Silver and Scales
Chapter Eight: Light Casualties
Vyperia walked away from the Observatory before she could hear anymore, though she had desperately wanted to stay. In the confines of her stomach, she felt the worst tension that she had ever experienced; but she knew that this was not the result of the fatal wound that she had received in battle.
Loki had discovered the oddity in his blood. When the Frost Giant had touched him and his skin had not blackened from frostbite, Loki's face was full of shock. Vyperia's stomach clenched nervously as several images raced through her mind. If Loki learned that she knew—had known—about his true lineage, would he ever forgive her? He was prone to bad temper when he became extremely angry, even if Loki rarely became furious. Vyperia's nerves were jangled from the terrible scenarios that ran through her mind.
A fierce burden came upon her shoulders.
In the last 24 hours, she had come so close to telling the prince of Asgard that he was Laufey's abandoned child, left in the cold to die. Loki's genes were a deformed Frost Giant, even though he looked like a perfect Asgardian in the eyes of those who had raised him. A Giant's offspring should have been three times bigger than what he had been. Even in Jotunheim, he had been rejected for what he was. With a race of monsters, he wasn't accepted. Vyperia's heart ached to tell Loki the truth before he discovered it for himself. And the only way that he could confirm it for his own belief was if he went to the lower quarters, to the Casket of Ancient Winters, and held the cube in his hands.
She feared Loki's anger. A thousand years of friendship...Could that be immediately erased if he learned that she had hidden this detail from him all his life?
The Goddess of Guardianship entered the healing room quietly, deep in thought and lost in fearsome anxiety. When she stepped over the threshold, the Warriors Three and Lady Sif glanced at her with peculiar curiosity. The maiden appeared to be stunned. Vyperia looked like she was in physical pain.
"Vyperia, come forward," said Lady Sif gently. "You're still bleeding."
"I'm fine," she retorted as she moved away from Hogun, who had walked toward her to mend her broken armor. She held her lacerated stomach in her hand as she strode toward a comfortable seat beside Fandral, whose eyes gazed at her with empathy.
Several bandages were wrapped around Fandral's chest where he had been impaled. As an Asgardian, he was able to recover from such a fatal blow, though he winced when he moved. Lady Sif nursed a light bruise along the line of her jaw; Hogun tended to Volstagg's blackened arm with warm healing stones from a lit fireplace in the middle of the room. Behind Vyperia's seat, the beautiful palace of Asgard gazed upon them through an opened balcony.
"It won't make you less of a warrior," said Fandral tenderly to Vyperia, "to allow Hogun to stop you from bleeding onto the couch. That's a nasty wound."
"I said that I'm fine..." Vyperia remarked, annoyed.
"Are you all right, Scales?" asked Volstagg, concerned.
Volstagg's frostbite was already starting to heal as Hogun continued to apply medication.
Vyperia glanced down at her exposed torso.
The Jotun who had knifed her in her snake form had embedded the ice spike deep through her dermal scale armor that it had torn straight through the green archer's vest that she had worn on her way out of Asgard. The spike had melted, but a clear gash was still slowly oozing blood, warmed by the fire and no longer becoming infected from the cold.
"What is going to happen to Thor?" Fandral asked Vyperia quietly. Her beckoning silence and her irritable responses had made it seem a possibility that she had overheard more than what the others had.
"I don't know," said Vyperia weakly. She looked up into the eyes of the mustached swordsman. "But the All-Father was not pleased to hear that Thor had went against his king's demands. Even if the truce between Jotunheim and Asgard hadn't been broken, it is now. Laufey...and his army intend to pull Asgard into another war. It was Thor's fault that it happened."
Vyperia reached for a few rolls of bandages. She withdrew the light armor from her shoulders, now only in a tan-colored tunic. The light fabric was torn from just below the breast all the way to her waist. The Jotun certainly knew her weak spot in her transformation.
Lady Sif approached Vyperia.
"Are you sure that you do not want any assistance? The Frost Giants have injured you. It looks very horrible. Hogun has healing experience."
"Ugh..." Vyperia's scorn was audible in her voice as she looked at the laceration along the muscles of her abdomen. "It was so stupid of me to shape-shift on a landscape like that..."
"It was remarkable," Volstagg corrected her.
"Yeah, well..." Vyperia said softly, "Remarkable doesn't always mean 'good'."
Lady Sif came forward and seized Vyperia's wrists to stop the fumbling of bandages in her lap.
"Let us help you."
Vyperia recognized the stern insistence in Lady Sif's voice. She slowly relinquished and leaned back against the couch. Fandral looked at her.
"What all did you hear?"
"Thor may never be king," Vyperia answered briefly.
Hogun came to Vyperia's side to assist. He examined the long cut on her torso before performing any services. His eyes surveyed the laceration. Slowly, his hands came to the edges of her reddening injury. Inflammation was setting in.
Just as his fingers lightly prodded Vyperia's bleeding wound, he jumped back slightly when Vyperia's skin began to glisten from green scales. He looked at her, steady in shock.
She passed it off dismissively.
"It's in my blood," she said calmly. "A readied defense."
Lady Sif watched, particularly disturbed, as Vyperia's scales slowly fell forward as if they were a shark's skin—the scales fell into Vyperia's body like the hair on a cat. If her body was being provoked, her instincts would pull the deadliest venom to her tongue and her scales would reach out to protect her soft underbelly.
It was an amazing feat, though it was always bizarre to see.
Hogun carefully placed a heated stone against Vyperia's cut. The sound of a sub-zero base hitting the warmth of waters began to emit as steam rose from Vyperia's body. This was merely a sign that it was working. Vyperia flinched.
"I have to say, Vyperia," Volstagg commented, relaxed. "That was a great fight you put up there in Jotunheim. Never seen anything like it."
"I didn't intend to do it," Vyperia remarked. "Though I suppose that I cannot rely on my archery anymore."
"Well, Loki could probably teach you a thing or two about magic," Fandral said lightly, smiling. "He's a good teacher, right?"
"Oh, my god, Loki..." Lady Sif turned to Vyperia. "How is he? He didn't come back with us from the Observatory."
"I don't know," answered Vyperia. "I left before I heard him say anything."
Before anybody could say anything more, the doors opened, and Loki stepped inside the healing room.
The look on his face was stemmed from sadness, mild confusion, and definite annoyance.
Lady Sif rose to her feet.
"What becomes of Thor?" she demanded. The care in her voice was strong in worry.
Loki licked his bottom lip. He was expressionless.
"Thor has been exiled."