Chapter XVII: Caught Unawares

A/N: Thing are going to start to pick up in this chapter. Thanks go out to theicemenace for her beta work. Enjoy the chapter! SSD

Title inspiration: "But we're talking kings and successions, even you can't be caught unawares!" Be Prepared- The Lion King

After getting cleaned up and a very long icy cold shower, Hanna grabbed the book that Loki had loaned her. Her mind was now back where it needed to be and was no longer entertaining anything that would distract her.

Hopefully they would still let her into his room just to return the book, even though he was now king.

Hanna also had no desire to run into Loki at the moment. He had always been able to read her, and she really didn't want to explain why she couldn't look him in the eye at the moment.

Thankfully she was allowed into his rooms with minimal fuss. Hanna was in and out in a matter of a few minutes.

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Hanna was prowling her way around the palace when she felt a tugging in the back of her mind. Walking towards it, the siren call got stronger. She could now see a door that had been previously unseen. As Hanna placed her hand on the door, suddenly she got sucked through it, falling through blackness.

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When she was finally able to see color other than black, Hanna was shocked to see her surroundings. Somehow she had wound up on Jotunheim. Again.

"What's going on? How did that happen?" Hanna thought to herself. She looked back at the passage and saw that it was shut, and likely would remain so, for a period of time.

The last thing Hanna wanted to do was sit around waiting for the passage to charge back up again, so she decided to take a walk around.

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Heimdall could not see or hear Loki, the presence of Asgard's current king cloaked in its entirety.

But there was another soul on Jotunheim that he had not expected to see: Hanna. She had not gotten there via the Bifrost that much the gatekeeper could tell. He wondered what she could see.

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Wherever she was located, things were starting to actually look familiar to Hanna. The scorching and battle scars were fresher than the rest. Knowing that a significant number of frost giants would likely be located nearby, and that the passage had likely been recharged enough for her to return to Asgard, Hanna turned around to leave.

That was when she saw something that had never expected to see. Loki was talking to the frost giants and they hadn't killed him on sight, so he was likely up to no good. Hanna was nowhere near close enough to hear what was being said, and was not about to attempt to try. If she got too close, Loki would be able to sense her presence. Hanna had no desire to find out what he would do to her if he caught her.

Hanna ran, getting back to the passage in record time. Once she was back in Asgard, she slumped down to the floor.

What could she possibly do? What choice could she make? Asgard or Loki?

Hanna then began to remember choice moments from the past eighty years.

"You're learning something new today," said Loki. "You may or may not have to go outside."

Hanna looked up expectantly, giving him her full attention.

"As you have been reading, fire can be used to make illusions. I will teach how to do this, on one condition." Loki suddenly made several different duplicates of himself and they all disappeared out of the room. "You have to find the real me, without touching the illusion." Loki had a crooked grin on his face. "And when you're certain that you have it, then you can tap it on the shoulder to see if you got it right."

Hanna nodded and left the room.

For roughly two hours, Hanna stalked around Asgard analyzing the apparent "real" Lokis. Suddenly a realization hit her.

Trickster that her instructor was, there was only one option for what he did. Loki had never even left the blasted room!

Sauntering back in, Hanna tagged him on the shoulder smugly saying, "Found you."

Loki grinned. It had taken her a shorter amount of time to realize where he was than he thought.

Hanna grinned at the memory. That had begun one of the more enjoyable parts of her learning magic. Of course that brought forward another memory of another one of her lessons. It had been thoroughly mortifying!

To say that she was excited was a gross understatement. Hanna was going to try teleporting on her own to the enclosed garden for the first time.

It required an intense amount of focus, with little to no distractions. If she got distracted, things could go wrong.

Meanwhile, Loki was waiting where Hanna said she would try to show up at. He saw the crackle of energy, then a loud shriek as his apprentice dove behind a tree.

"What's wrong, Hanna?" Loki asked as he made his way towards to where she was.

"Don't come any closer!" Hanna yelped. She still hadn't come out from behind the tree. And she'd even climbed up to where the foliage was dense.

"Come on out Hanna," said Loki. There was no reason for her to be behind the tree.

"Not going to happen," Hanna replied stubbornly. How could he not realize why she was doing this?

Going into Prince of Asgard mode, "Hanna, I command you to come out from behind that tree!" Loki ordered.

Before Hanna could get another word in, a smoother voice, said, "That's alright Hanna; I have some things you need."

