Disclaimer: The characters and original story of the Marvel Cinematic Universe do not belong to me; this story is not for sale or profit.
A/N: And we're back! Thanks to everyone who has reviewed! I've gotten such great feedback, insightful feedback, it has really been such a help! Thanks for sticking with the story so far, and thanks for waiting! This chapter and the next two chapters all kind of go together; they were originally one great big monster chapter, but it was way too long, so it got split in three. I have been fussing with them (read: wailing on them with a sledgehammer) for a while now, and I still don't think I have all the dents out of them (in fact, I probably inflicted some new ones), yet I don't know what more I would change, so we're going to roll with it! I'm hoping I've conveyed Jane's situation and internal struggle satisfactorily; that's where you come in! Please continue to let me know your thoughts! Comments and critiques are always welcome and appreciated, and they really do help me become a better writer!
Lots going on in the next few days IRL, but hopefully the next two chapters will be up within the week. Thanks again for reading! Enjoy!
PS - this is chapter 3, mark 2, I noticed a couple of mistakes, so I re-upped it! Now enjoy! ^^
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"This is what it looks like when someone's fighting for his soul." – Jim Butcher
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It is a curious phenomenon embodied in the adage, 'the more things change, the more they stay the same'. Jane remembered hearing her grandmother say it when she was very young, and it had stuck with her because she had not understood it at the time. Now, she was learning all too well what it meant. Days went by. Nothing happened. Or rather, everything went on happening just as it should, even though Jane felt like the world should have come to a crashing halt in the wake of all that had occurred. Somehow the world kept turning, and it insisted on dragging Jane along with it.
She received a courteous but generic letter of appreciation from Stark Industries, thanking her for her services and informing her that they would contact her if they had any further need; basically a kiss-off, telling her that she would not be included in any further SHIELD scheming for, which was more than fine with her. She had enough to worry about without wondering if Big Brother was monitoring her every move. Not to mention, she had her own research to think of.
And she did try to think of it. She thought about the Convergence and the Foster Theory and the Bifrost, nee Einstein-Rosen Bridge. But in light of the current situation, her focus felt fuzzy around the edges, almost disjointed at times, and her mind kept wandering back to her late night encounter with Loki. As much as she wondered about her research, she wondered at least as much about where he was, what he was doing, how he had survived his injuries on the Dark World, and what he was plotting next.
But she did try to think of her research. And the more she thought, the less sure she became that continuing her astrophysics projects was a smart idea. She was too anxious and distracted right now. This stuff was her life's work. She couldn't afford a slip up while her attention was divided. And she didn't want to think about starting in on anything that really mattered while she was waiting for her world to be turned upside down again.
Luckily, she had a project in mind to pass the time while she waited for Loki to get his act together. She gave herself precisely two days off to regain her equilibrium, and the third day found her at the flat her mother kept for when she was in London.
Dr. Nancy Foster, a world-renown neurosurgeon, was almost as obsessive about her research as Jane. She had access to state of the art laboratories around the world, that had not stopped her from having the back half of the upscale flat converted into a miniature research lab some years ago for use in some of her personal projects. Jane had appropriated the lab without anything like explicit permission when they had come to London following the trail of the gravimetric disturbances, and lived in a constant state of anxious hope that her mother wouldn't turn up at the door unannounced; the two of them seldom spoke, and even more seldom got along. It would prove extremely awkward to have to explain why she was currently using a number of her mother's human tissue samples to experiment with the Asgardian ointment.
Today, however, she might have welcomed her intrusion. It had been years since Jane had had to make a Gram stain slide, and it was slow going, not because the process was in any way difficult, but because she was having the worst trouble concentrating on even the simplest tasks.
The problem, she decided, was that her equilibrium hadn't returned; it seemed to have slipped farther through her fingers instead. Her resolution to consider Loki's allegiance had lifted her out of one purgatory, only to leave her swaying dangerously in another, plagued with uncertainty and mired in her own ignorance. The inexplicable restlessness and unease she'd felt after choosing to keep his secret from Thor continued to fester, spreading through her like an infection in her blood. A step forward in any direction felt like it could take her off the edge of a cliff. Even though she knew no one had any reason to suspect anything was wrong, she felt like she had a big scarlet letter branded on her forehead in place of uruz – maybe an "L" for "liar". Of course, no one could see anything on her forehead to make them suspect; the magic made the mark invisible to one and all, even Thor. And the very fact that no one suspected anything was a constant, miserable wellspring of guilt, as well as a fault of instability.
The whole endeavor was a house of cards built on a foundation of sand, with the tide certain to come in at any moment. Her two day break had been spent dithering over every action and decision, wondering if she was acting normally, anxiously worrying that she would give something away, and getting the occasional odd look from everyone who knew her. There had been no time to seek her equilibrium amidst the constant worry, and the strain was only getting worse, not better.
I decided that I would listen, and now he won't talk. Typical.
It couldn't go on this way; she knew that she had to carry on with her life. She would have to at least act normally if she intended to keep her secrets and maintain her lies. Eventually, she would have to at least start going through the motions of her primary research, and it wasn't like there wasn't plenty for her to do, new ideas she wanted to explore, new theories to test, terabytes of new data to analyze. She hadn't planned on a break. And she hadn't planned on this… this haze of anxiety that seemed to arrest her at every turn.
