Kari continued to sit, in her one size fits all car seat, strapped to the wall as the airship was brought to land. Like a rag tag team of edgy delinquents the collection of Avengers and asgardians then bustled into the back getting comfortable whilst the pilots busied themselves with getting them into the air once again. By this point, she was so hungry her stomach had actually given up growling and all her remaining energy was then focused on doing a single task. Thor stood, arms folded as he stared down at his brother, in his own naughty seat, who in turn eyed Kari across from them whilst she fixed her focus to the back of Thor's horribly blonde head. Suffice to say, there was nothing romantic about the triangle of eyeballing going on.
"How long until we reach our destination?" Thor queried whilst his attention remained on guarding his deceptive younger sibling.
"Not long now." The lady spy responded without taking her focus away from the controls in front of her.
"Good, I do not trust your strange manner of travel."
"Because you prefer to travel by swinging hammer?" Stark retorted as Steve fought against the urge to roll his eyes at the impending war of words about to spew. "Tell me, how do you prevent all the bugs from getting into that luscious mane you have there, point break?"
"The sooner we get to base the sooner we can secure Loki." Captain America cut in, before offense could be taken, with a round of practical conversation.
"You mean to cage my brother?" Thor was all ears, though not literally, as he registered the comment and turned from his brother to impose upon the standing midgardians.
"I don't know what Fury has planned, you'll have to ask him where he means to keep the prisoner." Steve shrugged, though his eyes remained focused and unblinking into the blonde's stern gaze; holding his own in a soldier's battle of wills. "Besides, we'll have to hold him somehow." He suddenly looked away towards the dishevelled matt of brown curly locks to his right. "And the other one."
"Other one?"
"The other asgardian with Loki when we captured him."
"There should be no other…" Thor's expression mutated several times as thinking and missing recollection took precedence until finally he sort to investigate the situation via following the other mans gaze. "I know you."
"You think?" Kari was mostly dangling limply against her straps, incensed blue eyes glowering at the mountainous asgardian coming closer for a better look of the creature staring up at him through its hair.
"Fandralkin?" His eyebrows knitted in surprise, confusion and just a hint of disbelief.
"Kari, my name is Kari." She growled back, taking the moment to blow upwards and dislodge some concealing curly locks.
"Fandralkin!"
"Ah!" She suddenly screamed as the excitable man-child collided against her malnourished body with his heavily muscled arms then unceremoniously ripped her upwards into a great bear hug as if the tight strapping holding her were nothing but silly string. "Get off! Thor, put me down! Oh my god I think I'm going to be sick or…" There was a silent pause, sporadically punctuated with machinery beeping, as the sounds of a mostly fruitless but champagne laced retching commotion subsided. "Ew."
"Well isn't this just a happy fun time reunion." Stark took a step further back from the light splatter of liquid vomit now adorning the vessel floor.
"I take it she's on our side?" Steve cut in, though his eyes darted around the room as if re-cataloguing everyone on board for the third time that day.
"I wouldn't count on it." Kari whined as she lay like dead weight against an overly friendly giant clasping her to him like a small child. "I'm still waiting for a McChicken sandwich."
"We thought you dead?" Thor finally released his prisoner, letting her slump back into her seat with a dizzying groan. "Fandral and the others searched for you for almost a year entire throughout the nine realms."
"I heard something about that from… Hela, I think her name was."
"You have been with the queen of Hel all these years?"
"No." She winced at the thought of explaining. "Look, uh, where do I start with this." Her lip sought refuge between her teeth as she squinted up at the puppy-eyed asgardian keen for news and practically wagging his metaphoric tail. "See, there was a book and err, well apparently I read the book wrong."
"Here's a tip, you start from the front and read towards the right. Unless it's Japanese or-"
"Stark." Steve shot the other man a warning stare.
"What? I was just being helpful."
"And so erm, right yes, silly misunderstanding with a spell and 'BAM' on a beach, zombies, Aragog, mud crabs, potato tasting carrots, mud mountain, a dragon that turns into an old man, lava, that bit from the labyrinth minus the lipstick, a giant talking dog, more zombies and stairs." She paused for breath and also a little cringing. "God, the stairs were the worst part."
"This sounds as if you were in Helheim." Thor nodded his acceptance of her babbling description of another realm.
"Oh and uh haha how do I put this? Um, it's only been a few weeks since I left Asgard. To, er, me."
"I do not understand. You say you have travelled through time? Brother?" He turned to stare pointedly at Loki whom merely looked away offering nothing to his older sibling in a seemingly 'tired of being blamed for shit he had not done' manner. "How did you find yourself on midgard, with Loki?"
"Hela." Kari shrugged as if this were all the answer she needed. "I uh, woke up in the middle of some big room after talking to her, people were screaming and running and there was free champagne and then I saw Loki so I kind of followed him out."
