Chapter Five
"She's no good for you, Loki."
Odin could convey many things through silence. He could convey many things through his speech. Both were just as fearsome. And bothersome. Loki knew that better than anyone. The silence was unnerving; his dear father was watching him far too keenly. What did he think he saw? What he did want to see?
"She's no good for you, Loki."
What did his dear, devoted Father see?
What did he want? What did he want that he would bother his neglected son so? An old bitterness crept up inside of Loki. His father, he thought mockingly. His father wanted many things. Things that weren't possible. Things that weren't fair. In turn, what Loki wanted was simple. He wanted what should have been his. A throne. He'd thought the foolish notion gone. Not all the way perhaps, but gone none the less. But something was still there. He had a need to rule. If not for the damn thread, he would have smiled.
"She will bring you back to the brink." The Odin-Father sounded weary.
Loki closed his eyes, mulling over the words before he opened the again. There was no 'she'. He was living a lie, a life of cool, calm remedy. Things were suddenly too dull.
"...I've lost one son already, Loki. Do not make me lose another."
He was mentally snickering. The old man had Thor, so why was he complaining? If not for the fact that he didn't want the old man conversing in kind, he would have spoken mind to mind.
"Do not make me regret my decision, Loki. She's no good for you..."
The sound of his fathers footsteps retreating was soothing. Like preferred his silence over the stair of the Odin-Father.
She. She. Was Sigyn so potent that even she felled the Odin-Father? She. She was on his mind again. Intriguing. Perhaps he would pay her a visit when she was back on Midgard. She didn't seem to grasp the concept of who her betters were. She thought she was equal. He laughed mentally. But of course, it was his duty to prove her wrong.
Darcy Lewis. Little Sigyn. She was everything he despised in mortals. She exploited her weaknesses. She acted a fool. No form of remorse whatsoever. And his Father had witnessed that acting kindness of pity from both Darcy and himself. If Darcy had known Odin was watching, would she still have helped him upon that pedestal?
He drummed his fingers behind his back. Then that was Odin's reasoning. He was afraid that his only other son was falling prey to a mortal as Thor had. Loki laughed mentally at the thought. That was a fools errand. A disgusting and poor fools errand.
Only three people had ever seen him so weak and disdainfully pitiful. Odin. Thor. And his Sigyn. He found it insulting that Odin would even think to fancy himself with a mortal. Did his Father know him so little? He wasn't so far gone. He would give this round to Sigyn, though. She hadn't set foot in his presence in three days. Not since that terribly revealing scene of his weakness. He was bound to this punishment.
It was like a chain and shackle.
He snorted at the thought that his Father thought him still capable of such...madness. Was he?
But yes, a chain and shackle. One day he would be free of this accursed thread. He lifted his head towards the sky. 'You would leave without saying goodbye?' He found himself shaking his head before he remembered that she would not see the notion. 'And I thought you were learning.'
They were leaving today. Thor's lover and Darcy. His little human Sigyn...She was leaving without even bidding him goodbye. Before, the notion wouldn't have caused him a moments notice. Now, he found it oddly diverting. It was becoming a habit of hers. He would frighten her and then she would rightfully so remove herself from his presence.
He didn't know where the thought came from, but he couldn't stop it. 'I told you...' He said slowly, the him of the Bi-Frost filling the air, radiating power. '...you are my means to an end.'
There was no place like home. There was no place like home. There was no place like home. Darcy had repeated the phrase to herself just like in the Wizard of Oz. The Bi-Frost had threatened to upchuck her stomach a second time. If someone could get motion sickness from time travel, leave it to her because she would definitely find a way. Hot Gods and golden cities aside, there was no place like home. Jane would probably be making another return, but no sirree, not Darcy.
There was no place like home and definitely nothing like a potential stalker.
Loki and his telepathy bullshit. Her "You can bet your sweet buns on it" had had Thor and Jane looking at her oddly. Oops. She hadn't meant to say that out loud. But Loki couldn't definite bet his buns that she wasn't telling him goodbye. She didn't know how to take his departing words. She was an end alright, an end to everything that was scientific, probably. That was Jane's job, not hers.
She didn't owe him a goodbye. He wasn't that cool. It wasn't as if he could have been there for her to say goodbye, anyways. Daylight and all. What was he doing, threatening her? Now, that could have just put them on a whole different level.
