These Things We've Gained: Eternal Love, Building Hope, Just Honesty

by Tales of Suspense

In the aftermath of "These Things We've Lost" people strugggle to create a new normal. (Slice of Life)

8. Chapter 8

- Chapter 8 -

23May2023 – Morning

Vanaheim Royal Palace Guest Chambers

Resplendent joy filled Loki's dreams so that she had no desire to leave them. For the first time in a very long time there was no indigo terror lurking in her dreamscape. It was the indigo terror, and the man behind it, that waited to drag her back into the tortures of the box. When she looked down she saw that she was high into the sky, soaring above the Vestr Woods. She didn't fear to fall though, not when she could feel safety in her hand. As she looked to her left she could see her love, Anthony. He was soaring beside her, fiery wings extended, her hand in his. He would never let her fall, would defend her from any who would try to make her. He was the unyielding sun in her sky.

A whisper of a voice flitted carelessly across her consciousness, interrupting her joyous flight. Loki, someone was calling her name. Loki, awaken, the voice was a little louder this time. She couldn't tell who it was, only that it wasn't Anthony. Minn litil-svass, awaken now, the voice was more insistent. She knew the voice as it grew louder yet again. It had to be part of the glorious dream she was having, but she moved to awaken anyway. "Afi?!" She called for who she knew couldn't be there. Surprise blew her eyes wide when Afi Gin leaned over her, as he was sitting next to her on the bed.

"Aye, minn litil-svass. I am here for you." The shocked look on his little-sweet's face told him of a misery accepted, the loss of family that Loki believed couldn't be undone. It was a miserable feeling that he was already acquainted with. It displeased him to know that his little-sweet knew that pain as well. Little-sweet knew too much of the various shades and degrees of pain. He was tired of her discovering new ones to be crushed by. It was never what he wanted for the sweetest of his grandchildren.

"Afi!" Years of pent-up longing mixed with a despair that told her she would never see her grandfather again to cause her to lunge for him, wrapping her arms as far around his bulky frame as she could. It didn't strike her as odd when she thumped against his armor that the scar on her chest didn't hurt. "I thought I'd never see you again!" This was better than any dream. It was her last chance to say goodbye to her grandfather before she died and returned to Niflheim. It would be the last trip of her life, and the one she least wanted to take.

Wrapping his arms around Loki, Lord Gin smiled widely at having his grandchild back after he believed Loki to be dead. "Aye, litil-svass, tis good to see you as well. It warms my heart." Something approaching joy filled his thoughts forcefully at the thought of having so many of his grandchildren back that he thought were lost to tragedy. He'd already seen to the dead Satska Soledras. They were all resting in the glersalddysm in his tower at that moment, recovering their strength. They would be ready for their trip to Niflheim very soon. It was a trip that Loki wasn't going to take any time soon. Now that he knew where Loki was he was extending protections around her as well. Only when he was certain that the firehawk knew how to enact the protection Loki needed was he going to consider removing his own protections. He'd lost Loki once, let his grandson walk into the darkness alone. It shouldn't have happened the first time and wasn't going to happen again. Lord Gin was, above everything else in that moment, tired of losing his grandchildren. Them, his Lady wife, his Blood-Brother Gorynych, and his work were the precious few reasons he hadn't given up his sanity over the long millions of years that he'd lived. Losing a quarter of his reasons hurt him worse than he wanted to admit. As he looked down at Loki, could hear the joy in her seidr, he too indulged in an encompassing joy.

A soft smile crossed Lady Audhumbla's face. She had much to scold her grandchild about, the lying was out of hand, but this was still a sweet moment worth having. Loki was very nearly brought back to them. They only had this nasty business to attend to then they could go back to fully enjoying their time together. Beloved, we must begin, she thought at her Lord husband through their mental link. She could feel the small mental cringe from him at the thought of having to handle this business when he only just greeted Loki. Her smile became both tart and tolerant at the same time. Her Lord husband was never fond of having to discipline the children and grandchildren when they needed it. Not that he was going to tolerate an ill-behaved child, he just preferred to spend his time having fun with them instead. She thought again about what nasty business they had to handle and wondered suddenly, Should I bring Gorynych here? The old wyrm might assist in keeping Loki calm. It would be good for him as well, to spend some time with litil-svass.

A wise idea, minn kaerr, Lord Gin answered quickly. He glanced down to Loki again. She was crying in joy at having him there. He didn't want to get to the nasty business that they had to take care of. He wanted to take her out on an adventure, maybe to the depths of Jotunheim's frozen over oceans. They hadn't been to the old cities there yet. Unfortunately for his wants, his grandchild had done what she was instructed to do and made a mess while doing it. That had to be cleaned up first. The battle scars from underpinning that mess were mostly handled, thankfully.

Swiftly, Lady Audhumbla commanded her sjel-seidr to open a large portal to Elder Gorynych's lair. Blackened volcanic rocks and low hanging clouds of steam could be seen in the dim cave beyond the expansive portal's aperture. Her sjel-seidr whispered through the open portal to the great black dragon beyond, Brodir, litil-svass thorfua er (Brother, little-sweet has need of you.). Thundering footsteps approaching the portal quickly before they reduced to average running footsteps in a loud poofing sound. Black smoke tinged with red lightning leaked out of the portal, drawing Loki's wide-eyed attention.

Elder Gorynych came skidding through the portal to halt in front of his smaller sister. His large black horns ducked under the top of the portal, despite it being a large portal. The ceiling of the room wasn't tall enough to accommodate a portal big enough for him, the whole palace wasn't either. The horns on his head began at his temples and curved around to the back of his head. There, instead of meeting, they curved away from each other then ended sharply. They covered his shining black hair which was braided back, but didn't cover his large, pointed ears and elven features. His simple white shirt with black pants, boots and vest seemed to oppositely mirror the white room he was standing in. A hopeful expression crossed his face. The fact that his sister needed him for something was enough to draw him from his lair. That it was litil-svass who needed him drew him even faster. He thought that his litil-svass died when he brought up the great shield around Yggdrasil. That was what his sister, the Matron of the Norn Army Lady Audhumbla, was able to discern. He'd wailed in grief when she told him, his heart ached so badly at the loss of his sweet grandchild. Lava overflowed his lands with the amount of rock his grieving fires melted. "Minn litil-svass?!" Elder Gorynych's voice carried on it the questioning hope he felt that his sister had found some loophole in time that let her save their grandchild from a sure and certain death. Inevitably his eyes were drawn to the familiar thrum of seidr that alerted him to Loki's presence. "Minn litil-svass!" Hope and disbelief mingled in his voice then as he quickly went to the other side of the bed from his brother. With his brother on one side and him on the other they sat with the Loki.

From one grandfather to the other Loki lunged over to wrap her arms around her other Afi. Disbelief intruded on all her thoughts. She simply hadn't thought she would ever see her Afi Gorynych again. In her mind, he was gone from her. Fresh tears of joy sprang into and flowed from her eyes as she listened to his powerful heartbeat. "I missed you so much!"

"And I missed you, minn svassr barnebarn (my sweetest grandchild). Hversu ek har vanta er (How I have missed you.)." Elder Gorynych held her for a while longer before setting her gently down on the bed. When Lady Audhumbla sat on the bed his gaze went to her. "How have you worked this miracle, sister?"

Lady Audhumbla's gaze met with Loki's gaze, and she smiled at her grandchild then spoke softly. "It was not I who worked this miracle. It was a firehawk."

"A firehawk?!" That was an immensely concerning statement. Ymir made firehawks out to be beasts so powerful that even he or any of the other Draconic Patriarchs would have trouble handling it. However, they were also supposed to be so wild that they couldn't be ignored. If there was one in the Nine Realms then he should have seen it. "How is that possible?"

Lady Audhumbla commanded her sjel-seidr to activate the Learning Spell, to gather her memories into it. They were memories given to her from Loki, and from Jay. When the spell was ready she reached over to touch Elder Gorynych's hand. The memories transferred in an instant. His amethyst colored eyes lit up in dusky rose sjel-seidr as he viewed what happened to Loki, much of it from Loki's own perspective.

Shock, then horror, anger, more horror, disappointment, and finally gratitude cycled rapidly through the Elder's seidr. It was the parts towards the end that surprised him most; the brutal miracle worked by the firehawk, and the firehawk's Elder Brother who kept the beast at bay. There were things from the special boy, Jay, which he could see that Loki didn't know that he now did. Truly the events his beloved grandchild found himself then herself in horrified and angered him. What lightly disappointed him was Loki's treatment of the one she was bound to, the one who saved her. Even in that though he could see how she was only trying to accomplish what she was instructed to do. His poor litil-svass was in a position that she never should have been in. The memories ended, the glow in his eyes faded and Elder Gorynych's gaze went to his grandchild who was looking down at the bed. Awkward embarrassment was writ large across her face. "Oh, litil-svass," he gathered her close to him again, "I am not angry with you, On the contrary, I am proud of you for your efforts to defend Yggdrasil. You did well. You did so well." His voice faltered on the last sentence. So may horrid things had happened to Loki. I should have been there for him! I can only be there for her now. It wasn't nearly enough to settle his raw emotions.

