Hey everyone, Silver here to start off the next installment of Key To Redemption! Hope you people like it, though I'd really like some more reviews.

Loki: *is still groggy from the tranquilizer but is no longer unconscious*

Silver: *shakes head in wonder* I can't believe I finally got him to shut up…and all it took was a horse tranquilizer. Well then, in this chapter we shall be seeing more of Diana and Loki action, we'll get some more detail on Diana's past, Loki will actually not be such a jerk in this chapter (surprising, isn't it) and we'll get more Avengers and Thor action. I am not an expert on writing Tony Stark or Bruce Banner so I hope I got them accurate enough in the last chapter. If anyone has any ideas on how I can improve them I am all ears. And now, here's my loyal OC Diana with the disclaimer!

Diana: *bright spotlight shines down on her as she rolls her eyes with a small grin*666Silvermoon is in no way, shape, or form the owner of anything of the Marvel Universe. The only thing of this story she owns is me, my family, my animals, and any other future OC's she makes. She is not making any money from writing this story; it is purely for her own amusement and to entertain others. Enjoy!

Chapter 7

Diana's P.O.V

After spending the day helping Loki put his clothes away, teaching him a few things about my kitchen appliances and TV, feeding my horses and cleaning out their stables, you could understand that I was exhausted, and the storm was still going strong. That night I was ready to sleep soundly until morning, but I couldn't have been more wrong.

I shot up from my bed as a loud barking awoke me from my sleep. I looked at my open door and saw both Kida and Taboo standing there, barking their heads off. Once they saw me awake however, Kida stopped and got closer to me, whining loudly as Taboo ran out from my door way and down the stairs from what I could hear. I quickly followed, not even caring that I was only in my long flannel nightshirt. Kida was right at my heels as I ran to the front door, Taboo scratching at it as I opened it, allowing him to run out and he headed towards the horse barn, ignoring the rain. Over the pounding of the rain I hear a ruckus of neighing and whinnying coming from the barn and my eyes widen as I run back upstairs, change into old jeans, an old t-shirt and my rain boots and grabbing some old towels before running like a bat out of hell to my stables. I didn't even notice Loki emerging from his bedroom and looking at me like I was crazy.

I throw open the doors and make my way straight to Cinnamon's stall and see that her water has broken and that two small hooves are protruding from her back end as she stands in her stall. I curse, but calmly open her door and slowly go to her, petting her sides and smoothing her mane away from her eyes. "Easy girl, don't worry. Die's here and nothing's gonna happen to ya." I say soothingly as she groans and pushes, the hooves extending to add two legs and a nose. I keep crooning encouraging words to her, but my eyes widen slightly as I see Loki standing right outside of Cinnamon's stall with Kida sitting right beside him, both of them wet from the rain. "Your beast led me out here to you." He says, pointing down at Kida with the hand not holding my grandfather's cane. I look at him blankly for a moment, before smiling slightly. "Well, as you can see Cinnamon is about to give birth to her foal. She's doing quite well so far, so she doesn't need our help right now." I tell him softly, not wanting to spook Cinnamon or stress her out. He nods slightly as I go back to speaking gently to her, stroking her sides as they lurch whenever she pushes, and little by little her foal extends from her until finally slipping free from its mother, landing on the thick carpet of straw on the floor.

I smile joyfully and slowly approach the foal, tearing the placental sack from its body. Loki hands me a towel and I soon start rubbing him, seeing it's a colt, down gently, Cinnamon joining me to clean her foal with her tongue. I see that the colt takes after his father, his coat being a beautiful dark gold with a white blaze, four white socks, an all-white stomach and chest and a big patch of white covering the top of his shoulders. His short mane and tail are a near white flaxen color and his eyes are a bright dark brown. I smile up at Loki, the new life of Cinnamon's colt giving me joy, and he returns it before I hear Cinnamon groaning again. I look at her, and my eyes widen.

