Author's Note: Thank you Canis Lupus Familiaris, Wiredawgman, RoseGlass, and Kit-Catty-Anon for your reviews. The feedback made me smile.
This chapter will be a bit on the short side. I want to update more frequently so the next few chapters will come faster, but they will be shorter.
CH 8
-Asgard: Seven years earlier -
As the Gatekeeper of Asgard, Heimdall has seen many things throughout his existence: stars born from gold dusted nebulae, a race of people hunted to extinction in Alfheim (few knew other beings besides the Light elves once dwelled there), Thor Odinson vanished and returned, a star burning its last embers, Loki Odinson's various imprisonments, a quasar ceasing its rotation in the bowels of the universe. Heimdall has watched all of these things and considers them part of the natural working order of the universe. Never has he interfered with this order, unless that natural order presented an immediate threat to Asgard, or the Allfather himself requested his assistance.
With a stoic face and glimmering gold eyes Heimdall stared in the direction of Midgard, and watched with the same emotions he had once watched a galaxy born as he watched Loki Odinson's paramour, succumb to the strain of labor before vanishing in a flash of brilliant rainbow light. He tried to follow the odd woman and her hand maiden with his sight, but could not.
Feeling that he was no longer as solitary as he liked, Heimdall glanced towards the entrance of his quarters, to find Thor Odinson approaching him with troubled eyes and Mjonir clutched tightly in his hand. Thor was too late. The days spent trying to reason with his brother, and argue against the Allfather meant the son of Odin was moments late in saving the Dresleim from her fate.
"Heimdall." Thor announced.
"Odinson." Heimdall greeted.
"Are you aware of Lady Darcy's whereabouts on Midgard?" Thor asked.
"She has left my sight." Heimdall replied calmly.
"Left your sight?" Thor questioned confused.
"She is no longer on Midgard, Lady Lewis has been escorted to her world." Heimdall paused, weighing the outcome of telling Thor Odinson about Lady Lewis's condition. When he decided that revealing such information would not have an immediate affect on Asgard, or the Allfather he continued. "Lady Lewis is moments away from birthing the offspring of Loki Odinson on the world of the Dresleim."
The earth beneath their feet shook as Thor's grip on his hammer lessened, causing Mjonir to crash violently to the floor, leaving a small crater in its wake.
Thor closed the distance between himself and the Gatekeeper.
"Impossible!" Thor yelled.
"I do not lie Odinson."
"Lady Darcy is to be a mother…to my brother's children no less." Thor thought, his eyes wide in awe. Thor Spun around and grabbed his hammer. He had to inform his brother and Lady Jane. Thor paused, remembering that Lady Darcy was no longer on Midgard. He turned back to face Heimdall.
"Heimdall, is it not within your power to see this world of Dresleim and send me there so that I may retrieve Lady Darcy?" Thor asked.
"I never knew of the existence of such a realm, it is beyond even my sight."
Thor began to pace back and forth angrily as his red cape billowed behind him.
"Lady Jane and I were told by the man of Fury that she would remain in the custody of the Man of Iron, and the Captain of America." Thor explained. Pausing to look in the direction of the castle. "How can I tell my brother that he is to be a father, when he cannot be present at their birth or by the side of Lady Darcy?" Thor asked, remembering his brother's rage at being captured and separated from Lady Darcy. He had killed three Midgardians in the service of Shield, Thor had to drag his brother kicking, screaming, and muzzled from Midgard. To tell Loki this news in his current state would insight his madness. Lady Darcy had to know how unstable Loki was. If she had known why did she leave Midgard knowing she was to be the mother of his brother's children.
"Did Lady Darcy leave Midgard of her own will?" Thor asked, feeling conflicted. If Lady Darcy had chosen to leave without giving her farewells to Lady Jane, himself, or his brother…
"Lady Darcy exchanged her freedom to save the life of another." Heimdall answered.
"Who bartered this trade?" Thor questioned frowning.
