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: Some action, at last! Before you read, I highly recommend listening to the song Control the Storm by Delain; it meshes uncannily with this phase of the story, sets the mood nicely! Many thanks to the lovely isaalacrymosaa for sharing it with me!
Thank you so much to all of my reviewers, and to everyone who continues to follow the story, please enjoy this next installment!
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"Don't you know? In the end
You're no stronger of hand
You are no stronger of heart
Don't you know? In the end
We'll be tragically torn apart
If you can't control the storm…"
-Delain
.
Jane was lost.
She had abandoned the deserted confines of her lab twenty minutes ago in search of sunlight, despondent and hungry to recapture that elusive calm she had experienced in the park with Thor. Though it had only been three days, it felt like she'd lived an eternity in a cave or a basement, someplace no natural light could penetrate. Day or night, it made no difference; the world was growing dimmer and more distant with each passing hour, shrinking on all sides as though she were being dragged backwards down a narrow tunnel. The shadows loomed fantastically around her wherever she went. Her mind drifted. Concentration had become almost an alien concept, and her thoughts flitted around her head like moths, blurry with motion and hard to catch.
All she knew for certain was that she was watched.
Eyes were always on her now, peering from the shadows. She no longer even startled or darted her gaze around when she felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck raise with awareness. There was no point in looking; she wouldn't see the watcher, and she wouldn't be able to escape. He… it… was everywhere.
And somehow… somehow she wasn't sure any longer that it was Loki. It made no sense; there was no logical reason to suspect it. All she knew was that it felt different. Different from his dreamlike presence that night in Manhattan. Different from the weight of his gaze when he watched her with unblinking intensity in Alexa's apartment. His eyes had held a heat that had lit her from the inside, so that her cheeks burned in spite of her defensive fear and uncertainty.
This was colder. Hungrier. And it never slept.
It watched her now as she walked along a street she didn't know, searching for familiar landmarks or street signs that were nowhere to be found. She had intended to walk to the nearby park and try to recapture that peace and equilibrium she'd found in the sunshine. It wasn't far; she'd walked past it countless times. There was no way even someone as badly distracted as her could lose her way.
She'd been fine until about five minutes ago, when a wave of whitewashed dizziness had taken her. When it passed, she found hadn't moved an inch farther.
And even so, she didn't know where she was anymore.
Troubled, uncertain, she ducked into a corner store to buy a cup of coffee, hoping it would clear her head. She couldn't possibly be as lost as she felt.
She filled a styrofoam cup and stepped up to the counter to pay.
Give her to me.
Jane gasped, dropping her money on the counter, wincing as the words thrummed through her body, so that she heard them with her bones more than her ears.
The cashier was looking at her strangely.
"You alright, ma'am?"
"Did you… hear that?"
"Hear what? I didn't…" The cashier stopped mid-sentence, then closed his mouth, his eyes widening, then narrowing with suspicion. And anger. He didn't speak. Just… stared.
Jane swallowed hard as a wash of goosebumps ran over her skin. Her stomach tightened and something inside her started to quietly scream at her to back away; an animal instinct for self-preservation.
The ringing in her ears crescendoed. The lights in the shop seemed to dim ever-so-slightly, and the cashier startled. His jaw clenched, and she saw his adam's apple bob as he swallowed hard in turn. He gave her a tense, unfriendly look.
"I don't want any trouble," he told her, his voice low and warning. She noticed his hand creep under the counter, where a weapon of some sort was likely concealed. "You… need to go. Right now."
Jane opened her mouth to speak, to reassure him, to ask him what he was thinking and feeling right now... Then she blinked, and closed it. Her hands clenched around her cup as she backed away. She turned and dashed for the door, rushing out to find refuge in the sunlight.
Crave her.
Jane cringed as the voice rang through her again, seeming to echo soundlessly off every street, building, car, tree and person. She looked around herself, and couldn't figure out where she was. This wasn't right. She couldn't have gotten so far on foot, but nothing looked familiar. It was more than just an unfamiliar place… nothing looked right. Nothing looked normal.
Deeply disturbed, she took a drink of her hot coffee and shivered in the warm sunlight. The buildings seemed to loom, their shadows stretching out to catch. Jane quailed inside and recoiled as they brushed up against her. That darkness would swallow her if she let it cover her.
Fear her.
The ringing in her ears was so loud… Where was she?
She was being watched again, but she could see her watchers now. They were everywhere. Everyone in sight was watching her as she rushed along the thinning strip of sunlight on the sidewalk, cringing away from the shifting shadows. Their eyes lingered, unblinking. Jane couldn't meet their stares. Even if she could gather the nerve, something told her it wouldn't be smart. She was reminded uncomfortably of lions crouched in the tall grass, watching a zebra limping at the edge of the herd. Every hair on her body stood on end and the base of her skull prickled with a perception of animosity.
The world seemed to tilt, the buildings swaying inward slightly.
Steal her balance.
It would have been bad enough if there was only one or two passers by, but there seemed to be people everywhere, walking the sidewalks, driving in cars, sitting on benches or peering out of shops. All of them paused as she passed, watching her with a burning intensity that spoke to Jane's hind brain. Danger, it said. Be afraid.