"Oh my…she's got another one coming!" I exclaim as I see two hooves sticking out of her again. I stand up and go around to her and look at the feet, then curse as I realize her second foal is backwards. Without looking at Loki I push the hooves back inside of her and gently try and rearrange her foal. "Loki, do me a favor and get the chains that are hanging by the doors please." I say as I continue rearranging Cinnamon's second foal. He disappears and reappears with the calving chains I keep by the stable doors. I finish rearranging the foal and soon grab the chains from him, ignoring my now bloody hands as I wrap the chains around the front hooves of the second foal. I take a step back, tightly hold the chain handles and wait for Cinnamon to push again. She soon does, and I pull on the chains. The second foal extends out a bit before it mostly disappears back inside its mom. She pushes again, and I pull the chains, this time not letting up. "Come on girl, you got this. Push!" I tell Cinnamon as she strains to push her second foal out. For the next few minutes it's a strenuous dance of pushing and pulling. The both of us are soon exhausted and I see Cinnamon faltering.

I'm about to pull again but my eyes widen as I feel two thin arms wrap around my waist. I look over my shoulder and see Loki's face rather close to mine, his green eyes bright and determined as he looks at me, as if daring me to say something about him helping. I say nothing though, and instead turn back to Cinnamon and get ready to pull again. "Come on girl, just a little longer. Push!" I say to her, and as she does, Loki pulls me back as I pull on the calving chains. Little by little the foal comes out of Cinnamon, until with one final pull the foal is deposited right in my lap, as I had gotten closer to catch the poor thing so it doesn't get too jarred. I gently laid it on the stall floor and tore away the placenta, but I saw the foal wasn't moving, or even breathing. I cleared the foal's airways, but it still wasn't breathing.

I stood up, hurried past Loki and grabbed a bucket. I stood outside and soon came back with the bucket half full with semi cold water. I dumped the water on the foal, another colt, and it expelled a breath and then breathed in slowly. I smiled, and tossed the bucket aside, grabbing another towel and started cleaning the second colt off gently. I smiled gently at Loki as he knelt down and also gently rubbed down the second colt with me with another towel. "You helped me pull this little guy free; why?" I asked him, tilting my head to the side. He shrugged, and looked down at the small colt, his hands gently rubbing the towel over his body as the little guy tried to stand, his mother gently licking his face and his brother already standing and suckling at his mother's teat.

"I know what it's like to be struggling at life, and how much pain the mother was in." He said softly as he looked at the second foal. I look at the second foal as well, seeing the differences between him and his brother. The second colt is smaller, and less sure on his feet. Instead of his coat being gold and white like his brother, it's a dark bay, darker than his mother's mahogany bay coat, with black stockings on his legs. His mane and tail are black like his mom's; the only feature shared between the two brother's seemed to be the same eyes and the fact that they both had white blazes on their faces, though the smaller colt's blaze is thinner and more even, ending to a point at his nose. His brother's blaze is wider and messier, covering more of his nose. I realized that maybe, Loki saw a bit of himself and his brother Thor in Cinnamon's twins. I looked at him for a bit longer, before looking back at the colts.

"Why don't you name the little guys?" I ask him out of the blue. He looks at me shocked; as if I had just asked him to cut his hand off, not name two baby horses. "You want me…to name those two new foals?" He asks slowly, looking back at the young colts as they suckled from their mother. "Yeah, why not? You helped me help Cinnamon give birth to them after all." I said nodding. For the next few minutes we just quietly sat and watched the foals suckle, before he pointed towards the bigger foal.

"Lyse, for the light first born one. Mörk, for the dark second born." He says softly, and then looks at me, as if seeking my approval. I nod slightly, a smile playing upon my lips. "I like them." I say, and I see the corners of his lips twitching. I soon look down at myself and see I'm covered in afterbirth and blood. I scrunch my face up, but sigh as I go up to the hay loft, leaving Loki to watch Cinnamon, Lyse and Mörk. I wearily come down with new hay, and clean out as much dirty hay as I can before setting down fresh hay and cleaning away as much blood as I can with a fresh bucket of water before closing the stall door behind me and looking at Loki.