"The male Dresleim and the Avengers." Heimdall stated, staring off in the distance towards Midgard, into the room of the arguing Avengers.
"Send me to Midgard." Thor ordered, as Thunder roared through the sky of Asgard.
—
Loki sat on the floor in the corner of his cell, holding a slab of obsidian in his shaking blue hands. Tears ran down his cheeks as his wide red eyes glowed with the intensity of his rage. He watched in disbelief as Darcy allowed herself to be manipulated by the emotions of a band of Midgardian fools and her great grandfather. She traded herself for the life of a woman that was beneath her and did not deserve to live, all at the insistence of two men he should have killed upon meeting: Darius and Barton. No. It wasn't just her life she traded, but that of their children! Loki was to be a father. Loki wanted to feel joy, but he knew what his children would be if they lived…Frost giants…and yet he could not bring himself to feel the same loathing he felt for his own being for his soon to be born children.
He thought he would feel stronger, more powerful after sleeping with the Dresleim…no…after sleeping with his Darcy, but all he felt was a deep longing to be near her and a rage so all consuming and deep that it threatened his hold on his sanity. His rage was directed at the fools who dared to trade her and his unborn children for the life of a woman that would be personally extinguished by his hands. Loki clenched his eyes closed tightly as his whole body began to tremble with his emotion. It took all of his self-control to not throw the obsidian slab in his hands against the wall on the opposite side of the room. But he wouldn't shatter his only way to see her. When he opened his eyes, a wave of magic burst from him, freezing all of the furniture in his prison on impact. Loki Vanished the Obsidian slab and stood screaming. He clawed, punched and kicked at the frozen belongings in his room, until he was surrounded by broken shards of frozen furniture. He tried to break through the containment charms placed on his cell by the Allfather, and when he could not, he began to slam his body against the glass of his cell.
"Allfather, you can not keep me here!" Loki yelled manically.
A guard cautiously walked passed Loki's cell keeping a wide berth.
Loki bared his teeth and growled at the guard, causing the man to jump back in fright, before he quickly walked away.
Loki summoned a spike of ice in his hand and threw it against the glass window of his cell. The spike of ice bounced against the glass and flew back towards Loki, stabbing him in his shoulder. He fell down to his knees breathing heavy.
Loki stared up, and flinched when he caught his own snarling, red-eyed, blue skinned reflection in the glass window of his cell. He clenched his teeth as he pulled the spike of ice from his shoulder and fell backwards. As he stared up at the white ceiling, he glamoured his appearance and his room, to make it seem as if his outburst had not occurred; leaving the blood pouring from his shoulder and staining the floor of his cell as the only evidence of his outburst.
He couldn't think clearly. He felt as if he was drowning.
"Was it a mistake?" Loki thought, breathing heavily while trying to force some semblance of clarity to return to his mind. The thought that his childhood fantasy based on a tale not many Asgardians knew had been a mistake caused fear to bloom in his chest. Sleeping with Darcy did not strengthen him. If anything, the act weakened his frail hold on his own mind. "I want her." He thought wide-eyed. There was something wrong with that thought. "I want power and nothing else." Loki wanted to believe his own lie. Sleeping with the Dresleim had weakened him, allowed him to be captured by Midgardians and dragged on a leash yet again by his brother to kneel before the Allfather. "I am to be a father." Loki spoke to the empty room as if whispering a great secret. "A father." The thought sobered him, enough to rise to a sitting position clutching his bleeding shoulder.
Staring down at the blood, Loki wondered if his children's death upon their birth might be the greatest mercy the fates could afford them. He loathed himself more in that moment than any moment he could remember, because he honestly hoped that they died for both their sakes and his. Everything that he or any frost giant touched would crumble, it was only a matter of time. Darcy would crumble because she was his. If she mothered their children she would merely contribute to speeding along the inevitable. Nowhere in the tales of Darcy's people was she able to conceive. The king never had heirs because the need was never there, meant she shouldn't have been able to reproduce. He had interpreted wrong.