Let us continue...


Chapter II

It took much energy, but she finally heaved the tall man onto the couch that he had fallen next to. Under different circumstances, she would have used magic, but that wasn't really a good idea considering she did not want to pass out as well. She looked at him again, almost pitying the man. A golden thread had sewn his mouth shut with a pattern like a muzzle and the holes in the skin where it was sewn looked rough and irritated. He was wearing informal Asgardian clothes, which still looked out of place in the Midgardian house.

She worked his jacket off of his arms to check for further injuries and saw the blood that had soaked through his shirt near his abdomen. Blushing slightly but moving quickly, she unbuttoned his vest and shirt and took both off of him, leaving the Lie-smith's top half fully exposed. She had of course seen men before, but it seemed inappropriate since he had not given her permission to undress him.

She was glad she had continued when she saw his chest. The wound was deep, but not long. It was as though he had been stabbed with a spear and not cut with a knife. It was still bleeding and looked recent, and was luckily not infected yet. Her instincts kicked in and she tied her hair back with the band she had put on her wrist that had been on her bedside table.

She rushed to the kitchen and scrambled to find a bowl and then filled it with lukewarm water. She then dashed upstairs and found a cotton shirt to use. She headed into the parlor again and ripped the shirt so that the sleeves were gone and it was cut in half. Holding the front of the ripped shirt, Athadana balled it up and dipped it in the water. She pressed the makeshift gauze around the wound, cleaning it off so she could see the full damage. When she had finished, the cloth was wet and red with blood but Loki was still bleeding. She bit her lip, a nervous habit.

Athadana knew that this would hurt, but she didn't want the wound to become infected, considering that the Liesmith would hate her and she would not be able to face herself. Her was royalty after all, and Odin's own son, so he should approve this use of her magic, though Thanos would not. It was as if the two had conspired together to make her life difficult. Gathering her wits about her, she dipped a bit of the back of the torn cloth in the water and hesitated before pressing it down on the gash. She put her whole weight forwards as she held the pressure and began the spell, wincing as she did so.

Loki awoke with a gasp and a glare.

She almost screamed and backed away... almost, but she knew that it was better for her to help him heal. He glared at her and then made a strange motion with his hands. She lifted her eyebrow.

"Is that a language?" she asked the Lie-smith. He nodded, still glaring. She thought for a moment, sifting through the dozens of languages that Yggdrasil had taught her. Her mouth formed an 'o' shape. "Is it Volapük sign?" She asked. Loki nodded again, and Athadana asked him to repeat what he had signed, this was a language used for the deaf across all the worlds but Midgard, and it seemed as though they would be using it often.

Who in Hel's name are you?

Athadana nearly smiled at his rudness, but she supposed it was in his nature. She decided to act calm and serious in front of this unpredictable god. "I am Athadana," said she. "You are injured so I am tending to your wound."

Foolish mortal, do not touch me, I never asked to be healed by you.

At this, Athadana did chuckle, if she was a mortal then how could she understand him now? "I am no mortal Lie-smith, and if you are not healed, you will surely die." This of course was a bit of a stretch, he would only pass out again and Athadana would just have to start from the beginning, and she really did not want to have to carry him up to a bed.

I have no need of your assistance.

Loki sat up slowly, holding back a wince. Athadana sat back and allowed him to rise from the couch, waiting for him to realize that he needed healing. He limped towards the door and nearly made it halfway across the room before he collapsed with a sigh and a thud. Athadana walked over to him and turned him on his back. His eyes were closed but she knew that he was still awake so she gently placed her hand on the wound, which was still bleeding heavily. With a deep breath she prepared herself to cast the rest of the healing spell she had begun before the stubborn god had awoken.

The Allfather had told her that she could use her magic for good, although the pain would still be there. She figured that getting used to the pain would help her if she had to use magic for other important situations, so she muttered the words under her breath and closed her eyes. The pain was horrendous, and she focused on Loki's wound, biting the inside of her mouth until it started to bleed, fighting pain with pain. She could feel the mark on her back twist horribly. Luckily, the Lie-smith's eyes were still closed, so he did not see her pain.

She felt the wound knead back together with threads of golden magic, and when it was fully healed, she sat back, biting her lip again. Her shoulders sank with a great breath.