Everything seemed to twist and bulge strangely, distorting fluidly like a fun house mirror in motion.
Jane staggered on. Strange looks. Hostile stares. Predatory leers.
The shadows at the edges of her vision began to writhe maniacally.
Make her choose what form I will take.
Jane stumbled to a halt as everything flashed blue for an instant.
She gasped, reaching up to touch her forehead, unconsciously stroking the spot where uruz would be if she could feel it.
For a moment, she wasn't on the street anymore.
She was in that tunnel of grey, fleshy walls, running from the shadows in her own mind.
Then she was back on the street.
People staring. Everyone staring.
She made herself resume walking, trying to ignore the glares, trying to pretend that if she ignored it would go away.
She didn't know what else to do. She didn't know what was going on.
This is my dream.
"No."
She shook her head, clinging desperately to the last disintegrating shreds of denial. As though on command, the shadows receded and she picked up her pace, staying in the light, as though it might somehow shield her from facing the reality before her. But denying it didn't change the truth. Or the danger.
The ringing in her ears was so loud she could hear herself think. She didn't understand how it was possible, or why it was happening. She didn't understand what was going on. But she knew it was true:
She was being hunted.
.
The king stood still as stone beneath the golden dome of the Bifrost, mere steps from the shores of the cosmic sea. The gatekeeper stood behind him, silent and still as a golden mountain, gleaming sword perched point down upon the raised dais. Neither spoke, the king absorbed in his thoughts, the gatekeeper unwilling to presume, watching with eyes that saw everything.
And nothing.
"How far does your gaze stretch, Gatekeeper?" the king asked at length, never taking his eyes from the chasm of the cosmic gulf, twinkling with the color and light of its celestial dance against the velvet dark of eternity. "What can you see?"
"I can see everything within the branches of Yggdrasil, my king," the gatekeeper replied.
"And beyond?" the king asked.
"Beyond… is beyond my sight."
"By design? Or limitation?"
"I could not say, my king. I did not craft the spells that made me."
The king stood quiet again for a time, lost in thought as he watched the universe spin.
"Do you remember the spells that were woven over your golden apple as a boy?"
Behind him, the golden mountain stirred, turning unblinking golden eyes upon the king. And seeing nothing. He responded slowly, his words heavy with reluctant honesty. No Asgardian liked to think of their golden apple.
"Some, Allfather."
"Not all?"
"No, my king. I regret that I never excelled in spellcraft. It is perhaps a question better posed to the magic masters."
"Those spells were lost during the Ice War."
"That is so, my king."
"A pity," the king turned his eyes upon the gatekeeper. "There will never be another like you."
The gatekeeper said nothing.
"Record what spells you remember," the king said. "I would have them as soon as they can be thoroughly transcribed."
"As you command, my king."
"I…"
The words died on the king's lips as the cosmos swam before his piercing eye, lights swirling together through the endless night between them. The Bifrost platform dipped and tilted alarmingly. The gatekeeper did not seem to notice.
"My king?"
The king did not hear him. He heard another voice, not with his ears, but with his bones, deep in the foundations of his mind. It was not for him. It merely went through him. Through the threads of magic that tied him to his mortal.
Give her to me. Crave her. Fear her. Steal her balance. Make her choose what form I will take.
"I… have tarried here too long," the king murmured. "I must return. Keep your gaze sharp on the edge of your sight, Guardian. Where the Worlds end. That is where it is most needed now."
He strode from the dome and mounted Sleipnir. The eight-legged stallion reared and set off speeding back up the bridge, faster than Memory or Thought, who circled overhead, could fly. Still the king dug his heels in, urging him faster. The world continued to spin with the magic of the command vibrating along his bones, through him, and past him out into the distant blue world where the mortal goddess must even now be under siege.
"Curse you..." he whispered to the blue spider crouched beneath the golden palace in the distance.
He could resist its pull with ease. He had long practice at doing so; and it was not directed at him in any case. But the mortals that dwelt upon the blue speck… the mortals surrounding his beloved…
There was nothing he could do. Nothing. He could not leave Asgard unguarded; and even if he decided to throw the Realm Eternal to the wolves and fly to her side, there would be nothing he could do but watch her suffer in person. If he interfered, she would never be free.
But if she failed…
"Jane…" the king murmured, squeezing his eye closed, giving the stallion its head. "You must control it. I know you can. But now you must. If you don't…"
His face slackened as the roar of a hollow ache thundered inside him. He could not even think it.
The gleam of the waves far below caught his eye, and he cast a glance out over the waters as the rainbow bridge flew by beneath the strike of his steed's hooves. Unable to stop himself, he traced the fault line where his explosives were seeded. There was one concealed… there another… His face hardened.
You are fear. You are chaos. You are destruction.
This is who you are.
"Yes..."
But...
The fierce flash of warm brown eyes, a sweet laugh, the shine yellow sunlight on soft hair, the curve of a full, sweet mouth smiling at the secrets unfolding inside the dancing curiosity of a dexterous mind; a goodness and integrity that could not fail.
A light in the darkness.
His fear sharpened to a fine point, but a calm settled over his mind.