I didn't plan on any of this…
There were a hundred different way she could proceed and a million different plans she could make. And Loki could show up at any moment to throw everything into chaos. Every time she tried to move forward, that truth reasserted itself to knock her back.
Forcing herself to refocus on the task at hand, Jane pushed aside the drying gram stains and glared sullenly at the creamy blob of enticingly apple-scented ointment in its golden container, vacillating over what to do with the remainder of it. The smart move would be to remove it from inside the golden disc and seal it up. It was an unknown chemical substance that had inexplicable properties she didn't fully – or even vaguely - understand. Carrying it around in a golden jar in her pocket begged so many risks – exposure, loss, degradation, contamination – that the idea of doing so was almost laughable.
And yet, the idea of removing the ointment from its golden jar, or parting with either component of the gift, made her even more uncomfortable. And the idea of leaving it here in the lab while she wasn't there to guard it smacked of leaving the Hope diamond in the relative safety of a piggy bank. She picked up the lid of the golden jar, studying the thread-fine filigree that swirled around the edges of the inlaid facets of the runes. It really was a stunning piece…
Rolling her eyes, disgusted with her own lack of scientific integrity, Jane pressed the lid of the jar back on, running her thumb absently over the rune for the sun, and slid the disc back into her jeans pocket. It didn't matter how unprofessional or detrimental to testing it might be; she would not part with the golden disc. She rubbed at her throbbing head, and giving it a shake in a futile hope it would dislodge whatever was making her ears ring so obnoxiously, and bent back over the slides, concentrating hard on adding just the right amount of dye to the sample.
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Unbeknownst to its bearer, the mark upon her forehead was glowing ever bluer, hidden well under its veil of magic. Its magic sizzled and quested forth, shining not just through the cut on her brow, but backwards into her mind. It skillfully singed her neurons, deftly reordering them one axon at a time. Strands of energy insubstantial and unbreakable as spider's silk tugged deftly at her subconscious, careful not to disturb her, though no touch could be delicate enough that she would feel nothing of the intrusive caress.
Progress came slowly. The magic was twisted at strange angles, knotted in ways it had never meant to be tied, so that its leverage pushed at odd angles, and there was only so much force it could exert. But what it lacked in power, it made up in stamina, and in its quest it was tireless.
With infinite care, the magic pulled her barriers apart. Carving a corridor through her brain.
A chute through which to pour a torrential flood from the skies. Or a tunnel through which even the most massive beast might burrow from deep inside the labyrinth of her inner world to the physical reality beyond the borders of her skull.
Not changing her. Never that. It was her that was wanted. If she were changed, she would no longer be what she was. Utterly unacceptable. It was her that was needed.
So while the touch of the spider's silk disturbed, it remained gentle. Insidious. Taking inestimable care not to damage or rewrite.
Only opening the gates of her mind.
Revealing her.
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When Thor wasn't with her, he was in Greenwich, helping with the rebuilding.
"Mjolnir is a tool to build, just as much as it is a weapon to destroy," he explained to Jane as they lay drowsing together in her bed one night. "My father bid me keep it, even though I have refused the throne. It is my duty to use it where I can. As I should." He stroked her hair absently as she ran her fingers lazily through the fine dusting of golden hair on his chiseled chest, her mood subdued by the topic of their discussion. "Besides, I am bound by honor to help rebuild what I helped destroy." He smiled softly, kissing the top of her head. "It is something I never understood before. But you taught me that, Jane."
Jane sighed and said nothing. Her head was starting to hurt. It had been hurting a lot recently, almost always accompanied by a quiet but distinctive ringing in her ears. She nuzzled her head into the crook of his arm and tried to relax so that it would abate. She hated watching him leave each day, knowing he would be so far away if she needed him. She never felt quite safe anymore when he wasn't nearby.
"…Thor divides his affections…"
Yet at the same time, what right did she have to complain? She understood all too well his desire to make things right. How could she fault him for wanting to heal the destruction he'd caused, when she was driven to lie and keep secrets and betray his trust for the very same reason?
What happened in Manhattan was not my fault.
She kept telling herself that. She even believed it. That still didn't erase the irrational but undeniable sense of guilt she felt over it. Or the need to make it right. In the end, she decided, it didn't matter if it was her fault. If she had a chance to do some good, and she ignored it, her guilt would become legitimate rather than imagined. So all she could do was stand on her balcony each morning, smiling half-heartedly and clutching the rune pendant around her neck while she watched Thor fly away over the horizon with his hammer in hand.
Despite her selfish desire to keep him to herself, the truth was that she was really very proud of him. News of his presence in London had spread, and when he wasn't helping with reconstruction, he was participating in other humanitarian projects, appearing at fundraisers, and raising awareness by championing worthy causes at the request of various charities and organizations. He was on the evening news a number of times, and was even interviewed by a talk show host once. Even in light the newfound gravity and thoughtfulness he had acquired over the past two years, it was still clear he was enjoying the attention, and it put some of that old swagger back in his step, though thankfully not enough to have him shattering mugs left and right. It made him seem younger somehow, more carefree, and it warmed Jane's heart to see him so effortlessly happy again. It eased her mind that her own restless anxiety and growing unease was not causing him any apparent pain or trouble.