"Better?" she noticed how strained her voice sounded. Silvertongue opened his eyes and looked at her, searching her face for the cause of the strain, or perhaps for a key to who she really was. He looked away.

Better I suppose, but I would have been quite fine without you. He signed.

It was silent in the parlor now, and the only sound was the rain pounding on the street outside. Athadana glared at Loki. The ungrateful bastard. She stood up abruptly and offered no hand to help the man get up. Without turning back to look at him, she walked back to the kitchen to finish her breakfast. He could find her when he felt up to the task. She regretted her action almost immediately, but continued to the kitchen anyway.

xJBLDx

Loki

Midgard, the Lie-smith bristled with annoyance, how dare the Allfather send him back to the place. He knew that humiliation was all that awaited him. To make matters worse, he had had a poor citizen of Asgard stick him with a spear out of fear and fury and had then been pushed off the Bifröst. And then he had realized that Odin had also taken his magic away and sewn his mouth shut. Damn him.

As if the humiliation of being sent back to Midgard and being rid of his magic was not enough, the people of Asgard and Jötunheimr did not want him in their realm either. The banished king was he, as always.

He felt the blood leaking out of his abdomen at an alarming rate and tried to heal it quickly, but he recalled his powerlessness and growled. Midgard was not far below him now and he prepared himself for a crash landing, but instead of feeling his body slam against solid earth, he felt nothing but his wound, his mouth, and his humiliation. And then it all went black.

"If you fail, if the Tesseract is kept from us, there will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he cannot find you. You think you know pain? He will make you long for something as sweet as pain."

Then Loki felt it, a sharp pain in his abdomen, his eyes snapped open with a start and he gasped. Thanos had been toying with his mind yet again, this time a memory and a warning. He had heard those words before, but they were more relevant that ever now. He turned his head to find himself in a Midgardian parlor of sorts and discovered that he was lying on a couch. There was a woman kneeling next to him, pressing a cloth, hard, onto his stomach.

Who in Hel's name are you? He signed, just remembering his inability to speak. She looked confused as she tryed to understand the language he was speaking and then answered him. Athadana, he had heard that name somewhere, but surely that did not matter, this mortal was most likely named after some insignificant goddess. He had no desire to be helped by a mere mortal; did she not know who he was?

Foolish mortal, do not touch me, I never asked to be healed by you.

She answered and Loki was surprised to hear that she knew who he was. And she was not mortal, yet he still had no need for her assistance, so he signed to her just that. He stood as proudly as he could under the circumstances and walked towards the entrance to the room, a bit unsteady on his feet, but eager to get out of the house. He collapsed and grunted in pain. Dammit.

Lokie heard her sigh and follow him, placing one hand on his wound and the other on his bare shoulder, he nearly shivered at her cold hands. He saw her heal him with magic, through his eyelashes, and he suddenly wondered why her face became twisted in pain. He did not ask for it was of no importance to him, as soon as he was healed he could leave to find a way off of this miserable world.

"Better?" She asked. He glared at her. He did not need her to take care of him.

Better I suppose, but I would have been quite fine without you. He signed proudly. She scowled at him and then abruptly walked out of the room. Loki scrambled to his feet and then steadied himself on the doorway. He followed her path down the hallway and into what seemed to be a large kitchen, though it would be considered tiny on Asgard. She sat at the counter, eating bread and jam. Loki's stomach growled and he frowned. She looked up at him.

"Food?" she said, holding out a piece of her bread.

No. He would not accept anything else from this woman, and stubbornly, he walked out of the kitchen and towards the door of the house to find a way to change his fate.

The rain still poured down.

xJBLDx

Athadana

Athadana was licking the jelly off of her hands when she heard the door swish open and the sound if the rain increase. She sighed and stood up from the stool she was sitting on, put her plate in the sink, and walked out of the kitchen, wishing that she had the house to herself again, she supposed she would if she just let the Prince leave, but that was a foolish idea, knowing that he would hurt himself or more likely someone else.

The door was pulled shut with a slam.

Athadana walked into the entrance hallway and put on the pair of rain boots that sat by the umbrella stand near the door, all the while wondering about the Lie-smith. He was by far the most ungrateful, arrogant prick that she had ever met and it made her want to slap him. I healed his fatal wound for the gods' sakes.

