In Love With The Darkness

It had been two days since her last encounter with the King. Eira kept to her rooms, unable and unwilling to risk seeing him, confused and angered as she was by both her reaction to him, her weakness, and the fact that someone had betrayed her to Loki's grasp.

The only person she'd seen was Anna, who brought her meals and tried to console her despondent mistress. Eira wasn't sure why, but she couldn't even look at her.

All her preconceptions, her memories, her perceptions, were in a haze, and looking at the young woman just made her even more confused. Who was she? What was she?

Glancing around the sumptuous rooms she now languished in, she felt stifled, both physically and mentally, reminded of all that had gone wrong.

Rising from her bed, she went to one of the windows, overlooking the gardens and the lawn running down to the lake, tracing the wispy white clouds gliding across the sky, slowly darkening towards twilight.

With a surge of decisiveness, she turned to her wardrobes and fished a long cloak from its depths, slinging it around her shoulders.

It was the colour of ice and snow, a cold blue surrounded by glacial white, and draped her form like velvet water. She clasped it under her throat, the long hood hanging down her back, and rearranged her hair, tying it back and out of her face.

As soon as she stepped out into the gardens, inhaling the crisp, clean air of Norway, she felt her spirits lift. She had never been one for hiding herself away, despite the fact she had been doing that for most of her life, but that was necessity, not choice.

She just needed to think, to find some way through the morass of confusion her life had become. Jaina had once taught her to always think first, and eventually the way forward would come to her. She had struggled to remember that, cloistered in her rooms, but in the open air, the free wind lifting her curls, her mind felt free of the darkness that had clouded it for two days.

She just needed to think.

With a determined grimace, she stepped off the terrace, easily disappearing into the green veil of the gardens.

He watched her from his study window, matters that had long required his attention forgotten, as he studied her slender form, radiant in icy blue and ivory velvet, shielded from the cool northern winds.

It had been seven hundred years since he lost her, seven hundred years in which he had refused to think of her.

Refused to think of the way her golden curls, honey gold and strong, fell against her neck. Refused to remember the enthralling spell of her hazel eyes…

They had been his world once. Before the fall, before Thanos, and Jotunheim, and Odin's deception.

He flinched away from such memories. He was a King, a God of his people. He had no need for such sentimental thoughts. They did no good, and brought back pain he despised.

He had destroyed Thanos, after he had taken possession of the Tesseract and subjugated the Avengers. He had shown his 'father' he was not to be trifled with. He was invincible, unstoppable. None dared challenge him now.

Except the pathetic remnants of resistance that haunted the ruins of North America. Like a poison, they spread through his perfect world and attempted to destroy, refusing to accept he knew what was best for them.

An ironic smirk lifted the corner of his mouth, as he rested an arm on the lintel, eyes fixed on the blonde siren walking the gardens, clearly in deep reflection.

The resistance had been useful in one respect, at least. They had given him a very valuable gift, in the form of the last free magic-user. He could sense it, sense it in her every movement, her every breath. It was an intrinsic part of him, just as his had always been a part of him.

It always had been.

Eira.

He didn't know how, or why, she had come to be in the resistance, when she had died in his arms seven centuries before, nor did he understand why she could not remember her life, but he would help her remember.

And if this was some manipulative ploy of the All-Father's…then he had already planted the seeds that would bind Eira to him, as he had bound her to him before, and then he would have an ally and a consort too powerful to be controlled.

Except by him.

He remembered the shock, and the pain, he had felt as he'd met her eyes in the audience chamber, recalled the icy terror when that imbecilic brute had shot her.

He disliked that feeling. He was the King of Midgard, wielder of the Tesseract of Asgard, God of Mischief and Lies, Destroyer of Worlds. He did not feel fear.

His mind drifted back to his Queen, as he watched her stop and rest against a marble railing, looking out over the water, sparkling in the sunlight.

His Eir. His Eira. It mattered little what she called herself, because he knew her for who she truly was.

And he would help her retake her power and her destiny.

At his side, forever.

With a sly smirk, he gathered his magic and disappeared from the study.

Eira relished the cool wind, protected from its biting chill by the warm cloak shrouding her. She stroked the hard marble beneath her fingers, mind racing as she thought hard on all that had happened since she had left New York.

She could only surmise that Loki had a spy in the resistance, who sold her out. But who?

And why did he think her to be someone else? Why these odd hallucinations, these flashes of another life?

Still too many questions left unanswered. Not for the first time, she longed for the advice of Peregrine, wondered if he was alright, if Hall had told him of her failure and capture.

If he would try to rescue her. She hoped for his sake he would not.

His gaze was suddenly drawn by the proud, jet-black bird sitting on a boulder, by the water's edge, eying her beadily.

A raven.

She tensed for some unknown reason, and her eyes reminded fixed on it, until it cawed softly, and flew off.

That was the second raven she had seen in a month. There had to be an explanation.

Something was up.

Abruptly, she felt warm breath against the exposed skin of her nape, and hard arms caging her in, and shuddered. She'd hoped he would not bother her today, would not appear only to confuse her more.

