So it goes with saying that only things I own with any connection to MARVEL I bought on Ebay or Etsy. MARVEL COMICS & MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE are their own creatures and I have nothing to do with either of them aside from the fact I enjoy reading or watching them, and am grateful for the ability to play in their world. I claim nothing, and I receive nothing for this, expect the pleasure of putting something out into the world.

You can also find this story on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN under the same title and pen name along with a place to post suggestions.

Don't forget to check out the Photobucket album listed on my profile page too. (My apologies. I didn't realize FF removed the links. I have corrected the problem in what way I can, so for those who like the visual additions, feel free to check them out.)

DAY THREE

CHAPTER EIGHTY FIVE

THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012

1514 HOURS

OHIO STATE REFORMATORY

MANSFIELD OHIO, USA

NORA

I felt like a rubber disk, hooked and pulled in too many different directions, and shattering into shards of glass.

I can see myself, I can feel my pieces, as the edges of me tear myself apart.

ARNORA

I am in a wheat field, cowering in the hopes of mercy because I just insulted the a friend of the Prince, in the presence of both of Odin's sons, as my throbbing ankle is hidden beneath folds of lavender silk.

There is a pair of black boots stepping out of the saddle and a sardonic voice in my ears "And how do you think I shall do that Thor? An incantation? Shall I draw runes on her skin? Or perhaps, as they do on Midgard, I should fix it with a kiss, though I hear that turns them into frogs. Would you like a frog leg my dear?"

ÍVIÐIA

I am in a forest. The scent of pine is clinging to the air, just like the last of the oak leaves are clinging to the trees.

They cut down trees with their axes to build me this platform and they brought me a bull. The beast is nervous, just like I am, not because of the knife in my hand, but because of the Northmen's drums.

I have never done this before. I can feel it dying, frightened and confused as I slit its throat and takes its energy, the blood more than the bowl can possibly hold.

ARNORA

I am in a yurt, standing in a sheer robe with fertility blessings drawn in gold henna on my skin.

They erected the tent for me, for us, for our first night together as husband and wife. The furnishings are gold, and the fabric is lavender, in honor of my husband's colors. They are my colors now too.

I can feel his presence behind me, but I am too nervous to look. I have never let a man touch me like this before, and I can not make my eyes move off of the carved bird in the bed post as I feel his hands slide the robe off my shoulder. "It does not always hurt. I will take care of you."

ARNORA

I am sitting in a chair. My family is with me, but they are not allowed to approach me yet, not till the evaluation is over.

I am fifteen now, so I sit silently even if all I want is my father to hug me and tell me it will be alright. Eir is in front of me, her hand is right there, hovering an inch away from my skin and she looks at me without her eyes. She is the matriarch of my family, and I have never been more terrified of anyone then I am of her right now.

What if she does not feel it? What if I do not have our family's magick? She smiles and kisses my forehead. "Breath child. you will be my Heir Arnora."

ARNORA

I am lying in a bed. My 'sisters' are around me. The woman who practice the same art as I do, students and mistresses of healing. Eir and Myrun. My teacher and my friend.

"Push, now." I have never felt such terrible pressure! Myrun's hand takes every ounce of punishment I give it even as my strength gives out and I throw my head back with an exhausted cry, a cry that is joined by another smaller one. I can see a hand before it is swaddled in cloth. "You have a daughter, Arnora."

SUBJECT: 103671

I am in a box. The walls are transparent, the floor is stone, and the bespectacled man on the other side seems to think my desperate clawing is worth writing down!

I can not breath! I can feel my lungs growing heavy, they are trying to protect themselves by secreting a mucus barrier, but they are drowning me because I can not make the muscles of my chest expand to draw a fresh breath. I can feel my heart struggling too, the muscles losing their ability to contract, and it is not the only one. Soon I will not be able to move at all!

He told them to make me beg, but how can beg if I can not breath?!

ARNORA

I am a child in a man's arms. "Can I have a story Papa?" Mama may have already told me a story when she put me to bed the first time, but then I woke up and went down to the kitchen for some sugar dates before papa found me and gave me some warm milk tea instead.

He left his braids in his hair tonight, I can see those from the way I am laying my head on his shoulder and toying with the ends.

"I will tell you about Odins ravens, but first how do we ask for things?" I feel him chuckle softly before he says that as he carries me back up the stairs. "Please can I have a story papa?"

ARNORA

I am a woman in front of a black sphere. In front of two actually, but the one on my right is not ready yet.