She peered out the window and prepared herself to follow him out in the rain. Athadana wondered why she still helped the man even if he was a prick. She sighed again contemplating her moral sanity and opened the door. The cool air blew into the house, making Athadana shiver. She stepped out into the rain, making sure her house key was in her pocket, and skipped down the steps, trying to avoid slipping on the wet ground.

As Athadana reached the sidewalk, she looked both ways to see what direction Loki had traveled in, already drenched in the heavy rain. She saw a tall, dark shape a bit off to her right and jogged over to the walking form, calling out as she went.

"What in Hel's name are you doing?!" The figure turned and Loki glared at her.

I'm leaving this awful place, I do not deserve to be here on Midgard, I am too great for this.

Athadana scowled at him and then laughed. It was more of a guffaw, because she tilted her head back to the rain, her dark bangs sticking to her face and droplets of water splashing off of her cheeks. "Do you jest?" She began. "You think you are so great because you are an Odinson, you were a prince. But look at you. By your inability to heal yourself it is safe to say you've lost your powers, and your mouth is hidden behind a barricade of wires. You think Midgard is beneath you and yet you lost a battle to these very mere mortals. You are not above anyone here, in fact, you are the same as they are, weak, powerless, and unable to voice your opinion."

There was silence for a moment as the prince took in her words. By now their clothes were plastered to their bodies and Athadana shivered, realizing how cold it actually was outside. These words of hatred tasted strange on her tongue, and she immediately regretted them after she pronounced them. Her eyes widened.

"A-and besides, people would wonder about a man with threads sewn into his mouth, and they may even recognize you as the destroyer of this city. If there is one thing that Midgardians are good at, it is remembering." She said, to use another excuse for chasing him out into the rain.

You are correct about my mouth, I suppose that people would wonder, but do not think that you understand me, because you do not. I am a king without a throne. I have been banished and deprived and tortured, and I have known the kind of pain that you could never imagine. I will stay in this god forsaken place for now, but when I find a way out, and I will, I will leave as fast as I am able.

He signed this very fast and it took a moment for Athadana to figure out what he had said. She sighed. He thought he knew pain.

"Good, I'm glad you understand," she replied sarcastically. "Now I'm going inside before I freeze." She turned sharply around and walked back to the house, leaving Loki still standing in the pouring rain, he would follow her, he had no other choice. She opened the door and and slid the boots off of her feet. She realized that she was still in her pajamas and felt a faint blush scuttle across her cheeks. Athadana took her wet socks off and rushed upstairs to bathe, trying not to get the floor too wet as she went.

It was warm in the bathroom, and she stopped shivering as the steam hung in the air like a blanket. She slipped out of her pajamas and into the bath, savoring its warmth. After cleaning the smell of the rain out of her hair, she stood and wrapped a towel around her body and again looked in the mirror. Athadana turned to see her back. The mark did not appear bigger visually, but she could nearly feel where it grew, and it disturbed her. She bit her lip and returned to her room to get dressed and visit the library once more for research.

Loki, on the other hand, ventured indoors again and went upstairs to see if there was clothing for him to wear. Across from Athadana' room, was a room that he liked, it was a bit darker than the rest and it had a view of the garden below. In the drawers that sat underneath a mirror he found Midgardian clothes and wrinkled his nose. This would have to do for now, until he found a way to change his fate. The Lie-smith jogged down the stairs and entered the sitting room that was across from the parlor that he arrived in and took a deep breath. Then, he sat down at the piano bench and watched the rain fall down until it became dark. He was thinking, planning, but with no magic or speech, he did not come up with much.

xJBLDx

It continued like this for days. Athadana often venturing out of the house to explore and Loki sitting in one of the sitting rooms or the sunroom often reading or just thinking.

It was unnerving, Athadana thought, that someone could just sit and do nothing inside for days. If it had been her, she would have gone absolutely insane. But of course he was rather insane in the first place.

And so, Athadana continued to go out to explore New York City, wondering what it was like to have an alien attack, and researching Midgardian life. After two weeks, even she became bored of the city as it became much colder and stayed in the house more often. It was awkward, two people living in the same house, but rarely engaging in conversation. It seemed as though it was always silent, and Athadana found herself missing the constant chatter and teaching of Yggdrasil. She sometimes considered singing or humming, but felt that Loki would not appreciate that, so instead she spent her days in the studio, writing down knowledge and staring out the window.