"I can hear your disappointment." Loki spoke quietly as she leaned in against her Afi's chest.

"I am only disappointed in how you went about doing as you were instructed." He squeezed her for a moment before he spoke again. "You should never have been in this position." Despairing tears crept into his eyes, trying to wash down his cheeks. As soon as they left his eyes they crystalized immediately and rained down around Loki. A little smile tried to turn his lips up and dry his eyes as she gathered up each tear and offered them back to him with a little voice.

"You dropped these, Afi." Loki had never wanted to disappoint any of her grandparents. Knowing that she'd disappointed one of them in the last bit of time she'd get with them hurt her badly. "I'm sorry."

Elder Gorynych gently stroked a hand down the back of Loki's head. He pushed her hand back, so that she could keep the crystal tears. A dragon's tears were a rare alchemical ingredient after all, so a master alchemist like Loki could use them. "You keep those, little-sweet," and Loki dismissed them to her interdimensional pocket, "use them well." They went into her interdimensional pocket for later use. Stroking his hand down the side of her face once let him turn her gaze to meet his. "I still love you. I will always hold you in my heart. Nothing can change that." He looked to his brother then. "Has she been told, brother?"

"No. We wanted you here before we went into this business." His rumbling voice was low in the bed chamber.

Swiftly Lady Audhumbla re-entered the currents of time and then exited them again, reforming her body sitting on the bed against the headboard and under Loki. She pulled her smaller granddaughter into her lap and up against her. "Be at ease, litil-svass. We are here, you are safe." Her Lord husband settled in next to her on her right, while her brother settled in next to her on her left. Each of them took up one of Loki's hand while she wrapped an arm around Loki, to rest her hand on her little-sweet's middle.

Acute nervousness skittered through Loki's thoughts. This was her grandparents acting as a shield between her and unhappy knowledge. Looking to her Afi Gorynych showed him a reassuring smile that she couldn't help but return. Similarly, looking over to her Afi Gin showed her another reassuring smile, so she asked what was on her mind. "What's coming Afi?"

"Illr hlutir, minn litil-svass. Til illr hlutir enda (Bad things my little sweet, very bad things indeed.)." Lord Gin's hand was tight, but not too tight, around Loki's hand so that she remembered that he was there for her.

Her sjel-seidr activated the Learning Spell again which drew her memories into it. Lady Audhumbla then commanded her sjel-seidr to turn into a Wavering Visions Weave. The spell and the weave passed into the area before them to create a screen that played Jay's memories.

Almost instantly Loki recognized the scene she was being shown. As a man she'd gone down to get Anthony from his workshop to watch one of the Star Wars movies. They ended up watching it later when she fell asleep laying on Anthony. Frustrated and enduring sorrow turned her mouth down into a frown when he started crying. "I don't want to let go," her husband's despairing voice distressed her. Him giving her extra pain medicine didn't bother or surprise her. She already figured out and accepted that he didn't use the best methods to achieve his fantastical results. No matter what, he always made things better. It was when he apologized for being a bastard that she became suspicious. Her husband was up to something. Looking between her grandfathers was no help, so she turned back to the display. Anthony was speaking again, "I can't trust him not hurt himself if I'm out. I can't even trust him not to do that when I'm here, J. What happens if he sets the house on fire and sits down in the middle of it again when I'm not there to handle it? I cannot risk him hurting himself." Watching this rekindled a deep shame in her for how she'd treated Anthony as he was struggling to save her life. She did remember setting the fire he was talking about and sitting down in the middle of it. Why she did it, besides general insanity, escaped her. Bright alarm lit up Loki's mind when her husband mentioned Chitauri bodies. "What bodies?" She wanted to know what bodies they were talking about. Jay never mentioned this to her. Suddenly Jay mentioned a sea ship, the Galileo's Center. Where did he put a ship? I would have seen it… A haunting realization came over Loki that there were blinds covering the windows of the house for months. Anthony would never tell her why; she was too weak to care why. The memory was done then. It ended with her asleep in the workshop and her husband going out to steal Chitauri corpses and a ship she wasn't allowed to see.

The next memory that was shown was of her love standing in a room she'd never seen before with the Chitauri body laid out on a metal table. Little tremors shook Loki's muscles to see a Chitauri again. Anthony was telling Jay that he didn't want to do 'this', and she agreed with him. She didn't want him in the same room as a Chitauri, even a dead one. Shock exploded in Loki's mind like a well-placed bomb when her husband sank a scalpel into the arm of the Chitauri and an all too familiar slippery silver liquid spurted out to drip down her love's front. "Nimp." Her voice was a disbelieving whisper. A horrible suspicion began to grow in her mind then. The 'machinery' that made the nimp was in and beneath the rose tank. The nimp flowed through her veins every time she was in the rose tank. This couldn't be where it came from. "This can't be right." Her hands gripped her Afis' hands tightly as she unconsciously sank back to her Amma. "No." The memory ended shortly after her husband found strange pieces of arched metal in the Chitauri's flesh, after she watched her beloved husband disassemble a Chitauri that was leaking nimp all over the table.

The next memory began quietly, with Anthony sitting still at his workbench in his workshop. A distressing look of self-loathing was squatting on his face uncomfortably. A body bag was laying on the floor beside his stool. Another Chitauri body? Jay was protesting something, then more shock filled her mind when he spoke again. "SHIELD had them listed as corpses. There was no way we could have known they were still alive, sir, not with their hibernation mode," Jay protested. Little whimpering noises tumbled out of Loki's mouth. Live Chitauri blood had flowed through her veins. She shook her head slowly back and forth. "No, no." It was almost enough to cause her to look away. Just as she was considering looking away from the pieces of arched metal, they turned into nimp on the screen. The nimp moved on its own to spear her husband in his arc reactor, sinking into his skin and dropping him to the floor. "Anthony!" She sat up, leaned forward towards what she was seeing. For a few seconds, as the nimp was carving a new Chitauri out of her beloved, Loki sat still and watching in horror. Then she cried out, "No!" and tried to reach her husband. Reaching into her core she touched the pearl of sjel-seidr that Skuld gifted her with. If she could get through time then she could undo this event. Loki wanted to believe it, even though she knew that any firehawk's actions couldn't be undone. Her runework lit in magenta sjel-seidr. She commanded the sjel-seidr to take her through time to this event. She couldn't swirl through time yet, so she didn't know how quickly she could get to him. There was no amount of time she was unwilling to spend to get to Anthony to try to stop this from happening.

A wild flare of sjel-seidr from Loki entered the currents of time. She was trying to move them through time to get to the firehawk. A grim anti-smile crossed Lady Audhumbla's lips. This memory wasn't going to get better until the second half of it. The Matron of the Norns' grip on her granddaughter didn't loosen as Loki tried to move through time. She commanded the currents of time that were flowing around them to recede back to where they belonged. Loki was squirming, but then the transformation of the firehawk ended prematurely and reversed. The nimp oozed out of the firehawk's chest then formed into little arched pieces of metal. The little pieces of arched metal were lying on the floor away from the firehawk. "All will be well, litil-svass."

"This is not well, Amma! Let me go to him!" Loki understood when her Amma was saying, she knew it well. Firehawks all walked the Road Untraveled, a road through time that could never be undone even by the Norns. There was nothing Loki could do about this. Just as she was coming to the acceptance of her own inability, Anthony woke up from being knocked unconscious. He screamed loudly, panted, and screamed again, then he just kept screaming. "Afi, please let me go." She was speaking to both of her grandfathers, pleading with tears in her eyes. Her tears crested over her lower lids to run in rivulets down her cheeks. "Anthony." Loki found it hard not to struggle against her grandparents as they kept her attention on Jay's memories. She wanted so badly to go to her husband, to heal his wounds and make sure that he was well again. Another second of thought brought her to the fact that these were indeed Jay's memories. The boy was there when this happened and was probably greatly scared and distressed. Not only was her husband injured in this, but her son was as well.

Elder Gorynych lightly grimaced as he held onto Loki's hand, holding her back. He wished that he could make it so that her firehawk and the special child didn't have to go through any of this. Likewise, his blood-brother Lord Gin also wanted to take this pain away from their sweet grandchild. They had to just get through this. Loki had to know what her firehawk and his child had done to themselves in the name of saving her. They all, Loki and her firehawk and the special boy, had grievous injuries that needed to be tended to. The firehawk's Elder Brother was seeing to him and the boy, now they had to see to Loki. As the elders of their family, it was their responsibility to use their experience and resources to set these sort of massive problems right if they could be.

All the muscles in Loki's body tensed as Anthony stopped screaming when managed to stand then fell and his head bounced off of the concrete floor. Jay was handling the situation but doing so without being able to heal Anthony. She relaxed back some into Lady Audhumbla, her hands were still tight around her grandfathers' hands. A period of quiet passed in the memory, where Anthony was unconscious on the floor of his workshop being held in place by Jay using an armor. A frown crossed her face when her husband woke and almost instantly began arguing with Jay. It was clear that he needed to see a healer and Jay was trying to use the Medic Armor to provide what healing he could. He was a good boy. "Please let me go to him, Amma. It's over now."