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The king sat taller on his golden throne as the far doors swung inward to admit the Master of Masters. Lorens Amundson had been King Under the Mountain for just under a thousand years, and he had nearly always worn the title with an arrogance unbefitting. Now, somehow, it went far deeper than mere pretension. When he stopped before the dais, he neither bent his knee nor saluted his king, but inclined his head and shoulders in a gentle bow, as though he were truly one ruler addressing another, rather than a glorified librarian.
"You sent for me, Allfather?" Amundson inquired in a falsely obsequious tone that bordered on mocking. The king narrowed his eyes, but let it pass.
"The astronomy guild has reported on the phenomenon blocking the Observatory. Their search was inconclusive. I would have you send a number of your best magic masters to investigate."
Amundson cocked his head to one side, studying the king with a bored expression that bordered on contempt. Then he bowed it once more.
"It would be my pleasure, and theirs, to do your majesty's bidding," he assured the king, still flattering with a blade's edge of sarcasm, though now his tone had taken on an edge of irritation. The man really was beyond belief. "But one wonders, your majesty, why you chose to call me here all the way from the summit of the Nethermount, when a messenger would have sufficed to bring your just request to my ear."
The king beheld the scholar for a long moment, his face a mask of stone. When he spoke, his voice was hard with command.
"I would hear your answer, Master Amundson: what do you know of the phenomenon?"
Amundson's left eyebrow twitched slightly, but a condescending smirk twisted his narrow face a moment later.
"How could I know a single thing, Majesty? I have never laid eyes upon it."
Amundson was devastatingly, almost frighteningly intelligent. He would not be an easy target. The king's eye narrowed.
"How indeed?"
Amundson blinked at the frost in the king's voice, and when he smiled again, there was a great deal more warmth in it; a false summer of goodwill, hiding a cool repose of careful wariness. The king could do nothing unless Amundson betrayed himself. Which meant he was safe enough for now.
"If your Majesty has any further need of me, I shall be ever at your service within the halls of the Archive. Until we meet again."
Without being dismissed, the Master of Masters bowed his slight bow once more, turned and strode purposefully out of the hall, letting the golden doors swing shut behind him with a resounding boom. The king sat silent for a time, piercing eye focused on the middle distance at the spot where Amundson had just stood.
"No, I think not…" the king murmured at length, his eye focusing once more to stare at the door through which he had made his exit. "…I do not believe I will have need you for very much longer at all."
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Erik had stayed on in Greenwich as well, gathering data and analyzing the aftereffects of the Convergence. He had offered to let her help him, and had been troubled when she declined.
"You can't be serious," he said, when she just shook her head, her fingers going unconsciously to the bulge in her pocket where the golden disc hid. "Jane, this data… the Foster Theory could… it could be the chance of a lifetime." He gave her a worried look. "I can't believe you'd want to wait even a minute to start dissecting it."
"I'm just… kind of overwhelmed right now," she told him, shaking her head as she moved around the kitchen island to press a warm mug of coffee into his hand.
In truth, Jane had been making plans to do just as Erik suggested. In New York. Before Loki's visit. But now… every time she thought of starting in on the data, it was like a sense of curiosity-killing futility welled up inside her. It gave her a headache, so she didn't like to look at it too closely, but what was the point of starting something new, when it would just have to be put on hold when Loki arrived and everything went to hell again.
If he ever shows up… It had been days and days… what the hell is taking him so long?
Besides, she had the Asgardian ointment to analyze… which was going nowhere until she could get out to Oxford and use Gary's electron microscope… but still… Her head was pounding, and her ears were ringing again. She squinted against the ache. She couldn't think about it anymore… she couldn't think…
Erik took the mug, and Jane looked up, jarred from her thoughts. The disappointed look he gave her as their eyes met made her feel as though she were about ten years old again. The uncertain girl inside her that need a father figure's approval squirmed with a kind of irrational panic whenever he gave her that look, scrambling for ways to appease him, and she hunched her shoulders, ashamed.
Then her brow furrowed and she glanced at the open window. Weird… for an instant she thought she'd detected the distinctive English scent of rain. But the sun was shining. She shook her head and refocused on her visitor and his displeasure.
"You can't run away from your problems Jane," Erik told her sternly. "The only way through them is forward."
"I know. You're right," she nodded, working her way around her knee-jerk need to be in his good graces. Erik was naturally critical of her, but she knew it came from a place of love. He saw it as his duty to guide her in place of her late father, though his guidance often consisted of maintaining high expectations, pointing out her weaknesses and only quietly approving of her successes, which was very much the opposite of her father's way. Even so, Jane had come to depend on him as a source of support; when he withdrew it, she always flailed around in a desperate bid to get it back.
I wonder what he'd think of me working with Loki… The thought made her insides freeze. He can never know...
"I just… need some more time," she dithered. It sounded right, but she wasn't sure it was really the truth. "You know, to recover. Before I dive back in to everything. I want to go into it with a clear head."