"I believe in you…"
She was the key. To everything. She would not fail. She would find the secret to tame the beast. And if she didn't…
"Find the right choice," he begged her quietly, seeing her in his mind's eye while he bent over the stallion, riding it harder still to the golden throne, so that he could see her in truth. "Or nothing will ever matter again."
.
If the king were on his throne, and if he were not so preoccupied with his mortal, he might have cast his eyes just a little to the left, and he might have spied a second floor living space full of sleeping children in one room, and sleeping adults in another.
In the second, he would have seen the young woman, Jana, pacing and crying, clasping shaking hands in front of her as she stared down at her elders. He may have noted that the green light around them had begun to glow more brightly, moving in a steady, nearly tangible flow into the central woman, and then skyward, fading to invisibility before it reached the ceiling, flowing away towards the spell it fueled.
He may also have noted that they had all grown pale and drawn, that sweat beaded on their brows, that their breathing came in short, shallow pants, and that there was blood seeping from several of their mouths and noses. They were fading, failing, the combined strength of their diluted Asgardian bloodline not nearly powerful enough to withstand the demands of maintaining such a spell any longer.
"Gods, gods, gods…" he might have heard Jana whimper as she stared at the blood on her mother's face. "Please… please come back, please…"
Then he would have seen her close her eyes and gather herself. He would have seen a calm steal over her as she reached a decision. He would have seen her walk slowly out into the larger room out front, scribble down a short note to one of her cousins, leaving it on the kitchen counter as she drew a knife out of one of the drawers, and walk back into the room with the dying adults. Locking the door behind her.
Then he would have seen her clamber down onto the mattress beside her mother, tears streaming from her wide eyes.
"I'm sorry," he might have heard her say, as she wiped the blood away from her mother's mouth. "I know I was supposed to take care of them. I know you think I'm too young. But I can't just stand here and watch you die. Not when you're doing this for the kids… for me… Not when I can help!"
Then, if the king were looking, he might have seen her press the blade against her palm, and, with a few halting hesitations and a few more tears, draw a thin, red line of blood across it. And he might have seen the ruby drops spark and glint with a brilliant sheen of green more vivid and vibrant than any of the others.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you…" he would hear her tell her mother's still form.
He would then have seen her press a tearful kiss to her mother's pale cheek, lay her head down, and lay her bloody palm against her Aunt Alexa's arm. He would have seen the green glow grow around her like a growing blaze and watched it feed into the flow of the other.
His brow might have tightened with pain to hear her murmur, "Queen Frigga, watch over me…", and would have watched her gasp, her eyes growing wide, before they rolled back and fell closed.
The king might have seen this all, but he did not.
After he had barred the doors to the throne room, he had all but thrown himself onto the throne, and now his piercing eye focused with unwavering intensity on his beloved mortal goddess.
On the Tesseract's blue magic coursing, invisible, insidious, through the world around her, urging anything that lived and moved to converge on her.
On the same magic that pulsed, incarcerated, in the mark he had fashioned for her on her brow, an absolute protection that would turn against anything that unsettled her by turning it against itself, and that would soon turn against her as well if she could not control it.
On the same woman upon whom the Solbergs, young and old, now poured their strength, magic, and all their hope, at the risk of their very lives.
All of them silently begging of her the same thing.
"Norns, be kind," king breathed. "Jane, please… make the right choice."
.
The attacks began slowly. Small things. People scowling at her. Muttering insults or threats as she walked by. Bumping her with their shoulders. Shoving her aside as they moved past. They were gone too quickly for her to react.
Or else she would have figured it out sooner, and at long last: the nature of the protection that uruz provided.
The assaults became more intense as Jane moved more quickly through the unknown streets, glancing furtively over her hunched shoulders, walking as fast as her feet would carry her without actually running. Every hair on her body was standing on end, every instinct telling her to run and hide. Like a prey animal knows the shadow of the thing that it will eat it without ever seeing the predator that cast it, she knew she was being stalked for the kill. She was a rabbit fleeing through a forest filled with hawks, wolves, and snakes, all slavering for a mouthful of her.
A group of unattended school children, still in their uniforms and backpacks as they walked home, started throwing pencils and wadded up bits of paper at her back, shouting childish taunts at her. Her forehead burned and she whirled around and pinned them with an unfriendly look. The instant her eyes fell on them, they dropped the projectiles in their hands and scattered, bursting into tears as they ran into shops and around nearby buildings.
Two old women seated at a wrought-iron table outside a café called her rude names in faux whispers, and one upended her cup of tea onto the sidewalk, nearly dousing Jane's legs in the scalding liquid. "Excuse me!" Jane snapped tersely, more angry at the pressure behind her eyes than the woman's seeming carelessness, and watched, miserably wary and nonplussed, as the women hunched their shoulders and clutched their handbags more tightly in their laps, watching her with scandalized expressions on their pinched faces, as though fearing she'd try to mug them.
A few steps later, a teenage boy in a rock and roll tee-shirt stuck his foot out to trip her. She stumbled, pinwheeling her arms, her coffee flying out of her hands to splatter on the pavement. She whimpered, angry and embarrassed and turned to tell him off as he offered her an ugly sneer while his friends laughed at her. Both the sneer and the laughter quickly fell away as the ringing in her ears spiked and the shadows of the buildings stretched out unnaturally over his shoulder. Before she could speak, the boys were off on their skateboards, watching her over their shoulders with sullen, fearful expressions as they fled.
