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x.
The experience of inter dimensional travel would have been breathtaking, if not for the effect it had upon the human body. Having yet to master such a way of travel it was no surprise to Jane why her race had not been subjected to it. She had been instructed to close her eyes and just hold on to him, but curiosity, as it often did with Jane prevailed over her sense of self preservation.
She saw alien universes flash by and stars unknown and planets not yet traveled by her kind, but the longer they traveled the tight crushing pressure around her entire being increased and seemed to try to pull her back and forwards at once, and Jane knew had it not been for her arms around the Asgardian Prince she'd have shattered into millions of invisible pieces to the human eye.
She couldn't begin to explain this phenomenon in her mind and just as it seemed she'd been traveling the stars for eternity she stopped.
Jane blinked.
One moment there had been so much space and lights and color and distance and then suddenly a white so blinding that she finally had closed her eyes. Feebly she blinked against the visual whiplash and as her vision began to clear she realized she was kneeling in a grand and golden room.
As Jane began to stand she realized that though her vision had returned, her balance had not. Suddenly, there were hands steadying her, gripping her shoulders firmly but gently, she glanced behind her to be greeted by the warm demeanor of the thunder god.
Jane's eyes did not linger on him longer than necessary to return a thankful smile; hungrily they scoured the room around her. Taking in all the elaborate carvings of the golden walls and the glass floor of ethereal design, and as her eyes impatiently devoured the sights around her their feast halted. Not by the grand golden cladded armored guard, which she assumed from the tales she'd read was Heimdale.
No, what paused Jane's mortal curiosity was the unfaltering gaze of beryl eyes from across the room.
He stood with an air of indifference as if he had stood in halls grander than this his whole life, those impossible green eyes… the haughty gaze that had stopped her mind finally flickered off lazily towards a doorway that lead to more of this strange world she'd just stepped into.
When had she begun to think his eyes were impossibly green? And when had his gaze begun to make her heart beat speed up?
Jane furrowed her brow and seemed to no longer be staring at the glorious room around her, lost in her own thoughts and confounded by her sudden and alarmingly peculiar response to Loki.
"Jane," She felt Thor's had on her shoulder again and she turned to him. "Are you alright?" He seemed to be searching not just her eyes but her whole body for some sign she was damaged in some way.
"Oh," She realized she must have seemed so off to Thor, so quiet that he had begun to worry. "I'm fine! This…This is…amazing…" she added breathily as a smile spread across her face, she now began to walk around the room and to study the designs all around her.
She heard Thor's deep laugh, one she knew without looking that would give him a smile that could command an entire room's attention.
"I am glad you think it so, Jane," He walked up next to her and smiled out at the overlook to the galaxies they'd left behind them. "I would like the opportunity to show you more of Asgard but that day is not today." Jane pulled her gaze from the stars and back to Thor at the sudden seriousness in his tone, he was no longer gazing at the stars but past Jane towards Loki.
"Loki and I have urgent business with our father." Immediately she heard a derisive snort from Loki as Thor began to walk around Heimdale, who since their arrival had not let his gaze shift from the exiled prince.
Jane followed Thor around Heimdale's post as they and Loki began to walk out onto the rainbow bridge and towards the city. Loki said nothing and did not give Jane another glance the entire walk up the bridge and into the city, the beauty of Asgard continued to amaze her but was ruined slightly due to the severity by which she came to the city.
Danger.
That is why she and Loki had been whisked away to the Realm Eternal.
x.
Jane lay back on a lavishly made bed in the rich colors of red and gold, such was the color scheme of the entire room she was in. Thor had instructed a guard to take her to these quarters as he and Loki had made for another part of the palace, Loki had continued walking as Thor stopped and spoke to Jane before continued his trek to, what she assumed was the throne room of the Allfather.
"I will not be too long, I hope but.." he shook his head slightly as if unsure what to say.
"It's okay, I get it. Family issues." Jane gave him a reassuring smile. "I'll see you when I see you."
Thor gave her a warm smile and placed a hand at her cheek, "Jane Foster, if all women were but as understanding as you, not a man would be without a wife."
Jane was momentarily speechless and then broke into a laugh.
"I do not jest." He was still smiling but seemed slightly unsure of her reaction.
Now laying on the bed and thinking about this she laughed to herself, Thor was so sweet but she knew though his compliments were as lavish as the room she now lay in, she knew they were just the token of friendship, the look he gave her now was different than the one she'd seen back in the desert those years ago…before he left.
She then propped herself up by her elbows as she considered how then she'd have been in Thor's arms the moment she'd have seen him today, but she was no longer that girl.
Jane had changed from the spellbound woman of the desert, enchanted by the God who fell from the sky. Waiting for a man that never came for her had broken her heart and she was the type of person that once she moved on, that was it.
There was no second chances.
x.
Hours ticked by in the palace room since her reprieve into what her relationship with Thor was now and she conveniently avoided any thoughts of his brother by beginning to explore her chambers. There had not been many books and those that were there were in a language she could not read.
She'd considered taking a bath but was afraid if she had someone would come looking for her or walk in on her, the bath could wait.
There was three rooms in her chamber, initially when you walk in there was a small sitting room then through a set of large red doors engraved with gold was a large bed chamber and to the right of those doors was the opening to a large bath.
At first she had decided she'd stay in the chamber and await Thor's return, but as the hours ticked by and her mind began to wonder and get bored, she became curious.
Curiosity and boredom was always a bad combo for Jane as those two things together had often gotten her into massive amounts of trouble in the past.
She was pacing in the sitting room, watching the door and waiting for a knock from Thor or a guard but none came. She had glanced out of the balcony on the far side of her room just twenty minutes before she had begun her fervent watch of the door and that beautiful blue sky had been magenta, Jane was sure that by now it nighttime.
