara hid her flinch at her friend's expression. 'Turned all nuts' were not really the words she would have used. "He was always kind and good-tempered, always up to a fight and not nearly as wise as he is now. He has changed a lot for the better now though I'm sorry for the circumstances that lead to the change."

"And Loki?" Nat asked curiously.

A pause. "He too has changed a lot." Her tone became colder, sharper. It was all she could say, the only words she could muster up in that moment.

"Okay." The female assassin nodded, suspicious at her friend's silence. This was not the right moments to dig for answers. "I think I'm gonna grab some of those cookies Stark's apparently hiding behind the bar upstairs. You wanna come?"

The Vanir understood that to be another attempt to lift her from her thoughts. She knew Natasha was not usually that cordial, not even to people close to her.

"No, I'm fine." Fara smiled faintly.

"Okay. Good night then."

"Good night."

Natasha closed the door behind her and Fara was once again alone in the room. She knew Nat had only meant to cheer her up, but right now she could not bring herself to feel anything but chaos.

She shut her eyes in an attempt to calm her raging head, but had to give up after a few moments.

With a sigh she rubbed the back of her neck. This was ridiculous. Or was it? She hadn't really expected to meet anyone from her past. After all it was better to forget that part of her life and focus on the future. And the future was no stranger to someone like her. But for some reason that did not make it any less frightening.

She had seen terrible things through her ability – her parent's death, Loki's fall, the Chitauri attack...and she had seen things that eventually didn't come true, but then the future was such a fickle thing, quick to change when the circumstances were altered.

As children Sigyn had once told her how much she herself would be scared by the prospect of foreseeing other people's deaths. Until then Fara had never even thought about that. And it had taken another couple of years until she had seen her mother and father die when bandits had laid fire to their house.

This had been the first of only two visions she had had of the death of people close to her...the second had proven wrong a little more than nine months ago.

And ironically had been the cause of eighty other deaths.

Fate could be ironic sometimes and never a thing cast on stone. The Norns liked to play with the fears of people like a cat with its prey. The threads were woven to their liking and only they could tell what lay at the end of a person's journey through life.

Fara turned off the lamp on her night stand and looked outside the window next to the bed. They were far enough from city lights for her to technically be able to see the stars, but heavy purple clouds hung like a cloak between them and her view. She did not mind.

The moment she had first realized just how far she was from home had been when she had first raised her eyes to the Midgardian sky. Beautifully the stars had shown like a sea of diamonds that night, but they hadn't been her stars, not the ones she had grown up with. And behind them the sky had appeared a deep black instead of the purple, orange, navy, turquoise and pink blots that carried them over Asgard and Vanaheim.

No planets standing proudly over their heads, just one rather small moon and that unending blackness – it had felt too empty, still did in fact. To her the sky over Midgard was empty and strangely that gave her some comfort. There was nothing there that could remind her of home or the Realm Eternal.

Nothing was there that could remind her of the life she had once lead.

She had scarcely ever used spells since she'd come, the one big exception of course being healing Natasha that one time. But apart from that the fear of being seen had always kept her in check. She had even disposed of the dress she had worn on her arrival as well as her cloak, shoes and jewellery.

The only thing she had kept was a ring, made of two thin gold threads interweaving around her ring finger. She had not been able to part from that one item and now as she stared into the darkness outside her window her other hand gently flew to it and two fingers stroked the golden band lightly.

What would happen now that Thor and Loki were here? Of course she would try to help wherever she could, but what after that?

Oh yes, fate truly had its way in ensuring people went mad.

Natasha meanwhile had found the way to the kitchen with the help of Jarvis and a lot of patience. How huge was this place? As she walked inside her eyes instantly found Clint already there, leaning against the counter. His gaze remained fixed on a spot on the floor as she stepped closer to him.

"Haven't seen you for a while now." She tried to break the silence.

He didn't look at her, but his voice was calmer than she had expected. "We've both been busy lately."

"True."

"Where did you find her?" Of course she knew who he meant.

"St. Petersburg. I had a job there." A pause. He didn't say anything and so she continued. "Some guy shot me in the leg and she found me. I wouldn't be here if she hadn't."

He lifted his eyes to her at this, one brow slightly raised as realization hit in. "So you knew what she was?"

"No, not until today. It was after the Chitauri that I began to think a little bit more about it. It's not my place to ask someone questions about their past... well, not unless they're a target anyway. And she proved from the start that I could trust her."

"But she's one of them." He said with a stronger tone. "And even they didn't know she was on Earth until today. Why is she here?"

"Oh, come on Clint," She too spoke faster now. "It's not like we know everything about each other here. Everyone has their secrets."

"Yeah, but not everyone can look into the future or use spells on other people."

"She's on or side, is that not enough?"

"Same goes apparently for Loki, but that doesn't mean that anyone of us trusts him enough to even let him walk alone through the house."

Natasha looked around in the otherwise empty room. "Where is he anyway?"

"With Thor and Tony as far as I know." He let out a grunt. "Luckily there are security cameras everywhere so we'll always know where he is. What about her?" He eyed her warily and she fought against a sigh. She guessed it would take some time for him before he would be able to trust anyone again after what happened to him because of Loki. He was still suspicious of strangers and Fara being a sorceress from another world did not make things any easier.

"In her room." Their eyes locked for a moment and she saw his softening a little. They had not heard from each other for some weeks now and she had missed him. He had changed after New York, was warier of people and his surroundings, but still he was one of the names on her list of people she allowed herself to call friends – and that list was very, very short.

He came closer and she felt his two arms wrap around her shoulders. She embraced him back, a smile gracing her features as she nuzzled into his chest. It were moments like these that made them both feel like normal human beings, that let them forget everything else.

"It's going to be fine." She told him. "It's too early to make assumptions right now. Let's just wait until we know what's really going on with those elves."

She felt his chest vibrate with quiet laughter. "We'll see." But she knew he was considering her words.