"Are you sure Arnora?" I nod again, looking over my shoulder at Loki with a smile before I turn back to the incubation chamber. The fetus inside has developed enough that his eyes now register light so we shielded the sphere to prevent its distress.

"Yes" I offer as I reach out and pluck the projection back up for Loki to review himself. "His weight is within the ideal limits, we have cleared the third trimester and have had no complications. I administered the final immunizations 12 days ago as well. I would put the chances of a spontaneous abortion at less then 5 percent this time, that is the lowest we have ever achieved, Loki. What should we name it?"

The way his eyes shoot up makes it look as if he never even thought about naming this species. "What do you think of Fenrir?"

ARNORA

I am a shy young woman. "Arnora, I have someone here I would like you to meet." Climbing the stairs to my home I hear those words greet me as I open the door.

My father is sitting near the central fire with an Einherjar and bottle of mead between them, marking this occasion as a personal visit and not a professional one despite the polished state of his armor. "This is Lieutenant Randulfr, son of the retired commander Havardr. I have given him my permission to court you."

My father did not need to say anymore then that, choosing to leave instead so I could get to know the man who wanted to marry me, the man whose silver key I returned from our walk wearing.

SUBJECT: 103671

I am my own sense of mortality. I woke up, holding his hand. I fainted with James holding me, and I woke up, still injured, with his arms still around me, still alive and warm.

I did not rip the life out of him in my sleep, as my body desperately sought the energy it did not have enough of to heal my wounds. I did not kill James, and I wept, because that meant I was not going to get out alive with him either.

They were going to kill me here, in these walls. They were going to kill both of us, and this time when James kissed me not knowing how else to stop my tears, I kissed him back.

SUBJECT: 103671

I am listening to his voice. "...and Steve, he is such a stubborn punk..." My clothes are in tatters again, they only replace them when there is not enough thread to keep them on me.

It is why I am wrapped up as much as I can be inside of James' shirt. He insisted, and called me a stubborn punk to when I said he would be cold.

"...I found him sitting under the overpass with a busted knee waiting out the rain cause he didn't want to be an inconvenience, I had to piggy back the proud jerk, listening him complain the whole time about how his mom shouldn't worry so much."

I want to meet this 'punk' he speaks of with such warmth.

ARNORA

I am clawing at shadows. I opened the door, I had done it enough times before that it should have been nothing, I even knocked, though I did not realize the sound never made it to the other side.

When I received no answer I simply opened the door, knowing I was allowed in even if he was absent, and then I felt a 'hand' wrap around my throat.

It crushed the air out of my esophagus before I could even fill it, and the figure I could not see beneath the cloak was strong enough to lift me to the very tips of my toes! It did it with magick, not flesh! I felt no flesh!

"Perhaps killing a servant of the All-Father's household is not the wisest choice." Loki was right there in the room, and he looked so calm as I struggled. "Unless of course you have decided to draw his attention now?" At least until the 'shadow' chastised him to train his slaves better before it dropped me and vanished, leaving the spell that continued to suffocate me in its wake.

Loki's cool expression became as panicked as mine and his hands bleed before he tore the curse off me and ordered me to say nothing of 'who' I saw.

ÍVIÐIA

I am goddess, at least to them. I just wish they would leave me alone.

I am still sitting in the mark of the bifrost, where I have been since Heimdall did his duty and acted out Odin's banishment, where one of them found me and brought others. I will never see my mother, or father again. I will never hold my daughter again.

"If you renounce your intentions to resurrect your child, if you forget these delusions of shadows and murder, I will allow you to remain in Asgard and to continue your service to the realm. What say you?" "I hope it comes back and takes you first."

I hate them all, every last fool loyal to Odin! I hate these mortals who will not leave me to my grief. I hate that I do not have enough hate to do anything other then just sit here and hope I die from time.

SUBJECT: 103671

The sound of the door woke both of us, iron scraping against iron as the pin shifted in the cylinder.

They were here for me again. I knew it by the heavy clothes they wore and the suits that exposed no skin. I knew this was going to be it, I had nothing left to give. It was as much of a relief as it was frightening.

I just wanted to kiss James goodbye but they were pulling use apart, and then one of them produced a baton. I heard the wet echo and saw his pain as his knee strained the wrong way before he tried to hook his fingers under the helmet and tear it off to give me something to work with. I saw the other one produce something that wasn't a baton.

I did not think it could feel colder then the first time, but these bullets hurt more. Not as much though as the sight of James turning toward me before his eyes rolled into the back of his head as the baton cracked his skull so hard it rained blood, and the wielder followed him down to the floor blow after blow!