Jane was breathing too fast, and her forehead was on fire. Fear and uncertainty kept her from questioning what was going on, or she might have talked herself into calling it a streak of bad luck and paranoia. But the shadows were reaching, and she didn't have the luxury of a free moment to rationalize. She could only accept what was in front of her.
Something was hunting her.
Hunting the beast. Uruz.
And the beast, somehow, was driving them all back.
In her mind, she saw pixels on a screen, the fearsome image of the aurochs charging the hunter.
…in legend, it embodied the epitome of wildness and the danger that nature presents to mankind, despite all our efforts to tame it… known to have extremely aggressive temperaments. Killing one was seen as a great act of courage in ancient cultures…
Mankind fears the aurochs. The aurochs is fear.
Uruz is fear…
What better protection, than to be the scariest monster in the nightmare…?
Jane looked around wildly, gasping for breath through the tightening in her throat. The people on the street glared back. Furious and predatory. And under that, afraid.
Enemies.
Hunters.
The shadows of the buildings lengthened again, spreading across her path like liquid darkness reaching out to embrace her. Jane skittered back from them, catching her foot on the curb as she stumbled into the street. A horn blared and she shrieked as a car screeched to a halt millimeters from her left hip. Dizzied, she leaned on the hot hood, searching through the rising terror for some solution, some escape, some way out.
"What the hell is wrong with you!" the driver snarled, throwing his car door open, his face contorted with rage.
Jane looked up at him from under her brow, her eyes wide and hard with fear. From the corners of her vision the shadows writhed, bowing inward like tentacles made of ink to wrap themselves over the car. The driver didn't seem to notice. He was staring at her, white as a sheet at whatever he saw burning in her eyes.
"Shit… Jesus Christ, what…"
Jane shook her head, frightened by that frightened look. I'm not a monster, she wanted to say. I'm not the beast. I'm just a person, just like you… She pushed herself upright and took a hesitant step forward, reaching out, begging wordlessly. The driver nearly tripped over his own feet backing away.
"Please…" Jane said, her voice pleading.
"No! Don't hurt me!" the driver shrilled, raising his hands. "Just take it. Take it!"
He turned without another word and ran, abandoning the car with the door still open and the engine running.
They were hunting her, but when she turned her attention on them – the eyes of the beast - they became the prey. It wasn't right. It was so hard to think but she knew, she knew that she wasn't a predator.
Yes you are. Choose. This is who you are.
"She's stealing that car!" someone shouted, anger and disgust twisting the words into something ugly, even though Jane had made no move to do so. "Somebody stop her! Call the police!"
That cry was a pebble setting off an avalanche. Jane dashed a glance around her. A crowd was gathering from all sides, just a few short torches and a rope short of a lynch mob, and to her eyes they all seemed to loom and contort strangely with the shadows of the buildings, distorting hideously in the edges of her vision, only to morph back into normal men, women and children when she looked at them head on.
Terrified people.
Enraged people.
And yet… not…
There was a glazed, ravenous glitter in their eyes as they converged on her, abandoning their bags and brief cases on the side walks, dropping their coffee cups or candy bars from careless fingers, pulling their cars over and getting out to stalk closer with singular, hostile intent. As they zeroed in on her, dozens of sets of eyes pinning her with the same deadly focus, it seemed as though one mind ruled them. One compulsion making them mindless as zombies. And just as hungry.
As one, their eyes flashed with blue fire.
Her gut clenched and her heart hammered. What was happening?
There was a small break in the crowd to her left. She didn't stop to think; she ran for it, pushing past anyone who tried to stand in her way. Many recoiled, screaming, as though she truly were a charging aurochs. A brave few reached out for her, grabbing at her clothes, yanking at her hair, scratching at her arms, striking at her back.
"Don't!" Jane screamed.
Her voice sounded no different to her ears, but the people reacted as though it were a lion's roar, scrambling back, pushing and knocking each other over in a desperate bid to get away, only to stop, hovering, several feet from her, torn between their fear and their rage. Between running from her, and trying to kill her.
She wanted to stop, reach out to them, reason with them, beg them to open their eyes and see her, but deep down she knew they couldn't. They couldn't.
Something had gone wrong with the universe, and all they could see was prey. The beast.
So she ran.
They do see you. Choose. This is who you are.
She made it around two corners and into a wide alley between two old brick buildings before it hit her.
The thoughts that were going through her head… The ones that dogged her constantly, shaming and harrying her whenever she tried to think around them… They had changed.
This is who you are.
Not 'this is who I am'… not anymore.
How often, it suddenly occurred to her to wonder, had she thought that phrase in the past weeks? Often enough to disturb her, strongly enough that she had denied it out loud more than once…
Now…
Choose. This is who you are.
A chill ran up her spine. The thought wasn't her own... Someone was speaking inside her mind, with her own mental voice...
"What is this…" she seethed, breathing too hard, furious so that she didn't have to face the horror of it. "Loki, what have you…"
An instant later, her rage faltered. No… no that wasn't right.
