February, 2000

He blinked into Midgard, the flash of green that accompanied him dulled by the late sun. He came of his own accord this time, using a portal and his own energy to transport into the girl's room. The orb had been disappointingly silent ever since the encounter with the strange mage. His own impatience had gotten the best of him, and he had very furtively crept away to investigate, taking pains to avoid Odin's watchmen at the borders of the kingdom. His own magic had been rebuffed every time he attempted to reach for the orb, and out of a growing sense of frustration and barely contained desperation he had come to the only place he might find any answers.

But the room was empty, the dust suspended in the sunbeams that slanted through the windows. In a glance he gathered that the girl- Lady Jane- had not been there for a while. The bed, though rumpled, was stiff to the touch, her clothing on the floor devoid of the flowery scent she emitted; the door to her room creaked loudly from disuse when he opened it to banish the stale air. There was no one in the house.

Loki was puzzled. The girl lived her, did she not? She must come here often; but she had obviously not slept here in quite some time. His irritation increased. He strode over to her desk, fingers skimming over the thick books covered in a young layer of dust. Not very long away, then. His hands brushed over the other objects scattered about. A small smile curled the corner of his mouth as his hand ghosted over the writing implement she had thrown at him during their first encounter. He briefly became distracted by the numerous star charts spread out, overlapping and wrinkled at the corners. Loki only guessed they were start charts; the numbers and words that were scrawled in odd spots foreign and messy to him. The shapes on the chart eluded him, but the charts were similar to those he had pored over as a child. His night sky was vastly different. All that remained on the desk was a cup full of more of those odd Midgardian writing tools and a box of dull jewelry.

Driven more by curiosity more than a sense of purpose he began to open the drawers of the desk. He could not get answers without the girl, and he was loathe to return to Thor and Fandral in any case.

Reams of a strange material filled many of the drawers. Things he could not describe and had no name for filled others. A faint buzz began somewhere in the back of thoughts. In one drawer he found a leather-bound journal. He opened it by the gold strip tucked into the pages, and it fell open to reveal half a page full of the same messy scrawl that was on the star charts. The girl's journal. He had no internal debate on the ethics of reading it. His only regret was that he could not read her language. It would have been interesting to see her mind on these pages. He snapped the journal closed and put it back the way he found it.

He bent down to pull open a drawer at the bottom. Abruptly the buzzing at the back of his consciousness morphed into a clear hum that called to his seidr. Excitement made his hands clumsy and his breathing quick as he yanked the drawer open.

In the drawer was a black rock, jagged and glittering. The feeling of a foreign magical presence made his heart throb painfully, the orb in his pocket warming suddenly. Hesitantly he reached in and picked up the object. Outwardly there was nothing particularly interesting about it, but Loki could clearly feel the magical energy, pulsating out in waves like a star's heat. It was residual, an echo of what used to be. The echo was strong enough; Loki could very well imagine the amount of energy needed to create that lasting of an imprint. The orb's warmth spread from his pocket to his thigh.

So this was the origin of the magic the mortal was hosting. But where had it come from? How had it transferred to the girl? Was it as powerful as his orb? His hands ran over the uneven surfaces of the rock as if the answers to his questions would come leaping out of it.

His only certainty was that the girl was too weak to maintain the power in her body; it would have to be expelled eventually. His concern for the girl was forgotten by an intoxicating thought: possessing two objects of immense power.

His fingers clenched around the rock, adrenaline spiking. An idea formed. Before his thoughts could run away with his control he picked up the sound of a door opening. Cursing, he reluctantly placed the rock back into the drawer and made himself invisible. The door to the room opened to reveal a petite girl with mousy brown hair, dressed in bright clothes and straining under the weight of many books. Grumbling, she crossed the room and dumped the texts onto the bed.

"You take way too many AP's, Jane."

Abruptly she spun on her heel and made her way to the desk, the hem of Loki's coat barely brushing her knees as he sidestepped her. The girl slapped a piece of paper on the desk, grabbed a few items from its surface, and left the room; Loki was forced to twist out of her way again in the narrow space.

He tried to read the paper she had left and failed, his irritation at himself solidifying into a resolve to learn the proper spell to translate. He retrieved the black rock again, tucking it away into his pocket of space. He was confident the girl would not miss it. He would simply have to replace it by the time she returned. His conscience also reminded him to check on the girl's well being; he could not pretend he did not know the danger the mortal was in.