ÍVIÐIA

I am unskilled. "I can not save you." The woman can barely keep her eyes open, the dim light of this hut is too much for her to handle with the strength of her headache.

I came for a new wagon wheel, and some iron nails from the blacksmith and I should have left when I made those purchase, but the kindness in heart lingered. I have not been able to drive out and I saw the suffering of the sick A plague had laid its hand on this village, and though I knew not how to heal with disease, for we did not have it in Asgard, I knew how to ease pain.

This woman's husband was dead in the next room, he died a day ago but she did not have the strength to deal with the body, she could barely manage the weight of her own. She would die too within the hour and I knew I should leave, but the baby crying in the next room just will not let me do it.

"I am sorry. I will take care of your son." She never even found the strength to tell me the boy's name.

ÍVIÐIA

I am failing. I protected this boy, my Skári, my little viking lord, from the plague that took his mother, I protected him from Christians who want to harm him simply because he was with me, I protected him from Lorelei by doing as she told me, and I am failing him because he got bit by a rat and I do not have the skills in disease to know how to save him from this illness.

All I can do is watch these black boils slowly steal the life out of him and try to ease his pain. I am telling him that he is on his way home to the land of the elves, and will all be better there, and he will never feel loneliness or pain again. I just wish I could follow him there.

ÍVIÐIA

I am content, and its the best feeling in the world.

"Móðir? Why don't I look like you?" I was able to get some honey today from a Moorish trader, so I have made the barley porridge that Skári enjoys so much and one of Ormarr's customers traded a small boar to get his plow sharpened. There was too much meat to eat tonight, but I carved off a fresh portion and the rest is being smoked as I stir the pot over the meal fire and watch Skari wait eagerly for the answer to his question.

"Why do you not look like me? Well...because when you came into this world, the Ljósálfr took one look at you and decided you were so perfect that they wanted you for themselves, so they kissed you thinking they could trick me when your hair and skin started to glow." I will tell him the truth when he is a little older.

SUBJECT: 103671

I am not sorry. "That...?" His expression starts out confused, before it shifts to restrained anger. "That night, during the storm when you held my hand, and I sang to you. You weren't scared and looking for comfort, you were trying to heal my pneumonia weren't you?"

I tell James "Yes", as if the scratches in his skin closing was not clear enough already. "Why would you do something that stupid, if you can heal?! Why would you waste it on..." But all that frustration burns right out of him with the next whispered sentence. "Because your eyes are like my son's!" Because I do not want to lose those again!

SUBJECT: 103671

I know this is going to hurt. The material looks like leather, it always does, and that makes it so infuriating that I can not do anything to it, because it is not leather. It is something synthetic I am not familiar with and it lets them touch me without being in danger. It lets them grapple me down and haul my kicking and crying back towards that monstrous chair where they cuff me with metal.

One for each of my wrists and arms, one for my chest and a stockade that leaves my bare feet at the their lack of mercy and those red hot branding irons.

ARNORA

I am learning. "You almost have it." I can feel his form at my back as he observes my efforts over my shoulder.

When Loki first suggested I learn temperature manipulation techniques I was against it because creating fire has no practical application for a healer, but then he made it an order.

"I can see the energy concentration, you have it contained but now..." He pauses a half a second to bring his hand around me into view. "...You need to quicken it to create the spark, or all you have is heat." In his own hand a flame much like a candles flickers to life before he releases it with a wave of his finger. "Here, put your hand in mine this time, so you can feel what I am doing."

ÍVIÐIA

I am protective. "Put the boy down, or I will put another arrow in you!"

The voice I hear is neither from the direction of the man I just shot, nor from a male at all. Even as I pivot around I already know who I am going to see. "Now that does not sound like you at all, little healer." Lorelei. "It seems your time amongst the mortals has has changed you."

She asked me to use my magick for her once, to heal her men, but she had no leverage with which to make me then. Now she sent a man to kidnap that leverage out of his bed. "It is good to know somethings have not changed though. You adopted such a lovely boy."

ARNORA

I am shamed. The lady who greets me, dressed in a simple gold gown with a high necked cowl is very nice, she asks me if I have lost my way. The way her smile drops though when I hand her my scroll makes my own excitement drop with it. Why does she look worried? So does the way her eyes travel to the door and back to mine before she takes me lightly by the shoulder.