The ache behind her eyes and the ringing in her ears tried to subsume her, and her forehead burned so hot that she reached up, certain she would encounter flames, but she battled it all back with a ferocious feat of will. She had to think…
The eyes flashing with blue light. The cold black shadows. The pull to hunt her. The push to fear her.
Duality.
There was more than one force at work here. More than one will… And it was all part of uruz…
No… that's not right either… think..
Loki had said the mark wasn't to control her.
"You are not meant to be ruled…"
Loki's word wasn't worth much but…
Jane made herself stop, panting, and leaned against the dirty brick wall of the alley to pull the golden disc out of her pocket. Hagalaz still hung around her neck. It had been her life line. But somehow, sometime, without her knowing it, the golden sun had become her talisman. She stared at it, weighing her logic, her intuition and her instincts. And on some level, her faith.
She'd believed the runes were asking her for an alliance; asking her to choose his side. And she still did. But now… a new meaning arose from naudiz, gebo and sowulo. A need to be filled, a gift that breeds loyalty, and the healing sun… she stared at the runes in her hand.
Reading the riddle yet again in a new way.
If the mark was not meant to control her… if it really was meant to protect her, as Loki said, and as the evidence bore out… What if…
"Why did he use blue magic instead of green?" she whispered to the shadows. What if… "The blue magic of the Tesseract… the Tesseract he hates and fears… he said so... so..."
What if he hadn't had a choice?
A wild idea was forming within the chaos inside her mind, jumping at shadows as she battled down her rising temper. What if it wasn't just external danger it was supposed to protect her from? The mark was Loki's creation. But the magic came from… the Tesseract!
Loki's voice echoed out of that stormy night and the quiet of the hotel room.
"…my want of you was touched by the whispers of the Tesseract itself… there was no part of me that hideous blue fire did not singe…"
Her memory showed her the reflection of the mark in Alexa's mirror. Uruz was the shape of the magic. But the magic itself… shining out from inside as though… as though it had already been there before her skin had been cut open to reveal it…
Her eyes widened. Clutching the golden disc so hard that her hand shook, she tilted her head back and turned them towards the sky, and the vast expanse of the universe that lay invisible beyond. She could be wrong… but what if… what if...
The world flashed blue once more, and once again images of the dream overlaid waking reality. She was cowering against the spongy wall of the dream tunnel; the fissure in the brain. The beast was coming, rising from the pit to chase her down. She could see its shadow looming from around the bend, growing longer and darker by the moment.
There was no way to be sure who or what was attacking her. But it seemed clear that the beast was there to protect her, and someone… something out there… was knowingly calling it up out of the depths, and turning it against the people around her.
Faces flashed through her memory; the sour man in the blue blazer, the curvy girl in the park; Darcy, her eyes wide with fear; the children crying, the boys fleeing, the old women recoiling, the driver running from her.
All of them being pulled and pushed like marionettes. Used like they didn't matter. Moved around the board like pawns, their free will, peace of mind, and safety sacrificed for pieces that someone else thought were more important.
A hot, righteous anger that had nothing to do with uruz blossomed to tighten her chest and suffuse her blood, settling in to straighten her spine. Nothing about this was right. Nothing about this was okay. She couldn't let this go on.
Not when there might be something she could do about it.
She could smell the rain, somewhere nearby. Close enough to reach out and touch.
A cloying terror tried to close her throat as she remembered the feeling of sinking into the floor like so much slaughtered meat, dead of all sensation or care, utterly inert… Tears tried to start in her eyes, but she blinked them back.
Courage. Hadn't she faced worse things than this? No… that was the trouble. All of the enemies she'd faced – SHIELD, the Destroyer, the Kursed, Malekith, even the Aether – were something she could fight. The rain was inside her; there was nothing to oppose; it wasn't the enemy, it was the solution. All she could do was surrender to it, and that was far more terrifying.
Her stomach clenched with fear, and she defied it. She couldn't let this happen. She couldn't give in without a fight.
In the vision of the tunnel, her mind filled with the stinging cold, and she could smell the rain nearby. She turned her head, and saw the tunnel's end, and beyond it, the storm. Banishing fear like ripping off a band-aid, she pushed forward and ran to the precipice, stumbling to a halt on the brink. Steadying herself with a hand on the crusty white rim of the hole in the cliff face, she made herself stand still and let the rain sting her.
The ringing in her ears dimmed. The tips of her ears and fingers felt numb as the rain began to mist through her.
In the waking world, she shivered and clutched the golden disc closer as the anesthetic cold began to tingle across her skin.
"Who… what are you?" she demanded of the empty sky, even though on some level she already knew. "What do you want?"
"I'll start with that shiny toy you've got in your hand, sweetheart," a gravely voice replied.
Jane startled and whipped her head around to find herself surrounded. In her struggle against the enemy inside, she'd forgotten about the dangers without. Hard-eyed, dangerous-looking men melted out of the shadows around her, circling her narrow little patch of sunlight like wolves creeping up through the darkness on a dying campfire.
"What… what do you want?"
The speaker stepped forward; a stocky, broad-shouldered man with a shadow of whiskers and cold, hollow, predatory eyes. She heard a soft, distinctive click, and her eyes went wide as they darted down to see a huge silver gun in his hand, the hammer cocked.