"This shan't be over for several moments." Lady Audhumbla didn't like having to convey this information like that. She preferred to simply transfer it using the Learning Spell. If Loki's mind hadn't been broken, leaving her wary of transferring such large and stressful information, then she would have.

"You must know these things. Do not look away, litil-svass." Like his wife and brother, Lord Gin didn't want to do this in this fashion. They weren't even showing Loki everything that was done, just the important parts about the nimp/coalesced machine solution, …and the box. That device caused an interminable rage in him. It was a rage reserved for Thanos alone. There was no anger in him that the firehawk recreated the box because he turned it into something like a Soul Forge instead of the implement of torture that Thanos used it as. Where Thanos used the box to try to breakdown Loki into something more pliant, the firehawk used it to build up and support Loki. One use was going to draw his ire and his axe while the other he would laud.

The next section of the memory drew Loki's undivided attention when Jay explained how he saved Anthony from becoming a Chitauri by hijacking their very blood. Nanomachines?! Is this how Tony worked with the Chitauri, with their blood. He used nanomachines on me. Those are thinking machines! Suddenly she was very glad that Midgard had no treaties with the Elder Realms since those sort of thinking machines were strictly illegal in the Elder Realms. Seeing the little nanomachines on the screen caused a terrible feeling of déjà vu for Loki. She felt strongly that she'd seen them before but couldn't remember from where. Anthony was scratching gouges into his own chest causing her to worry more for him. As Jay was explaining what he did and found a worrying vacancy came over Anthony's face, emptying his eyes of life. It was the same as when she tried, as a man, to forgive Anthony for the sessions he put her through to save her life from the Void Sickness. The forgiveness only prompted a terrible emptiness in her husband's eyes. A strange black liquid was oozing from his skin. Is that black rot? It can't be, he's never been infected by a monster. There's no cure for that. While she previously believed that there was no cure for Void Sickness, and accepted that Anthony proved her wrong, she absolutely knew that there was no cure to a monster's touch.

All of her wondering and pondering stopped when she saw a picture of the box she was kept in, and how it was used. A look of undisguised terror crossed her face when the image of a person slipped down into the image of the box. Her own memories of the box, of her hands being sown down to her hips and her eyes being sown open while the tube was shoved down into her lungs played in her mind. The raw crystal on the insides of the box left cuts, bruises, and scrapes on her naked body when she was dropped into it as a man. The bindings that clamped tight around her ankles and head left scars when they rubbed the skin off her. A slippery phosphorescent blue liquid sloshed around her feet and ankles. There were biting boring worms in the fetid liquid. It was steadily rising up towards her face bringing with it the blue burn that moved throughout her body, a relentless burning itch. Her eyes closed as she shook slightly. Fear and memories tightened Loki's hands around her grandfathers' hands.

Her sjel-seidr was instantly commanded to pause the recording of the memories when Lady Audhumbla noticed that Loki was falling back into memories. She flared her sjel-seidr out to the pearl of sjel-seidr in Loki's seidr core, commanding it to make contact and merge with the pearl. Through the merging the Matron was able to share what her litil-svass was thinking and feeling. As she expected Loki was remembering the box as it was used against her when she was a man. By merging their thoughts, she was able to inject her memories of them spending time together. They were more lighthearted and happy memories than what Loki was experiencing. Slowly she was able to bring Loki back from the edge of the abyss of memories.

Instead of curling in on herself Loki collapsed back onto her grandmother, with her head resting on Lady Audhumbla's shoulder. Embarrassment kept her eyes closed. It was humiliating to still lack control over her own mind. "I'm sorry." Her voice was a hushed whisper swallowed by the embarrassment she felt.

"Thu gjorde ekki wranger, minn litil-svass. (You did nothing wrong, my little sweet.)" It tore at Lord Gin's heart to see both the terror and embarrassment on Loki's face. He agreed with his grandchild's husband. Thanos was a walking dead man; they just hadn't found his corpse yet to bury it.

The look on his brother's face matched Elder Gorynych's own. Their grandchild was suffering through something which should never have happened. It was the disgusting Royal Politics of Asgard which caused it, that drove Loki to the injuries she sustained which left such lasting scars. That was a wound which was going to need to be seen to as well. In the other room he could hear children playing. While he hadn't met them yet, his sister showed him who they were. Loki had her own children now, and he wasn't going to have his newest grandchildren grow up in the same terrible circumstances as Loki did.

Such a terrible wrath filled Lady Audhumbla's heart that she had to bury it to keep it from getting out and scaring her granddaughter. This was primarily her Little Sister's fault. Skuld betrayed her, tried to use Loki to collect on the debts that Asgard owed to her family without once acknowledging that Loki was family too. In an offset moment in time she was dealing with her traitorous Little Sister by returning to her all of the torturous pain and wicked mischief she spread about, as well as a healthy dose of long overdue discipline. Once the screaming was exhausted then she was going to bury alive her wayward sibling in the Grand Temple of Urdarbrunnr, home of the Norns. The temple stood outside of the bounds of time, so her Little Sister would have no time to die from. What she would have, in the tiny lightless coffin which would be provided to her, was the ability to think, to dream and to scream some more. The timeless Lady had already decided that she would check on her stubborn and evil Little Sister in another million years after that. Hopefully she would repent her betrayal by then. If she hadn't, that was fine as well. The Matron would simply use the might of the Eilifd Framherji to erase her from existence. She turned her attention back to Loki who still needed the calm assurance of the link between them. Commanding her sjel-seidr to stay merged with the pearl of sjel-seidr in her granddaughter's seidr core let her provide that reassurance.

It was only for the fact that Loki's sjel-seidr was merged with her grandmother's that she was able to continue. It gave her the certainty that she wasn't alone and was safe there. Holding tight to her grandfathers' hands helped her to feel better about what she was doing. What she truly wanted was to introduce Anthony to her grandparents so that he could be there too and could answer her questions. She had so many of them. When the recording began again Anthony watched the box operate in the holographic screen Jay provided. The first thing Loi noticed was that the liquid in the box wasn't phosphorescent blue, but a suspicious silver that was lit in phosphorescent blue. Seeing the box again was worth it to see Anthony's reaction. She could see what he was seeing and was shocked to see that the pieces of arched metal were the biting worms she so feared. The blue burn which so viciously tormented her was the nanomachines working. The gouges Anthony scraped out of his own chest seemed so much more sensible then. It was the middle of the recording, the middle of the person shown in the box which drew her horrified attention. The person's seidr core was being healed. The box was healing them. Loki stared at the recording as Anthony came to the same conclusion as her. She wanted to say that Anthony would never use such things, even though he was showing a clear and darkening intent to do just that. Also, she wanted to say that Anthony had never put her into any box, but just then her mind reminded her that there was nimp, Chitauri blood, used on her every time she went to sleep in the rose tank. The rose tank supports my seidr core. There are crystals on the inside. The rose tank can't be, …Tony would never, …It can't be! Wrenching her hands out of her grandfathers' hands she turned and curled up again her Amma. Fat tears of sorrow, shock and horror covered her eyes to drip down her cheeks seconds later. It only took a moment before she was sobbing loudly.

The powerful urge to somehow take this pain from his little-sweet came and went in a second for Lord Gin. There was no way he could simply take the pain away, not when there was so much more that Loki had to be shown. The firehawk had all but ripped himself to pieces to create the cure for Void Sickness that he did, injuring his silver son in the process. Loki had to be made aware of what was done; how, when, why, and where. It was the only honorable course for them, to make known the sacrifices of the firehawk and his special son, to laud them for the love and devotion that they were. He could even laud the firehawk's hiding of so much. The special boy's memories, Jay's memories, showed him how it was all hidden to create a sanctuary where Loki's mind could be protected as well as her body. It was protection that was desperately needed. Lord Gin was grateful that his grandchild had that protection, but she needed to know what it cost. Protection of this magnitude wasn't without extreme expense.

Elder Gorynych's gaze stayed on the image of Jay's memories for a second after Loki turned to his sister for comfort. Gratitude flexed strongly in his thoughts. A young firehawk and his young silver son had given everything that they had to give to his grandchild, for his grandchild. The magnitude of it was almost enough to bring tears to his eyes again, so was Loki's crying. "Let us take a short rest here lest we overwhelm little-sweet."

Wrapping her arms fully around her grandchild, Lady Audhumbla rocked litil-svass slowly back and forth. Loki was shaking as she cried, wrapping her own arms around herself and curling in. The timeless Lady pursed her lips and nodded once. "Yes, I believe that may be wise." She extended her sjel-seidr into the currents of time around the room and commanded her sjel-seidr to remove the room to outside the bounds of time. Her litil-svass was going to have all the time she needed to cry, to grieve, and to understand.

