"Mom! Ellie took my action figure and she won't give it back!"

The yell came from the living room. Darcy shook her head as she scrubbed the bathtub. "Nathan! Just what have I told you about yelling in the house?" She yelled back from the upstairs bathroom.

"But you're doing it too!" came the answering shout.

"Honey- do as I say, not as I do."

"What?"

"I said-!" Darcy broke off, putting the sponge down. "Parenting," she muttered to herself. "When you have to teach your kids not to do all the fun stuff that you like doing. Bah. Well- not that I necessarily like yelling, but swearing..." She sighed a sigh of longing. "I do miss swearing." She shook her head. "The things you give up for your children. Ah well- something to look forward to when they're in their teens."

She'd been catching up on some cleaning, but now was as good a time as any to stop for lunch so she washed her hands and headed downstairs to the kitchen.

Passing through the living room, she saw the problem.

"Oh. Well that's interesting." She tried not to laugh.

Nathan scowled. "I told you she took my action figure."

"Well but he took my dolls!" Ellie exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger at him.

Nathan grumbled something that could have been, "Only the bank robbing ones."

Two dolls were in a circle made of blocks with a piece of paper in front of it saying "Jail".

"So this was...? What- retaliation?" Darcy asked.

"Mommy, look how pretty he is?" Ellie said, holding out said action figure. She'd put a tiny dress on the toy wrestler, and he looked to be the ruler of her dollhouse. Her other dolls all lay in a pile on the floor of the dollhouse.

"Wow. That's very pretty, Ellie. But what happened to the dolls? That's quite a collection of bodies."

Nathan snickered, but Ellie just looked at her with innocent big brown eyes.

"What?" She asked. "They're sleeping."

"Oooooh," Darcy said, amused at herself. Of course. Why would a two and a half year old have pretended her dolls were dead? Yeesh. "Who's hungry? Anyone?"

"Me!" Nathan said, jumping up.

"Me too!" Ellie said, jumping up as well. It was really cute how much she looked up to him. They fought sometimes, but she thought the world of him.

"Well alright then," Darcy said, shooing them into the kitchen. "Let's have some salad!"

They both made faces.

"Chocolate, please," Ellie said, dimpling up at Darcy.

Darcy made her eyes wide. "You want chocolate salad? Well, okay, but I don't know how that's going to-"

"No!" Ellie cried, laughing. "No! Just chocolate, silly."

"You can't have chocolate, Ellie, you're too little," Nate said authoritatively. "But I, on the other hand..."

"Okay, okay-"

"Really?"

Darcy made a face at them and shook her head. "Nokay, then. Something halfway healthy, please."

Nathan rolled his eyes. "Fine. Scrambled eggs?"

Darcy nodded. "Acceptable."

"Appasauce!" Ellie declared.

"Applesauce," Nathan corrected. It annoyed him when she said it that way, because he knew she could say it the right way.

"Don't start on that, Nate," Darcy said, hoping to distract him. "Here, help me- get the eggs out."

"Okay," he said, doing as he was told. Darcy got the pan out.

"Where's my appasauce?" Ellie asked. Nathan made a sound of indignation.

"Moooooooom!"

Loki had finally deemed himself prepared enough. He had studied the maps extensively, and poured through Odin's great library for any and all information that had been collected about Jotunheim. He had packed food and clothes. He had done everything but tell Odin that he was leaving, which he was about to rectify.

For once, Odin was actually in his office rather than off at some meeting. He was bent over a desk going over some papers, but he looked up grumpily at Loki's knock on the door. His face clouded over in anger when he saw who it was, but Loki ignored it. If he was bothered every time Odin was angry with him than most of his life would have been spent in unhappiness.

"Excellent news," he grinned, unable to tamp his spirits down even in the face of Odin's sobriety. "I shall be going to Jotunheim presently."

Odin's face warmed infinitesimally at this. "It's about time," he growled, and Loki felt a shot of annoyance. Could he never just be pleased? But then he noticed how Odin was favoring his arm slightly, and remembered that his father was dying, and was ashamed.

"Yes. Well. I'll be getting what I need for the Bifrost. And not to worry," he said, unable to keep some of the bitterness from his voice. "Frigga will soon be gracing these halls once more."

Odin nodded tightly. "Do you require anything?"