"It's a few hours till daylight. We should probably get back to the house and clean up, and I need to change your bandages." I tell him as I pick up the leftover and dirty towels. He nods, and soon follows me out of the stables and back to the house, Taboo and Kida at our heels. By the time the rain had lessened to a light drizzle, so we didn't get as wet going back to the covered porch of my home. I had one of the dryer towels to Loki and use another one to dry off my free flowing curls as much as I could. He uses his to dry off his arms and hair, and I just now notice he's only wearing the new pajama pants and tank top I got him today. When he sees my raised eyebrow he slightly scowls. "Your female beast didn't give me enough time to change into something else." He says hesitantly, but I frown slightly. "Her name is Kida. You act like you've never seen a dog before." I say in confusion.

He shrugs slightly as he finishes drying his hair off, though he scowls as it curls a bit. "On Asgard we have no need for watch beasts such as that. Most animals are too wild and dangerous to keep as pets, besides horses and some bird species." My eyebrows rose at that. "Well that is certainly different. And Kida and Taboo aren't only watch dogs, they're also my companions. Animals are so much more than a lot of people give them credit for. They feel, they don't judge you, and they're loyal. They don't care what your past is like, or what mistakes you've made in life. They love unconditionally, and give it their all in protecting you." I inform him as we entered my home and as I put away the clean towels and threw the dirty ones away.

He arched an eyebrow and sat on the sofa as I told him that. "You seem to have great love for these animals of yours. That makes you weak." He said with a light sneer. I frown at him as I grab some clean bandages and a tube of antiseptic cream for him. I set them on the coffee table, and look him over. His hair curling around his face, his pajama pants and tank top wet from the rain earlier, his bandages dirt stained, his skin pale and dark circles covering his eyes, one eye bruised an ugly purple from where I punched him. He honestly looked like hell. I shake my head slowly and kneel down to get at his old bandages. "No Loki, my love for them and my human loved ones make me stronger. If I didn't have them I would be nothing but an empty shell, or a corpse." I say to him softly as I cut away the old bandages and apply new ones after smearing a thin coating of antiseptic cream on his stitches.

"Why would you be a corpse?" He asks curiously after I finish wrapping his leg in new bandages. I pause in getting up, before sighing and standing. "Because if it wasn't for the love I had for my family and friends, my ex-boyfriend would've been able to kill me." I softly tell him before heading to the kitchen, seeing how I doubted either of us was going to be able to head back to sleep. He follows me at a slower pace, cane thumping the ground with each step he takes. I put a kettle of water on the stove for some tea and sit at the table, Kida and Taboo lying down in their beds in the corner of the kitchen. Loki sits across from me and waits for me to begin my story.

"It was about three years ago, right after my Da died. I was going to college for visual arts and animal studies, and I was in my final year." I started talking, my voice even and steady. "I wanted to take over the farm from my brother Aiden, who was watching over things after my dad died from being stabbed in a mugging gone wrong down in Brooklyn. I wanted to make the family farm an animal sanctuary, since my mom and dad helped me rescue any animal that I could find that was beaten and neglected, and helped me find a new home for the ones I couldn't keep. I missed my father so much, and I wanted to do something that he would be proud of."

The kettle went off at that, so I got up, took it off the stove and got two mugs from my cupboard. I set a bag of Earl Grey tea leaves in each one, before pouring in the hot water. I set Loki's down in front of him and added a splash of milk and a spoonful of honey to my tea. I offered Loki some milk or honey; he took a splash of milk, but declined the honey. (1) I sat back down and stirred my tea.

"During my final year of college, I met this guy by the name of Thomas Eklund. He worked at a bar that I frequented when hanging out with my friends. He was charming, if a bit rough around the edges looking, and I started dating him during the second semester because he helped me deal with the sadness of my dad's murder. It was after the first month that things started going downhill." I tell him, and my voice starts to waver a bit. "He started beating me, leaving bruises where no one would normally see them, slapping me when I questioned him, stuff like that. I stayed with him for the rest of the year, and when I graduated he told me he wanted me to move in with him. I refused, because I wanted to move back home to take care of and train the horses here, but he got pissed. He got it into his head that I was cheating on him, and that I was trying to go back to a lover. I told him he was crazy, that I was faithful despite the fact that he treated me like shit, and he didn't believe me."