"Is it just me or does this story sound like the rambling fantasy of an eight year old caught with her fingers in the cookie jar?"
"Fandralkin's word is good enough for me." Thor rounded on the metal man sudden enough to make the rest of the occupants stiffen in foreboding.
"Kari, my name is, oh forget it…" Kari flailed uselessly though managing to succeed in a smaller victory of sorts via distracting the hulking bimbo from clobbering teammates.
"The others will rejoice at word of your survival." He grinned having returned to loom over the small woman.
"Uh-huh. Your dad included?"
"Worry not of the all father."
"It's kind of hard not to when he's, you know, himself."
"Brace yourselves, we're coming in to land." Romanoff called out as the ship began its descent.
There was a momentary scurry as rears took seats with Thor standing uselessly around the centre of the vessel in his usual confused manner when confronted with midgardian things. A brief patter of turbulence almost knocked Kari out of her seat as she pouted, arms crossed, but was soon held back in place by a strong red, white and blue wearing arm not unwelcomely. In a matter of seconds they felt the ship shudder for the last time and the engines begin their cool down to a full stop. All the excitement was not over yet however.
Hydraulics hissed as the main ramp way to the rear drifted downwards allowing in a flood of cascading synthetic light, much like some alien abduction encounter, though heavily armoured men mostly blocked the view. Boots on a mix of hard surfaces thudded forwards before halting in a lined formation half in and half out of the vessel but all pointing weapons towards their intended target. Before mistakes were made, the lady spy was out of her pilot seat ordering men to secure Loki and managing to negotiate with his older sibling to release his charge to the trained military operatives. By this point, Kari, was much too exhausted to care as she was coaxed from her seat by Captain America and ushered to follow the retreating backs of Thor and Romanoff discussing terms of Loki's captivity. She would have believed herself mostly forgotten about again if it had not been for a guard ordering her to follow him upon entering what she was dimly aware of as being a military base with sci-fi looking screens and lights everywhere.
"Where do you intend on taking her?" Thor's concerned vocals penetrated her hearing causing her body to halt along with her guard.
"A shower, change of clothes and a debriefing." Romanoff explained somewhat unenthusiastically.
"A real shower? With soap and everything?" Kari's eyes were as big as saucers as she stared longingly at the back of the red haired woman's head and incited a chuckle from the blond.
"Very well, but she is not to be harmed or locked away as you would my brother."
"Yes, we get it. She's one of ours." The lady spy huffed a sigh as she signalled the guard to continue where he was taking his charge and turned back to her tour guide job. "Follow me and I'll show you to Fury…"
With a little extra skip in her shuffling steps, Kari stalked behind the guard like a bee drawn to pollen. The promise of a shower was almost if not equal to the desirability of a chicken burger from a particular restaurant. As a doorway with a sign above it, depicting lines falling from a showerhead appeared into view, she failed miserably to wait the jumble of seconds it would have taken for her escort to explain they were at their destination before diving inside and beginning to strip before the door had even closed behind her. A certain level of desperation flooded her blood stream in the form of adrenaline at the mere thought of hot water and shampoo. It was a luxury she had been without for years; though bath time was also enjoyable nothing in all the universe could compare to a shower after wearing the same clothes for eight weeks.
"Ek!" She squealed as she turned a valve only to be pelted with icy water and danced in shocked fashion in and out of the spray with her legs to test the improving temperature until just right. "Oh god! Oh god yes!"
There was no way in hell anybody was going to force the now red skinned, from extreme levels of scrubbing, woman out of her steaming like a sauna cubicle for a minimum of an hour. Her hair had to be washed at least three times, followed by a thirty-minute straight body scrub and a further twenty-minutes of wallowing under the warm water singing a mixture of misheard and made-up lyrics to 'Fearless four – rockin' it'. Mind clearly unable to think ahead, by the time she managed to break out the will power to turn off the shower she came to realise she was lacking several necessities for after wash rituals. Upon sticking her head out of the cubicle, however, doing her best to ring excess water from her soon to be fluffy curls, a welcome if confusing sight greeted her suspicious eyes.
The strewn pile of her old clothing had vanished, replaced instead with a neat pile of one-size fits every female shield operative gym clothes on top of a clean white towel. This place really was like some Star trek-esk pleasure cruise. All it needed now was a buffet cart, bed and hair straighteners to make everything perfect.
Drying herself off and getting into her new smelling dark tracksuit bottoms and grey vest, Kari sauntered around the rest of the empty shower facility whilst attempting to towel dry her hair. They really were not big on mirrors in this place, instead keeping to strict small squares above the sink units most likely for admiring teeth brushing. That was certainly something she was desperately keen to do upon discovering toothpaste and an unopened toothbrush left ever so innocently next to a sink. Who had been in here, whilst she was in the shower, leaving gifts all over the place? Also, why had they failed to leave hair mousse? Whatever, she was clean and her halitosis was about to find itself homeless.