Sorceress of the trees: it was wasn't it. :p thanks

White light of DEATH: I am glad you found time to finish the original loyal servant and thank you for the praise. I also enjoyed this different outcome and I also feel like I like this way much better. It leaves more room for master servant fun. :p

Loki's dreamer: hehe. I love my stories that way.

Doctor Loki love: oh yes went very differently. Oh the plot shall thicken. Can't wait for this chapter and the next to be posted and for you to read. :D

Sidney loves fiction: I like the upcoming chapter for today and tomorrow and I think you will too. The plot thickens.

Chapter 12

Loki had a new pep in his step since the day he had acquired those ancient scrolls. He was unable to do any of the magic but still just possessing them made him excessively happy. Cephera had come to his room early as she always did and tidied before pulling open his curtains. He couldn't help but notice how she paused to look at him and her cheeks tinge in a blush when she realized she had been staring. He had been stretched out naked and though she'd seen it before and of course handled him she too seemed to have a hard time remembering her true place as he did.

She gathered the soiled laundry and left. Loki bathed himself now. He couldn't have her so close to him, placed before him as an easy distraction. In his bath he could so easily touch her and enjoy her skin but he had promised himself he would end this nonsense. He had to control himself better. Neither of them would benefit from their torrid relationship. How had he come to this point? To become so attached to her?

Loki knew the answer. After her first year with him he knew she was special. She was different. He had indulged her early on allowing her to remove her cap, leaving presents for her in loo of her good work even though it was her job to be good at those things. But he always found she went above and beyond what he desired and he had a hard time not noticing her each day. For those centuries he had been good at masking his wandering eyes but then he would do foolish things like having her bathe him the first time and every time after. The more the years had gone on and he felt more of the outcast among his family he got drawn closer to her.

And now he was in this position. Unable to bed anther without thinking of her, yearning for her but he didn't miss the touch of a woman. He did miss hers though. Since his release he had slowly begun to get along with Thor. And just recently he had begun to join him and his friends in the training arena. Today he joined Thor in the banquet hall willingly and even made conversation between him and his still untrusting friends. It was Thor who alerted Loki to something strange happening. "It appears father has summoned your servant to him." He said nodding his head toward the far off pillars.

Thor was right. Two guards were escorting Cephera passed the pillars and toward the throne room. "Indeed." Was all Loki said in return but he saw the look of both worry and excitement etched across her features and he was curious as to what Odin wanted with her. Loki excused himself and left the room using an opposite exit. He rushed to his tower when he was out of sight from the others and took from his stock a very expensive, hard to make potion and swallowed its contents in a hurry.

He became invisible almost immediately. He had been holding onto the rare potion as it was only able to be made once every ten years using a flower that only grew then. The potion was so difficult he hadn't been able to make a successful one since the first time he succeeded. The ingredient being very delicate and one wrong move could spoil the whole batch. The fact he just readily used it to spy on Odin as he spoke to a mere servant only strengthened Loki's knowledge of how much power she held over him.

He rushed back to the throne room under the cover of the potion and upon entering he had missed some of the conversation being had. He slipped passed the guards just as they sealed the room off completely. Whatever was happening was a highly private matter which only intrigued Loki more. He stepped closer to view everyone currently still in the room better. He was unable to see his songbird from the big blue brute of a man in his way. Loki moved round to view them at another angel and saw his servant wrapped in the embrace of another girl with the same hair colour as her own. Cephera was crying.

"Oh enough tears." The blue man said rubbing his face. Cephera detached herself from the girl and attached herself to this man instead.

Cephera couldn't believe her eyes when she saw both her never to be father and her sister standing in the throne room with Odin. She waited until the doors had closed before casting herself into her sisters waiting embrace. "I've missed you." She said in a whisper and began to cry.

"I didn't think I'd see you again." Seraphina replied. "I was so worried." She admitted stroking Cephera's hair.

After a moment her sisters father spoke. "Oh enough tears." He said and Cephera couldn't help but let her sister go and hug him in turn.

"I missed you too." She said to him a little louder then she had to her sister. "Why are you here?" She asked suddenly concerned.

The man she had almost had a chance to call father placed his hands on her shoulders and sighed heavily. "Since the Byfrosts reconstruction has finally been finished we have been trying to decide on a proper way to handle your situation." He told her.

"My situation hasn't changed." Cephera said looking confused.

"Yes it has. The earthlings now have a knowledge of your whereabouts and though I have spoken to Stark I am afraid that he may not be the only one to know of it. We have been debating taking you from here." Cephera stepped back fast and looked to her sister.

"You can't. I've made a home here. I'm happy here." She said incredulously.

"Then I have an alternative and you are not going to like it." She swallowed hard. The hard set line across her sisters face instilled fear into her deeply. "I have arranged to have all those who knew or met you on earth to be wiped clean of any recollection of you or your sister. You will no longer have the freedom to see your sister as it's becoming too precarious to make the trips from Asgard. You will remain her until your dying days or until we find and kill Demos." King Yorins words struck her hard and she raised a hand to her mouth. Though his eyes looked sad she couldn't stop herself from feeling somewhat betrayed.