23May2023 – Late Morning

The Malibu California Mansion Of Anthony Edward Stark

A glacial flow of anger moved smoothly through Frigga's thoughts. She was livid to see and hear Lord Borr, livid to know that these attacks on Odin had been going on right in front of her, livid to see the fear in Jay's eyes. It was fear for Odin instead of fear of Lord Borr which made it bittersweet. Mostly Frigga was livid that she couldn't take Lord Borr's head and post it on the gate to the Royal Palace of Vanaheim. It was a frosty cold anger that allowed her to contain and control it. She didn't want to let it loose in front of her grandson, since he was already frightened for Odin. Only when all traces of Lord Borr were gone from her family was she going to let go of the anger.

The frigid anger in Frigga's seidr was clear not only to Frey but to Odin as well. The elder King could feel how angry Frigga was through their imprinting. It wasn't him she was angry with though, so he was fine with it. He was angry too, but he wasn't going to hold that anger when the was holding one of his grandchildren. The smile on Jay's face mirrored the smile on Odin's face, which let Frey be calmer about having seen and heard Lord Borr than he normally would be. Despite how angry Frigga was, she was still calmly going about her duties as formadr. It was a strange realization that both of them made Frey proud. Frigga was angry but not raging. Odin was fighting against the monster who raised him and was winning. As he looked over the both of them the younger King could agree with Lady Audhumbla more. Angr and Reidi weren't what was needed, not when healing was working so much better. Frey flared his seidr out to Odin before furling it back, You did well, brother.

Moving down towards the hallway with the bedrooms, the darkness suddenly in Odin's voice displeased James. It was fading away but still there. It was particularly bad since the darkness clearly didn't belong to Odin and was antagonizing the elder King. He knew that if he had slept that his soul song of blessings would be strong enough to remove the darkness from Odin permanently. He just couldn't get some solid sleep though. He worried too much about his younger brothers, that they might need him when he was sleeping, and he wouldn't be there for them. It occurred to him then that with Lady Sjofn's help that he might be able to take time out to get some good sleep without worrying about his brothers and their emergencies. He needed to plan it out with Herb, to see what they could get done. That meant that he needed to get this tour done so that he could go and speak with Herb, so his gaze traveled forward to the bedrooms. "Down this hall are the bedrooms." His seidr unfolded and extended down the hall to grasp the doors and undo their hinges. The doors were pulled off the hinges and set beside the doorways in the hall before his seidr stowed back into his core.

As they walked past the rooms Frigga took mental notes of what was in each room, to see what each child was receiving and had a taste for. Odin did the same until the tour came to a stop at Loki and Stark's bedroom. He liked the looks of each room. They weren't as big as the chambers his children had, but this was an estate sized home, not a palace. "They look very comfortable."

A little chuckle came from Frey at his brother's comment. "Loki always tries to make sure that the children have discipline and good form. Anthony dotes on them." A longing desire to see his grandchildren again passed through the younger King. He didn't want to wait to see them again but wanted to have progress to show them when he saw them.

"A good set of puppy-dog eyes does wonders with dad." Jay volunteered the information because he didn't feel that it was giving away anything vital. His father was a sucker for his children and the digital boy knew it.

When the All-Speak translated 'puppy-dog eyes' for Odin as 'pleading eyes' he decided to ask about it. "What does that mean, 'puppy-dog eyes'?"

Jay looked over to his grandparent and demonstrated a perfectly calculated set of puppy-dog eyes for just a moment and then stopped. "My sisters are especially good at them. It's only when they hit dad that he puts their toys in time-out."

"They hit him?" Thor had only smacked Odin once when he was a baby boy. The elder King made a show of 'smacking' the boy's wrist without any force, and it never happened again. It was the spectacle more than anything that got the boy to stop.

A little cringe crossed Jay's face at his sisters' behavior. "They have tempers, and don't like to be told what to do. They'll straighten out in time." Jay had no doubt of that since both his mother and his uncle were working on it. They're outmatched.

Ah, those pleading eyes. "Yes, Thor liked to use those eyes as well." They were precious looks that rarely resulted in Thor getting what he wanted. It dawned on Odin then that Loki never used those childish tricks. He asked for things honestly when he was little, even though like Thor it rarely resulted in Loki getting what he wanted. The elder King didn't know how to feel about that now, but wondered if his refusal to deal honestly with Loki was what first led to Loki's tricks, or if it was simply that Loki was a trickster by nature. Does it even matter if I know? Since he was going to be changing so as to change the future he didn't think it did.

The hint of a smirk touched James' lips as he remembered when Adara hit him, the one and only time that she did. He bent down so that he was face to face with her and directed his soul song of stillness towards her. "That's rude. Please don't do that again." His voice was deep and somber as he spoke. That was all it took for both her and Edana to get the idea that he wasn't going to deal with violence from them. They pouted now, but never tried to raise a hand to him. "This last room at the end is Loki and Anthony's bedroom, bathroom, and closet. The hallway dead ends in there. There are several places to go from here. There's the rooms down the cliff which are just living areas. Loki's lab is located at the bottom of those rooms. Then there's the drone armory, Anthony's workshop, the medical lab, the hidden rooms, the garage, and the facility in the cave beneath the house. Where do you want to go next?"

A sudden surge of sorrow crashed into Frigga's cold anger as she looked into the room at the end of the hall. Edward was born in that room without her knowing it when it happened, let alone her being in attendance. When she returned to Vanaheim she decided that she was going to ask Frey to share his memories of the children's births with her and Odin. She remembered then that she was so incensed by them trying to enter Frey's wretched office that she'd forgotten to apologize to Frey properly for treating him so poorly for so long. That had to come first.

Unwinding his seidr Odin flared it to Frigga to ask, Where do you think we should go? At the exact time as Odin unwound his seidr Frey unfurled his and asked Frigga a similar, Where do you want to go next?, since he knew where he wanted to go. Each of them got the same answer, a flared out, The medical lab or the hidden rooms. She wanted to know what medicines and methods were used on Loki. Her seidr raveled back into her core as her husband and brother did the same while her gaze continued to scan the area.

James' seidr unfolded from his core again to extend down the hallways while they were thinking. He grabbed the children's favorite toy or trinket, one item from each room with some books and drawings and brought them to him. The toys would go back to the children when he got back to Vanaheim. To further that goal he mounted a powerful Baldayn Immaculacy Weave and wrapped the items in it. Each item was purified immediately then dismissed to his interdimensional pocket. Unfortunately, this wasn't the first time he'd had to purify items in the house. No matter how many times he purified things, items in the house still needed more purification.

"Don't forget my marbles!" Jay pointed vehemently to his room with one hand, while holding onto Odin's shoulder with the other one. "I don't want to leave them behind."

"Is a set of marbles really worth taking? I can get you new ones. We aren't taking everything." His other nieces and nephews weren't going to be pleased with losing the contents of their rooms, but they were going to have to understand that very little in the house was worth keeping. James was ready, willing, and able to replace everything they were losing. They could even make a day of it going shopping if the children wanted to.

"Mother made them for me by hand. I hold them when I sleep. Each one plays a different song to help me dream. Please, Uncle Rhodey, can I keep them?"

A soft smile played across James' face. It was a lovely gift that he hadn't found out about yet. "Alright, I wouldn't want you to lose your marbles. Where are they?"

"In the brown box on my nightstand." As his uncle turned to go to his room he called after him. "Thank you!"

The room he needed was one door down from where James was, so he wandered down into the room. The bedroom was sparse when compared to the others. There were only four pieces of furniture. Just a bed, nightstand, lamp, and dresser drawers. The little bathroom attached to the bedroom was equally sparse, with various toiletries as its contents. A simple red wooden box with beveled edges and a clear finish on it was the only thing in the room that was personal. James snagged the pretty box and opened it to see a set of twelve marbles, each the size of a grape with a unique rainbow explosion of colors on the inside. Again, he mounted a powerful Baldayn Immaculacy Weave to wrap around the marbles to easily purify them. Closing the box up again, he went back to his nephew and handed it over. "They're beautiful."

Jay smiled down at the box in his small hands, then opened it. "They are!" He ran a finger over each marble one by one, activating the enchantments in the hearts of the sculpted glass. "This one has several sonatas, including the 'Moonlight Sonata'. This one has 'Peer Gynt' by Edvard Grieg. 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' is part of it. And this one has the 'The Planets' on it. I see why Mars is so popular, it's so deep. Oh, and that one's the '1812 Overture', cannons and all, the 'Nutcracker' too." He pointed to one of the center marbles. "This one has my favorite." He touched a little finger to the top of the marble and listened to it begin to play.

Immediately James recognized the musical selection, as he had all the others. "You dream to this?"

The music sounded like the beginning of a rousing charge to battle to Frigga, she liked it very much. Odin liked the sound of it as well. He was sad to hear it stop when Jay lifted his finger from the glass. "What piece of music was that?"

"The Valkyrie." A wide grin crossed Jay's face. It was a wonderful piece of play that gave him such soaring dreams. With a sigh, he stopped touching the marbles, closed the box and impelled his seidr from his core. He gripped the box with his seidr and dismissed it to his interdimensional pocket before his seidr called back into his core.