He frowned at her, still troubled, but nodded, sipping at the hot drink. Jane could tell by his easy acceptance of her excuse that he believed she meant she needed to recover from the Aether. Erik, of all people, knew about the need for time to get one's head on straight after a close encounter with alien magic. If lying to Thor made her uneasy, lying to Erik made her want to crawl under a rock and die. Even moreso when he offered her one of those rare, warm smiles of understanding.
"That will take some time," he said. He looked away, his eyes softening with thought. "And it can be scary. Sometimes you don't know yourself, or where you are, or what's going on around you. Everything seems normal, until a moment of clarity hits you, and you realize that you aren't yourself, but you don't know what to do about it…" his eyes had grown distant and haunted. He wasn't talking about her anymore, he was venting his own pain and fear. After a moment's tense silence, he shook his head, banishing the disturbing reminiscence. But a specter of fear lingered in his eyes.
The teasing scent of rain evaporated abruptly as a ringing started high in her hearing range, pulsing to the beat of rising anger in her blood.
Damn you, Loki… She sucked in a deep breath, tying to think calming thoughts. Trying not to think of his words… "… it was all for you… " Trying not to add Erik's trauma to the list of things she shouldn't feel guilty for, but did. How can I trust him.
"That's how it was for me, anyway," Erik said, trying to sound reassuring. He reached out and patted her hand. "But the Aether isn't the Tesseract. I'm sure it will be different for you. And whatever you're feeling, it will get better."
"I'm sure you're right," she said automatically, the words designed to play along with the lie of omission she had crafted… But her stomach tightened uncomfortably. Because the truth, if she were really honest, was that she wasn't sure. At all. Erik's experience was… uncomfortable to think about. Because… it described something uncomfortably close to what she had begun to feel. And it wasn't getting better. It was getting a little harder to concentrate each day, and she found that her headaches, and the ringing in her ears was getting stronger and more frequent.
The truth was, it was getting worse.
"I hope you're right," she amended feebly. "I hope so…"
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"Check it out, Jane! Classic Doctor Who marathon!" Darcy called, bounding up from where she was sprawled on her mother's sofa and wandering over to where Jane was working at the kitchen counter. "It's the Sixth Doctor, though."
"Hmmm," Jane replied absently, measuring equal portions of buffer solution into the test tubes in front of her. She couldn't complain about the noise. Darcy was understandably bored, since Jane had not seen fit to include her in the details of her current experiment.
"Don't get me wrong, Six is great, love the coat, but Four was the Doctor, you know? Jane, are you listening? This is serious."
"Yep," Jane agreed, reaching for a swab stick. "Fourth Doctor. Serious. Open your mouth a sec."
"Um… okay. Really though, I think they might actually deport you if you don't have a favorite Doc – aghck!" Darcy coughed, sputtered and jerked her head back as Jane jabbed the swab into Darcy's mouth, swirling it against the inside of her cheek. "Ugh! Ew! Why?"
"Tissue sample."
"Tissue sample?"
"Yep."
"Er… what for?
"Don't worry about it."
"Don't worry about it? Jane, you just stabbed me in the mouth with a q-tip."
Jane pursed her lips and didn't answer as she carefully lowered the wet tip of the swab into one of the test tubes, which gave off a vague odor of ammonia and apples; each one contained a carefully concocted solution made from the Asgardian ointment designed to measure a number of factors simultaneously. She held her breath as a shimmering green precipitate began to form against the glass. Then she let it out in a heavy sigh as the mixture flashed yellow and began to fizz, leaving a soupy blue sludge to collect at the bottom of the tube.
"What does that mean?" Darcy demanded, her expression almost comically worried.
"It means that your cells are no more or less strange than anyone else's," Jane said sourly, carefully dumping the sticky mess into the hazardous waste bin. She should probably study the chemical precipitate; that's what any decent scientist would do. But frankly she didn't see the point.
Every single cell sample she'd tested had yielded a different result; not one had reacted the same way to the same solution. Her own tissue sample had sparked with the green precipitate and then overflowed its container in a deep crimson rush of what appeared under the microscope to be a substance shockingly similar to human blood. But every other tissue sample had yielded a different result, and none of them compatible with life as humans knew it. Some created a gooey slime or sludge precipitate of varying colors and consistencies, others foamed and belched fruity or rancid smelling fumes, yet others solidified into thick gels or even solids, and twice the entire sample had sublimated into a gas and she'd had to open all the windows in the flat and activated the emergency vents her mother had had installed in the ceiling, just to be sure she wasn't breathing in some unknown toxic substance. She had tested fourteen human tissue samples so far, and no detectable pattern had emerged to give her any indication of which direction to try next. It wasn't just a matter of variation. The results appeared utterly random.
"This is pointless," she muttered. Why was it so had figure this out? "I'm going about this all wrong."
"I could have told you that," Darcy told her airily. "You're an astrophysicist and you're looking for science in peoples' mouths. Even Intern could have told you that."
"Where is Ian, anyway?"
"Part time job. You know, since there's nothing for us to do right now except watch reruns of Doctor Who."
"Yeah, look, sorry," Jane said, grinding her teeth against a sudden spike in her headache. She took a deep breath to hold the frustration at her continued failure and humiliation that she was wasting Darcy's time while she had a front row seat to her incompetence. Her ears were ringing again, but it subsided, and she rubbed her nose as the thick, fragrant scent of rain invaded her nostrils. "Um, I think there are some data reports lying around in the back room that need to be filed. Could you get those in order?"