That had been her promise to herself, she'd wait till Thor or someone called on her to leave unless it hit nighttime and if no one had returned for her then she would venture out in search of answers.
Certainly she was curious about the palace from the perspective of an outsider, but she was more concerned as to why Asgard was safer for her than her home planet. If Earth was in danger she needed to know.
Resigning herself to this personal crusade of answers she opened the doors, the hallways were now lit by hundreds of torches on either side of the hallways. She closed the door quietly behind her and began to walk back the way she had come.
After a while Jane began to realize that she must've missed a turn, all the hallways in this section of the palace looked identical to her. She wanted to turn back, but now unfortunately she had forgotten from which way she came. Initially she had made sure to remember which way she turned, but after a while her mind had begun to wonder that she stopped paying attention to the lefts and rights.
But curiosity as usual overpowered her sense of worry or anxiety, if Thor called upon her now he'd realize she was gone and send word to find her, she was certain and she was also certain she'd be found almost immediately.
Jane suddenly stepped from the hallway into a grand room with hundreds of pillars on either side of it, which opened up to a wraparound balcony; the room had the same ethereal floors of the room on the Bi-frost. And its large golden ceiling arched to the heavens with its height and the pillars were ornately carved with some of the most beautiful artwork she'd ever seen.
Jane absentmindedly tucked her hair behind her ear as she stared up at the ceiling above her as she walked across the large room towards a balcony. Upon closer inspection the ceiling itself was not just painted one solid color but was beautifully given darker shades of gold and even browns, looking like the stage of some celestial play above her.
Jane turned her gaze from the ceiling towards the world outside the place walls as she stepped through a pair of pillars and out onto a balcony, the sky will still magenta. Perhaps Asgard's night was not as dark as her own back on Earth. It seemed to Jane that no matter what time of the day, it was beautiful here. She leaned against the stone ledge and marveled at what lay below her, expansive gardens of many kinds though it was hard to tell due to nightfall though she did see what could only be the outline of an elaborate maze and beyond the gardens was a thick forest. It reminded her of the black forest of Germany back on earth, like so many of the forests she'd read in fairytales.
"I could be wrong,"
Jane froze once more her reprieve was broken and by him again, though she did not turn, she hadn't need to. Perhaps she had been so wrapped up in the view to hear him walk up, but it was more likely he had already been here.
"But I'm fairly you're not supposed to be here." She heard his steps now, light and measured as he came from behind her somewhere to her right. Jane's mouth felt dry, she knew she did not need to fear Loki but for some reason it felt like everything that had transpired on earth was inconsequential now, almost as if it had never happened. But what had really happened?
But she was pulled away from her thoughts by his voice once more, this time it was closer and she could feel his breathe tickle her right ear as he spoke.
"So tell me Jane Foster what are you doing?"
He was right behind her.
One moment she was frozen in fear and uncertainty, but something snapped and her confidence returned and her voice, so she turned around and faced him.
Loki stared down at her, seemingly unperturbed by her sudden motion, his face an unreadable mask as he stared down, waiting patiently it would seem for her response.
"I want to know why I was brought to Asgard."
Loki was now in his gold plated armored outfit over a tunic of green and black slacks, his black hair pushed back from his face and tucked behind his ears and for moments Jane stared and awaited his response until finally he deigned to offer his response.
"I imagine your dear prince Thor will inform you of the situation."
The look on his face was nearly unreadable and it wouldn't have been had it not been for the look of complete distain in Loki's eyes as he looked down at her or the grimace that toyed with the edge of his mouth.
"What's your problem?"
His eyebrows shot up and a looks of amusement sudden took his features, he then began to circle her slightly, she turned with him, not letting her eyes leave him. She now felt like the stalked prey of some beast, it seemed Loki's moods were like matchsticks. Flickering to and out so fast she was uncertain what mood had just took him, though if the way he was looking at her gave her any clue, she would guess mischief.
"My problem," he mused his deep lilting accent breaking the night's silence around them, he paused and stared at Jane a moment, his grin unfaltering. "It seems to me that you are the one with the problem, you're universes away from home," his eyes narrowed, and his grin turned cruel as his next words left his lips in clipped staccato, "And yet, here you stand toe to toe with a god, questioning him as if he were some mere mortal as yourself."
Jane was not easily threatened and she knew how powerful Loki was, but she also knew she was on Asgard. And on Asgard under the protection of Thor, she was safe and Loki was still powerless.
So Jane dared.
She took a step forward closing the small gap between them, Loki's glare softened slightly only by cause of his own confusion, Jane slowly tilted her head as if measuring him up. She placed her left hand on his forearm, immediately his head tilted down to look at his arm then back to her face. He did not pull away from her, his resolved mask gone to that of uncertainty. It was the same look she'd seen, if only for half a second that night weeks ago back on earth.
He looked down at her hand again, his eyebrows pulled together and his bravado gone.
x.
He was closer to her than he'd been in weeks and in that time it seemed, starving himself of glances from her that somehow she had become more mesmerizing. So when she had placed her hand on his forearm, that small delicate hand, that his mask of perfectly calculated disinterest began to crumble.
Warmth he'd never felt seemed to come from the point of her contact and he could hear his heart thumping in his ears.
For centuries his mind had been busy, no plagued with war and mischief and his heart had been closed off and when he had been kicked from the walls of his home on Asgard to Earth this had solidified his resolve. He wanted to bring Asgard to its knees before him and that was his driving purpose and had been since he'd discovered his life had been a lie.
But standing here in this moment with Jane's hand on his arm he could only hear his heart beat.