"How old are you child, 14? 15?" I nod to the last one making her smile again but sadly. "You should go back home, you do not want to be here, I will say you never..." But she does not finish, the sound of the door opening silences us both, and she falls so quickly into a bow it almost seems like it should have hurt her.

"Ah, Jorunn, you found the girl, good, I was beginning to think the mongrel would not show." I was to endure words like that for the rest of the day. "Yes lady Freya."

SUBJECT: 103671

I am in agony. "Yes sir Dr Zola, I've checked the equipment, and I've already doubled the dosage once. She continues to wake up in the middle of the procedure..."

They made me special restrains when they realized I could disintegrate the leather ones. Steel bars formed to the contours on my body and coated with something called Buna-Rubber, they were quite proud in their explanations. And then I woke up with my thigh cut open, a pair of scissors with metal hooks digging into my muscles to keep my natural healing ability from closing the wound. The sight of a man in a white mask pulling his bloody fingers out of my leg.

I scared him when I started screaming, so they shoved more of this rubber in my mouth. "...Despite the anesthesia. I could raise the dosage again but..." A new voice, a worse voice. His voice.

"Don't bother doctor. I doubt that we have an anesthesia strong enough to sedate her kind anyway. Using it would only be a waste of resources." No, please no?! Please! "Yes Herr Schmidt."

ARNORA

I am heartbroken. I had been looking at the blue tapestries we have hanging in our main hall, but now I was I was looking out the window to the right of me, and the sheer curtains rippling softly in the window. My mother just walked up and hit me, but all I did was come home?

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" My father is in the hall with us now, wrestling my mother's angry fingers free of my dress. "DAGNY! STOP! SHE IS YOUR DAUGHTER! STOP!" As I shuffle backwards slightly, my hand hiding the burn in my cheek. "I KNOW SHE IS MY DAUGHTER! That is why I am so angry, I did not sacrifice to the Norns just for her to walk right into that fate?!"

Sacrifice to the Norns?! No, my mother, she would not... But my father's face does not say I am wrong. "You?... You sent a man to death for words?!"

SUBJECT: 103671

"Ahh..." The sound of leather snapping against metal is what seemed to draw his attention to me. I woke up with a start, the itch still lingering in my stomach from that strange projectiles he shot me with, and a different one on my arm. The black bar there catches my attention because it is not a bar. It's a series of numbers.

"...Good. You're awake. I just received the report on your village, would you like to see it?" My village, I have no village? I left it behind.

They are shades of grey but they are clearly pictures, of death. I can see my cave, I remember those rocks as I walked inside. The mouth is filled with corpses, all facing the now empty ice. They killed all these people, and I never even knew!

ARNORA

I had barely even turned back from shutting the doors before I felt Loki's frustration, his magick pulsing out with enough force to break the legs of a small table and carve gashes into several of his prized books before it hit me in the stomach and sent me stumbling back.

He seemed so calm when Odin ordered Freya to give up her daughters in marriage or give up her comforts in Asgard, unless you knew his eyes as I did. He never dismissed me afterward, and as his servant that left me no choice but to follow him back here. I know if he were calm he would not want to damage his books so I went to pick them up, and made the mistake of speaking in my distant cousin's defence. "I know lady Sigyn my lord, she is sweet and kind, she is not at all like her mother."

I should have stayed silent. "AND SHE IS NOT AT ALL YOU! You who I would choose had I half a choice!"

SUBJECT: 103671

They had dogs with them, trained to attack, rather that be prisoners, intruders, or victims for their master's entertainment. A herding breed with a blanket of black fur and a black muzzle over a tan coat, and pointed ears.

They were lovely animals, and under all their master's cruelty were actually kind, they just wished to please the monsters who owned them. I felt that when they came close enough to lick the blood off my weak fingers.

Dogs were always easiest. I could not make them forget their masters but I could make them consider me part of their pack. So when one of the guards hit me for being unable to stand, he had his calf torn apart.

That was the only time they let me see their dogs. I was trying to kill the doctor.

ARNORA

The chatter quieted slowly, and then with the greatest of speed. Even the sound of clinking goblets and cutlery died out.

Every eye in the banquet hall following those of their neighbors as they looked at me, cradling my bleeding cheek, and Freya's drunken laughter. She scowled in disgust at the sight of my blood on her golden fingernails, and demanded I get her something to clean it off, lifting her hand again when I did not move to do so.

The sound of hand meeting skin this time has nothing to do with me. Frey stood above his sister and it was his handprint that pinkened her skin. "Sister dear, with the greatest affection, if you lift your hand to her again mine will strike you to the floor!"