The barely turned up edge of her lips was all the smirk that touched Frigga's lips. She knew that her sisters at the Valkyr Monastery would like it as well. I'll ask James for a copy of the music later so I can send it on to the monastery.

A little chuckle came from both Odin and Frey. "An excellent piece of music." The elder King liked the music more when he felt his wife's enjoyment of it through their imprinting. It was a pleasant distraction from the unpleasant choice that he had to make next. He knew where he and Frigga wanted to go, to the hidden rooms, but thought that Frey probably wanted to go down to the cave, to see the monster chained there. Thanos' whale had been chained for years though and could wait a while longer. After a moment of consideration, in which it looked like Frey was also considering, Odin decided to begin the discussion. "If we go to the hidden rooms first, then we can see what means were used. Everything else would make more sense then."

Seeing what was in the hidden room sounded like an excellent idea to Director Fury. It had things in there that were directly used in the care of Loki when she was sick and still a man. An audit of what was used and done as well as the outcomes of anything used or done was what SHIELD needed to be certain of how to handle Loki when she was on Earth. An asset of her value had to be protected scrupulously.

If we go to the hidden rooms first then we can work backwards from there. Frey felt it was a good point to debate from and went about phrasing it properly in his mind when Odin spoke. A smile crossed his lips when he spoke that would have been brighter but for the subject they were discussing. "I was thinking just the same thing. The chair is supposed to be in there. I'd like to examine that, and the medicines stored there as well." Frey was reminded of his decision to view all of the sessions Loki went through, as well as what Anthony did to himself in creating the cure for Void Sickness. "There is something I'd like to do first, if you don't mind, James."

"Certainly. What would you like to do?" James didn't mind a brief interruption so long as it furthered the cause of what they were doing, beginning to set wrongs right by expanding people's knowledge and ability to act.

Taking a deep breath, Frey steeled himself for his own request. "I would like to view Jay's memories of what happened before and during the sessions. I would like to know what happened fully. Would you permit Jay to give me these memories?"

"Yes. I was wanting to do the same thing. I'd like to know what they went through." Odin was surprised both by Frey not wanting to see Thanos' monster whale first and by the fact that he'd come to the same conclusion as Odin himself came to. Seeing more was the only way he was going to find any peace. Even though peace wasn't going to come for a long time.

This was a wholly unexpected request, but one that was weirdly welcome at the same time. After a moment of consideration, he decided that he could put something together that would be more useful to them since he had a fuller picture than Jay. "I have some memories that might provide a fuller picture than what Jay has on his own." Reaching out a hand, he spoke to his nephew. "Here, hold my hand, we'll both use the Learning Spell and I'll create a bridge so that we can curate what we have into something useable."

"I don't know if this is a good idea." Jay looked down at the floor, not wanting to participate in something else that could bring harm to his family. "They would be hurt if they knew."

"They will be, you're not wrong." Jay's gaze snapped to his own and he moved to educate his nephew. "They don't know just how bad it got, but we do. We can accept that we can't change what happened. They can't. We can be settled in it because we know exactly what happened. They can't. We can come to peace with it because we know. They can't. We can attend to our responsibilities in a more compassionate and understanding fashion because we know what needs to be done. They can't." He gave his nephew a very serious look then, aiming his soul song of stillness towards the boy for added emphasis. "Will it hurt them to understand how bad it was? Yes. It's going to burn worse than acid, and do it for years after they find out, but not knowing is worse than that. They can't come to acceptance and peace without it." James held out his hand a little closer to Jay. "Help me create something for them, and you set them on the path to finding that peace."

A sense of sharp alarm froze the thoughts of the three monarchs simultaneously as James was convincing Jay to give over his memories, instead of simply ordering the boy to do it. While they appreciated his attempts to cajole rather than demand, none of them appreciated having it put so bluntly that they didn't know everything. What they already knew was horrendous. Frigga particularly didn't appreciate the situation since she couldn't deviate from her duties as formadr of the drengr to take the memories. She had to wait until they were back on Vanaheim.

There was still a persistent hesitation in Jay's mind, but he reached out to his uncle's hand anyway. He couldn't deny what his Uncle Rhodey said. "It's another instance where I have to hurt my family to help them. I'm tired of it." His voice was small as he took his uncle's hand. Bitterness flitted across his thoughts as his seidr impelled from his core to write into a copy of the Learning Spell and he felt his Uncle Rhodey doing the same. He gathered his memories of the Dark Days, over a year of memories, into the spell and released it into his uncle's hand.

A bitterness was in Jay's voice that James' shared. His nephew had been in too many circumstances that a child shouldn't have ever been in. This day was the end of that time in his nephew's life, he reminded himself again in order to find his own peace and calm. When his own Learning Spell had been mounted he stopped playing his soul song of stillness and started playing the soul song of blessings. James twisted the spell and song together to create a bridge between the two of them. Jay's seidr flashed in his eyes while his seidr flashed in Jay's eyes. He took the memories from his nephew and mixed them with the memories he had already. Then he gave them back to Jay with a questioning tone, to ask the boy if he felt like anything should be put back in that he took out.

What Jay was seeing was obviously from two different sources, neither of which was his uncle or himself. "You have mother's and father's memories!"

Anther calm smile touched James' face. "Yes, I do. Thank you for giving me yours. Now I have a full picture of what happened here." It wasn't anything particularly new, just a different view of the same events. It did confirm his opinion that he wanted this place destroyed one way or another. It was just one more brutal cage that his family was kept in. His anger bumped up against his need to preserve the places where his brothers lived, not for posterity but for legal purposes. The house had to go into the archives, like all the others. At least the important parts of the house had to go into the archives. The land could still be destroyed though, so could the unimportant rooms. A wild whim struck his mind, an urge to simply cut his losses, do a recording of the house and then let it be destroyed after that. You can't be reckless, came the immediate reminder to himself.

It wasn't the transfer of memories that drew Sean's attention. It was the whooshing noise from where James' and Jay's hands touched. The Learning Spell swirled together with the luck song that was playing from the older man's white seidr. The two of them were creating a bridge between the older man and the boy. James' hand looked stony and white under the swirling seidr. He wished that the others could see what he was seeing, they might have been able to explain it to him. Something seemed not right then. Wait, if Jay is transferring his memories of what happened here, of the Dark Days, his gaze went to James's eyes then that were no longer flashing in Jay's seidr, how is he absorbing so much information so quickly? Is it because Jay's mind is more efficient? Is James' mind that efficient?

A presentation that was composed of memories from several different people all spliced together to create a coherent narrative played through the digital boy's thoughts. What Jay was seeing caused him to balk at showing it to his grandparents however. "Mom would be humiliated if they saw what happened in the bathroom." He sent the memories back to his uncle to be fixed.

There were certain memories which Jay had flagged for James to remove, but he was only going to remove a few of those memories. "We need to keep some of those in so that they understand that it wasn't just the sessions that were bad. What do you think of this arrangement?"

"This is better, but mother will still be humiliated if they see it. Do we have to show it?" A distinct sense that his mother was going to have some less than kind words for him played through his thoughts. He didn't want her to be angry with him as well, so he sent the memories back with a questioning tone.

The fear and worry playing through his nephew's thoughts impinged on James' thoughts. "You don't need to be afraid of Loki's response to this. I'm going to sit down with your mother and explain to her what we did, and why we did it. Like with your dad, if she wants to be angry then she can be angry at me. She won't be angry at you." He took out a few more memories and then added in more to the beginning of the bundle of memories. There was something he wanted them to see with those memories, his own memories, so he sent them back to Jay for the boy to look over one last time. "This is as much excess as I can cut out. Everything else has to be shown. Do you have anything else you want to show them?"

While he liked seeing the memories at the beginning of the presentation he still worried over embarrassing his mother like he was about to. Swift little tears welled up in his eyes as he tried not to imagine her being angry with him over this. They were wiped away rapidly with his free hand. "No, this is everything." More tears were wiped away. "She's going to be so angry with me." His voice was a whisper when he spoke.

Breaking the bridge between them, sending both their seidrs back to their cores, let James begin playing the soul song of stillness again to help calm his nephew. "She really won't be. I'm not going to stop discussing this with her until she understands that you were in a position that you never should have been. This isn't your fault. This isn't even your parents' fault. All of you were in positions you shouldn't have been in."

A little sniffle and another round of wiping at his eyes helped Jay to calm himself. It helped him that his uncle was always a calming presence to have around. "She won't blame me?"

"No, she won't," I won't let her, "because ultimately all of the blame for this can be laid at Thanos' feet. If he hadn't gone on a rampage with nuclear weapons then none of this would have happened," James focused his song directly at his nephew, "It's not your fault," he stopped focusing so powerfully then, "You're trying to help clean up the mess he made."

"Do I, ...do I have to be the one to show them?" Being the one to hurt his grandparents with this wasn't something Jay wanted, even though he did agree to an extent that they needed to see what he and his uncle had to show them. This was the definition of a 'necessary evil' in his young mind.