With those thoughts in mind, he returned to Asgard, the palace behind him growing smaller and smaller in the distance.

"Jane, dear!"

She jerked from her doze, the IV in her wrist tugging at her skin uncomfortably. Disoriented, and with the throbbing promise of a headache beginning in her temple, Jane bit back a groan as blurry shapes came into focus.

Her mother stood in the door to her hospital room, a too bright smile plastered on her face, her dark hair pulled back into a neat bun. Her heels clicked against the floor as she moved to Jane's bedside and sat gracefully in the squeaky plastic chair her father had been occupying when she drifted off. She was going to kill him.

"Mom! Hey," she said, in what was hopefully a passably pleased tone. She repressed the urge to smooth her rumpled hair and gown. Her mother's sharp gaze swept over her and around the room, regarding the dry erase board hanging on the wall displaying the nurse information.

"Where's…dad?" she asked, trying to keep her voice neutral. How dare he leave her alone? He hadn't even given her any warning, just scurried away like a coward in the dangerous quiet that settled before the storm that was her mother arrived.

Her mother's eyes finally tore themselves away from the range of smiley faces indicating levels of pain to look at her. Her lips pursed into a papery smile. "Your father decided you and I should spend some time catching up. It has been over a year, Jane." I'm not here because I wanted to be.

"So, you heard about what happened?" And you still didn't want to be here? It's been three weeks.

"Of course. Your father called me that night. I happened to be at a weeklong networking conference for the University in Glasgow at the time." I was too busy to care.

Jane bit back the sharp retort that was attempting to leap out of her mouth Her mother's words had always been carefully constructed to convey how important her own research was in London, and how everything, no matter how brightly she smiled, was secondary. There was a moment of silence.

"The results were inconclusive?"

"Yes," Jane replied heavily, sitting back against her pillows. "They've done every scan under the sun. It's not cardiac, pulmonary, hormonal or anything else. There's no tumors, no abnormal growths, nothing. So they're letting me leave tomorrow."

"Hm." The corner's of her mother's mouth turned downwards, eyebrows coming together and lips compressing slightly into a face Jane recognized as scientific intrigue. A part of Jane couldn't blame her; besides the fact that it was happening to her, it was extremely fascinating.

"The only abnormal thing they could detect besides tachycardia and vomiting was my brain wave pattern. For a couple days after the incident, they were wild. Didn't make sense at all. The doctor said one second my brain was sending waves indicative of being wide awake and the next second the waves that only occur during deep sleep appeared. No sustained patterns could be detected."

"That is extremely interesting," her mother murmured from behind steepled fingers. Her eyes pulled away from staring into space to look at her.

"Interesting and painful." Jane couldn't help but reply sharply. The throbbing in her head was steadily increasing, and her mother was only exacerbating it.

But her mother merely removed her fingers from their scholarly position to look once more at the nurse information. Jane allowed the silence to stretch.

"So, I hear you're taking a course in physics at Culver," her mother said finally. "Sounds like you're getting even further ahead of your classmates."

Oh yeah. Jane forgot that her academic success was the next priority on her mother's narcissistic list. The reminder made her shoulders slump minutely, exhausting working its way back into her limbs. She had been weak and easy to tire ever since 'that moment when you screamed so awesomely I should have recorded it and sold it to horror movie producers', as Darcy liked to describe it.

Darcy had been in almost every day, dutifully bringing her the work she was missing, along with an hour of good company. And every day the panic clawed at her throat, begging for a release at the thought of what her absence would do to her grades, her record, and every day Darcy was there to beat the panic back, reassuring her that she would overcome the setback. She wished Darcy was here now to battle the lump in her throat that was threatening to overcome her.

"Well, I was. Kinda haven't been there in weeks. It really makes the homework hard." She was proud that her voice didn't waver as she spoke. She would not cry in front of her mother.

"You'll manage." Her mother's firm tone brooked no argument on the subject. Jane found she had nothing to say, and settled for twirling on a strand of bedraggled hair.

"Knock knock!" Darcy's head peeked into the doorway. Behind her was her dad, wearing a harried expression, but Jane detected a slight quirk to his lips. Jane almost sighed with relief. Her mother stood abruptly, smoothing her pencil skirt.

"Hi!" Darcy walked into the room and thrust her hand out to Jane's mother, who blinked at the ferociously cheerful display.