"Thrilling," Darcy deadpanned before she wandered off towards the background her mom used as a home office.
Jane sat there for a few long moments trying to gather her wits. She needed to figure out her next step, but sometimes it was just so hard to think. What was she supposed to do?
"Electron microscope… maybe…" she muttered to herself. She had old school friend, Gary, who worked in the biolab at Oxford... She scrunched up her face. The idea felt really familiar... She shook her head. Anyway it was a good idea, maybe she could study the chemical structure that way instead. But making the phone call right then seemed like a lot of work. And everything here was such a damn mess…
The test tube still had trail of blue sludge pooling at the bottom. Jane picked it up and upended it over the waste jar. The sludge shifted, but wouldn't budge. She flicked it a few times, her arm shaking. The smell of ammonia and apple blossoms had driven away the weird rain smell, and her ears were ringing again. Nothing was going right. Nothing was going the way she had planned. Nothing was going the way it should. She flicked the tube harder. Why the hell wouldn't it just cooperate? She flicked it harder. Harder.
"Damn it!"
Fury spiked and she flung the tube hard into the trashcan. The sound of it shattering against the side was only a slightly satisfying. Not nearly enough. She threaded her shaking fingers into her hair and pressed against the sides of her skull, fighting the pressure behind her eyes as the Doctor Who theme song throbbed in her ears from the sitting room.
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The king stood upon the brink of oblivion. He would not look down. Last time he had looked down into this abyss, he had fallen head first into a nightmare deeper and blacker than the iciest pits of Hel. Instead he cast his gaze outwards as the hoverboat in which he stood skimmed over the perimeter of the edge waters towards one of the sentinel stones. Out into the vast empty chasm of space. If only it were as empty as it seemed.
The king did not like to be so long away from his golden throne, or his distant vigil over his mortal goddess, but appearances must needs be satisfied and he could put this matter aside no longer.
He stepped from the craft as it came to rest, his retainer, Halvard, mounting the docking stone behind him. The sentinel tower rose from the craggy slope above, carved out of the living rock, but the king did not start up the stair that led to the fortress. Instead, he set off on the outer promenade towards the Observatory.
The promenade ended in a wide courtyard tiled with white marble. The grooves between the marble bricks were set with polished opals, cut ever so slightly concave and enchanted in such a way as to conduct the light of celestial bodies and draw it in, to aid in the observation and study of the heavens. The near end of the courtyard stretched back into a deep, open hollow cut from the rock that housed all manner of astronomical tools and data gems for the collection, measurement, storage of new knowledge. The king knew that the floor of the cavern could be opened to raise a massive telescopic mechanism for exploration into deep space. It was not in use now, and that both annoyed him and gave him hope. The far end of the courtyard stretched many meters out in a natural stone balcony, magically reinforced, that extended out over the edge of the world as though straining to reach the distant stars which were studied there. It protruded farther into the darkness beyond the edge of the world than any other single point in the Realm Eternal, except perhaps a few shifting peninsulas out on the Fields of Eternity below the Nethermount, though no one was fool enough to go far enough to find out. Those plains held silent, certain death for any who walked them.
Usually that area of the observatory was crowded with scholars wielding telescopes and scanners. That was currently impossible.
Now, a curtain of undulating light sparked and shimmered and writhed across the far reach of the platform, cutting it off from the rest of the courtyard. The king approached the curtain, Halvard in silent tow, gazing up at the curtain of magic. It was vibrant green, but through its shifting light, shades of blue were just visible on the other side, and where the two lights met, gold sparks showered from the energetic mass, shooting up high into the sky above until they spread beyond sight.
The king glared at it for a long moment before making himself move closer. Its appearance was alien. But he knew it on sight. Intimately. His face remained hard and expressionless, though his mind buzzed like a kicked pricklefly hive. He turned his face away from the shifting curtain, feeling like he was turning his back on an enemy with naked blades in both hands.
Einherjar troops stood stationed along the perimeter of the curtain, and on along the perimeter of the observatory. More gold armored figures could be seen on the battlements of the tower above, as they could be seen at ever sentinel stone all along the perimeter of the realm. The king paid them no mind, though with the detonator weighing his cloak on one side, they were never far from his thoughts.
It was to a group of three Asgardians clad all in varying shades of green and gold that the king turned his attention. Magic masters.
One stood, eyes closed, palms up and tilted outwards, green magic hemorrhaging from his fingertips to flow into the curtain of light. The other two were deep in heated conversation, glancing uncertainly at the magic curtain as they talked. The woman, a tall, statuesque creature of perhaps 6000 years, the first streaks of gray just starting to show at her temples, was the first to spot the approaching monarch. She instantly turned and fisted her hand over her heart, bowing her head. The man beside her, a stout older man in his 9000's, quickly followed suit. The third, a new master fresh from the Archive, likely still in his first thousand years of his life, did nothing, his senses too absorbed in the task before him to be aware of the king's approach, or anything else.
"Allfather," the older man said gravely. "You honor us with your coming."