"You come out at last," he breathed, his lips brushing her skin with every syllable. "I had feared you had decided to become a hermit."

Eira's laugh was sardonic. "Because that would be such a loss to you!"

"Yes, it would," he sighed against her neck, and she frowned quizzically. There he went again, acting more like a jilted lover than the tyrannical monster she knew he was.

"Why are you here?" she breathed, staying as still as possible in the circumference of his hold, eyes fixed on the glittering, rippling surface of the water.

"I am sure you have many questions. I would answer them for you, if you wished it," he replied, stepping back and offering his arm. Eira turned to face him, tall, dark and lean, clad in his usual leather garb, green eyes gleaming, and forced back her now instinctive reaction, regarding him warily.

"Very well," she murmured, taking his arm, and his offer of truce, graciously. "But don't expect me to be so loquacious in return."

Loki chuckled, shaking his head. "Please, my sweetheart, if I wanted information on the Resistance, I would have taken it by now. No, I will name my price when you are satisfied."

Eira eyed him suspiciously. "And how am I supposed to trust that you wouldn't twist things to suit your motives?" she asked, as they slowly made their way back through the gardens, Eira's snow-white cloak mingling with the black and green of Loki's robes.

"You cannot," he replied simply. "I am the God of Lies and Deceit, in mortal mythology. I lie and twist the truth when it suits me."

"As it does now," Eira retorted.

"True, but it would not be difficult for you to discover the falsehood later on, thereby destroying what trust we might have built in the aftermath, and thus, lying to you now does not suit me," he replied, and she shook her head wearily.

"You delight in talking in riddles," she hissed, as he just laughed. "You always did."

They both froze, as Eira's hand rose unconsciously to her mouth, shocked and bewildered by what had slipped from her mouth. Loki watched her closely, waiting for her to speak.

"I…I don't," she breathed, and his hand stroked hers in the crook of his elbow.

"Do not be afraid, sweetling," he murmured tenderly. "I told you I would help you, and I will fulfil that promise."

"Why do you think me to be this…Eir?" she asked, recovering her wariness as a shadow crept over the King's face. "Who was she?"

"Eir was a member of the court of Asgard, a great healer and warrior," he explained. "She was very beautiful, kind, compassionate and gentle. Qualities that led to her undoing."

"What happened?" she breathed, afraid of the answer, as something stirred within her.

"Tell me," Loki dodged the question. "Have you ever suffered illness? Injury? Or have things happened which neither you nor your guardians could explain?"

Eira eyed him, seeing the evasion but saving it for later. She inclined her head. "I have not suffered illness in my life, nor have my injuries healed the way the others' did. I always healed faster."

Loki nodded to himself. "I thought so," he continued. "After you were injured in the capital, I had your DNA examined by my scientists. In short, Eira you are not human."

Eira felt winded by that statement, and she whirled to face him, stood before the steps up to the marble terrace where she had first met him two days before.

"What are you saying?" she asked, coldly. He met her gaze, a darkness filtering into his emerald eyes as he towered over her, but Eira refused to be afraid.

"You are not human, Eira. Your DNA is that of an Asgardian, an Aesir. I know not why or how, but somehow you have returned to me, and you have yourself admitted that you have seen things, recollected things not from your own experiences," he told her, taking her arms and pressing her close. She raised her head, eying him speculatively.

"Even if I were to believe this fairytale, why has this happened now?" she challenged him.

"Proximity, I would suspect," he hissed, releasing her, but she did not step away. She stood, toe to toe, and refused to back down.

The Valkyrie within.

"You have magic, Eira. I can feel it even now, even dormant as it is. You've used only a tithe of your strength, in healing the injured and dying, and I will show you so much more," he breathed, his tone turning from dark to seductive, and Eira struggled to repress a shudder of desire, as longing rushed over her. He took a curl in his fingers, twining it over the long, pale digits playfully. "I will help you regain your memories, my warrior queen, and retake your place by my side."

Eira met his eyes, refusing to be lulled by his delusional ravings. She would not be his queen, or his weapon. She would escape, but…his offer could prove useful in the meantime.

But one last question niggled at her mind, and she couldn't hold it back. Her voice was softer than the wind when she spoke. "What was I to you?"

Eira was shocked to see an indefinable well of sorrow fill those evergreen eyes, and something within her whispered it was no deception.

"You were my wife," he replied quietly, and he let the curl in his hand fall as she backed away, and escaped.

Eira regained her room, slumping against her door and breathing hard, the King's words reverberating in her ears.

His wife…he thinks I'm his wife, miraculously brought back to life…

She felt an answering sorrow well up inside of her, unleashing a tear on her cheek, as she touched it wonderingly. She didn't even know why she felt so sad, only that she did feel sorrow at the thought.

He had to be insane. He had to be.

But if he wasn't…if somehow, he was right…Except that was impossible, lunacy!

But something whispered in Eira that it was not so impossible at all.