"Hello, always great to see you…"

"Darcy. We met once at Jane's twelfth birthday party and the other time when she made National Honor Society." Darcy didn't look fazed at all to have been forgotten. Her father was attempting to not laugh.

"Well," her mother said, surprised and uncomfortable, "nice to see you again, Darcy. I'd better go and check if my intern hasn't completely ruined my lab today."

Bending, she quickly kissed Jane's head and gave her a light hug before turning and retreating to the door where her father stood, hands tucked behind his back and wearing an entirely too innocent expression.

"Ben."

"Elizabeth."

She turned back to look once more at Jane. "Bye, dear. Be good. I'll call you later."

Later would be Easter, and Jane was willing to wait far more than that for her next call. "Bye, mom."

Her parents did not stop to converse, merely nodding to each other once more in farewell before her mother's heels could be heard going down the hall. Darcy gave her thumbs up and a wink. Jane bit back a laugh. She definitely owed Darcy dinner and a movie.

Her fleeting amusement withered as her father stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. Her eyes cut into him.

"A little warning would have been nice!" Her steadily increasing heart monitor filled the room. Her father's eyes flew to it before returning to her.

"Jane-"

"Don't 'Jane' me! That was unfair."

"She's your mother, Jane. She has a right to see you."

"Because she's so charming to talk to. A real mother. You don't even have to talk to her. You have no idea the crap she gives me." She knew the second the words came out of her mouth she crossed a line. A truly angry look crossed his face for a brief second before he composed himself. Of course he knew.

"I understand why you're acting this way, and I think you need to rest-"

His calm delivery in the face of her anger made her snap."I've had enough rest! I feel like I'm resting my life away!"

Heat rose in her veins as her dad's mouth compressed into an anxious line at the heart monitor that refused to relax. She was getting upset, and it wasn't just because of her mother. She was ready to be out of this room, out of this hospital, and back to her life. Her mother was just the ugly catalyst. The burn of unshed tears filled her eyes.

"Well, she's gone now," Darcy chimed in, shattering the stony silence of the room. "Which means you and I can flip to the awful shows. I brought Doritos and honey mustard." She held up a plastic bag Jane hadn't noticed. In spite of herself she laughed weakly.

"You know I think that's gross."

"Yeah, well, good thing it's all for me. I wasn't planning on sharing anyway." Ripping the bag open she hopped up next to Jane and turned the television on.

"Jane, I'll be home if you need me." She turned to see her father's back as he left the room. A mix of resentment and regret intertwined with a petulance she knew was immature. But she was too emotional to find a way to make it up to him right now. Instead she turned her attention to Darcy, who was now eating Doritos slathered in honey mustard with gusto and watching a dramatic show.

"If you get crumbs on my bed we're going to have a problem."

"Relax, I'm perfect," she said around a mouthful of chips. "I dropped off your textbooks at home, marked in the sections we studied, and I compiled a list of your make-up tests. It's all waiting for you. In fact, I did such a fantastic and orderly job your grade's probably still better than mine."

The tears sprang to life again, the lump in her throat returning even larger and rendering her speechless. Darcy remained oblivious, munching away on her food as Jane was overcome with gratitude. Darcy was an invaluable friend, and guilt flooded Jane at the way she had let her bad attitude reign while Darcy was here. The least she deserved was good company.

So she rallied herself, forcing the lump back down her throat to reach over and grab some Doritos, avoiding the container of honey mustard.

" General Hospital? Really?"

"Excuse you, there's a reason it's been on for so long. You know, soap operas were very popular back in the day and actually began as a feminist movement-"

"Darcy, I'm in the hospital."

"Well, yeah. That's why I chose it."

Jane sat back and shook her head, unable to stop her smile and the warm feeling of belonging spreading through her.

"Heed our warning, little mage. The power you seek has no master."

"Your wisdom and knowledge surpass even the All-Father," he said, concealing his surprise as the black rock flew back into his grasp from the shadows.

"The All-Father has no concept of real sorcery. Only power. What good is power without control?" The ancient scroll appeared in front of him. He reached for it reverently.

"It is no good. It will destroy itself."

The three sisters smiled.