I pause, taking a sip of my tea, and it warms my stomach up. My hands shake slightly as I tell the rest of the story. "He ended up pulling a knife on me, and stabbed me repeatedly. Those were the scars you saw yesterday, and the ones on my face happened as he was raping me on his apartment floor." At this Loki's eyes look up at me from his tea in shock. I nod slightly, hands shaking so much I had to put down my mug of tea. "Oh yeah, he raped me on his floor while my blood pooled around me from a punctured lung. He called me multiple names while doing it too, including harlot. If it wasn't for a neighbor hearing me scream and calling the police, I'd be dead." I say bitterly, trying to keep the pain from my eyes and out of my voice, but my body posture is stiff and slightly hunched.

"I was in a coma at the hospital for a few days, and when I woke up my mother was sitting in a chair at my bedside crying her eyes out. She had just lost my father, and she almost lost me." My voice softens. "I know my father would've been upset if he could've seen me then, and I hated seeing my mother cry. So I swore I'd never be a victim again, and started training soon as I was released from the hospital a few weeks later. By that time Thomas had already gone to jail for assault and rape, and he'll be in jail for the next fifteen years. I got into boxing, and from there I got into MMA. Mixed Martial Arts, it's a type of fighting." I clarify, seeing his semi-confused expression. I take another sip of my tea, my hands having stopped their shaking now that I had pushed my memories back. "I became an amateur MMA fighter, and would've gone pro, but I missed home too much. I made a fair bit of money, and it's currently in my bank account for a rainy day. I make most of my money from selling art work at this gallery in the city an old friend of mine owns, and from giving guided trail tours through the forest and competing in rodeos or in other horse competitions."

I finished my tea, as had Loki so I took the mugs and washed them in the sink. I lean against the sink when I finish and look at him. "I'm sorry if I bored you, I just thought you'd like to know why I am the way I am. I wouldn't be as strong as I am now if it wasn't for my loved ones giving me something to live for." I inform him. The sky was lightening up, so about an hour had passed since we got back to my house. I suddenly felt wearier than I had earlier, my clothes feeling stiff on my body from the dried horse blood and afterbirth. I sighed and my body slumped slightly forward as I wearily rubbed my eyes.

"It wasn't boring." Loki says hesitantly. "It actually cleared up some questions I had about you." I look at him in surprise, but decide against asking him what those questions were. "Well, I do believe that I need a shower. Afterwards I'll make us breakfast, and then I'll need to go feed my horses a light breakfast." I stretch my arms to the ceiling, groaning in relief as I hear my back pop. "Would you like to get to know my horses better?" I ask him before I leave the kitchen. He looks like he ponders the question a bit before answering. "Yes, if anything it will give me something to do today besides watch the moving picture box." He says as he remains seated at the table. I nod and smile before leaving the kitchen and heading up to my room.

Third P.O.V

Loki watched Diana head upstairs, before he turned into himself to gather his thoughts. Why had he sounded so sincere when he heard about her petty past? Why had it made his blood boil when he heard about what that pathetic excuse of a man did to her? Why did he care?! All these questions were rushing through his head and he didn't know the answer to either of them. All he knew was that he was starting to get too deep into this, and he'd have to be careful from now on until he could leave her land.

When Diana came down from her room dressed in a pair of black work boots, blue jeans and a red t-shirt, with her hair pulled up into a ponytail and a pair of old boots in her hands, Loki had migrated to sit on the couch in the living room, his night clothes changed to a pair of charcoal grey trousers and a green button down shirt with white socks he found in his dresser on his feet. If Loki had known about the Harry Potter world he would've made a comment about him looking like a Slytherin prefect, but the moment for self-amusement passed without his knowledge. Diana smiles a bit as she looks him over. "Good, the clothes I got you fit. I was afraid they wouldn't." She tells him, before holding out the boots to him. "Here, these should fit you. They belonged to my brother Lucas before he moved down to Virginia."