Loki turned around at his mother's voice. She had a bundle of clothes in her arms, clothes that looked suspiciously like the clothes Hanna had been wearing a short time earlier. The clothes vanished, and the tree branches his apprentice was hiding behind began to move as if someone was getting dressed. Loki grinned as he realized that his apprentice had teleported into the garden naked.

As Loki saw Hanna's feet touch the ground, he grinned. Once Hanna came into view, her ears, face, and neck were redder than Thor's cape.

Just as he was about to open his mouth to tease her, his mother cut in with, "As I recall, the first time you teleported on your own, you threw up."

Loki in turn shut his mouth.

It had taken Hanna a decade before she could laugh at that incident and think about without blushing. Another slew of memories came fore, and chief among them was one from when she'd come along on one of the excursions.

Hanna hated that this time she'd drawn the midwatch. The night on Nornheim was long enough that all seven of them would have to stand a three hour watch. And Volstaag, lucky bastard he was, drew the first watch. Sif had managed to snag the last watch.

Just as her eyes nearly dropped, a big hand came down on her shoulder. Hanna had her sword half way out, and several fireballs formed before Thor said, "Stand down, Hanna. Your watch is over.

Hanna nodded in reply, she was too tired to speak, barely making it to her bedroll, falling asleep as she hit the blanket.

Unfortunately a few hours later, Hanna blearily woke up to voices. Out of habit, she reached for Ovader, before she recognized the voices. It was Thor and Loki.

"She was near asleep on her feet when I relieved her," Thor said before continuing, "When I touched her shoulder however, her reaction was quick. She likely would have set me ablaze if I had not spoken.

"Hanna's getting better. Much better." Loki said. Before her instructor could get in another word, Thor said, "It's nice to see her out and about. You keep her to yourself far too often." Hanna could hear the grin in the elder prince's voice.

"I am well aware of what the gossips say about the… relationship between myself and my apprentice. Her family has certainly heard about it," Loki said ruefully.

"So her cousins Jakob and Sven the Younger have threatened you, brother?" Thor.

"Not just them, her brothers as well." Loki continued. Hanna groaned mentally. They were lucky that they were of the rank that they were, from anyone else it would have caused trouble.

"Brothers? I thought she only had one brother," Thor asked curiously.

Taking a deep breath, Loki said, "It seems that her eldest brother in law Erik is quite protective of her. He acts more as an elder brother."

Thor chuckled and clapped Loki on the shoulder, "You were not alone in being warned away by her family brother. They've had words with me as well. She is lucky to have such a protective family."

Before turning around and going back to his tent, Loki, with a grin in his voice, said, "We both know why. Neither of us exactly have the reputation for keeping our hands to ourselves!"

Both brothers chuckled, as this was a fact that many people were well aware of.

Hanna now had sat down at an empty bench, far away from the others. One more memory came through, it was a more recent one, only about 15 years old.

Hanna really had not wanted to come to Astrid's wedding. But she was her sister, and it would look odd that she wasn't there, according to her father.

She disagreed with that sentiment, since it was well known that there was little love lost between the two of them. So it would not have looked too strange if she hadn't shown up.

Hanna knew that there was only going to be one way she was going to get through the night: Lots of mead and winter wine.

As she motioned to a servant for some mead, her father sat down next to her and said, "I'm glad that you came."

Hanna replied, "I came for you and the rest of the family. Not for Astrid. Hopefully her groom has some idea of what he's getting himself into with her." Hanna gave her father a sidelong glance with a grin.

Sven chose to ignore his youngest daughter's statement. Instead he asked her, "I've heard that you've gotten quite good with your magic. Better than anyone could have thought possible." He really was proud of his daughter's skill.

Before Hanna could reply, the servant came with the mead, which she drained half of quickly. After she set the cup down, she replied, "Well, I have had a very good teacher." Hanna had a smile on her face.

"Be that as it may, please be careful with Prince Loki. For your sake as much as everyone elses." With that he got up.

Hanna couldn't help but wonder now, that her father might just know something more about Loki than what was public knowledge.

Sitting in her armor on that bench, Hanna had her sword in one hand, and a ball of blue green flame in the other. Which side to choose: Loki to whom she owed everything regarding her magic to or to Asgard which had become her home?

A/N 2: Now… Which side does she choose? Tell me what you think!