SUBJECT: 103671

They dragged him out. I tried to hang onto him, to keep him with me, but with the burns covering my feet I could barely manage to stand, and his own hands were refusing to let me hold onto him.

He knew if I did not let go they would start clubbing me so he smiled and said it would be alright even though we both knew that such a thing did not exist in this place. Then I heard him screaming, as the lights flickered in my cell.

It did not take them long to drag him back in and throw him at my feet, his body limp in their hands and his eyes were glassy even as I rolled him over and cradled him in my lap. They keep trying to wipe his memory and it never works, it just ends with me holding him. His life prolonged, selfishly, by my magick where so many others have died from this treatment. "Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. 32-557038. Your sister is Rebecca, you are from Brooklyn. Your name is..."

SUBJECT: 103671

He said his name was Johann Schmidt, he said the small and unimpressive men at his sides were called Heinrich Himmler and Arnim Zola. A general, as I understood it, and a doctor.

They presented me with food and clothes, finery and pageantry, and growing sense of disgust. The more they talked, the more they looked at me, there was something foul with the way these men thought. They wanted to create a 'purer' race, as if there was something wrong with the 'old' one.

I made my first mistake there. I underestimated them, I miscalculated how much Midgard had changed while I slept. I realized that as blood started pouring out of the holes in my stomach and the object in my greeter's hand issued smoke.

ARNORA

"Unless of course you would prefer to stay in lady Freya's service, and let her offer you to her brother?"

Prince Loki sent a messenger to call me to his hall, and while I was not his servant particularly, I did serve the house of the All-Father. I only finished greeting him before he told me I would no longer be serving in Freya's hall, but his.

My shocked silence seems to be interpreted as an objection, but if it was one, it did not remain so after that sentence. Freya intended me for her brother's bed?! I knew nothing of the true character of Lord Frey, only words on courtier's tongues, and those were seldom without their bias. "No my lord, it would be my honor to serve in your hall."

ÍVIÐIA

It started with a bear. I left that clearing, and the mark of the Bifrost. I walked off in the night with no eyes to watch me but the chicken I left behind. I decided to live, but on my terms. Withering to death would let Odin win, I would forge a life, and never settle for the scrapes of his mercy, I would never ask to back go to him. But I lost my first home, a roughly constructed hole in the hillside to a bear.

So I walked away from it, hoping to find a better place for a new one. I found men. Hunters, with a few dead seas at their side as they sat around a fire. I was cold, and hungry and dirty. They offered me food.

They offered me drugged food. I could taste it in the contents of the cup. The mushrooms were not strong enough though, not for an Asgardian. I did not understand the darkness in men. When they realized the drugs were not working, they abandoned their gentle plan of waiting for me to pass out, and choose an aggressive one instead.

The rope around my neck dragged me off the log I was sitting on, and when I started to scream as they tore my dress they started to scream too. I did not mean to, I did not know I could! I did not want kill them but they all died clawing at their skin in agony, and I could feel them under mine, the terror in their last seconds and I started screaming again, and drowning in tears.

ARNORA

"I would like you to undress." The ease with which Loki said that has the wine pitcher shaking in my hand, and I very nearly decorate his trousers with the contents.

I do not think the shock or moment of panic are hidden on my face, though I do not know which one he sees more. He is my prince, and even though I am engaged if he truly wanted no one would think the lesser of him for having me, only of me.

"It is not what you think." There is a look of surprise and apology in his eyes, as if he did not realize what he said until he spoke it. "Your magick is different than mine, I need a better understanding of how yours works before we can continue. There is a revelation charm that will let me study it, but I need to draw the runes on your skin." And then he waits for me to break the silence.

"How many are there?" I ask so I can know how much skin I must give him, hoping an arm will suffice. "Quite a few." I end up giving him the nakedness of my back instead.

ÍVIÐIA

"I know nothing of your heaven and I have no interest in your absolution."

I went into a town, something I wished to avoid. After Lorelei disappeared I fled the last one before I decided to kill the other 'witch' and I have avoided them as much as possible since, but there are things in the towns that I do not know how to make on my own. I simply wanted to make my trades and go, and then two men were at my back, telling the me the 'Father' wanted to see me.

A Christian holy man, finding that his god would not take care of him after a lifetime of service decided to buy healing from a 'Pagan witch'. If his infliction were something other than a body riddled with syphilis I might have helped him.