Oddly, her first thought was that it was a beautiful weapon, clearly custom made, too pretty to have such an ugly purpose. She didn't know why she thought so; probably because she was too numb to think of anything else. The rain was still creeping up on her, stealing her fury and her fear. But when he ran his hand over the length of the gun in a gesture that struck Jane as somehow sexual, even the rain could not hold back the wash of visceral horror it evoked. Her stomach clenched with a new kind of fear as she realized fully the position she was in, and her eyes darted around the closing circle, and she saw in an instant that several of the men were armed; a knife, a crowbar, a length of steel cord...
"You don't listen very well, do you?" the man said softly, a poisonous mockery of sweetness curdling his tone as he stepped into her – scorning her helplessness. He smelled like old cigarettes and whiskey. She cringed away from him, clinging to the scent of rain as she felt the beast begin to rise. He struck out, grabbing her chin hard in his free hand. She wanted to shove him away, but her arms and legs felt numb now, and she had to lean against the building just to remain upright. "I'll teach you to heed me." He dug his fingers into her face and gave her head a rough shake before he let go. "I said, I'll start with that pretty trinket. And then…" his eyes raked down her body, and flashed blue for an instant. She began to shiver as he raised the massive gun to run the length of the barrel along her cheek and down her neck, so that the end of it nestled under her jaw. "…we'll just see where we go from there."
The other men chuckled darkly and exchanged a knowing look amongst themselves, some smirking, others leering, yet others losing all expression, their eyes dead of human compassion, divorcing themselves from what they were about to do. It was clear this wasn't the first time they had done this. Jane swallowed hard as she realized they weren't like the others. At least, not entirely. Maybe they had been drawn in by whatever was attacking her. Maybe it had them in its grip too. But these men were predators by nature. By choice.
She glanced hastily up the alley, and saw no one on the street in either direction. No one was coming. She wasn't sure they'd help her now if they did. She was struck again with that wild idea that she'd had during the storm that night in Manhattan; if there were thunder, if it could reach her, Thor would appear to protect her. But there was no thunder. Only a dwindling patch of sunlight and the growing shadows. She was alone.
"Hand it over."
The man with the gun reached for the golden disc. Jane's fingers tightened reflexively around it. Something in her, something afraid and irrational, felt suddenly that if she could hold onto it, she could survive this. He tried to pry it from her fingers. When she resisted, he laughed, for all the world like a cat batting around a mouse that it was in no hurry to eviscerate, and the sound made her want to cry, even though she could no longer feel panic through the creeping quiet of the rain rising inside.
His hand abandoned the disc and instead found her breast, pinching it roughly through the fabric of her shirt, removing any lingering doubt about what he intended to do to her.
"No!" she whimpered, shoving him back, letting her fingernails rake at his arm as she did so, and clutching the gold disc tighter to her chest, feebly shielding it and her body at the same time. She was so numb now, the sensation of the rain washing away the pain and anger. All that was left of her was a blunted knot of fear, and even that was beginning to fade to grey around the edges.
"Stupid woman," the man spat, hissing at the red lines she'd drawn on his forearms. Drawing back the hand with the gun, he brought it down hard across her face.
Jane cried out as her head was knocked sideways against the brick and the world danced and swam with stars. She tasted the blood on her tongue. The golden disc slipped from her fingers, clattering onto the pavement. She saw it, as though from a long way off, roll away between the legs of her attackers to clatter to a halt against the far wall of the alley. Her eyes shifted and fell on one of the men turning a six inch blade in his hand, as though eager to do something with it. She saw another tugging his belt loose from its buckle, and beginning to work on the button of his denims.
"Don't you get it?" the ringleader said, derisive laughter and a mock disbelief in his gravely voice. "She doesn't get it, boys."
They all laughed ominously along with their leader, closing in around her, their eyes shining with blue light. The ringleader turned back to her, his face twisted with an ugly sneer.
"You don't have a choice."
The words hit her like fist in the gut. She sucked in a deep breath, her eyes widening and her lips parted.
In the distance, she heard the ringing start up in her ears once more. The pain behind her eyes throbbed with the beat of her heart.
Choose.
If she didn't do something, she was going to die here.
Choose.
Jane raised her face and met the man's menacing gaze. Her fear was gone. So were her doubts. But she was no longer numb.
Her eyes were hard. They flashed with blue fire.
She had no choice?
Choose.
"Yes," she hissed. "I do."
The scent of rain slipped away, and she let it go.
A breeze stirred the air around them as the ringing in her ears returned and ramped up. But this time she heard it differently, and knew it for what it was – the enraged bovine roar of the charging beast. The ache behind her eyes became a pressure, a press of something straining to break free.
The expression on the man's face changed. Went blank. Then drew in. The others had stopped advancing, and they were glancing amongst each other, uncertain. The ringleader backed away a few steps. Shaking his head, he startled back and raised the gun.
"Goddamn bloody bitch," he snarled, but his voice faltered, and he inched back, retreating even as he tried to intimidate her. The wind picked up, swirling around them in buffeting gusts. "You… stop it. Fucking stop it! You… damn it… you do as you're told!"