"You've been the guardian of this nightmare fever dream. It's your right to tell them if you want. However, if you don't think you can, then I'll handle this responsibility for you." Even as James agreed with his nephew having the right to this, he also had to agree that this wasn't something he wanted his nephew doing. It was a choice the boy needed to make though.

Shaking his head lightly, Jay spoke firmly. "I don't want to hurt more members of my family. I don't want to do that again."

"I understand, and it's not a bad decision. You're right to not want to do this. Sometimes you have to hurt someone to help them. But hurting someone, even if you're helping them, is never fun." Looking at the monarchs before him he spoke calmly. "Why don't we head back to the living room? We can have a seat on the sofa, and I can share this with you."

"Very well." Odin spoke with a nod and then looked over to his grandson. "Your uncle is right. This needs to be done and it isn't your fault. I don't blame you, and I know that your grandmother won't either."

Keeping his voice soft, Frey spoke to his grandson. "Neither will I. I appreciate that you're willing to share these memories with us. You have knowledge that we need and are willing to share it. I'm grateful, Jay."

Though her eyes were still scanning the area around her, Frigga discreetly unraveled her seidr to flare it to her grandson so that she could speak to him. We don't blame you. We're grateful to you for your defense of and aid to Loki. You coming forward to let us know was courageous. Don't feel badly for this. A little smile touched her lips when Jay tried to flare his seidr in return to her. It was a small and trembling flare filled with gratitude of his own, Thank you, Amma!

As the adults moved back down the hall towards the living room sofa, Jay wiped the rest of the tears from his eyes. He knew what was coming for his grandparents. It was horrifying enough that it happened to his parents, now it was going to happen to his grandparents. He didn't feel very courageous. Honestly, he felt a little slimy that he had a hand in this happening.

Following James towards the living room, Odin was grateful both that they were going to get an explanation beyond what they were shown in the SHIELD meeting room, and that James was willing to take on the responsibility of showing them. It was his opinion that both James and Jay were correct. James was correct in that sometimes hurting a person was part of helping them. Removing a blade from a soldier's gut before a healing stone could be used was helping and hurting at the same time. Yet Jay was correct as well. A child shouldn't be asked to take up that sort of responsibility. It wasn't appropriate for Jay to do this, even if it was his right to do so.

The short walk back to the living room let James get how he wanted to do this set in his mind. Turning back to them, he spoke calmly. "Jay, why don't you go sit at the kitchen island. Ok?"

Nodding, "Ok," Jay gave his grandfather a hug before he was set down to scurry off to the bar stools at the island.

Motioning to the sofa, James stepped over into the living room. Before he spoke he unfolded his seidr to grip at Loki's two guitars. He mounted another powerful Baldayn Immaculacy Weave and wrapped the guitars in it. Each guitar purified instantly then was dismissed to his interdimensional pocket. Anthony bought them for Loki on the day that they knew for sure that Loki would survive the Void Sickness. Removing them from her wouldn't be fair. Turning to Director Fury, he asked a calm question that he knew the answer to already. "I can offer you a memory file to put on your memory cube of most of what happened here during the Dark Days. Some of the more private things will be redacted, but the rest of it is still available. Would you like that?"

"That would be wonderful. I'd like to have an audit of Loki's care done, that way we know how to best support her when she's on Earth. Survivors often need special treatment; I don't believe that she'll be different in that." The Director was greatly pleased to receive this information as well. "It might be too much to ask, but I'd like the auditors to be able to go over the medical records that Stark kept, and to hold interviews with Loki, Stark and Jay. Each has invaluable information on what happened, how and when it happened," a sigh gusted out of the Director, "since we already have the medical records. I understand that there are privacy concerns, I'll be appointing a special master to oversee the audit, and only they will be privy to all of the information we collect. Even I won't see all of it. If there are mental health concerns then I can assign a councilor to any of them to help talk them through their interview, and it would be interview, not an interrogation."

Instant suspicion tinted James' thoughts. "How did you get the medical records?"

Stepping in quickly, Sean moved to deescalate the situation. "I was given them. Prince Edward gave his permission for them to be shared with Lord Odin, Lord Frey, and Director Fury so that they can understand what happened and craft cures to Void Sickness from what was done to Prince Loki."

The demand to have the records back was on the tip of James' tongue when he stopped as Jay spoke.

"Edward believes that they can each find a different but equally important ways to cure it. He believes that mother's experience combined with father's process is the foundation that they need." Jay's voice cut through the quiet in the room. "Humanity could benefit ...from what we did." It was a wrenching a thought now as it was when Edward confided in him about what he wanted to do.

A small huff left James' mouth. Jay knew about this and didn't say anything. It was mildly disappointing but not at all unexpected. "If you had come to me then we could have done this in an ethical fashion with Loki and your father's consent."

"Edward saw that mother won't give her consent for a long time. Lives will be lost. Edward didn't want that. We didn't want that" Jay tried to keep meeting his uncle's gaze and was mostly successful.

"There were better ways to do this. I could have balanced all the parties needs and done this ethically. We're going to discuss this, Jay; you, me, and Edward." More frustration tinted James' thoughts. He couldn't get the records back without exposing himself now. The fact that Edward was saying it needed to happen this way was dissuading his ire from coming out. It wasn't as if he coddled the boy, but he did understand that the boy was special and frequently saw things that adults didn't. James was hesitant to admit it, but the boy hadn't been wrong about what he saw so far. That, and James did admit that it was an interesting idea. After he got past his initial desire to decline the interviews and demand the records back, he thought about how Anthony had come up with a cure to one of the most ferocious diseases humanity knew of. There were potentially things in what Anthony did that could save others' lives. The drugs he had made were potentially very useful to humanity. "Give me some time to speak with Anthony and Loki. I'll try to get their cooperation for the interviews. There are things that could be benefit humanity in what Anthony did." Turning he spoke again. "Jay, do you mind doing an interview for SHIELD?"

Looking over, Jay nodded again. "If you want me to, I can." He hoped that his parents wouldn't be angry with him and Edward over that.

"Thank you, Jay." The Director appreciated the boy's willingness to work with the adults around him, despite him working with Stark.

A polite smile was aimed at the Director of SHIELD. "You're welcome!" He went back to the book he was reading. It was exploring responsibility from the perspective of honor and was very interesting to him. Maybe we should have gone to Uncle Rhodey, maybe Edward was wrong about that.

The three monarchs were pleased with but not surprised by what they were seeing. It was James' emphasis on having this done ethically that impressed Odin. James wasn't opposed to them working to find a cure to Void Sickness, he just wanted Loki's consent in doing so. It was James' willingness to concede that a cure from what Anthony did might be possible that impressed Frey, while Frigga looked at it differently. She saw that James was willing to listen to Edward even though he was still a child. He listened and took Edward seriously. All three of them appreciated what they saw.

"It should only take a few days to get a response from them, then I'll get back to you to schedule things." James unfolded his seidr and mounted the Learning Spell to gather his memories into it. "Get out your memory cube and I'll transfer he information into it."

Moving quickly, the Director pulled the memory cube out of his pocket and held it up to James. A relieved smile crossed his face when the good colonel touched the cube with one finger, and it glowed a garnet red for a few seconds.

"Thank you. I can assign an ethics adjudicator to work with the special master, if you'd like." Director Fury liked that James was willing to entertain an audit of Loki's care. America's top spy for once didn't want to spy on anyone to get these answers. He wanted to do this openly and with transparency.

"I would appreciate that. This wasn't the best way to get it done." While he didn't want to start check-ins with Edward, since that would actively upset the good colonel, he was starting to think that he might have to.

"For what it's worth, I apologize for it happening like this. SHIELD takes what information we're given. There was nothing personal about it." Director Fury hoped this wouldn't prejudice James against SHIELD. It didn't seem to have, but he still worried.

"Thank you, Director Fury. I appreciate that. I'm not going to hold SHIELD responsible for," a frustrated side eye aimed at Jay before he looked back to the Director, "a child's decision. That would be wrong as well." With that brief tangent taken care of James turned his attention back to the monarchs and timeless assistant that he was giving this tour to. "Sean, can you take us, as well as Formadr Frigga outside of time so that they have enough time to see and react to what I'm going to show them and are safe while doing so?"

"Of course, that's an excellent idea." He'd seen everything that they were shown in SHIELD's conference room the day before, but Sean was also shown the things in between those moments. In a very real way, he was glad that James was willing to do this for Frey, Odin and Frigga. These moments needed to be seen, but he also agreed with Jay. He didn't want to be the one who had to hurt them to get it done. For as much responsibility as he was raised with in the clan, this still wasn't a responsibility he wanted. James was willing to take on this horrid responsibility, to do so with dignity and a calm steady hand, even giving Frey, Odin, and Frigga dignity in this by having him take them outside of time so their they would have some privacy to react emotionally. Sean gripped the pearl of sjel-seidr in his seidr core with his seidr. It frothed and foamed throughout his seidr core before he commanded it to grip himself, James, Frey, Odin, and Frigga then to take them outside of the bounds of time. Jay, Director Fury and the drengr of Vanaheimr Royal Guard all froze in place. Now that they were there he didn't want to see Frey be harmed again. His sjel-seidr flared out to Frey to whisper, I'm sorry.

