The water striking his face is ice cold. The tiles are cold under him. He shivers. There is the sound of glass shards tinkling against tile.
Open your eyes. He opens his eyes. The shower door has been shattered, he lies in a pool of glass and freezing cold water tinged pink with blood.
Sit up. He sits up slowly, wincing at the stinging pain of lacerations on his stomach and arm, a fine lattice of wounds. He wonders if they will leave scars, and examines them critically. An interesting pattern, scars would please him.
Nori. He blinks and wipes water out of his eyes. The voice he hears speaks with a tone of command. Familiar. Remote. The water stops. He looks up and sees a hand on the faucet. He follows the hand, then the arm, then the shoulder, then the face. A familiar face, with worried eyes and a frown. He cannot attach a name to the face but he does feel he can trust her. He thinks this is unusual. "Nori," the voice coming from the familiar face repeats. And then she speaks words that he can't understand.
He rubs his face and smooths his hair back. "Forgive me, but could you repeat that?" He asks. He knows he is not in Asgard, and should not be speaking Aesir. But he cannot remember any other words. His tongue feels heavy, his lips stiff.
The familiar woman presses her lips together and nods once. She then hands him a towel and coaxes him to stand.
It takes Nori about an hour to recover the ability to speak the mortal tongue. He puts on pants and goes to his mother's office. The woman with the familiar face, friend Kate, follows him and dresses his wounds while he starts making phone calls, trying to determine what has happened.
He quickly realizes that nobody knows and the mortals are calling him for answers. How can he have answers? He doesn't even know where his family is. He does not say this. He tries to behave as his mother always did during crises. Giving non-answers and stalling for time while seeming very godly and remote and all-knowing. This seems to mollify them. He has to fight the near-hysterical laughter that simmers under his skin at how easily they are satisfied with his pretense.
They give him reports of strange happenings, sounds and lights and blazing fires in the night sky and enormous, unidentifiable masses in the skies. Explosions and earthquakes and eruptions as gravitational pulls and tectonic plates shift. He finds it harder and harder to keep up the act.
Uncle is gone. So are Lady Sif and the Warriors Three. Mother and Loki are missing. Varli is still on a mysterious journey. Nori does his best to remain calm. But he cannot stop his hands from shaking and refuses to eat when Kate suggests he try. He feels sick in his bones and does not believe he will be able to consume anything without vomiting.
His mother's absence is the most troubling. Nori has a sense of what might be happening, and that explains the absence of all the others. But Sigyn would not fly into battle with them. She always stays behind to mind the home and keep them informed. He is on the phone with the secretary of state, trying to come up with some vague reason for why she has not contacted them, when Loki appears.
Nori quickly ends the call and jumps to his feet. "Father! Thank the Ancestors." And immediately realizes his mistake.
Loki stops in front of him, frowning as he always did when Nori addressed him as such. He then shakes his head as if dismissing it. This time. "Where is everybody?" He looks Nori over again and quirks an eyebrow. "And why aren't you wearing a shirt?"
"I do not know," Nori feels hollow, helpless. Like he is letting Loki down. "Kate has been helping me." He glances down at the bandages on his torso and arm. "I forgot about the shirt. Do you know where Mother is?" It was a foolish hope. And possibly cruel to ask. As far as he knew, Sigyn still refused to speak to Loki and it was something of a sore point.
Loki clenches his teeth, a muscle twitches on his jaw. "Her agenda is in the top right drawer. That should tell you where she was planning to be."
Nori nods and finds the leather-bound datebook. "She was supposed to go to Milan today."
Loki tilts his head. "I think we can assume those plans have been canceled. Where was she?"
"Paris." Nori looks up. "Do you think she might still be there?"
"It's as good a place to start as any. Stay here. If the others ask, you can tell them I've gone to fetch her."
And then he is gone. The phone starts to ring again. Nori frowns at it like that could make it stop. "Kate!" He yells out to the other room. "I need a shirt!"