Fear
Thor locked the door behind him when he left, and she knew there was no escaping these rooms for now. The vague urge to smash and rip the finery around her was there, but it wouldn't change a thing, and some poor servant would just have to fix it all.
Though her mind was screaming, her body was exhausted after such a long day—she'd spent a morning in England, an afternoon in Manhattan, then a repeat of the afternoon and an evening here. She yanked the dress over her head and let it fall to the floor, then threw herself onto the bed—another sumptuous bed, symbol of yet another captivity. Her mind refused to quiet.
She'd been such an idiot to make the decision to come with them to Asgard; she'd put no thought into it at all. She could have asked Thor to speak to Idun on her behalf, and he could have found a way to send an apple back to her. She knew he intended to return to Earth in the future. If she'd been patient, even if she'd had to wait years, she could have held out until then. Time she had in abundance, so it wouldn't have made a difference.
But no, she'd made a rash choice, and of course Loki had known she'd do this in her desperation. She'd been stupid enough to allow him to destroy the apple and then even more pathetic to allow him to pull all the strings. Once more, her life was out of her own hands. She was outmatched when it came to the people she was surrounded by—going from being Loki's pet, to SHIELD's captive, to Odin's hostage. Another round as Loki's pet was inevitably in her future.
At some point, while her thoughts ran in circles, sleep snuck in.
"You mustn't scream. If you scream, you lose."
She wants to scream, has to bite her lip to keep her mouth closed, because if she opens it she will start and never stop. The interior of the labyrinth is utterly black, the air heavy to breathe, and the only thing that convinces her she hasn't been tossed into the vacuum of space is the rock beneath her feet. Beyond that she has no way of finding her way to her goal, just the two instructions: find Loki; don't scream.
They've shut her in here with Fear. She's not sure how that works, apart from the insistent goosebumps on her skin and the sense that something is out there waiting for her. She doesn't know what Fear can do—is it allowed to hurt her? Can it even do that? All they gave her was a name, a suggestion, and that's completely unfair because suggestion is what Fear thrives on anyway.
Reaching out, one arm to the front and one to the side, she begins to shuffle forward, feeling her way with her feet so she doesn't accidentally drop into a bottomless pit. If she keeps moving forward, steadily, then eventually she'll find a wall or something to follow. If it's a labyrinth, there must be passageways, and if there are passageways there must be walls. She shuffles on, stopping every so often to listen, but the only sound is her own breathing. There are no echoes, no sounds to assist her.
She could be in here for days. She realises, then, that they forgot to tell her if there was a time limit. Would they pull her out after a while, if she begins to starve and wither? She knows all she has to do is ask and they will retrieve her, but what if she doesn't ask and she doesn't scream? What then? She supposes dying would be seen as another way of losing. She can't lose. Not when Loki is waiting for her at the centre of the labyrinth.
Her hand abruptly brushes cold stone, and she steps back with a muffled yip. When the shock has passed she sets both hands on it, grateful for the presence of something so solid in this empty corner of the universe. Keeping her left hand on it, she begins to follow its trail, keeping to the awkward shuffling rhythm. It's slow going.
She thinks she sees a flash of red in front of her, but it's gone before she can stares at the place she believed it had been. There's nothing, just more solid blackness. It's merely her eyes playing tricks, trying to compensate for the lack of stimulation. But then, there it is again—a flicker of scarlet in her peripheral vision.
She pauses. Two dots of scarlet. Not dots. Eyes.
"You should have listened, little girl. This is no world for you."
It's not a voice she recognises, though the eyes are familiar.
"I'll do whatever I have to," she says. The monster laughs, so cold there should be ice crystals forming on the wall beside her.
"You aren't worthy, mortal girl. I should have killed you while you were still toddling."
"You're not the drake. He killed the drake. The eyes are an illusion."
Fear is unimpressed with her deduction. "You think there is but one drake in this universe?"
"I think you know what scares me and you're going to try and play on that."
"Very well." And it did.
When the visions have stopped—the worst of her nightmares, played out on a canvas of the shadows—and she has refused to scream, Fear changes tack. His voice changes, becoming altogether more familiar and intimate, though with a chill to it she'd never heard before.
"You think I want you?" Loki says. "You, the pathetic creature I once had the misfortune of rescuing and who's dogged my steps ever since? The mewling girl who threw herself at me and thought I'd find her feeble body desirable? I brought you here to shake you free once and for all, you miserable barnacle, and here you shall rot."
"You're not Loki."
"Of course I am. You know my voice. You know, deep down, there is no part of you worthy of me."
"Loki loves me. You're lying."
"Ah, my dear, I am the god of lies, and I have spun you the cruelest of untruths just to appease you these last few years. I can fool anyone, least of all a Midgardian child."
"He doesn't lie to me. It's not his words, it's the way he acts that let me know—it's you who's lying."
On and on, Fear picking at the scab inside her, but she doesn't bend. She remembers their first kiss, the way he asked her to come to Asgard and be his wife. She is worthy, if he thinks so.
In the end, Fear capitulates.
"You've impressed me, mortal. Not one scream. You may succeed in this yet."
"I intend to."
"I can help, you know."
"You can?"
"Of course. I see all. If I know what scares you, why wouldn't I know where you should go?"
"Why would I trust you? You're evil."
"Oh, child. I'm not evil. I am Fear. Fear is neither good or evil; it just is. And I will help you because you along the way, I will get to have some fun."
"You will hurt me?"
"No. But I promise I will try to make you scream."
And Fear does as it promises, lighting the passages with a glow she can't find the source for, just bright enough there are still shadows for it to throw scares at her from. She is resolute, and it continues to fail.
"Here. Through the door," it finally whispers, and she can see the door it means ahead, shining gold against the rough-hewn rock. She is cautious as she approaches, waiting for the final trap to spring, but when she grips the handle all is still. This is it. She will be Loki's wife.
She twists and pulls, and the light on the other side is so bright she has to screw her eyes shut, opening them gradually to allow them to adjust after all that darkness. When she can focus, she realises the man she is staring at is not her beloved. It's Odin, with the most sorrowful expression she's ever seen another person wear.
She screams, and Fear finally collects its reward.
She woke herself up repeating the scream, though she swallowed it down when she realised it was just a dream, an echo of the last time she'd been in this realm. The sight of the room around her and the realisation she was back in the place those events had happened in didn't help calm her much. She reached for the pitcher of water on the table beside the bed, chugging down a glass while she tried to force her mind to remain blank. The light creeping around the heavy drapes was a faint blue, so it was only just dawn.
Trying not to think rarely worked, but she had nothing pleasant to force her thoughts towards. It was either the memory of her test, and how Fear had tricked her into failing, or going over what had happened yesterday again. Her mind chose for her, and even after everything that'd happened since, she still had to fight back tears as she relived the moment she'd realised she'd lost Loki.
God, she'd been so convinced about the way he felt about her at the time. It'd been her talisman against Fear's tricks, and ultimately her downfall. She'd been too confident; all that time with Loki had made her believe no one could trick her, not when she'd spent years with the ultimate trickster. In the short term Fear had done her a favour, but here she was once again, locked up with no way out.
She'd never felt so small. Here she was among kings and gods, batted about by the winds of fate while those more powerful—or more cunning—blew her in the direction they desired.
In England, she'd promised her mother she'd be back. She'd promised her niece she'd be home again. Now it looked like she'd be unable to fulfil that promise. She hoped Loki really was prepared for her to hate him, because if she never saw her family again, she would hold it against him forever.
A/N: Home from work with the flu, so have an update. Reviewers get teasers.