When begging did not work he had his men try a crossbow, and dogs. And when those did not work he incited a mob from the Christians in the population, until one of the Northmen quartered a man's head with a hammer in my defense!

ARNORA

Something was wrong. I woke up with dread, and a sense of familiarity drawing the sweat out of my skin. I felt this energy before, and with its dim caress on the wind in comparison I still know it. I felt it crush my throat as it left me to die on Loki's floor, how could I not know it?

But it did not touch me this time, and I find that more terrifying, because I was not alone in this bed, and my baby should be crying!

I could not get her to wake, I could feel her getting cold, and her lovely blue eyes that she got from her father are a cloudy aqua green!

I ran, scooped her up, tying her to my chest with the torn strip from my nightgown and I rode the fastest horse we had in our stable to the palace. Loki knew the creature that did this, so maybe Loki knew a way to save her!

But Loki was not there when I took the servant's path into his hall. So I started tearing apart his books instead in my desperation. THERE MUST BE AN ANSWER! Right up until I heard his voice say my name. He looked surprised and confused by my presence, I was not his servant anymore after all. Then he looked shocked when I ran right up and kissed him, careful of the body on my chest.

"Please you have to help me, I do not what to do, please Loki please!" And then I saw the sorrow, right before I saw the guards and my baby was ripped away, left behind with him as I screamed. He thought I was a thief.

ÍVIÐIA

There were men at my home. I built a new one, a better one than the one I lost to a bear. Experimentation and the skills I learned in magick helped me craft rough tools. I built a home, albeit small. I built a pantry, this time separate and far from the house itself, in case of more animals. I even manage to collect and transport wild plants from the forest into a garden. And I just came home to find it full of men, performing chores and a redhead reclining on a bed of furs.

I know this woman, because I know her sister. I can see Amora in her face. She was more then happy to give me her name, Lorelei, and less then happy with the idea I thought she was sent by Odin to check on me. She was not there to look for my repentance, she was there to recruit me.

I had been wronged by Asgard, did I not want to get my retribution? I made an enemy when I refused her, I did not want anything to do with Asgard, least of all to draw their attention as she bewitched an army of mortal men. I watched that home burn and I walked away.

ÍVIÐIA

The winter was creeping in, I could feel it in in the ground I sat on, and see it in the dwindling crowds that visited me. The humans still thought of me as a Goddess, but I was a Goddess that just sat there, and they had more important things to do with their time then watch a statue.

Only a woman came today. She brought a chicken with her, and a restless child. The child was crying, and I hated him for it. That sound cut deeper the blade she intended to use to slit the chicken's throat. She only made half the cut before she dropped the blade in shock.

I stood, the Goddess who moved for no one else now rose, and picked up her child! The boy was healthy, but as boys do, he had scraped his legs learning to walk, that is why he was crying, and why he stopped when I healed him.

She ran back to the village to share the joyous news, but I imagine all they found when they came back was a very bloody but very alive chicken because I walked away.

SUBJECT: 103671

I woke up warm, dry, and furious. I closed my eyes to ice and the desire to die. I opened them to a painted ceiling and the feel of unfamiliar cloth on my skin. Someone disturbed my rest, and I woke up against my will, finding it appropriate to touch me without my permission!

I was just as furious at that audacity as I was by the confusing fact I did not die. The first person who came in the room had the misfortune of being a male and not speaking a language I knew. When he drew what I recognized to be a blade, he died for it, and when his companion reached for something as well I turned my magick against him too. He was half dead and beyond help by the time someone arrived who knew my language.

Johann Schmidt.

ARNORA

Fenrir is restless on the leash, he has never liked them, but he still sits obediently at my side as I scratch him behind his ear.

Most of the fur he was born with has fallen out, with the exception of his brown mane and the ridge that follows his spine down to his tail. It make him resemble the rock trolls whose genes we used in creating him.

Loki with us, his face neutrally cold. Once Odin proved he was unimpressed with the breed, Loki lost all affection for the animal and left it to me to raise. My cousin Frey is with us as well, who granted me access to the old Vanir halls of knowledge, which helped us succeed in creating Fenrir, the first of his breed. We are waiting for Tyr, Odin's general, and a man with a reputation of apathy. This was Odin's decree.

Ferir is a puppy, even if he stands at the middle of my thigh, I have been teaching him how to sit, and stay, but he has not learned heel yet, and he does not understand that he needs to go with the man who takes his leash. He tries to return to me, who he think of as his mother, and when he makes the innocent mistake of growling Tyr hits him so hard he yelps.