"The dwarves' boat," Loki said. "Skidbladnir." It was a remarkable feat of Dwarven craftsmanship, a boat large enough to hold every god and goddess on it's deck, and yet it could be folded small enough that it would fit quite handily in Loki's pocket.

Odin hesitated, but only for a moment. He was inordinately fond of that gift, but he wanted Frigga back and would give much more than that to see it so.

"So be it," he said. "I shall expect you back by the new moon."

"That is two weeks' time!" Loki exclaimed, brows raised. "Impossible. I am on foot, if you remember, and Jotunheim is riddled with mountains. Perhaps I can make it back for three weeks, but even that I am unsure of."

Odin's face was stormy. He didn't care. "You can do it, Loki," he said menacingly, "and you will." Frigga would not spend one single day longer than she had to in that place. He curled his lip. "May the luck of the gods be with you, my son."

Loki bit his tongue. There was still so many unspoken things between them, and yet Loki could not trust himself to speak of them now. With difficulty, he swallowed his anger. "Thank you, father," he said sarcastically. "Until later, my most kingly of kings." He bowed and left.

Once free of Odin's glare though, his high spirits returned, and he was grinning as he went off to Baldr's new quarters to say goodbye.

Odin had finally passed judgment- that judgment being that he had declared that Baldr would pay for his crimes against Asgard by serving it. For seven years he would be part of the royal army. It was blatant favoritism, seeing as how the army had not been called on for many years. In all likelihood Baldr would serve his time without ever once going into battle. But Odin was king, and he was allowed to show favoritism at times.

Baldr was staying in the barracks, a long building off to the side of the palace. He had been greatly looking forward to meeting Frigga, and would be overjoyed to hear that she would be returning soon.

Frankly, Loki was a little jealous, because Frigga had mourned losing Baldr and when she'd gained Loki she'd never treated him as a son. But it was only a little thing, the jealousy, and he shoved it aside, knowing it was irrational. He was looking forward to seeing the look on Baldr's face when Loki told him he leaving to get Frigga.

"Knock knock," Loki said before opening the door to Baldr's room. It was empty, but the back door that led out to the gardens was open slightly, and on going out Loki saw Baldr sitting between the flower beds on the slight hill that was the east garden. He was carving, and it gave Loki a pang to see it because of how fond Thor was of it. He missed his brother.

Loki walked over, nodding acknowledgment to a young gardener who was weeding as he passed, and sat down next to him, picking a flower and smelling it. And then sneezing.

"Blech. That is revolting," he muttered. It smelled like mold.

Baldr laughed in greeting "They're not for smelling, Loki. Those are Heathwarts. The flowers are useless actually. But if you dry the leaves and then brew them into tea it brings down your fever. Well." He frowned. "I suppose you would have someone else dry the leaves and brew them into a tea if you had a fever. Because. You have a fever. So you shouldn't be doing fire things."

Loki looked at him curiously. "Since when did you become a flower expert?"

Baldr's eyes settled on the gardener Loki had passed- a pretty, willowy blond- with longing for a moment, and then he blushed slightly and looked away. "Nothing," he muttered. "I mean I didn't."

Huh. "Okay," Loki said, letting him get away with it. "Well, anyways. I have amazing news!" he burst out. "I'm going to be leaving today for Jotunheim. I should be back in a few weeks, a certain matronly goddess in tow," he said with a grin.

Baldr had been looking at the wood in his hands as he carved, but at that his head snapped up. "Truly?" He asked, conflicting emotions warring in his face.

"Truly."

Baldr swallowed. "Do you-" he broke off. He'd been about to ask if Loki thought she would like him, but he decided better. Instead he cleared his throat. "I am happy for you," he said. He knew how much Loki had been wanting to do this, and how hard it was for him to wait while life went on without him back on Midgard.

Loki grinned. This was the happiest he'd been since coming to Asgard. He was so close to going home. Well. Not that close, but this step had been the hardest and he was eager to get on to the next one. He was sure it would go faster from here on.

"Thank you, brother."

His heart was soaring- images of Darcy and Nathan filled his mind. He left Baldr to admire his young gardener from afar, and gathered his bag. Within an hour he was gone.

Thor smiled, looking out the window at the kids playing out in the snow of the backyard. The sun had been threatening to melt the meager snowfall of the previous night, and they were trying to make the most of it.