Jane, blue fire burning visible on her brow and flashing like hellfire in the dark of her pupils, didn't bat an eye as she stared past the black hole of the barrel leveled at her face. She didn't care about it. She didn't care about what was happening to her, to the people around her, to the natural order of the universe. She didn't care who might get hurt, or who might be doing the hurting.
But not because of the rain. The rain was long gone now, distant as a dream.
She wasn't numb now. She was angry. They had touched her. Laughed at her. Hurt her.
And they were not going to touch her. Ever. Again.
She stepped away from the wall, farther into the alley, into the wind which climbed to a furious howl. They retreated further, battered back by the onslaught of the wind, which danced through her hair, raising it to slither around her head like snakes. She watched, fascinated from beyond the borders of her rage, as a pulsing blue radiance flickered out of her flesh to shine over them, painting their now undeniably fearful expressions in cold sapphire hues. She advanced another step, and watched a shadow fall across them, as though from behind her, deeper black than the shadows of the alley, wide enough to swallow them all.
A shadow with lyre-shaped horns.
Jane knew that if she looked over her shoulder, there would be nothing there. Uruz was not behind her. It was inside her.
The shadows rose like black geysers, triumphant, to sluice over everything in sight. The sun still shone overhead, but the blue sky faded to black as its light was swallowed, overpowered and defeated. The yellow inferno of the sun was still visible in the sky. But it had no power to illuminate here any longer. Night fell within the alley.
And still the shadow with lyre-shaped horns cast a darker black over the men who had thought to harm her. Painted with blue flame, they cried out, some cowering against the far wall, others falling to their knees, some holding up their hands in mortal terror, others simply frozen with fear, like mice under the gleaming blue talons of a hawk. None of them thought to run. Who could run from this? This was uruz, the aurochs, the beast that had embodied all primal fear, the creeping horror of the darkness beyond the edge of the campfire, the death of any who stood before it. The shadow that is the last thing the prey sees before claws and fangs and mortal agony steal their sight. They could do nothing but cower and wait to be eaten.
Jane cast her eyes around the circle of moaning, trembling, whimpering men, until they fixed with cruel finality upon the ringleader. Their eyes met, and she stared down into his terror.
"No…" he whispered. Begged. "No, please, no…" he backed away, shaking his head desperately, wavering like a brittle leaf about to fall. "Please, God, no… no… Don't! No!" Tears leaked from his eyes, clinging to the stubble on his cheeks and shining blue in the fire.
There was a stinging on her arm, pulling ineffectually at her attention. Jane ignored it.
Liar. Cheater. Jealous. Ruthless. Selfish. Guilty. Betrayer.
Angry, cruel, vengeful, dangerous. Beast.
This is who you are.
Jane cocked her head, studying the violent man in front of her, reduced to this gibbering wreck through fury and fire. She didn't see a human being anymore, just a contemptible braying creature quivering with fear. She took another experimental step towards him.
"NO!" he shrieked, "Not that! God, not that! NO!"
Blue fire flashed on sliver as the gun swung up and exploded in the darkness, the flash quickly swallowed by unnatural night. There was a deafening report. The men screamed and cringed, afraid of everything that moved or sounded under the shadow of uruz.
Blood sprayed across Jane's face.
The man before her slumped to the ground in a twitching heap. Safe now forever from the fear of the beast. The side of his face was gone, a ragged meaty hole glistening wetly in its place. The silver gun, smoke still rising from its massive barrel, clattered from his dead fingers onto the pavement.
Jane reached up to touch her forehead. She could feel the hot outline of uruz burning there. Her hand came away shaking, covered in sticky red, little chunks of red and gray tissue clinging to her fingertips. She shook her head as tears started in her eyes.
"This isn't me…"
She looked around herself again at the men arrayed around her in fear, shivering in the aberrant night-black wind, most of them on the ground, their legs unable to hold them under the weight of mind-stealing dread. The beast, sated with its kill, let her see clearly for a moment.
These were terrible people. Thieves. Murderers. Rapists. Evil. They deserved to be afraid. They deserved to be devoured.
One man was curled up against the wall, biting his nails down to the quick until they bled. Another sat rocking back and forth, staring sightlessly. A third appeared to be praying, tears streaming down his face. Another was in danger of crushing his own eyes as he pressed the heels of his hands into the sockets, his head jerking back and forth, so that it was no longer an expression of denial so much as a nervous tick, neurons firing at random as his mind rejected what his senses told him. Several had lost control of their bladders, their pant legs stained dark with wet.
All of them, their eyes flickering with blue fire, stared out of the depths of their own helplessness at her with a hate that rivaled the blaze burning on her brow.
She had done this. Reduced these vicious predators to whimpering, pathetic piles of stinking terror. And they deserved whatever they got. But…
She had done this.
"This isn't me."
The world flashed blue.
Again the alley was gone. She was alone in the tunnel in her mind, perched on the precipice. The storm raged outside, lashing stinging cold against her face, and the beast's hot, heaving breath sprayed saliva against the back of her neck.
The world flashed again, and she was back in the alley.
Time stood still, and she saw the choice in front of her with plain, brutal clarity.
The moment had come. Choose.
She could choose the beast. It would save her life. And she would become something worse than these evil men. A true monster.