She walked into her house for the first time in weeks, and breathed in the familiar scent of home. Her dad dropped his keys in the bowl on the kitchen table and handed her bags to her, heading into the living room and turning on the television without a word. Jane suppressed a sigh; he had been taciturn and silent ever since her outburst yesterday. He'd come around, but an apology couldn't go wrong either. She hefted her bags and made her way to her bedroom, mulling over what she would say.

The sight of a raven head and long limbs sitting at her desk dampened her mood even further, but did not send her into a panic as it did the last time. Instead, she kicked the door closed and made her way to her bed, keeping him in the corner of her eye as he turned to watch her. She ripped off her scarf and began sorting her textbooks.

"You are injured."

"I'm not."

"Yes you are."

She dumped her hospital bag on her bed and turned to stare at him in annoyance and suspicion. He met her gaze evenly. She eyed her desk, trying to ascertain if any items were missing.

"You are," he said again, standing and moving to her. "You walk like a baby horse." Her anger flared along with her embarrassment. It wasn't exactly her fault she'd been confined to bed for three weeks.

"Is there a reason you keep showing up?"

"Is there a reason you're so hostile towards me? I did apologize for my behavior, Lady Jane."

The use of her name threw her off balance. "Yeah, well. 'Sorry' doesn't make up for threatening me with a knife."

He raised one eyebrow and stood, showcasing his regal clothing and height. "Then I shall endeavor to gain your good favor."

She crossed her arms and tried not to snort at his syntax. "Um, no. I think you're going to leave and stop appearing in my room."

He gazed at her for another moment before his eyes slid past her, the corner of his mouth lifting into a grin.

"And will you make me leave before even attempting to disprove my magic?" He opened his palm and his creation, which she had left floating behind one of her curtains weeks ago, whizzed by her to settle within his grasp. The limbs of the construction glowed a radioactive green between his fingertips. "You were quite keen to make me a fraud."

Jane stared at him, pale and young in the late morning sunlight, and much less sinister then she had ever seen him before. There was an air of light heartedness about him in the way he smiled confidently and the way he moved slowly and deliberately, obviously trying not to startle her. She bit her lip and stared obstinately at him, which he returned with boyish innocence. The scientist in her won after a quick internal struggle. What kind of researcher would she make if she allowed enigmas like him and his damned magic trick walk away without even trying to experiment?

"Give it to me." His smile grew at her demand, and he twirled a finger to send it spinning like a top in her direction. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It landed in her palm, where it ceased spinning, but remained glowing upon coming into contact with her skin. She held it up, her critical eye looking for any hint of trickery or explanation.

The silence grew as she continued to stare. Frustrated, she examined the corners, noting that one rigid limb flowed seamlessly into the adjacent, indicating the entire thing was one continuous structure. But where did it start? It had to start somewhere. But she couldn't find it, and the smirk on his face was only growing, so she tugged at a corner halfheartedly. It disconnected silently from one end, and she started in surprise. She looked up at him, and his eyes came up from her hands to meet hers. His expression, one of encouragement, amusement, and challenge, encouraged her to keep tugging. No more limbs came apart, but the shape began to disassemble the more she tugged and twisted. It reminded her of those magnetic connectors she used as a kid. Eventually she had broken down the entire thing to one long seamless piece that gave in wherever she applied pressure. Where it had been rigid and immovable before, it was now pliable and moved however she bent it.

She couldn't help the soft "wow" that escaped her. Ignoring the smug face she could see in the corner of her eye she moved to the window to inspect it under the light. The material it was made of felt strange, a combination of something like rubber and steel at the same time. It was something she had never seen, and she found herself with more curiosity than annoyance. She heard him take a few steps behind her.

"Well?"

"Hmm?" Jane barely heard him, concentrated as she was on learning about what she held. She bent it into a u-shape; it held.

"How will you disprove such a clear display of magic?"

His words broke her out of her examination, rounding on him readily. "There's a scientific way to explain everything I've seen so far."

Both of his eyebrows rose in an innocent gesture. "And what explanation do you have, Lady Jane?"

"I…"She looked down at his creation in her hands. On a whim she connected the two ends together to form a loop. The instant she did the entire thing hardened, becoming as unyielding as steel between her fingers. She looked up at him, encountering an expression that waited impatiently for an answer. Damn him.

"I can't explain it. Yet," she added hastily as she saw his mouth open to speak. "That doesn't mean there isn't a sensible explanation."