"It's incredible-" Thor said, staring out at the laughing children with an indulgent smile. "Nathan looks more like Loki every day. Albeit, a somewhat happier one, if I remember correctly." He frowned, thinking back to Loki as a child. It had been almost as if there were two of him- the serious little boy who would as often as not be buried in some dusty old book, and then the wild child who would run around the palace playing pranks on everyone. And as he'd gotten older, the pranks had turned into games of wit and manipulation, also just this side of harmless. Nathan had a lot of that same duality in him, though to a lesser degree, and physically he was practically the spitting image of his father, except that his hair was a dark brown rather than Loki's jet black.

"Loki?" Darcy crinkled her nose, taking a sip of hot cocoa. "That's a funny name."

Thor's eyebrows rose and he stared at her incredulously. "Loki? You're husband Loki?"

"Husb-?" Darcy asked confused. She automatically looked down at her ring finger. There was no ring. Thor wondered what she'd done with it, and how long she hadn't been wearing it for. "Oh. That's weird. I- yeah. Husband." She frowned, looking off at some point in the distance. "Why...?"

She was forgetting him. Thor couldn't believe it. She hadn't even remembered Loki's name until he'd said something. It had to be the work of some spell- it was far too unnatural and bizarre not to be.

He was about to say something- explain to her that she would have to fight to keep her memories of him because something was stealing them. But then- it had been three and a half years and Loki was still gone. She was doing well. The kids were doing well. Wouldn't it just be kinder to let him fade from her thoughts completely? For all they knew- and much as it pained him to come to terms with- Loki could well be lost to them. As it was, she could not remember him enough to be sad about not having him. Why remind her of what she had lost?

So he said nothing, and turned the conversation to the kids. She grabbed hold of the topic change with gratitude and they caught each other up. Nathan had expressed interest on joining the junior baseball team next season. Liam and Isaac were enthralled by all things prehistoric after watching Ice Age. Ellie had decided to be a ballerina and would only wear her tutu these days, and it was hard to convince her to wear a jacket to keep up appearances when the cold winter air didn't bother her at all.

But Thor thought about it for a long time afterward. About how strange it was. Jane couldn't remember Loki either, until Thor explained who he was, and even then she couldn't remember interacting with him much. Despite having seen him at least weekly for four years. It was as if Loki was being erased form this world, and Thor had no idea why, or how. He'd never heard of such a thing happening before.

It took him the better part of three days to make it to the very edge of Asgard, where the river crashed and roared it's anger, and Jotunheim lay off in the distance, a small white speck.

Assembling Skidbladnir, Loki set off to brave the daunting waves. It took three more days to reach the far shore, and Loki was overjoyed to set his feet once more on solid ground. Even if said ground was covered in sheets of ice that made progress slow and unpleasant.

He folded Skidbladnir down again though and marched forward, eventually finding that if he modified his boots so that they had spike bearing down out of the soles then he could get a better grip. This sped him up somewhat, and by the end of the day he had reached the foot of Jotunheim's famous mountains.

It was only the mountains in the very heart of Jotunheim where pure Energy resided, deep within their cores, and that was his first stop.

It took him a week to make it through the mountain passes and into the inner circle of Jotunheim where the mountains he needed lay. He was exhausted by this point, and there was a cold down to his bones that he could not shake even with the warmest of fires. Not that he dared often to make a fire, for he did not want to attract the attention of any Frost Beasts that roamed the mountains, or giants.

He was lucky though- incredibly so, for he met nothing to bar his progress. It made him wonder, in fact, if someone was looking out for him and trying to help. He paid close attention, searching for the scent of geraniums, but Jotunheim's winds were sleepless. If she was helping him, then he could not tell for sure.

Once he had acquired the Energy he needed for the Bifrost, he would perform a simple locating spell to find Frigga, using one of her bracelets that he'd brought specifically for that purpose.

Already it had been nearly two weeks, and it would be slower returning, he was sure. There was no way his luck could hold out for the other two weeks it would take to return.

There was far yet to go. Still, though, Loki felt good. He was doing something. He was working towards his goal. He put his mind away from the cold that wracked him, and he focused on the days yet to come. Days filled with warmth and laughter, the sound of Darcy's voice.

