A/N: I looked at the date a few days ago and realized that I hadn't posted in...a month. Sorry! I'd cite three jobs, technically four, but I've had a bit of spare time here and there where I could have posted this. Anyways, enjoy!
With her arms still around his shoulders, Sigyn felt when he stiffened subtly without changing his body language. She kept chatting about the different things that they still had to do while steering her words subtly away from topics that would give an observer any knowledge about their actual plans. In an almost lazy gesture, she drew one hand to his shoulder and flicked at a stray strand of his hair in a move that left him free to cast without interference and gave her the leverage she would need if an attack were launched against them.
Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she risked a glance around and saw no tell-tale heat distortions that would have indicated an illusion. Letting a grin settle over her lips, she leaned into Loki until her hair obscured half her face and brushed her lips against his ear to whisper, "I don't recall casting guards against scrying. It has to be Amora. Heimdall wouldn't need a spell and no other sorcerers, Healers, or magic-users would dare to spy on us."
She saw only the flash of a feral smile cross his features before the spell wrapped around them and she blinked to find that a double sensation had enveloped her limbs. "Loki?" she asked carefully.
"It's a variation of my clones that I've been working out. If it works properly, then it should appear to her spell that we haven't changed positions," he said, rising and sliding away from a suddenly distorted outline of his body. She peered interestedly at the doppelganger beneath her fingers. It was solid and warm just as he had been, but there was a distinct lack of animation that his clones usually held. "Move back. This is the first time I've tested the spell against someone else."
Sigyn released the not-clone and rose to stand at his side, only then noticing that the world around them seemed slightly…shadowy…and had to grin ruefully at him. "An action loop illusion feeding into a cloaking spell," she observed. "Not quite a variation on your clones, love, but still very clever."
He looked ready to argue, but the look that she gave him quelled the words. Storing the argument for later, he cast about for the source of the scrying spell and latched into the source that was feeding into it to try and follow it back to the caster. Her fingers twined through his when his brow furrowed and his magic touched a block. Their magic blended together and pushed at the block, but still achieved nothing.
"Blood wards," she murmured. "Amora has branched out beyond enchanting since the last time I saw her." She was almost talking to herself at that point, but the words were as much for Loki as they were to help her sort through her thoughts. "Let's try…" she trailed off as their magic separated and attacked the block from two different directions. They burrowed at it, spread the magic thin, felt out the surface of the anchor, and Sigyn could only grunt in frustration and twine her power again with Loki's. It broke apart beneath their touch and vanished.
Loki muttered a soft curse before he released the spells and her hand. "What…was that?" she asked slowly. "Has Amora shifted her strengths?"
"No," Loki said absently, already reweaving the spell they had been tracking. "It seems like a basic scrying with added layers of protection." He glanced sidelong at her and she felt something curl in her stomach. "I wasn't aware that you had received training in identifying blood wards."
She tried to smile and failed before she sighed and ran a hand through her hair. Glancing away, she chuckled mirthlessly. "Just before I…vanished, I was taking lessons from Malekith as a precaution against others using such spells against us. At the time, you were engrossed in your latest project and it didn't seem horribly important."
There was a pause before he said, "Blood spells are borderline-"
"-evil incarnate," she intoned in a voice that made his lips twitch in amusement. "Not only that, but they are very powerful weapons in the wrong hands. I had to understand the differences in how such spells were different from our innate magic to protect against them."
The wind riffled through their hair as silence lapsed between them and he completed the recreation of the spell. Satisfied he could hold it, he studied his wife for a long moment. Steady and more loyal that Thor, compassionate and fierce, he had never thought she would consort with any of the darker forms of magic. That she had…wasn't unsurprising when he considered how far into a corner Odin had shoved over the last thousand odd years.
Unapologetic, she met his gaze and raised her eyebrows like she was daring him to challenge her on the knowledge she had taken for herself. He was, after all, hardly innocent of dabbling in his own share of the darker forms of magic.