She peeked through her fingers when the momentum of the earth and time space thingy stopped spinning. They were back on the good, old fashioned earth. If the ground wasn't, well, the ground, she would have fallen to her knees and kissed its grimy, dirt covered surface. "No place like home." She said again, eagerly.
With music, pop-tarts and coffee on the menu, she was ready. Not to mention a shower. Those huge tubs in Asgard provided a luxurious bath, but it wasn't the same as a hot shower running over your head. Asgard was cool as shit and all, but the place had nothing on a shower. A shower beat that princely psychopath any day.
"Are you okay?" Jane asked from her side of the RV as they both hoped up into the abandoned vehicle.
"Totally, yea. Absolutely and ditto fine, babe." Darcy's mouth watered at the thought of a chocolate glazed doughnut. Her sweet tooth was making itself known with a vengeance. There were certain things that you just couldn't get anywhere else but Earth. Tires squealed as Darcy stomped on the gas and the RV fishtailed before it took off, the passenger used to such maniac driving.
"Coffee." Darcy said, as if that explained what she was doing. Jane was staring at her strangely as Darcy unplugged the coffee maker and took it with her into her bedroom in the small condo. Upgrade from the RV, at least when they weren't on one of their road trip missions. The cord trailed behind her as she found a place for it on her dresser and then bent over one side of the oak and plugged the cord behind. Why did they have one coffee maker anyways?
Next she followed with the filters and the coffee grounds.
"Third times the charm." She sang to herself as she made another round, but this time with her hands full with a dozen doughnuts from Krispy Kreme. "Yea, baby!" She said out loud and kicked the bedroom door behind her closed with her foot.
The moment they'd got back, she'd made a mini stock pile in her room. It's not like she hadn't done it before. Cargo pants and over-sized shirt ready, doughnuts in hand and the coffee dripping and aroma-nating the room—she'd just made a new word—she sank down onto the bean bag across from the bed.
She was surrounded by books and ready to relax. "One down, too many more to go." Darcy said, scarfing down one chocolate glazed doughnut. She paused to lick the flecks of icing off her fingers and then picked up one of the books surrounding her.
It felt good to be back. She had missed her little beanbag and her bed. It was small, but it was hers. Jane was probably already planning a second trip. Obsessive, wasn't she? But she didn't have a crazy, psychotic would-be-King stalking her mind, either. She snorted at the idea and flipped through the book in her hands. She had thought about going through the index and in the end, she probably would, but for right now she went through the pages until she came across what she was looking for.
Loki.
The image didn't resemble him at all. In fact, it was crudely drawn and if Loki had looked like that in reality, she would have called him U-G-L-Y—ugly. She scrolled down, wondering why the book didn't mention anything about his jötunn side. History books weren't everything, because reality was certainly nothing like myth, other than the fact that myths had turned into reality.
"No way." She drawled out in a mock shock when she read "Loki sometimes assists the Gods and sometimes causes trouble for them". He did that a lot, cause trouble. She didn't like the term "Trickster God". She didn't like tricks, especially when she was on the receiving end.
"Now where you be at..." She murmured to herself as she started thumbing through the pages. If Jane had choose that moment to barge in, Darcy knew she probably would have been mortified. She didn't want Jane playing cupid because why else would "Darcy be looking into the background of none other than Loki"?
She snorted again. Because. That's why. And she knew he had a wife, and if he didn't, well, he would in time. She highly doubted that the space and time continuum thing had changed that much to alter a families history. Her eyes locked in on the left page.
'In Norse mythology, Sigyn is a Goddess and the wife of Loki.'
"Boo Ya!" She knew she'd read about the two somewhere. He definitely had, or was going to have, a wife. She was a little miffed that he'd dared to call her a liar. Who did he think he was? A God, most certainly. Well, he was a God, even if his status was lowered. Oh, she wished that she could be there the day he got married, just to say, "I told you so."
She was always into learning new stuff, otherwise, she might have found this boring. She turned the page, her eyes following the typed letters. 'When Loki was young, he came to desire a wife and admired Sigyn from afar—'
A bright light flashed across the room and she lifted her head, wondering if the coffee maker had somehow short circuited one of the breakers.
"Did your mother never teach you the meaning of cleanliness, Sigyn?" Loki said from across the room as he stepped out of the momentarily bright light. He arched an eyebrow, taking in the clothes strewn across the bed, the empty coffee cups on a side table and the books littering the floor.