After talking to Thor that day, Darcy had been badly shaken. Loki. The name rattled around inside of her demandingly. Her husband. But she hadn't even remembered being married! It felt so natural just raising the kids on her own. It had always been that way. Except...it hadn't. There were these nagging, almost dreamlike memories if she concentrated really hard- of a laughing, black-haired man kissing her in a church, of him playing with a giggling Nate, of them all curled up together on the couch, him stroking her hair, a sense of home, a rightness. But they were wisps only. Like smoke. The more she tried to hold onto them the more they fragmented, getting mixed up with other memories of churches and other times she curled up on the couch, the kids laughing over Thor's stories, Jane hugging her comfortingly as she wept. "I don't think I can do this,"she had said to Jane. "How am I supposed to just go on without him?"

One of the vague memories was from a few years ago. It had been early on in her pregnancy with Ellie. She'd gotten a call- something about 'picking up his things from the lab'. There had been a few boxes there, and all she'd had to do was take them home. She remembered being thankful that she hadn't had to pack them herself, because she couldn't handle that. It was the same reason she'd just put them in the garage when she'd gotten home that day and hadn't touched them since.

Now she stood in the garage, a little nervous. It was frightening, this realizing that there was an important part of your life that you could barely remember. She had felt too awkward to talk about it with Thor earlier, and Jane had been at work. Tomorrow though, she promised herself. Tomorrow she wouldn't feel awkward, and she would ask Thor just what it meant.

In the meantime, she intended to find out as much as possible about this man.

She found the boxes right where she'd left them- in a corner of the garage, behind a hula-hoop and a bike. The lighting wasn't great in the garage, so she brought them into the kitchen.

"Well, this is it," she said with a deep breath. "Down the yellow brick road, or whatever." And she opened the first box.

"Mom?" Ellie's voice brought her back to the present. A quick glance at her watch said it had been an hour. "Mommy are you okay?" Ellie asked, her big brown eyes filled with concern.

Darcy realized she was crying. She sniffed, blinking hard to stop the tears. "Yeah, yeah I'm fine, honey. I just...um...I found this really pretty poetry, and-"

"Mooooom! We're hungry," Nathan announced as he, Isaac and and Liam came tromping in from the backyard. They all stopped short though at the evidence that Darcy had clearly been crying.

"Okay, guys, just give me a minute-"

"Er, no that's okay mom," Nathan said hastily. "We're actually not really hungry at all."

"I am," Isaac said, frowning at Nate.

"No. You're not." Nathan assured him with a meaningful glance. He plastered a smile on his face and gave a thumbs up to Darcy. "We'll just be outside some more. Don't worry about us! No worrying. No, sir." And they scampered back outside.

Darcy watched them go with a little amusement.

"Here," Ellie tore off a piece of paper towel and gave it to her. "Don't worry, mommy, even princesses cry sometimes."

Darcy laughed a little and took the paper towel. "Thanks sweetie. Am I a princess then?" she asked, drying her face.

Ellie climbed onto her lap and rested her head against Darcy's chest. "You are to me."

Darcy hugged her back, kissing her forehead. "You are a little angel. You know that?"

"Yeah, I know. Oh- look!" She said, looking at the pages Darcy had been poring over. "That's you, mommy!"

Darcy had found a small packet of papers dated about six years ago. She vaguely remembered being away from Loki for some reason for a few months that year, and apparently he had missed her. There were about twenty pages of stuff addressed to her that he'd never sent. She wondered why. It was clear that he had loved her, though, and she thought she had loved him too. He'd tried to draw her face a number of times, though most of them were only half-finished, and scrawled all over the pages were snippets of poetry.

"Are you sad?" Ellie asked, looking up at her.

"I- yes, a little bit," Darcy admitted, tracing the edge of a photo of herself, him, and a toddler Nathan. They all looked so happy, but she couldn't remember it.

"Should I be sad, too?"

"Oh, Ellie," Darcy said, both touched and alarmed. Ellie was a very empathetic child, and she was much more emotionally mature than a three year old should be. "No. Do you feel sad?"

Ellie cocked her head at Darcy. "A little," she admitted. "I know princesses cry, but sometimes when princesses cry other people want to cry too."

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I don't want you to be sad." Darcy started putting the things back in the box but Ellie stopped her.

"Can you just read me one of them?" she asked. "Maybe I'll cry too, and then you won't be alone."