Loki looks at them and scrunches his nose in disgust. They're worn and dingy, with multiple scuffs on the toe. He opens his mouth to complain, but thinks better when he sees Diana's eyebrow raised and a cold look in her eyes. He shuts his mouth with a barely audible snap and takes them; jamming his feet into them and trying to ignore Diana's toothy grin, but didn't fail to notice her sharper than average canine teeth. He thought it strange for a human to have teeth that sharp, but dismissed the thought. He tied the laces on the boots and stood up, leaning on the cane Diana gave him to use.

Once he was standing and she was assured the boots fit him, despite being a bit big, she made a breakfast of pancakes. Loki was slightly surprised at the flat pieces of sweet bread, and he loved the sticky syrup that was poured on them, not that he said it out loud. He managed to eat every bite of pancake on his plate, much to Diana's delight and surprise. "Well, if you keep eating like that you'll be back to a healthy weight in no time." She says warmly as she washes the dishes

"I have 12 horses here, not including Cinnamon's new colts. Six of them are mares, two of them are geldings, and four of them are stallions. You've already met Apollo, though you were unconscious during it, and you met Cinnamon last night. I board my horses by age; older horses with pregnant and nursing mares in the back, younger in the front. The back of the stables gets the most heat in the winter and stays the coolest in the summer." Diana informed him as they walked up to the first stall, holding the white horse with the grey legs Loki saw his first day there. "This is one of my mares. Her name's Holly and she's about four years of age. Her owner use to tie her legs together with a length of heavy chains so she couldn't run very far, in case he ever needed to catch her. That was a problem because she loves to run, and she's one of the fastest horses I own, so the chains dug into the area above her hooves and left deep scars. It hasn't stopped you though, has it girl?" She says the last part warmly to the horse, which neighs happily and nods her head, and Loki fights to keep his lips from tugging into a smile. They move onto the next stable soon after Diana feeds Holly a bit of oats.

The next horse is a light golden palomino with a near white mane and tail who shies away slightly as they approach its stall. "This is Goldenrod. She's about the same age as Holly, but is a lot more skittish. Her ex owner would barely feed her half of what a horse her size should get, and deeply traumatized her emotionally with a fear of loud noises by setting off fireworks too close to her and nearly burning her. I'm still working with her to get over her fear of humans." Diana sadly says as she feeds Goldenrod some oats. With each horse, Loki learned their name and their own cruel background: Delilah, the horse he saw his first day with the blue eyes, all white face and the white rump with brown spots, was starved by her previous owner, and was stick thin when Diana saved her; Domino, the white horse with the black spots all over her and the black and white streaked mane and tail, was cruelly forced into horse fights by her greedy ex owner; Aztec, the golden brown buckskin stallion who was ridden for miles until he tripped and tore up his knees, causing lifelong scars; Phoenix, the reddish brown mare with the two full white back legs and white patches along her neck and rump who was about to be killed in an illegal horse slaughterhouse; Ox, the giant reddish brown stallion with the black legs and the tail half as short as any other horse, which Diana told Loki was what some people did to Percheron horses to keep their tales from getting muddy when working, was worked almost to death by his previous owners. Loki thought to himself that Ox would probably be able to carry Volstagg's weight comfortably, his axe included.

Apollo, who Loki learned was a horse breed called a Friesian, was starved and beaten by his previous owner, and it gave him a slight dislike of strangers; however, he greeted Loki like an old friend with a happy neigh. The horse after Apollo was Ace of Diamonds, or Ace for short Diana told him, who was the delicate looking brown stallion with the four white socks and white diamond shaped star with the high neck arch Loki saw his first day. Diana said he was an Arabian horse, and that they were best for endurance riding, dressage, and show jumping. Ace had contracted pneumonia from being out in his previous owner's wet and muddy field for two days; his owners had dumped him off at a vet's office twenty miles from their home when Diana found him and took him home. The next horse in less than five seconds tugged at Loki's heartstrings hard. It was Angus, the blue roan gelding with the missing left eye and the raised pink scars covering his body. Diana told Loki his story, and Loki felt disgust coil in his stomach. He may think himself a monster, but not even he would stoop as low as to injure an innocent animal to this degree, or any degree for that matter. The last two stalls contained Cinnamon, who Loki learned had been about to be shot by her previous owner because he didn't want to pay simple medical bills to help her when she was sick, and her colts, and the grey dapple gelding by the name of Commander that Diana told Loki was ridden so much and pushed so far by his previous owner that he now had bad lungs and was unable to do anything more than light trail riding. (2) Diana smiled at Loki as he gently stroked Commander's neck when he stuck his head out of his stall, but the smile faded as a tear made its way involuntarily down Loki's cheek before he wiped it away angrily.