"It wasn't quite a basic scrying spell," he said, spreading the components before her.
The way that the spell wound around itself had her frowning and running a finger along one of the translucent edges. At her touch, one component detached itself and slithered along her hand, its tendrils seeking the warmth of flesh and bone bodies. Biting back a yelp of panic, she sprang back and shook her hand free of the creeping spell that had been embedded within it.
"A double layer compulsion?" she asked, startled. "For what?"
Her gaze flicked from his hands to his to his eyes and she realized too late who it had been meant for. The only thing she could do was seize the collar of his shirt and release a burst of magic that felt similar to when he teleported them elsewhere. All she knew was that a compulsion-any compulsion-from Amora was not one she would risk her children or lose her husband to.
Pain ripped through her body as the spell splintered halfway through with no direction to take them. The last thing thought to pass through her mind before she succumbed to the darkness was that of the Tower and the superhumans that occupied its space. They weren't all there and there was no guarantee that it would work, but they were the only chance she had.
E
Heimdall had been watching Thor's human allies for the better part of time that the fallen prince and his wife had been missing. When Sigyn contacted the human inventor, to say he was unsurprised would have been an understatement. The shifting energies in one of the other females in the Tower had drawn his attention time and again, but it hadn't been until Sigyn took an interest in her health that he had pieced together how wrong the human had looked to him.
It was during one of the periods that he was observing the fluctuations run through the human female that Loki and Sigyn returned to the Tower. His gaze switched instantly from the female to the pair. The last he had known, Loki hadn't been one to pay casual visits to those that considered him an enemy. The way in which the pair topped over after the spell released and the tense set of Loki's shoulders had him sending a messenger running for Thor of Sif, whoever was closest.
E
Colors and sounds distorted themselves and flowed together, the gentle tug and push to teleport away insistent and conflicting with everything he knew and understood. Memories skittered away from his reach when he looked for them, fractured when he grasped them. The physical pressure on his shoulders and the discomfort of sudden departure became his grounding stone for a moment and in that second his head cleared he glimpsed Sigyn's features contorted in pain before they impacted and collapsed together.
Stay and protect warred with teleport and lavender and enemy. He could only gasp and hold tight to his magic, willing the spell to clear from his mind so that he could understand what his situation was. Sigyn became Amora, but love refused to become hate.
Steady and hold fast echoed through his mind, but the touch that became physical pressure was lashed out at and the muffled scream it elicited sent more panic than pleasure through him. False finally registered with the pleasure and the panic gripped him tighter than the compulsion. Another scent, newer, but far more potent and familiar, invaded his senses and he let the darkness overwhelm him even as the panic followed him down into its reaches.
She lay on her back, one hand wrapped pressed tightly to her side to try and stem the bleeding, gasping and shuddering with the pain even as she held fast to Loki's shoulder with her free hand and continued to murmur, "Hold fast, steady, stay with me, don't leave." Even after the darkness had receded and she woke to Loki's wild gaze and his arms framing either side of her body, she wasn't sure of where they were, what the compulsion was, or even if they were safe. All she was aware and certain of was the cool warmth of his skin pressed against hers, the sound of his labored breathing, and the sparking of magic as she pushed against the spell that was wrapping itself around him.
The spell pushed back at her, reached for warmth and love and flesh, but she broke the magical connection between them before it ensnared her. Noise started up around them, but her entire focus was centered on Loki and keeping him focused on her. She did, however, notice the change in the air quality. Peripherally, she was almost aware that someone was calling her name, but she ignored it up until her vision began to fade and Loki's arms gave out, slamming his greater weight into her body just before she succumbed to the darkness as well.
Alert. Ninth floor unauthorized access detected.
Scans of the area revealed no forced entry and two distinctly different bodies. Warm-blooded, human in form, magical in signature. It narrowed his list of known individuals to three-only two of whom he had met and only one of whom he actually liked.