Oh my god, Darcy thought. This child is something else. "Well, okay. I guess one wouldn't be too bad."

She picked up a page.

"Too late do I find out what burns inside of me.

I do not need her to be complete-

but without her I am stone.

She is warmth and she is laughter and she is home..."

The mountain was excavated, as if it had been mined and then abandoned. It smelled of sulfur and, strangely, tobacco.

Loki had been walking down into the mountain for an hour at least, before he finally came to what looked to be the center. The walls glimmered blue and looked frosted over though the air was uncomfortably hot. There was almost a pulse inside the mountain. He had felt it as soon as he stepped inside, and it had gotten stronger until he'd gotten to this room. Strangely enough, the pulse matched his own heart rate. He wondered briefly if his heart had responded to the pulse of the mountain, or vice versa.

It was a little suspicious that he hadn't met a single Frost Giant, even around here. You would think that they would be protecting what meager treasures their realm had, but no. Although, on the other hand, it wasn't as if they'd really ever needed to before. People just didn't go to Jotunheim willingly, and Energy wasn't exactly common knowledge. Loki only knew of it and where it came from because he had studied such things extensively. Most of Asgard knew more about farming and raising crops than about magic and artifacts.

Walking around the edge of the room, Loki studied the walls curiously. There was a great deal of power in the room- that much was unmistakable. But it was...different. He'd never encountered anything like it. Not even the Tesseract, or the Bifrost, though they were supposedly the same material. The magic in the room was pure, and raw. Wild.

And Loki got the feeling that it liked it that way.

For the first time, he admitted that maybe the hardest part hadn't been getting to Jotunheim. He stared at the pulsing blue walls in apprehension.

"Well, I guess I've got to start with something."

He'd brought a handsome green and gold scepter from the treasury room to store the Energy in, and he lifted it now, muttering a transformation spell. What it should do was take the Energy from the rock wall and channel it into the crystal in the scepter's head.

"Ah! Fucking hell!" He swore, jumping back as sparks flew from the scepter and the wall actually spat out his spell.

Okay. So. Maybe a different spell.

An hour and a half later he'd tried every trick he could think of, and nothing had worked. He was still going to be trapped on Asgard. This was it.

He had failed.

The utter sense of loss hit him. The injustice of it.

He was punished for trying to do good. Always he was punished for it! What had he really ever done that was so terrible that he could not be allowed to have the small measure of peace that he had found on Midgard?

You were not made for peace. He gritted his teeth against old memories.

In frustration he hurled the scepter at the wall with all of his might and sank to the ground, desolate. He had never felt lower in his life. What kind of father was he? What kind of husband? What-

"What?"

The scepter had collided with the wall and a warm blue had pulsed through it for a moment before it clattered to the floor, the blue gone.

Hardly daring to breath, Loki picked the scepter up. It couldn't be that easy. It just couldn't be.

He held the the scepter to the wall. As soon as he did the blue light came back, settling into the crystal. "You've got to be kidding me. Seriously!? That was all it took!?" But he could feel the Energy now resting in the scepter. Except it didn't feel like it was resting. He could almost swear it was pacing.

The staff felt heavy now, and strange, but Loki was anxious to be moving on. He would have plenty of time to study the Energy back at Asgard, and right now he wanted to get Frigga and go, before whatever power had taken mercy on him decided he should be made to suffer some more.

Concentrating, he took her bracelet out of his pocket and performed a quick locating spell.

"Gotcha," he breathed with relief. And she wasn't terribly far away, either. "Coming, mother..."

"There has to be some way to modify this blasted thing!" Laufey muttered, pacing the length of the throne room. He'd been looking for a way to let his whole army into Asgard through the ring, but all attempts had failed. His anger boiled all through him; he could think of nothing else but taking revenge on Odin.

Long ago, Odin had stolen their Casket from them, and had humiliated Laufey and made him powerless. And Laufey was not a man to take powerlessness well. He would have his revenge. And not just on Odin, but on that sneaky little double-crosser brat of his. Loki. Oh yes, his son would suffer. How they would both burn when he got his hands on them. He laughed harshly. And he already had something of theirs. Frigga. The pretty little goddess, who meant so much to them. Well...

"Not so pretty now, are you?" He said smugly, turning to the object he'd been releasing his frustrations on for the past few months.