Loki's heart had given a painful jolt as he saw Commander. With his grey dapple coat and his black stockings, Commander was almost the spitting image of Loki's first born, Sleipnir. Though Sleipnir was a heavier horse, more along the body type of Ox but with the feathering of Apollo and eight legs instead of four, Commander looked like he could be Sleipnir's son. (3) However, he pushed thoughts of his taken first born from his mind as he turned to face Diana. She didn't mention his slight break, and neither did he. She had finished up giving each horse a light breakfast, and most had already finished eating so she told him that as soon as the sun was higher in the sky, she'd let out half of her horses to her fields for the day and then take Apollo out for a light trail ride.

"Would you like to join me?" She asks him. "You don't have to if you don't want to, but it would give you some entertainment and get you out of the house." He contemplated it for a moment, before looking around at her horses. "Which one would I take though?" She looked over her horses as well, before heading to Angus and gently patting his nose. "How about you ride Angus? It's been awhile since anyone has ridden him. Most don't feel comfortable on him because he's missing an eye and covered in such visible scars." She tells him as she walks to his stall and gently pats his nose as he sticks his head out. "He might be half blind, but that doesn't stop him out on the trails." Diana smiles over at Loki, and he almost lets loose a small smile of his own, but he remembers himself and instead only nods slightly.

"I shall ride him. I hope he is a worthy mount." Loki tells Diana softly before heading back up to the house. Diana simply smiles and follows him, shutting the stable doors behind her.

Stark Tower

Bruce Banner was normally a very patient man, and one who wasn't easily annoyed. With him turning into a giant green rage monster every time his heart rate spikes, he kind of has to be calm otherwise he'll cause a lot of damage and ruin his clothes. However, right now Tony was really trying his patience, but Tony was adamant that the energy spike somewhere upstate meant that Loki, who Tony had affectionately called Reindeer Games, had escaped Asgard and was currently hiding out somewhere, planning his next move. Bruce was barely able to prevent himself from rolling his eyes as Tony went off on another tangent as he had hacked into every security camera within a twenty mile radius of the energy site, and he had found nothing saying Loki was in the vicinity.

"I just don't get it!" Tony almost yelled with his hair messy and standing up, his clothes wrinkled and stained with oil and grease, "Reindeer Games should've made a move towards civilization by now! Unless…" Tony typed something into his computer and then shouted out triumphantly. "Aha! There are seven farms in total within a fifty mile radius of the town closest to the energy spike, which means Loki has to be in one of them." Tony smugly turns on his swivel chair to face Bruce, who merely shakes his head in slight exasperation.

"Tony, I doubt Asgard would release Loki after only a year in prison, and I doubt that he would've been able to escape without Thor knowing and coming down here to warn us his homicidal baby brother had escaped." Bruce says patiently as he forcibly wheels Tony to the elevator. "Now come on. You've been up for thirty six hours straight, and if Pepper sees you like this then she'll kill both of us. I'd actually like to see tomorrow." Tony tries to complain, but he knows Bruce is right, so he simply pouts as Jarvis turns off the lab lights and opens the elevator doors, taking them up to Tony's floor. They exit when the doors open, and Bruce wheels Tony to his bedroom, where Tony stands and then flops down onto his double king sized bed, and is asleep within minutes. Bruce shakes his head with a smile and heads out of the room, closing the door behind him.

On Asgard

Thor was smiling widely as he entered the throne room, his heart swelling with happiness as he looked upon his mother and father. "Father, I have wonderful news concerning Loki." His voice thundered out, his boots slightly pounding the floor as he stopped at the foot of the throne. "He has been accepted by the woman by the name of Diana, and has agreed to help her with her horses and other beasts in return for sanctuary. He even helped with one of her mares who gave birth last night." Thor was grinning at his parents just as widely as he grinned at Heimdall when the Gatekeeper had told him about what Loki had done to help with the mare and Diana.