"What have you discovered?" the king asked him.
The magic master looked troubled.
"There is little we can discover, my king. It is a strange combination of forces, some of which we have never encountered before..." When the king gave him nothing in response but a level, expectant stare, the magic master fidgeted and ploughed on. "We have discovered that the phenomenon has began on the day of the Convergence."
"Is it a remnant of the Aether?" asked the king, his face betraying nothing.
"That… seems likely, my king…"
The female magician cleared her throat, her jaw clenched tightly. The elder flicked a quelling look in her direction and shifted uncomfortably.
"But…?" the king asked crisply, giving the senior master a hard look. Demanding honesty where he gave none, and feeling no compunction over the double standard. He needed to know what they knew.
"But there is no evidence that this interstellar force is connected to the Aether, other than the time of its appearance," the female master spoke up.
"It seems rather incredibly unlikely that it should be a coincidence," the elder man retorted brusquely. This was clearly a point of contention between the two.
"Unless it was an attack," the woman countered, her voice hard with obstinancy.
"If there is no evidence that this magic is of the Aether, there is even less that it is dangerous or offensive."
"What else could it be?"
"A natural phenomenon of course." The old man scoffed. "You are young yet, Grete, you still think that Asgardians know everything, but there are yet some forces in this cosmos we do not command."
"Heinrich," the woman, Grete apparently, said warningly at his condescending tone. She shook her head. "It isn't arrogance, it is pragmatism. We believed that Prince Thor put an end to the rebellion, but there may yet have been a resistance cell in operation, waiting in reserve until the realms were in alignment to attack the…"
"The Aether's descent was an attack," the elder, Heinrich, said, shaking his head. "An attack on every part of Yggdrasil at the same time! No corner of the the World Tree was spared. Any magical force in the Nine Realms that might have thought to take advantage of the Convergence to launch an assault would have been too busy battling back the Aether and save itself, to launch a strike at us."
The two glared at each other like a pair of hungry dogs over a bone. The king watched them silently and said nothing, waiting for the battle of wits and wills to play out. At length Grete looked away, yielding grudgingly to her elder. The king then cleared his throat, watching both startle with a placid, patient eye, as though they had both forgotten they were in the presence of royalty.
"Your pardon, majesty," Heinrich said hastily. "As you can see, we imagine much, but we know very little. What seems clear is that two opposing magical forces are at play." He waved a hand indicating the wavering wall of magic. "One originates from deep within the void. Its origin is undetectable to us. From what we have observed, it simply ends out there beyond the edge of the Observatory. The other…"
Here Heinrich cast a worried look at his colleague. Grete received it with a consternated glance of her own, and it seemed that whatever their differences, they had found something upon which they could agree.
"The other originates here," Grete supplied carefully. "It appears to oppose the first force, and holds it at bay with an immovable might. The outer force breaks upon the inner like waves upon the rocks. But… though the inner magic arises from the very heart of our own realm… we cannot find its source either." She shook her head and lowered her eyes, as though expecting rebuke but continued speaking with a determined air. "What's more, its power is vast."
"To be clear," Heinrich said, "the only known magic wielder in this realm powerful enough to produce it would be your very self, Allfather, and yet, to generate and maintain such a shield for an extended period of time…"
Grete shivered as though the difficulty of such a feat chilled and daunted her. "…even one as strong as your majesty would no longer be able to stand under the strain," she finished.
The king nodded slowly, processing all that they had told him. Looking for flaws or inconsistencies. Looking for deception.
Suddenly the young magic master gasped. The flow of green from his fingertips faltered and dissipated as he swayed and stumbled to one knee, head bowed before the curtain.
Grete went to his side, whispering a quiet question to him. He glanced up at her, his face pale and wet with a sheen of sweat, and shook his head. He rose shakily to his feet with her help to stand beside his elders. He didn't seem capable of speaking just yet.
"This remains the sum of your discovery?"
The three bowed their heads in confirmation. There was no deception from their mouths, their bodies or their eyes.
They knew nothing.
Oh, Grete suspected something. But the elder master, Heinrich was in a determined sort of denial, and he would keep her in line. The danger was minimal… The king studied them for a moment. These were the three had come from the Archive, hand picked for this task by Master Amundson himself. It was hard not to wonder why.
What is your game, Amundson…? the king's mind wondered in a thoughtful whisper.
They all bore watching. But there was another he was even more concerned with watching, and she could only be observed from his golden throne. He had been away too long.
The king signaled Halvard with a gesture. The retainer moved silently into the cavern to collect the data gems. The king turned to face the curtain of magical light. He stared at it hard for a long moment. At the silent war being fought before his very eyes. He wondered if this was what ants saw when they watched men locked in combat, all of it so massive and near that it was all but invisible.
He wondered, too, if this was what his mortal goddess saw, when she tried to understand the war being fought inside herself. Everything, and nothing.
It was a sobering thought.
"Continue your search," he commanded the trio, who fisted their hands over their hearts in acknowledgement. "Notify me the very instant you know more."
He cast his steely gaze out past the curtain, out into the distorted view of the stars, and into the dark places between them. Wondering. Then he turned and swept away back towards the docking stone.