She hadn't broken- he would give her that much credit. Damned woman seemed to be made of lead, delicate though she had once appeared. Perhaps the rumors that she had once been a Valkyrie, most fierce of all warriors, were true after all. No matter how he tried, he had not been able to make her cry out. It had grown frustrating, and so he had finally just frozen her, annoyed by the glares she would send him.

So there she was, frozen solid in the middle of his throne room, a reminder that he had already started taking his revenge. Her flawless face was now...not so flawless. He had left clawmarks down her cheeks, belly, back, legs...deep gashes that had healed over into thick white scars. And she was perhaps now missing a few fingers.

He smiled fondly at her. "No," he said. "Not so pretty at all."

She stared back blankly, unable to blink or speak. She could barely breath, he was sure, but she was still conscious. He had not killed her yet- he would not be killing her until Odin knelt before him, knowing he was helpless to stop it happening. Then Laufey would kill her.

Dismissing her, he turned his mind back to the problem of the ring. Boon though it had been, the fact remained: as it was, it was useless to get his army over to Jotunheim. Perhaps it was time to seriously consider the alternative.

It was not impossible to travel on foot, and boat, through to Asgard. It had been done in the past, but they had been weak for so long. Even if they had made it into Asgard they had been too diminished in strength to pose a real threat.

But now... Now they had been in the presence of the Casket for many months. They were strong enough that it was not out of the realm of possibility. It was still by no means Laufey's first choice, but it was looking more appealing all the time.

"Griffin!" He shouted, and a few moments later his right hand man strode in.

"Sire?" The big man asked.

"Join me, Griffin," Laufey said, beckoning him over to the wall where he'd had maps of Asgard tacked up. "I grow weary of waiting for a breakthrough with the ring. What say you to just...going through the mountains?"

"What- walking?" Griffin asked in surprise. Had his king finally gone daft? "But the frost beasts! You know as well as I their ferocious nature, and they have bred into large numbers, roaming the slopes in droves. Frost Lions, Frost Wolves, Frost Bears...all bloodthirsty to their core. And then there are the Ice storms on the outer rims of the mountains with the sheets of ice that could fell even you or I, not even to mention..."He trailed off, overwhelmed. "Sire, 'tis folly!"

"But you forget, Griffin," Laufey snapped sharply with a hard, thin smile. The more Griffin argued against it, the more it seemed to Laufey that Griffin was just a spineless coward. Where was his thirst for vengeance? Where was his hatred? Did he not long to get back at those who had wronged them? "You forget that we are at our strongest as we have not now been for nearly two hundred years."

"But even then, sire, it was-"

"We have been basking in the strength of our beautiful Casket for these past months- and how we have grown!" Laufey continued on, plowing over Griffin's objection. Griffin noticed with discomfort the maniacal gleam in his red eyes. "Our bones grow stronger, our hearts colder, our very blood cries out for revenge. We have been too long at the mercy of Asgard." He spat the name as if a curse. "Curled up at their feet, begging for scraps as we wither slowly away into the darkness. But no more. No. It is time we show Asgard that we are not the dogs they think us. That we will bite back when kicked down. At last, Griffin, at last! The time of the Frost Giants-" He grinned a fanatic grin and whirled around, stalking back to his throne and sitting down, tapping his fingers restlessly on the sides as he kept grinning at Griffin, "is upon us."

Griffin took a small step back. He had not realized how far gone his king was.

Suddenly Laufey lost his grin and his eyes narrowed into slits. "What...is...this?" he snarled, his head tilted threateningly.

"Sire...?"

"Griffin," Laufey said in a soft, deadly voice. "Just exactly where is that whore of a goddess?"

Frigga? Griffin frowned, his eyes sweeping over the room. He paled. Surely she had been here when he'd come in not ten minutes ago!

"But she was frozen, my lord! She could not possibly have..." he trailed off, silenced by the unholy rage on Laufey's face.

"No," he said. "She could not possibly have escaped. Loki." He said the name with a venom that Griffin had previously only heard him save for Odin. It sent a shiver down his spine. "Find them," he hissed.

Only too happy to leave, Griffin bowed and turned.

"Oh, and Griffin," Loki continued, his voice whisper soft and all the more deadly for it. Griffin stopped in his tracks. "You had better pray that you do not disappoint me. Son of mine or no, I'll have your throat for it."