He scoffed. She felt the blood rise to her cheeks. "This could be an element no one's discovered yet. Or elements we already know interacting in ways we don't yet understand. Something that involves heat or something about physics no one's thought to observe…" Her voice tapered out self consciously as she realized she was practically waving the object under his nose. She took a step back and stared down at it in her hands.

"Or you're just messing with me and I'm a huge idiot," she mumbled, remembering quite suddenly that she was debating with a weird almost teenager that kept appearing in her bedroom with no apparent purpose and no explanations. Well, explanations she believed.

"Messing with you?" She looked up to see him looking quite confused.

"Er..fooling me," she said.

"Ah. Lady Jane, if I were to fool you it would have been much more impressive." It was the most honest sounding answer he'd given her so far, and Jane believed him. She was quickly learning that cockiness was one of his trademarks, evidenced by the tilt of his chin and his habit of looking down his nose at her.

"Right," she remarked, turning to look at her desk and pick up a pen, which she flicked nervously between her thumb and index finger. She heard him take another step before she looked up.

"I meant nothing by it. Only that I am being honest when I tell you it is magic, and I am not the raving lunatic you think me to be."

"Not magic," she said automatically, before reconsidering her sharp tone. "I mean, I still don't believe you. But you are kind of interesting." Kind of was an understatement.

"You don't believe me even when I show you?"

"No."

"And even though you think I am mad and dangerous you keep talking because I am…interesting?"

"That about sums it up, yeah."

He stared at her curiously, seeming to struggle to comprehend her. His jaw worked for a moment before he said, "Are all of your kind like this?"

"Kind?"

"Humans."

"Like what?"

"Unfathomable."

"Um, yeah." It was slightly easier this time to refer to herself as a separate race, as if he were an alien despite his human appearance. "I suppose. Everyone's got their quirks, if that's what you mean."

"Quirks." He seemed to roll the word around in his mouth as if he'd never heard of it. Jane looked anywhere but into the striking eyes that were slicing into her as if they could cut right to the parts that made sense. Jane couldn't help but feel a similar desire to find that sense as well. She continued to fiddle with the pen, staring awkwardly to the right.

"All of these mortals running around with all of these quirks," he said, lowering himself to sit cross legged on her floor like he had the last time he appeared. "How do you survive each other?"

"Oh please, most of us are pretty tame," she scoffed as she sat down in her desk chair, twisting to face him. "As if you have don't have any of your own."

"Quirks? I suppose I do."

When he didn't offer any more, she huffed and took the bait.

"Like?"

The index finger of the hand resting on his knee twitched, and his strange object rose silently to hover gently in front of her face.

"Magic. Right." She snatched it out of the air. "Anything else?"

"Still not impressive enough for you?"

She rolled her eyes at his jab. "What is this thing anyway?" She tugged around the loop she created earlier until she found the point where the ends disconnected. Flexibility returned to the object and she began to bend it into something new.

"It is called a legetøj, and it is a common child's toy where I come from. As a boy I would often use it to climb up to roofs I had no business being on." He grinned at a memory Jane couldn't see, but for some reason could picture quite clearly: a wiry boy with black hair using this toy as a rope, dangling from castle walls. It almost made her laugh before she remembered that he was probably lying or deluded. Or both.

His mouth turned up as if he could read her thoughts, but he made no comment on it. Instead he let the silence settle over them. Jane could feel him watching he as she turned her attention to the toy, willing answers to pop out of it.

"Can I keep this for a while?" She couldn't help but ask, as eager as she was to poke and prod at whatever the hell it was.

"I left it with you a while ago. It is yours to do with as you please."

"Thanks…" She searched for what to call him, vaguely remembering that he had told her something ridiculous that involved a title.

"Prince Loki, of Asgard." The words seemed to physically settle on him as he said them. His shoulders squared, and his chin came forward a fraction. Jane tamped down her initial urge to snort very impolitely. Of course he would have a name like that.

"Well. Thanks Loki."

He looked slightly taken aback, blinking rapidly twice before fixing her with the same piercing look as earlier. "You are welcome, Lady Jane."

She laughed. "Jane is fine. I don't have any title. I'm no lady."

This time he smiled. "No, you are not, despite your appearances. Jane didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted. She chose not to dwell on it. Instead she slid to the floor to sit across from him and hold up his gift.

"Got any other tricks up your sleeve?"

An hour later, Jane turned the lamp on as the sun set.