Her sister, Seraphina was looking down and Cephera knew there was more. "So I have the choice to live the life I currently have without my sister nor my friends or I can what? Leave and find somewhere else to be hidden only to come across the same problems." This seemed like a no win situation. She was put in Asgard because it was suppose to be the place she would be the safest.

"Correct but I have already also made your decision for you. As your father..."

"You never got to be my father remember. That was taken from me too." Cephera felt angry. Not so much at her family but at her situation and at Demos. King Yorin shut his mouth a second before continuing.

"I've already had the minds of the earthlings changed. You will remain here where you can be watched and cared for properly. I hope a day will come when you can happily join us back home but until then this is the only way." Cephera felt her eyes burning. Her throat closing over. She was having trouble breathing and thought she might pass out.

"Seraphina?" She said turning to her sister.

"This will be the last time we speak for a long time. We have eternity and I promise you I will never stop searching for Demos and when I find him I will kill him for you. I would rather be apart from you knowing you are safe and alive then to know you are dead and then I would never have even the option of possibly seeing you." Cephera knew her words were meant to make her feel calm but they didn't. She burst into tears and her sister grabbed hold of her and held her tight.

"We cannot stay. Our departure from our realm was under the cover of darkness but light will be approaching soon and we must get back before anyone of interest might notice us gone." The king patted her back apologetically. "I believe one day you will truly have a chance to be my daughter but until then I can only hope." He took hold of her sisters arm and tugged her away. Cephera tried to cling to her sister only to be politely pulled back by Odin. Cephera refused to say goodbye as they left.

Cephera couldn't help herself. She broke free of Odin and vanished. She was on the beach knowing it was no good to follow her sister to the Byfrost dome. It would not keep them there. She ran down the sands and fell forward onto her hands and knees and sobbed until her throat was hoarse. She had no one. No friends, no family. Everything she had built over the passed years that had kept her going had been ripped from her. The man who she hadn't even seen since she was a teenager was still ruining her life.

When her sobs died down she thought of Loki. She had Loki. He was still with her. Her life that she had built she had built including him. Aside from her sister he was the only other person she had gotten extremely attached to emotionally. Sure she was friends with Tony and Pepper but she was slowly realizing passed her moment of grief that Loki meant more to her. At least in the end she still had him. And she still had hope.

She wiped her face with her sleeve. She must look a state. She was happy Loki could not call her to him. She didn't want him to see her this way.

Loki had made it back to his tower before the potion wore off. He was to stunned for words. As soon as the conversation ended and she vanished he thought of her story. That damn story that he now realized was about her this while time. He felt like a fool for not having seen it before. Her placement as his servant was nothing more then an elaborate smoke and mirrors. Hiding her from the man who sought her out to claim her power.

He now understood how she so easily was able to master the magic needed to enter his private room or for that matter anything he had asked her to do magically. She had, at some early on point of their first meeting, copied his magic. It was too long ago now to think of when she had but he felt slighted that she kept this information from him, tricked him. Of all the people he had expected to deceive him she was not one.

And on top of everything the truth of everything else began to hit him as well. She was human. She had said so herself. The girl Selestia, or in this case Cephera was human. The blue man in the room at the time must have been her future father had she actually been adopted and the girl with the same brown hair and violet eyes was her twin sister. Loki slammed his hand atop this alchemy table rattling the vials and causing a beaker to fall over and smash on the floor. He didn't care.

He felt betrayed. She was his yet she was saddened at the thought of never being able to see her sister again. She claimed to belong only to him when she clearly wished to have a life living alongside her sister which meant not being his servant but some prissy princess of a far off realm. Loki threw a nearby bottle at the wall. Couldn't she see he needed her here. He would not allow her to leave. This he decided firmly.

She hadn't actually lied to him. She had told him but in the only way she was able. He was slowly ridding himself of his pride perceived anger and was calming his inner turmoil. He finally got down to rationalize her secret keeping as a way for her to protect him if anything had happened regarding this Demos.

Loki was anxious to see her. To speak to her. But without his magic or permission to leave the palace alone he had to wait for her to come to him. He had an idea of where she went when she vanished from Odin's grasp but with his inability to get to her he retired himself from his tower and waited for her in his room. Loki was unable to put his mind to any other task. Reading or writing was out of the question and even sleeping was impossible. His frustration mounted the longer he was made to wait until finally she appeared before him.

She had calmed herself though her eyes were still red and puffy. Her hair was a little disheveled but otherwise she was fine. Loki stood so fast he shocked her to take a step back. He was sure the look on his face wasn't helping her feel comfortable. He snapped forward and grabbed her by both her upper arms hard almost bruising.