And there it is. Frey hadn't had a chance to speak with Sean yet about him apologizing. Every single apology that Sean offered was the harbinger of something awful. When he first realized this he thought it was like being stabbed in the chest in broad daylight, that it was very clear who was doing it and why it was being done. It wasn't the type of honesty that he wanted though. He took a breath to steel himself for what was coming, now that he knew how bad it was going to be.

Surprise tinged Frigga's thoughts as the drengr she was commanding stiffened in place. She probably should have too. One glance over to the reassuring look on James' face told her what he'd done. He was including her in a way that made sure that Odin was still protected, and she greatly appreciated it. I won't have to wait to know!

The first thing that James did was to turn to the monarchs and Sean then motion to the sofa for them to sit. A slightly confused look crossed Sean's face as he sat next to Frey. When they were sitting he spoke. "You understand that what I'm going to transfer to you are Loki, Jay, and Anthony's memories from the time before, during and just after when Loki was sick?"

Each monarch nodded while Sean spoke. "Lady Audhumbla has already shown me what happened here."

Shaking his head negatively, James corrected him. "She didn't have all of the viewpoints that I do. If you're going to be working with Anthony, Loki, and Jay you should have all of the information on what happened. Each of them are sensitive to different things, and likely to lash out if those things aren't handled appropriately. Do you understand?"

It did make sense to Sean. He didn't want to relive the memories of the sessions again but couldn't disagree with James that knowing more would help him to deal fairly, compassionately, and effectively with the emmika who he was going to be spending the rest of his life with. "Yes. I understand."

Since they agreed, he continued. "Furthermore, you understand that these memories are firsthand depictions of the events of that time?" Again, they acknowledged that they understood. "Finally, you understand that these memories are extremely graphic and carry physical pain with them. I've dampened the sensations as much as I can to make this presentation as manageable as possible, but there is still pain there." James didn't want to start out his relationship with them by harming them, but there were no other good options for getting this done. If they were willing to take on this pain, to fully understand what horrors happened in this house, then he was willing to see them through it.

James was preparing them, and Odin was ready. "It's my responsibility. My own actions have caused my child intense pain. I have no intention of backing away now. I need to see what was done." He was on the verge of something awful again. Like before, he wasn't going to back away from it.

"My husband is correct; it is our responsibility. We can't back away from this because it might be painful." Frigga gave him a knowing look. "You already know how much it hurts to know as little as we know. This pain doesn't outweigh the pain of not knowing."

"Physical pain can never outweigh such emotional pain, sister." He looked to James then. "This is my responsibility as well. I too hand a hand in driving Loki to these terrible things. Now I want to know what happened." There was no happiness in Frey's statement, only honesty.

Unfolding his seidr, James mounted four copies of the Learning Spell and gathered the presentation of memories into them. Looking at all of them, while holding the spells in his hand, he spoke one last time before handing them what they wanted. "I'm sorry that it has to be this way. I hope you'll understand." With that he quickly released the spells into the four people sitting on the sofa in front of him. Runes done in his garnet seidr flowed from the spot on their shoulders that he released the spells into, up their necks and across their faces to sink into their eyes. His garnet seidr lit up their eyes while the memories sank in. They were off and away on the short journey that he sent them on. James switched his soul song to the soul song of blessings and focused it back through himself to provide them with healing and luck as they went to experience these horrors.

Outside The Bounds Of Time

In The Memories of Anthony Edward Stark, Loki of Asgard, Jay Stark, And James Rhodes

Odin/Frigga/Frey/Sean stood in a black room, the dimensions of which were indeterminate. From out of the darkness came James, with a reassuring smile on his face. This wasn't what they were expecting but were willing to be patient.

"I know you're expecting to see, to experience, memories from the Dark Days but that isn't where this tragedy began. It began before the Dark Days, in who Loki and Anthony were before these days changed them. You know who Loki was, you understand that. I would like you to understand what Anthony was like before this. I want you to see who he can be, and to understand what we both came close to losing." As James disappeared, the dark rushed towards them until it covered them, and they were looking through James' eyes. The memories that followed were laden with love and sorrow. They showed an Anthony that was kind, quirky, and gentle; a man who loved his machines, his brother and his 'AI companions 'J' and DUM-E, a man who was dedicated to doing the right thing. This man was constantly searching for the right person to be with, someone with black hair and emerald green eyes who would understand his love of red and gold. It was this man who met Loki in the collapsed theater, this man who fought to save Loki. Throughout the memories there was a terrible undercurrent of sorrow. It helped them understand that Anthony's changes to a more violent person were close to bringing James to tears at the thought of losing his Little Brother. Seeing Anthony in this raw and unfiltered light broadened the scope of the tragedy in their minds. When those memories were done playing stitched together presentation of Loki's and Anthony's memories with Jay's memories interspersed throughout began to play. They showed a complete narrative of what happened from the moment Anthony caught Loki from falling in the dilapidated theater, saving the male Asgardian's life; going through the Dark Days as Loki sickened from a raging disease; through all fifty-four sessions that Anthony put Loki through; they were sessions where Loki's health improved, and Anthony's worsened; all the way through Loki was recovering from the Void Sickness. It was years' worth of pain-filled memories that they could see from James' viewpoint. He could see the horrors as they happened to people who he cared about, who they cared about.

Outside The Bounds Of Time

The Malibu California Mansion Of Anthony Edward Stark

James tried to focus his soul song a little harder as he watched a thin line a blood slowly trace from Odin's nose across his lips. Unfolding his seidr he mounted a Regenerative Weave which he released into the elder King's head to deal with the obvious high blood pressure. Before stowing his seidr back into his core he mounted a Restoration Spell and released it to clean the blood from the elder King. He aimed his song at the elder King for a few moments to stabilize Odin. While he had his seidr unfolded he mounted three more Regenerative Weaves to then release them into Frigga, Frey, and Sean, stowing his seidr back into his core. They were all paling out and starting to sweat under the stress of the memories. They had clearly come to the point where they were living through the memories of the sessions that Loki and Anthony endured. They were medical sessions as envisioned by Dr. Frankenstein, bolts of lightning and all. When they were done Loki arose seemingly from the dead.

Though he wasn't going to say it to their faces, it was still James' opinion that the three monarchs were a little old to be experiencing these memories firsthand. Even though he dampened the experience as much as he could these memories were still physically traumatic. It was what they wanted, and he could agree with their desire to see it. It took him years to get the information that he had, bit by bit and one piece at a time. They were absorbing this information in a much larger piece than he had and weren't as mentally prepared for its contents as he was. So he kept the soul song of blessings focused through himself to make it as strong as it could be to stabilize them as much as he could.

Alarm ran sharply through their seidrs. James didn't blame them for it or the spectacle they were about to make of themselves. This was why he wanted to do this outside of time, so they could have some privacy to react naturally. Sure enough each of their runeworks lit forcefully a moment later. They were definitely at the sessions in the memories, the agony and anguish of all of the participants was clear. Just moments later seidr tore from Frigga's runework, weaving into a dense shield that tried to encircle her but stuttered. It was beautiful but there was no shielding her from the memories she was reliving. Booming seidr lightning arcing out from Frey's runework mixed with a simultaneous ferocious seidr fire exploding out from Odin's runework. These mixed with the shield from Frigga to create bramble of burning thorns covering them that had lightning arcing violently off of each thorn. It rolled over the area without harming anyone or anything. It was a wild and uncontrolled weapon that left James feeling that they wanted to slay the events they were in the middle of. It was fine, however. None of their weapons could harm him. He pulled his flesh back under the hardness that was perpetually beneath it, let it cover him in safety. He was left looking like a white marble statue standing guard over the people before him. What surprised him the most was how controlled throughout it Sean was. He suspected that Sean having lived through this once was helping the young man along since he knew what to expect generally. It couldn't be trained discipline since no one had such good discipline as those born into the Rhodes family. Whatever it was restraining the young man, James was glad for it. It was a lovely bit of calm in this enflamed endeavor.

An indeterminate time passed with the bramble of thorns hissing and spitting lightning and occasional spouts of flames. The agony of Loki's suffering and the anguish of Anthony's suffering with the helplessness of Jay's suffering caused a powerful emotional agony in the three monarchs that was screaming out at him through their seidrs. Ever so slowly the shrieking emotions faded to a quieter base of that persistent despair. When it was safe for his flesh he rescinded the hardness back into himself. It wasn't long after that when the seidr in their eyes faded and they came back to themselves. All of their gazes found their way to James. The horror in their stares met the calm in his. "Do you understand now?" He certainly hoped that they did. There was a chance that they wouldn't, but he considered it to be a small chance. When they all nodded, muttering, "Yes," James smiled in return and spoke, "Good, thank you," and nodded. Unfolding his seidr, he mounted four powerful Calm Heart Spells and released them into the chest of each monarch and Sean as well. He changed back to his soul song of stillness while keeping it focused back through himself to keep it strengthened. It was what he could do to help them through this. For himself, James had always liked putting on a nice long historical documentary and having a good cup of coffee when he was that upset. It was engaging enough to hold part of his attention, but light enough for him to still think through other matters. He knew that when he got home he was going to find another documentary to put on. There were some really lovely ones coming out of India that he'd been enjoying.