I did not even realize I moved until the hand locked me in place. It is not Loki's voice that tries to comfort me. "This is Odin's decree." It is Lord Frey's. "You must allow this."

SUBJECT: 103671

"But when she's left alone and they are far apart She sometimes wonders what tomorrow brings."

There were bars in between us, but that did not seem enough to stop James.

When I pushed my arm past them to his side, his surprise too that was obvious, but he did not waste any time. The metal makes it awkward but he is sitting at an angle on his side, and has pulled me flush to his, my head resting against his shoulder, as his other arm wraps around me and his thumb traces circles into my hand. He even started singing for me, the hum in place of the instrumental opening is felt more than heard.

"For she adores that crazy guy who taught her happy heart To wear a pair of silver wings."

He does not understand. He thinks it is the storm that has disturbed me, not the sharp crack of his cough or the scratches on his skin. "When we get out of here, I can't wait to see your hair grow, your gonna so beautiful, I know it, a real sheba." ...When you get out of here.

ARNORA

I knew Loki had been gone, he and his brother left with a company of Einharjar to deal with a problem on Vanaheim. A herd of Bilgesnipe infested and rabid had been terrorizing the villages in their territory and needed to be put down. I knew it did not go well the second I opened the door and was ordered to prepare a bath.

His skin was mottled with bruises, and I could see the tears in his tissue, where one of the beasts hooked him by his shoulder. He flinches softly, the water ripples around his waist as I study the wound and start to heal it, my hands massaging the magick into his skin. The muscles are strained more than torn, but it is still a wound that will take some time, and a session that does not end when I start to lift my fingers away from him, and feel his lock around my wrist.

The last time Loki touched me like this, he kissed me. The last time Loki touched me like this he was not half undressed in his bath, and I was not married. The last time he touched me like this I trembled just like I am now. The absence of his grasp lets the blood warm my skin again.

"Summon a Vanir courtesan and leave."

ARNORA

"I am his servant, why I should I not be loyal to him, he is our Prince and it is my duty to come when he calls me!" "And it should be your duty to come when your betrothed calls you too, not return with excuses why you linger in the company of another man!" My hand still stings from where I hit him, even a hour later.

I have been walking, moving unnoticed by others on the street who are caught in their own lives, it only takes a lowered head to go unseen. Vanaheim was calling my heart, Vanaheim was where I always went when I was upset, my grandmother's village where everything was simpler.

My eyes did not see the gates to the Bifrost when I lifted them, they saw the rising spires of the All Father's Palace, and the Wing of Prince Loki's Hall.

ARNORA

"It contains a message, I am told." When I unwrapped it I found a ring in my hand, golden and with tiny tiles that were painted with flowers. I said it was lovely and started to wrap it back in the silk it came in before Randulfr's hands stopped mine, a gentle and apologetic smile on his lips before he told me the ring was not so simple.

Taking it lightly from my palm, his trimmed nails hook a small tap I thought nothing of and reveal a piece of paper underneath, and the ink of words. "I am told the clan it comes from the Franks, it means I love you in their language."

It is me who can not even hold his gaze, not that his hand under my chin gives me much choice. "I know we have been fight, and that is my fault." They hold it now. "I am a not a man who enjoys sharing. But I am also not a man who enjoys surrender, but I can Arnora. I have been selfish, and it is been pushing you away, but I still want to be your husband."

SUBJECT: 103671

I woke to Wagner's Parsifal, the remembrance of bullets in my body making the music much more ominous than the first time I heard it.

I woke to a bed of blankets and a dress of silk instead of straw and wet concrete wearing rags. I woke at the smell of freshly cooked food instead of the dying struggle of rats. I woke to the warmth of a fire and the sight of a monster standing there looking at me.

He was offering mercy. He put his hand on my wrist, caressing that tattoo. He believed I was informed enough to know to make the 'right choice'. He put his hand on my head, feeling the stubble that was my hair and the burned marks from the electro shock. I would not have to suffer anymore, the pain, the hunger, the misery the fear, it would all stop. He held my shoulder, his thumb tracing my collarbone as he ignored the way I shook and looked away.

He would even let me keep the American I was so attached to. All I had to do was let him rape me, though he worded it differently, to let him pollute me with his offspring again and again, and surrender them to science.

He wanted to start now. He tore my dress before I burned his blood. He touched me too much. I may not have been able to hurt him before because I was trying to hurt a human, but I know enough of him now and I promised agony if he put his skin on me again!

