Feel free to comment/vent/beg for the next chapter all you want *hint hint wink wink* ;)
Previously
She continues to laugh and giggle; glad he made her happy, Loki sits back and listens to her laughter as he looks over the park, content with this lot in his life.
This is what happiness feels like. I don't ever want to let it go now that it's in my grasp. Thank you, Father.
Chapter 8
One month later
Odin's Trophy Room, Hall of Asgard
Odin slams his hand down in frustration on the table,beside the Orb of Agamotto. "Drat, blocked again."
"Another failed attempt husband?" Frigga asks worriedly as she comes and hugs him from behind, looking over his shoulder at the unusually cloudy Orb.
"It's as if something is preventing me from seeing the origin of the strong pulses of Magic that Heimdall felt earlier from being seen." Odin says, thumping Gungnir on the golden marble floor, "Even Heimdall cannot pinpoint the place and only sees small things from time to time. Something about flowers and black wings."
"Maybe it is someone, rather than some hidden place." Frigga frets, worried for her more favored son. "Oh, why did you have to exile them somewhere so foreign? What if they are hurt, or worse, dead?"
"I had to Frigga," Odin growls out, looking down at the orb as if to force the location of one of his sons by staring, "How else would they have learned to be men? To mature and lead Asgard through another Golden Age like my 3 times great-grandfather Audhumia?"
Frigga reluctantly agrees, wringing her hands in worry before calming herself and regaining her queenly control, saying with a cold promise as she prepares to leave her husband to his searching, "If my babies don't come back, it is on your head husband."
She lets her words settle in the air before exiting with a twirl of her skirt, the double doors closing with a loud slam that penetrates the cold silence.
Sighing as the stress of his own actions and the pushing back of his Odinsleep constricts his chest, Odin lets his head fall to his chest; eyes closed as he prays to his father and fathers before him that his sons return home safe... And as men.
Puente Antiguo, New Mexico; S.H.I.E.L.D base
Thor paces around where Jane and the strange professor are trying to locate the possible location of his brother. A flash or pulse of something strange unusual from a medium sized town in Kansas had set off the detectors in government, (specifically S.H.I.E.L.D's), satellite surveillance. The surveillance had allowed S.H.I.E.L.D to zero in on a state when Thor had slammed into New Mexico.
That same technology is now being used now to locate Loki. Strangely, though, there was no additional backlash pulses of magic from an item, or person, which could have allowed for a specific location of Loki when S.H.I.E.L.D had started to look for him three months ago.
Recently, however, there had been a series of strong pulses of something different, cleaner, more... Organic. Whoever it was, they are very powerful, used to hiding and have a strong amount of control, which leads S.H.I.E.L.D to believe that person might have been trained. Someone who might be dangerous and unwilling to compromise.
"Where is this person holding my brother hostage? Why haven't we found them yet? If we find them, we can find my brother. This needs to go faster, why isn't this going faster?" Thor storms, knocking over a chair in a fit of rage that hadn't occurred since he first arrived on Midgard.
Jane breaks away from the computer and leads Thor outside of the building, Thor looking at the barren field of Puente Antiguo, New Mexico as the sun begins to set.
"Thor, we will find him," Jane says soothingly, looking at him with her deep brown eyes that hold a reassuring message, "I'm sure he is fine. From what you have told me, he adjusts and blends in, causing trouble when it amuses or-or benefits him. We will find him, and he will be fine. Trust us."
Thor looks down at the woman he has fallen in love with, listening to her wise words and reigning in his frustration and worry. "I trust you Miss Foster. I am sorry for reacting like I have, I am quite worried about him; he is my brother, after all."
"Of course." Jane nods, used to the gods' formality with her name. "I assume you will be leaving with him once we find him?"
Thor hesitates upon detecting the slight hope in her voice, feeling his own surge up at the thought of staying with her, "I believe so, now that Mjolnir is in my grasp once again, we can return home together."
Jane nods as she blinks back the slight tears his words bring, looking at the ground and biting her lip so the other won't see her disappointment.
"Jane, there is something I need to tell you." Thor starts, stepping a little closer to her, Jane looking up at him with a slight smile, knowing what words she wants to hear and foolish enough to believe he will say them.
"I lo- that is to say, I-"
"We got it!" An S.H.I.E.L.D agent, Coulson maybe, shouts out as he runs out with a paper that contains the specific part of Kansas where the pulses came from.
"The pulses came from Westminster, Kansas."
Westminster, Kansas; before the pulses
Isabella Bane is doing her normal meditation routine, where she balances her conscious mind and inner core, when a strong vision comes to her.
Shadow, feeling the familiar feeling of sudden blankness and tensing coming from her mistress that accompanies one of her futuristic short movies, pushes a small notebook and pen to her, Isabella snatching it up and quickly detailing her vision onto paper, the vision being a series of pictures on individual pages this time.
Once the vision fades and the drawings stop, Isabella's body relaxes which allows her to breathe and inspect the pictures. What she sees causes her to face to drain a color with each turn of the pages in the notebook. Unable to see anymore, she stops at the last one.
Quickly getting up, she runs to her kitchenette and locates one of the beautiful flowers from a recent date with Loki, as he had taken to getting her a different bunch of flowers each date, all containing a Forget-Me-Not.
Grabbing the Forget-Me-Not, she focuses on the residue of his touch and the connection he made with his intentions, channeling her elemental magic into the flower's small connection to Loki. She sees the connection to whisper protection charms on him. The magic from the charms sends pulses throughout the town as the Magic searches for its intended target and settles upon finding him.
In her hurried instinctual need to protect those she considers family, Isabella is only able to prevent the pulses from sending a message that paints a large target on Loki's back and leaves him open to anyone who can track him down and hurt him.
But she doesn't protect herself.
Shadow trots over to the discarded notebook, going throughout the pictures. She sees the godling her mistress had taken a fancy to and a strange blond man standing chest to chest, both angry at the other and preparing to fight. Another depicts the godling in a dark, ruined place fighting against an ancient being; the godling stabbed and the light going out of his bright green eyes; lying dead as his glassy eyes observe nothing.
However, the last image projects something different. The last image her mistress did not see has him alive and well, wearing a smile and a wedding suit, standing at an altar surrounded by what seems to be red and white roses.
Shadow carefully removes the picture and hides it, feeling Mistress does not need the possible misunderstanding or pressure that comes from knowing how something can end.
Oh, how she worries for her mistress at times like this. Having witnessed behind a thick fog of what she has gone through, she herself cannot begin to imagine the horrors and scars Mistress carries. Sure, sometimes she gets the odd image here and there when Mistress has a nightmare, but for the most part her mistress protects her.
Shaking her head, she walks over and unlatches the window, leaving the window open behind her so Mistress knows she went out and will be coming back. Trotting up the fire escape, she reaches the top of the building and jumps off...
... Spreading her wings, Shadow flies over the other apartment building and restaurants in Westminster, Kansas and to Puente Antiguo, New Mexico where the godling's brother and his group are.
Landing, she fades into the shadows and uses her own magic to keep her hidden as she listens to their plans so she can inform her mistress later. Once her mistress knows, the planning and preparing can begin.
All will be well, my friend, Shadow thinks, Just wait and see. All will be well.
There. May the begging commence :)