He forced his eye pass without pause over the narrow fissure at the edge of the courtyard in which one of his explosive devices was secreted. Above, he once again caught the flash of golden armor as the warriors went faithfully about their duty.
"And remind the guard…" He said over his shoulder, pausing for one last look at the deceptively innocuous curtain of light. "…no one enters or leaves this realm without my word. On pain of death."
.
Days became weeks. And Jane tried act normally, continue her work, live her life, she really did… but her worries weighed on her, and as the headaches got worse, so did her concentration. And so did her temper.
"Mmm… mrg… damn… stupid… freaking… son of a… gah! Urgh… GRRRAAGH!"
With a shriek of pure fury, Jane brought the knife down on the cutting board with enough force to leave it standing on end, the sharp tip buried a good inch inside the scarred wood surface. She stood there, panting, tears of frustration stinging in her eyes, and glared murder at the innocent pile of carrots she'd been slicing for dinner.
Or trying to slice. But she couldn't get them to the right thickness, and it was such slow going because it was so hard to concentrate and they wouldn't cook right if they were too thick, and they looked ugly all different shapes and… and… and…
And she was about to blow her stack over a pile of carrots.
That fact was so jarring that it doused the flames of her irrational anger like a bucket of ice water; the ringing in her ears subsided and her bottom lip began to tremble. Hands shaking, Jane pulled off her apron, flung it down on the counter and stalked out of the kitchen.
"Why am I even surprised," she asked the empty apartment in a watery voice as she sank onto the couch and buried her face in her hands. "I suck at cooking."
That wasn't the point, and she knew it. She was always on edge these days. She couldn't seem to help it.
Loki was out there right now, doing who knows what, and she was stuck here, waiting, wondering, worrying, afraid all the time. He could appear at any moment… but it wasn't the idea of Loki appearing that kept her on edge. It was the uncertainty. The waiting. It was the fact that he didn't appear that was driving her slowly insane.
Not insane… not yet…
She hoped. But…
There were times she could swear she felt eyes on her, watching her every move. And it was making her crazy. It was worst when she was alone, and it was quiet. A ringing would start in her ears, and she could swear she heard whispers, as though a great crowd were talking in the next room, their voices coming as indistinct gibberish through the walls. There were days she spent hours looking skittishly over her shoulder and jumping at the slightest noise, a constant tension buzzing at the back of her mind, stretching her tight as a rubber band ready to snap. She hated it, and hated her own fear. In these moments, she barely recognized herself. She hadn't realized she was such a coward. Elevated anxiety on the edge of either anger or panic had begun to become Jane's new normal.
And still he remained silent.
I can't keep this up…
But the fact remained, it could be weeks before he made some kind of move. Months. Years. Loki had said that he was in favorable position. That he had no imminent desire to do anything but keep quiet. And he had never meant for her to know about his survival in the first place. There was no real reason to think he would contact her anytime soon.
There is no real reason to believe he will contact me ever again…
The thought had occurred to her once or twice. It should have been a comforting, even cheerful thought, even if she couldn't make herself believe it was true.
Instead, each time it rose in her mind, she found it left her feeling cold and hollow inside. Crestfallen and afraid. At the back of her mind, where she didn't have to look too closely at it, there was a tiny, unbalanced part of her that panged with disappointment as each day passed and he did not show himself.
Jane raised her face from her hands, scrubbing at her eyes with the backs of her fingers, and stared into the middle distance, forcing herself to face the feeling. She turned it over inside her head, examining it as objectively as she could. The feel of the air around her changed, cleared of the wet smell of rain that had been clogging her nostrils as her mind focused, and filled with the smell of fresh vegetables wafting to her from the kitchen.
The truth, she was forced to conclude after a long, uncomfortable moment, was that there was a little speck, down deep at the core of her, a mote of grey dust drifting between the dark and the light, that wanted Loki to be sincere.
It wanted him to want to fix the things he'd broken. She didn't want him to be the monster everyone else feared he was. He had promised her healing, and that promise had bred hopes and expectations. She found herself anxious to hold him to his word.
Nor could it bear the idea that maybe, just maybe, she'd been taken in by a lie. She already feared constantly that she was as heartless as everyone else thought Loki was. She didn't want to be that gullible on top of it. And if she was that gullible, it pointed to a moral corruption inside her that she didn't know how to live with.
It wanted to give Thor his brother back. She didn't want to have to watch him open the scars on his heart again just to clean up a mess that, like it or not, she was a part of now. She was involved; she was responsible for preventing it.
And yes, damn it, it wanted to understand him. She wanted to understand him. The enigmatic puzzle of a man who had so easily seen through her, right down into the grinding cogs of curiosity and passion that moved her mind and heart, hinting with a few casual words that he understood her in a way no one else ever had. That he was like her. She, the scientist, the hunter, the seeker, wanted to know more.
God help her, she must be losing her mind. She hated the thought that he wouldn't come back, because she wanted to believe him. That aberrant little speck of gray at the core of her would not let her forget. Down deep in that tiny grey place inside her, she wanted to trust Loki.
She couldn't, and she knew it, but something in her wanted to.
"Damn it…" she muttered, frustrated and embarrassed by her own thoughts. Idealistic idiot. She was going to get herself in real trouble someday. If she hadn't already.