Running an analysis of their vitals and analyzing the swirl of magic he could detect rolling off of them brought him nothing. Trying to gain Ms. Sigyn's attention had also done nothing. Whatever had happened, it was causing a serious fluctuation in the output of their magic, forcing it to mingle and twine around what he thought was the casting signature of the Enchantress Amora, but the analysis returned inconclusive. Sorting and storing the information on Loki's magic for later, Jarvis appraised Dr. Banner of the situation while he directed certain functions to quarantining Ms. Potts and prepping two of the suits in case the situation became an emergency.
Discreetly, he enabled one of the first lines of defense. Watching their response to the industrial strength knock out gas, he noted that Sigyn took longer to pass out and that she might have sustained some bruised ribs when her husband succumbed first. When the Hawk made it to the door before Dr. Banner, Jarvis automatically locked the archer out of the access codes and refused him entry even when the archer asked him to open the damn doors.
There was a forty-five percent that the Hawk would give into the temptation of shooting an unconscious Loki, but resist shooting Sigyn and-understanding her as he did-there was a one-hundred percent chance she would retaliate against the archer for even attempting to attack one she cared for.
Upon the Hawk's third line of muttered explicitives for being refused entry, Jarvis said, "I must request that your presence be removed from this floor, Agent Barton. It is for your safety as much as those who are injured."
Has he been human, Jarvis would have smiled a little at the incredulous look that the Hawk shot at the ceiling. "Hell no! An injured Loki is worse than an unconscious Loki. I am not leaving my teammates to deal with this mess."
The estimation he would give into temptation was reduced to forty-percent. Progress had been made in his attitude towards the would-be tyrant, but not enough that Jarvis was willing to risk setting two sorcerers on a war path. Sir being caught in the crossfire of one angry lunatic in the last few weeks had already filled Jarvis' tolerance for the danger that his creator attracted.
"I am afraid that I shall have to decline your offer of help. If you truly wish to assist them, then you shall need to wait for Dr. Banner or sir to arrive. Only then will I allow you access," Jarvis said. "At present, I will not allow you to handle this situation on your own."
Footsteps sounded heavily thorough the hall as Dr. Banner chose that moment to arrive with Sir hot on his heels. "Prognosis, J?" his creator asked as he punched in an access code and entered the medical wing of the Tower.
"Uncertain. I have sedated them and cleared the room of any lingering sleep gas. You are clear to enter," he informed them. "Upon their arrival, the sorcerer Loki was displaying signs of disorientation, breathing heavily…"
In a remote corner of the country, Amora had secluded herself comfortably into a hotel suite where she had slowly acquired her collection of vials filled with different colors of smoke. Of late her current project had taken precious time and attention from the careful chaos she had been sowing. Two targets she had dearly wanted to acquire were slipping through her fingers as she looked upon the spells she had linked to them.
The first attempt to ensnare Stark had failed spectacularly despite the subtleness of infiltrating the factory and layering spells across all sheets of metal scheduled to be shipped to the faux company he used to order special materials. Every attempt since, no matter her approach, either never reached him or it was obliterated upon arrival. That she could blame on Sigyn's interference as the little Asgardian had never been one to share her toys, no matter how mortal. Now was no different, but she was beginning to suspect that there was an outside influence that was helping Sigyn to interferre.
Then, there was Loki. Her lips curled as she considered the way in which that particular spell was unraveling. She could feel the way that his magic was twisting its way through Sigyn's seeking something solid in which to base his grip on reality, never quite realizing that it was the very portal through which his understanding of his life was rewriting itself. Slipping through her fingers was the way she had designed it and it was working beautifully.
A/N: Thank you to my reviewers Corinn, wbss21, and Maia2. For those of you that asked, I've a new story up showing Sigyn's time with Amora. It's not long so far and I likely won't update for another month on it, but its a start.
To answer your question, Corinn, I did figure it out about chapter 24, but I was too far in at that point. This is, after all, a story in which the movie universe meets mythology and shows a slightly more realistic thread to everything. Thank you, though :)