Frigga beamed widely as she heard this. "He has? That is wonderful news Thor. This woman may be the salvation your brother needs." She said joyfully. In her mind and heart her youngest son had just started the road to redeeming himself in the eyes of Asgard. Frigga couldn't be happier, because she dearly missed her son and hoped he would be able to come home soon. She remembered the day he had fallen into the abyss, and her very soul felt like it was weeping when Thor and her husband had told her the news. She was inconsolable for days afterwards, and it had only been after she had heard news of Loki being spotted on Midgard that she had smiled again.

Odin, on the other hand, was worried now. "Are you sure she knows of his past deeds Thor? What if she angers him and he attacks her? What will happen then?" Odin asked, his brow furrowed and shoulders slightly hunched. Thor's smile fell and he looked rather uncomfortable at that, his throat clearing and his feet shuffling. "Well father, mother, it is actually Loki who needs to worry about angering Diana it seems. She's already punched him and given him a black eye because he called her a harsh name yesterday." Odin was surprised at this, it showing on his face as he looked down at his eldest son. He hadn't known that Midgardian women could be so fierce, or touchy; then again it had been awhile since he had been on Midgard. He cocked an eyebrow. "What was the name he called her?" Odin asked his son, and Thor had the decency to look embarrassed because his mother was right next to Odin, and she wouldn't be too happy since Loki had had such impeccable manners as a child, lengths better than his own. "He um…he called her a harlot." Frigga stared at Thor in shock as he uttered those words.

"He what?! I cannot believe he would do that! I taught him better than to say such things." Frigga frowned, a fire dancing in her eyes from hearing what her youngest son did. She had raised him better than that, but she was glad that the woman named Diana had made him 'see' the error of his ways. Odin calmly pets his wife's hand. "Peace Frigga, Loki was punished for being rude. Let us speak no more of it." Odin says, before turning back to Thor. "Tell me my son, what is this Diana like?"

Thor rubs the back of his neck as he looks at the All Father. "She seems to be compassionate father, and she certainly put him in his place when she struck him. She can cook from what Heimdall saw, and takes care of multiple horses and a home by herself so she is hardworking and determined." Thor says, causing his mother to beam.

"Then she is probably just what Loki needs in order to get back on his feet. Let us hope that she can put our broken prince back together." Odin replies, standing up and taking Frigga's hand as they both descend from the throne. Odin lays his other hand on Thor's shoulder, squeezing it in comfort. "We can only hope she can find all of the pieces of him." He says, before all three exits the throne room together.

1) Apparently this is the way Tom Hiddleston actually takes his Earl Grey tea. I read it up on a site somewhere, I can't remember. If I am wrong, someone please tell me.

2) Yes, as you can probably tell I went through the trouble of describing each and every one of Diana's horses and a brief summary on their past.

3)I know that in the movie Thor there was a brief shot of Sleipnir, who is Loki's son in Norse mythology by the stallion Svadilfari, was all black, in the old stories about him he is grey. And I made him a dappled grey stallion with black stockings because I just figured he would look better like that and stand out more in the future.

Silver: *grins sheepishly* Sorry guys, I tried to get this chapter out by Christmas but I was incredibly busy. I hope everyone had wonderful holidays and got what you wanted in your stockings or under your tree, or for Hanukah or for Yule or whatever other holiday is celebrated around this time of year.

Loki: *scowls heavily* I sound like a complete weakling in this chapter! I never would've done half the things in here in real life!

Silver: *sighs irritably* oh for the love of- isn't there anything you can do besides complain!? You complain about everything single damn thing I give you to do or tell you! I'm trying to make it seem like you're not as much of an ass like in some other stories I've read with you. Grow a pair and grow up!

Silver & Loki: *soon engage in a verbal fight which eventually leads to a wrestling match*

Diana: *sighs before turning to the audience* This'll take a while. In the meantime, the author currently does not know when she will be able to write the next chapter for Key To Redemption, so she asks her faithful readers to be patient and to review to give her some ideas for the next chapter.