Tears filmed across Frigga's eyes before spilling over and down her face. She turned to Odin and wrapped her arms around him, taking comfort in him wrapping his arms around her. She hadn't lied when she answered that she understood. She did understand. Anthony was a good man, a gentle soul, who was ground down into something that was barely recognizable, something filled with a hateful and reasonable rage. In a most horrible turn, it was Loki's illness and death-seeking behavior before and during the sessions that did it. It was horrifying to think that such a good man was willing to grind himself down into that to save her child's life. The horror was furthered by her memories (Jay's memories) of her grandson struggling throughout it all trying to aid his father without receiving any aid himself. The horror didn't stop there for her though. What saving Loki's life entailed was also horrifying. The needles, the lightning, the drugs, and restraints of the sessions were all used successfully against Loki to cure him of a Void Sickness that was strengthened by an Infinity Gem more than a dozen times. The all-consuming disease was as horrifying as the means used to rid Loki of it. Beginning to end, it was all horrifying to Frigga. My boy, my beautiful grandson, it's my fault!

Odin understood all too well. The memories he lived through showed him something completely understandable. Stark had been searching for Loki for so long, to have everything nearly ruined by an all-consuming sickness that wasn't Loki's fault. It wasn't Jay's fault either, but he paid the price for it too. Truthfully, Odin considered it to be his own fault. Just the thought of what he lived caused him to shake in despair. More than anything he was grateful to have Frigga there since he needed her strength now. One thought kept buzzing around his mind. It's my fault. It's my fault. From the moment he dismissed Loki when his son returned from the Norns to try to warn him, to the destruction on Asgard and both his sons nearly dying, to the Celestial's waystation where Loki was sickened and his mind broken, to the invasion of Midgard and Loki having to live like a vagrant to hide what he was doing, to Thanos' construct nearly beating Loki to death, to the Dark Days themselves, it was all his fault. If he hadn't dismissed Loki in that moment then none of it would have happened. The memories playing through his mind were over, but Odin knew that he was going to live with them and the guilt for the rest of his life. That wasn't so much of a concern for him though. Living with this shame was just punishment for what he'd done. It only hardened his resolve to try to find a way to heal Loki's mind so that maybe his daughter could move on from his son's trauma.

Frey's gaze drifted down to the floor as he wasn't certain how to handle this. He desperately wanted some ale, despite having made the resolution to give up drinking alcohol. A look of shock crossed his face as the shock spread through his mind. He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and kept staring at the floor. As bad as yesterday made this situation out to be, it was so much worse. Loki's resolve to die in the beginning of the Dark Days was the lightest of all the problems they faced. Curiously, the memories from James didn't just hurt him. They gave him hope. The kindness and caring nature that he saw in those memories of Anthony mirrored the Anthony he had come to know over the past several years. It was the rage that had overtaken his nephew-by-law. Heavy counseling was going to be needed. Frey put a hand over his eyes as the tears welled up. With his other hand he reached over and grasped one of Sean's hands without thinking about it. He needed the comfort of having Sean there to deal with the host of memories that he received. I'm so sorry, Loki! The memories of fifty-four different sessions blurred together in his mind into a menagerie of torture that he was trapped in too. Several moments passed with him trying to sort everything out and he was truly shocked that he was so calm about it. Frey wanted to rage, to rampage across a city and destroy everything he could reach. Likewise, he wanted to curl into a small ball and weep until he couldn't anymore. Drinking until he was unable to stand up, until he blacked out, was also on his mind. There was too much stunned shock in his mind for him to be able to choose what he was going to do from what he wanted to do. All he knew in that moment was that he was going to apologize to Loki for not being there when she needed him. If he hadn't been so busy subjecting his Asgardian nephew to hundreds of years of hate for Odin and Asgard then Loki would have been able to come to him with this. None of what happened would have happened then. It was his fault, and he knew it.

When Frey reached over to grasp his hand, Sean held onto him tightly. He extended the sjel-seidr to gently touch at Frey's scarred skin, to let him know that he was there. It helped him to keep calm too, he wasn't going to lie about that to himself. James was right in his opinion; this was a much better presentation of the memories since they had Lord Stark's memories to tie everything together. Additionally, James was right to show them the memories of Lord Stark that he had. They provided a much fuller picture of the man and the circumstances around him. All together it helped him feel that he was right about both Lord Stark and James; James was definitely the brother that Lord Stark needed since he was patient, understanding, and most importantly, strict.

Sean appreciated the calming song that was singing out through James's white seidr. It was almost a physical force in the timeless area that they were inhabiting. He was much calmer than Frigga, Frey, and Odin. The Satska Soledras clan, his clan, would be upset if he were anything but calm and collected, controlled. The calm from James helped him to be calm instead of being livid over what happened to two people who had waited so long for each other. It was strange in his mind that he wanted to be livid about what happened while not being angry at all at Frey, Frigga, and Odin. He understood what drove each of them to do what they did. He blamed Lord Borr and Thanos for what happened. They were the ones whose actions everyone was reacting to. They were the ones who needed to be punished. Fortunately and unfortunately, Lord Borr was already dead, so he couldn't be punished further for his crimes. Thanos was still very much alive though. Sean was going to go with Frey when they went to find and deal with the Mad Titan.

As he watched them, James felt that they truly understood how wounded Loki and Anthony were. He had more hope that they would be willing to work with him to see to the injuries that the Dark Days caused. After that, he suspected that they were going to need support themselves so that this event didn't turn into something lasting and nasty. James focused his thoughts through his song to radiate hope out to them, to let them not get bogged down wallowing in grief and guilt. Those were perfectly normal and natural emotions, but he'd never felt that they did much for cleaning up messes and setting right the wrongs that were committed. At best they could easily cause a despairing paralysis. At worst they could actually cause even worse decisions as they clouded a person's mind. Accepting responsibility for their own actions and working to correct whatever mistakes were made was what he hoped they would take away from this. This was the viewpoint he was going to support them in getting to.

The three monarchs sat quietly, breathing slowly for some time. Odin kept his arms wrapped around Frigga to lend her his strength while taking strength from her. They comforted each other, while Frey could only hold tight to Sean's hand. The amount of time that passed as they calmed down wasn't something that they either knew or wanted to know. Without the ebb and flow of time to wear on them they would have sat in their misery, comfortable in their guilty despair. It wasn't to be though. As their minds calmed they all became aware of the calm hope that was coming from James. It whispered at them to leave behind their misery and embrace a neutral responsibility. Frigga, Odin, and Frey weren't sure that they wanted to or even should leave behind their guilt. There was such an overwhelming amount of hope coming from James that Frigga and Frey actually considered if they could get back to a life without such pressing guilt. Odin could feel the hope, could understand the whisper but couldn't bring himself to agree with it. In his mind, he deserved the guilt. Loki was another person he cared for whom he helped to do terrible things to. In that quiet moment he agreed with Lady Audhumbla that his love only made a mess of things. He was tempted to withdraw, to remove himself as the cause of Loki's suffering from this endeavor so that he couldn't hurt Loki again. His memories of Edward stopped him. The boy also brought hope with him and had assured him that everything would be alright. As he embraced Frigga, so Odin embraced the hope his young grandson offered. The overwhelming hope coming from James helped him to come back mentally to the endeavor that he was a part of. It reminded him of his resolve to do the opposite of when he would normally do. He took a deep breath and gave Frigga a quick tighter hug before pulling back. He spoke more to himself than anyone else then. "We should continue."

The tears were still occasionally trickling down Frigga's cheeks. She pulled back from Odin to wipe her face dry. The supreme calm coming from James was welcome to her. It helped her to calm herself so much faster than she would have been able to on her own. It also seemed to be proposing a future in which she wasn't mired in guilt and grief. She wondered how right her husband was then when he proposed a future without fear. He meant it to be for Loki and Stark, but Frigga thought she and her husband, brother, and grandson needed it as well. A future without fear, for everyone.

Sean was more shocked by what he was hearing from James than what memories he just survived. There was a hope that was pressing against their thoughts, but it was the unsubtle message in that hope that shocked him. James was imploring them to let go of their guilt while holding on to a responsibility that was emotionally, morally neutral. It held empathy for the three monarchs that he was truly surprised by. James had the right to be livid with them for what their actions caused. He wasn't livid though. He treated them with dignity and compassion. It impressed Sean since it reminded him of something that Eidesh would do; the correcting of mistakes while realizing that the offender was a person too. This was the kind of caring discipline that was needed in this circumstance. He was glad to have that kind of support here. My emmika need it. Looking over he spoke. "Is everyone ready to go again?"