It was not his skin that touched me when he broke my jaw, or the next seventeen bones.

SUBJECT: 103671

It was the needle that woke me. I fainted at some point, my wrists and arms felt like fire from where they hung me from the ceiling, but now then just feel cold. The needle that stabbed me in the throat slowly being pulled out and my chin released, allowed to fall back against my chest and the exhausting effort of breathing.

I can hear people in the room, prisoners, by their angry and horrified whispers. They are talking about me, they always talk about me. The naked bloody woman they thought was dead. One of them is not as weak as they thought. The sight of me makes him fight the guards, and it made me make a terrible mistake.

I lifted my eyes and I saw his. They were like blue jewels, like Skári's. His name was Barnes, and I choose someone for the first time, someone other then him.

ARNORA

"And where would you like to go today healer?" I have always been nervous around the Gatekeeper, not from anything Lord Heimdall has done, but simply because of his presence. As a wielder of magick I can feel the aura of it in others and there is so much of it in him that it itchs against my skin.

"Can you not see it?" Even with a soft smile he remains as stoic as ever. "I can only see it when the decision is made." That is a pity, because I wish I knew where I wanted to go.

"May I stay here for a while Gatekeeper?" Randulfr, Loki, the College, Vanaheim, from here in the observatory I could go anywhere, and none of it sounds like what I want. "You may stay as long as you wish Lady Arnora." I imagined his permission would be the end of it, and he would return to watching an empty bridge for few used the bifrost at night, but instead I saw the stars move and found him him removing his sword.

He closed the bifrost for me! "You are a servant of the realm my Lady, most choices are made for us, but the dawn will bring one of yours, make sure you choose well." I never felt nervous around Heimdall again.

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"Are you awake?" He is right up against the limits of the cage, his hand stretched through to my side and his eyes searching the shadowed wall that the moonlight casts, the shadow I am hiding in. "I know you're awake, I can hear your breathing. Can you speak English?" He asks, hopefully, the follows it with a less hopeful "Can you speak?"

I know his name, I know where he is from, I know he has a sister, and he knows nothing about me. They threw me back in this cage next to him, my body and my mind numb from electricity, and he managed to pull me closer to the bars, asking me questions to try and bring me back and telling me about himself; those eyes of his looking down on me before they took him away.

When they put him near me again I had my mind, and a rat giving up the last of its life to me.

There is a rat now too. But it's wrapped in duct tape and chittering its rage as he holds it out to me. "I've seen you use these, I don't get how but you wake up surrounded by a dead pile of these and you're better, so come on doll take the damn rat, don't make these scratches for nothing."

I took took the rat, the creature dying with a panicked squeak, and then he passed me three more.

"What's your name?" He always asked and I never said it, not before. "Arnora? That's different, that Italian? My name's James, you can call me Bucky though." I never called him that.

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Goddesses are supposed to be immortal, and unkillable, they forgot though that anything that bleeds can also die, and they always made me bleed.

It did not take them long to realize I had limits. It also did not take them long to find a loophole. The energy that supports life can support any life, and they had lives to spare.

They 'fed' me people! Chained up, frightened men, women and even children. People they thought were beneath them. Gypsies, homosexuals, Slavs, Russians, Czechs, captured soldiers, and Jews. They fed me too many today. I can not control it when I am unconscious and I woke up, with one still alive.

An old man thin from hunger and sickness, with a wild head of grey hair and an untrimmed beard. I knew their language by now, and I knew his words as he took my hand, apologizing because he was making me cry and begging me to kill him and let him be with his God, instead of me sending him back to them!

THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012

1515 HOURS

OHIO STATE REFORMATORY

MANSFIELD OHIO, USA

ARNORA / ÍVIÐIA/ SUBJECT: 103671 / NORA

Loki, I am sorry, I was wrong, it was not your fault. Please don't leave me like this. I don't want this to be how it ends.

NOTES FOR THE READERS:

Since at this point everyone should be familiar with the fact that Arnora lived among the Vikings, and was a prisoner of HYDRA for a while, this shouldn't be spoilers.

Paragraphs labeled ARNORA = her time in Asgard.

Paragraphs labeled ÍVIÐIA = her time in Viking age Norway.

Paragraphs labeled SUBJECT: 103671 = her time in HYDRA/WWII

Also there will be pictures for this chapter, but I have a lot of things I need to do today, and there are a lot of pictures, but I haven't pulled them from there various folders yet, and haven't organized them either to line up with the chapter, so those will go up tomorrow.