The smell of vegetable juice was becoming cloying. Her head was pounding, like the beat of a tympani drum behind her eyes. Muscle-freezing fear beat in time with it. Fear that her mind was no longer her own.
The mark was invisible; out of sight, out of mind. I wish. No matter how she tried to avoid thinking it, there was no way to avoid the correlation between the alien magic on her head and the pain inside it. Loki assured her it wouldn't influence her. But that didn't mean it wasn't affecting her. And there was no way to know how. Or what it really meant to choose between the two entities embodied by the symbol uruz.
The beast. Or the rain.
It had to be a metaphor, but as a metaphor it could mean just about anything. All she knew for certain was that she would choose the rain. It seemed like a foregone conclusion.
The beast represented rage and irrationality and base cravings and fear. It was the stuff of chaos and war and terror. That couldn't be the right answer.
Rain, on the other hand, was cooling and cleansing, purifying and renewing. When she thought of rain, she thought of the soothing patter on the window pane, and the heavy mineral smell of damp air and wet earth. Rain had to be the right choice.
If that was what he needed to make things right, she had decided long ago, she would do her best to give it to him. Now that she was this deep in the mix, her conscience wouldn't let her do anything else. When he was ready, she would banish the beast and accept the rain.
If only he would come.
"Why won't you just do something already…?"
Her ears were ringing. It was maddening. She punched the sofa cushions ineffectually and leapt to her feet, unable to sit still any longer. Thor would be home soon. She headed back towards the kitchen. She should at least attempt to have the food on the stove when he arrived.
As she pried the knife out of the cutting board, its bright edge glinted at her and she stopped, staring at it. The beginnings of a wonderful, awful idea began forming in her mind. The honed edge seemed to flash and wink conspiratorially in the weak late afternoon light, goading her…
She didn't remember leaving the kitchen, but she suddenly found herself in the bathroom, staring hard at her reflection in the large mirror over the sink. She squinted hard at the skin on her forehead. The spot where she knew the mark to be. It was there. She couldn't see it, but it was right there.
Uruz.
It had made him appear once before.
"If you can see me, it means someone is trying to unwork my magic…"
Her heart racing, she looked down at the knife in her hands. It was wet with vegetable juice, little silvers of orange plant matter clinging to the blade. Snagging the hand towel on the rack, she carefully wiped it clean.
"It will protect you…"
She looked up at her reflection again. Her eyes were a little too wide, and her chest was rising and falling a little too rapidly. She looked afraid.
She didn't feel afraid. She didn't feel anything. The air was thick with the scent of rain.
This can't continue. I have to do something.
She raised the blade, bringing it up in front of her face.
Just a little. Just to get his attention.
She brought the tip of the blade to her forehead, where uruz hid behind Loki's magic.
Just enough to make him come…
Slowly, carefully, she began to press the edge against her skin…
There was a flash of green.
"Ah!"
Her forearm stung, not her forehead.
The knife clattered into the sink with an ear-ringing clang. She turned her arm over, searching for where she'd been bitten, cut, stung, or whatever it was that had caused that jab of pain… there was nothing there. Strange… She shook her head, blinking rapidly. Her head felt clearer…
"What…"
Her eyes moved past her extended forearm, to land on the knife where it lay glittering in the sink, and widened almost painfully as her breath caught in her throat.
"What was I…?
She pressed her hand to her mouth.
What was I about to do…?
Jane backed slowly out of the bathroom. She closed the door and leaned against it, as though the knife were a monster that she was trying to keep locked in the room behind her. Her hand slid down her throat to grasp the rune pendant laying against her chest. It always seemed to remain cool, no matter how long it lay against the warmth of her skin.
This wasn't the first time. It was just the worst. There had been moments over the past two weeks when she could feel herself spiraling in a kind of slow, downward unwinding. Moments of intense fury or numbness, followed by sudden clarity when she felt as though she were standing outside herself, staring at a stranger who was being slowly crushed under some intense, invisible weight.
Insanity. Her eyes swam with tears she refused to let fall.
At the same time, it was familiar. It was her. It was all her… This is who I am…
She knew something wasn't right. Like right now.
And those moments always passed. Like right now…
Jane squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, she couldn't quite remember what had had her so upset. All she knew was that she was not in the mood for carrots tonight. Breezing back into the kitchen, humming distractedly as she went, she swept the macerated vegetable mess into the garbage can and went to the phone to order takeout.
.
TBC…
.
A/N: Poor Jane, something's just not right. I am honestly very nervous about this chapter, and the next two, as Jane tries to deal with these gradual, insidious, yet disturbing changes in her nature, without having any frame of reference for what is happening or why it's happening to her, or even, at first, the fact that she's changing at all. It presents quite a challenge… *author glares balefully at storyline and brandishes sledge hammer thoughtfully*…hopefully I met it adequately. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments or critiques, so that I can continue to improve my writing and better create a great story for you!
As a reminder, the runes referenced in this story are based on real runic meanings, but some aspects may be embellished or uniquely interpreted for the purposes of this story.
Thanks so much for reading this far, and I hope you will stick with it, as I've still got a few tricks up my sleeve! More updates are forthcoming very soon!