Or she could choose to leap into the rain, allow the rage and fear to be washed away, reject the destruction of the aurochs. But the moment these men were free of the beast's fury, they would fall on her like the animals they were and tear her apart. And she would lay there, a lifeless doll, and let them.
The world flashed again, flickering faster and faster between the vision of the tunnel and the reality of the alley, until somehow she could see both worlds at once with her waking eyes. She was in two places at once and running out of time in both.
This is who you are. Choose.
The words struck a cord in her, ringing with a strange, chilling truth that had not occurred to her before.
"This is who I am?"
Shivering, she slowly turned inside her mind. With growing dread, she made herself look into the beast's rolling, bloodshot eyes.
And knew that the voiceless voice was right.
The beast had risen from inside her. The mark had given it a form, but it wasn't alien to her. Its rage tasted familiar. It was part of her: the culmination of everything she'd ever felt when her peers had shunned her, when her colleagues had laughed at her, when he ex had dumped her like she was nothing, when SHIELD had taken everything from her…
…and yes, when Thor had abandoned her, left her waiting uncertain and alone for two years of her life…
"It doesn't change you," Loki's voice whispered insidiously in her mind. "It reveals you." She shivered to look into the ugliness of her own darkness, mesmerized. "No one should be forced to face themselves as it makes you do…"
Her forearm stung like the slash of a blade. Jane hissed, distracted, and glanced down. The shimmering green light of laguz had flared to life on her skin. It seemed… dimmer than it had before. Fainter. But it burned steadily.
"He is dangerous, but he may be more than that." Alexa's memory whispered through her. "And so might you."
The blue pulsed through the fleshy tunnel walls. Blue lightening flashed in the rain storm at her back. She felt a few drops of rain catch against her shoulders and her hair, clinging like stones and linking together, chains to drag her down into the void.
And that was her too, she realized. The rain was her too.
It was the part of her that had so often let the disappointment or disapproval of others subdue her… Erik… her mother… the part of her that bore the brunt of other peoples' disdain, numbing her as she let their derision and dissatisfaction seep inside, believing them, doubting herself, letting others rule her through shame while sweeping her anger under the rug… and, she saw with a measure of pain, the part of her that numbed the pain of Thor's abandonment so that she could go on with him as though it hadn't happened - so that she could try to build a foundation with him, without having to face it. No wonder she couldn't trust...
These were both her.
This is who you are.
Choose.
So this was her choice. A hollow, aching gulf opened inside her, and she felt herself weaken. The temptation to fold on herself and give in was nearly overwhelming. Of course this was her choice. These things were her. This was who she was.
"Don't you see it?" Laguz sizzled on her arm, drawing out of her growing despair. "How little we see ourselves… There is more than one path up the mountain."
Green light glinted off of gold in the corner of her eye. In the alley, the rune for the healing sun glinted at her from the dirt against the far wall.
Thor's voice, haloed in sunlight, echoed in her mind, drawing her further out of the darkness inside as she furrowed her brow.
"When we are honest, we see only the worst in ourselves…"
"It doesn't change you… it reveals you…"
"…the trick is to seek what is best, while remaining honest."
Somewhere inside, there was a balance scale swinging wildly, its hanging platforms swaying and jangling. Crashing into each other as it seesawed.
"There is more than one way up the mountain."
The balance platforms swung farther, twisting around each other...
Choose.
Jane gasped. And she saw it.
The balance had two sides. But it was still one scale.
Uruz wasn't the beast or the rain.
It was both the beast and the rain.
"This is me…" she whispered. And there it was. Another way up the mountain.
In the tunnel of her mind, she flung one arm out into the raging storm. Rain struck her and clung, linking in heavy globs, solidifying into heavy blue chains that hung with cold, deadening weight on the crook of her arm. The weight pulled her off balance, and she stumbled sideways, teetering precariously over the edge.
The beast snorted furiously at the sight of its quarry moving away. It screamed, lowering its lyre-shaped horns, and charged.
"This…" Jane grunted between gritted teeth, hauling the heavy chains made of rain into the tunnel with her, facing the beast head on, "… is who I am!"
With a primal shout, she hurled the chains over the beast's head. They shot deep, farther than her meager strength should have carried them, and snapped hard around the great aurochs horns. The beast roared, its eyes rolling, foam frothing at its maw, as its head was dragged down like an anchor against the spongy tunnel floor.
Jane blinked hard, refocusing on the alleyway as her thoughts suddenly cleared.
Uruz still burned on her head, the unnatural night it had created still heavy around her.
But the shadow of the aurochs had vanished.
The men had stopped crying and screaming and rocking. Jane wondered briefly what she must look like to them, standing in a whirlwind of black wind and blue fire, her brow shining and her face painted with blood. They were staring at her, fear and wonder making a strange, alien mix on their faces. She forgot the question a moment later, as her sight cleared and solidified.
Loki stood amongst them.
.
TBC…
.
A/N: Loki just loves to turn up for a cliffhanger, doesn't he? Heh heh heh... what do you think? Has Jane found the solution to her problems? Or is this battle just beginning? I really hope this turned out alright, the muse has been beating this chapter into submission with a mallet for over a week now, but it never feels quite finished. I'm depending on you to tell me if he's made a colossal mess of it. Any comments or constructive criticism are most welcome! More story to come soon!