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)

11. Chapter 11

- Chapter 11 -

23May2023 – Early Afternoon

The Malibu California Mansion Of Anthony Edward Stark

"Give me a moment to handle the spike and we'll get to the medical lab." James turned to face the tall, nearly-seidr-diamond communications spike and thought that it might have a better use than reclaiming his lost seidr. Unfolding his seidr again, James mounted a Conjuration Spell which he released to rework the ends of communications equipment to give it standard ports to slot into SHIELD technology easily.

Something occurred to Jay then that he needed to handle. He flared his seidr tentatively to his Amma Frigga, I'm sorry I exploded and forgot to tell you before I did it.

Worry not, you did no harm. I'm proud of you. You're doing very well, Frigga flared her seidr to her grandson as she continued to scan the area. His manners and his actions pleased her. He was a polite and magnificent boy.

"You did very well, Jay, very well. I'm so proud of you." This was the fantastic boy who he came to know in the memories of the Dark Days. He was a lad who fought for life and cared about the happiness and health of others. Him being a firehawk didn't change Odin's opinion of his grandson, it just explained how his grandson was able to accomplish powerful feats.

The smile on Jay's face was as wide as it could be. Independent of one another two of his grandparents had praised his decision. He just wished that his parents would praise it. He set aside the anxiety of that for later, beginning a small deliberation to deal with his feelings surrounding his parents' view of what he'd done and was doing. Again the small deliberation made him dizzy, so he laid his head down against his grandfather's shoulder and held on to Odin's vest with his little hands. The nimp couldn't touch his family again. That was worth his father's disapproval. When the Chitauri were dealt with then his family would be completely safe from the nanomachines.

Turning, Sean took a discreet look back into the workshop and found that the walls closer to the hallway weren't oozing darkness anymore. The ones farther away still looked like there was viscous darkness weeping from the concrete walls. Jay managed to purify a large portion of the workshop with one childish outburst. A smile touched his lips when he saw Jay leaning on Odin. It was something a grandson should do with his grandfather. Odin was supporting the boy very well. It was something a grandfather was supposed to do. Sean just wished that he'd been able to spend time like that with his own grandfather, but that Sean McCorrmick died before he was born.

Looking between the hole in the ceiling and the hallway, James decided that he was going to need a larger hole in the ceiling to get the spike out of the hallway, so he unfolded more of his seidr to use. Extending the hole from a square into a longer rectangle let him get the whole spike down and into the hallway where he mounted a Shield of Resists Spell and anchored it to the spike, shielding it from magical attacks. Next he mounted a Rune of Shield then inscribed it onto the spike to protect it from regular attacks. After that, he mounted and anchored to the spike a Restoration Spell to clean and repair the spike when it was needed. Into the two spells and rune he poured enough seidr to keep them going for a century, and still had more seidr to spare. James lifted it up with his extended seidr. Finally, he touched at his condensed seidr and encoded it with the second strongest communications security protocols he knew of, behind his personal ones. Turning to Director Fury, he spoke. "This is the third most powerful communications spike that I can make, and the most powerful of the spikes that can be made easily. I encoded it with security protocols and placed two spells and a rune on it that will protect it from ordinary attack, magical attack and will clean and repair it when it needs it. Each of those things should last for a century unless they see heavy use, which might shorten the time they last," he motioned to the ports, "It doesn't need to be powered, and I put a variety of ports on it that should let your people use it easily. It's essentially plug-and-play," James motioned to the front of the house, "I'm going to put it out front in a box for transport."

"Thank you." Director Fury looked at the long, tall communications spike and pulled out his phone. He sent a secure text to the Los Angeles facility and canceled the last order for a pick-up. Instead, he instructed them to send several of the sixteen wheeler shipping trucks and an open bed truck for the scrap to the mansion's address, along with a crane and a winch, to do it quickly and let him know when they arrived. Several security teams were ordered as well. With everything that they were receiving they were going to need the equipment and security to haul it away.

From his unfolded seidr James mounted a Conjuration Spell and a Learning Spell which drew in his memories. He released them to create a booklet on what the spike could do and how to use it then mounted another Conjuration Spell. He released that to form a long secure box around the spike, and placed the booklet in the box just before it sealed up. He used his unfolded seidr to carry the large box out of the hallway and up the stairs before sending it out the front of the house to sit with the other boxes. Only when the box was with the other boxes did he stow his seidr back in his core.

Outside The Bounds Of Time

Vanaheim Royal Palace Guest Chambers

Handing over the tablet computer to Anthony, James made sure to keep his tone neutral. "This is the full list of projects that we'll be working on." He didn't want to send his younger brother back into another depressive spiral. It'd only been a week's worth of approximated time since he got Anthony stabilized. There hadn't been any black rot on Anthony in five days. It was a victory that he wasn't keen to give up, unfortunately Anthony asked what the purpose of all the small parts were that he'd been making. He never lied to any of his brothers, they were the only ones he didn't lie to because they were under his direct protection.

Interest piqued Anthony's mind. He sat up in bed and looked over the first list. Everything on it was fine, he liked Frey and didn't mind doing infrastructure projects for Vanaheim. It was the second part of the list that made him clench his teeth, though not very hard. It was a list of projects they were going to be working on for Asgard and Odin. He didn't want to go over all of the video footage again from the clandestine meeting at SHIELD that he wasn't invited to, but he thought that maybe he needed to. He at least needed to see the recording of Odin trying to put Frey through a wall in a SHIELD conference room that was penned in by a Norn. The look of grief and guilt on Odin's face caused him to have very mixed feelings because he understood both of those feelings. Not just the emotion but the cause of those emotions, he understood it perfectly. That would mean that Odin could understand what he was feeling, how much pain he was in. It made it hard to cheer for the old man being in pain when Anthony understood that pain intimately, and he didn't feel like cheering for it. It was an uncomfortable place to be in, to understand someone he thought was his enemy, to feel the pain they felt and to wince with them in that pain. It wasn't a place he ever thought he would be.

It's not a place you belong. Starks doesn't sympathize with the enemy, they destroy them, the dark voice in the back of his mind slithered out to whisper chastisement at him again. It'd been doing that a lot of late. Anthony wanted it to go away because it always ended up with him having a headache. It was always his opinion that his darker emotions and urges having their own voice was a pain in his neck, nothing more. It was why he ignored the voice so frequently. Sometimes it sounded more like Howard than not. On those days he ignored it with more vigor. There were a few years, when he was a child, that he wanted Howard's voice in his head just to have something familiar with him. The familiarity was comforting., but no longer. Those days were long done with. Now it was his adopted dad's voice, or his adopted mom's voice, or his adopted brother's voice that he wanted to keep close to him. Rhodey's voice kept him out of trouble, if only he listened to it. His dad's voice helped him to think through problems. His mom's voice helped him to express his emotions without violence. He'd be lost without them, but he also liked having his older brother there physically. His mom and dad were taking their last sleep at Thornburg. They couldn't help him now.

Suddenly Anthony wanted to go to Thornburg, to visit them. It'd been so long since he'd brought them flowers and cleaned up their memorial, and the memorials around them. As afraid as he was of their disapproval, he wanted to go and stand before their marble bed and explain why he did the things that he had, why he was forced to cut Rhodey out of his life, and why he was upset with his father-in-law. There were so many things to explain, but he couldn't go right then. Anthony looked at the lists in a new light. They were standing between him and his mom and dad. The sooner he accomplished the tasks on the list the sooner he could go to Thornburg, the sooner he could see his other brothers.

Anthony breathed in deeply, breathing in a new zeal for the work he had to do. A forced smile crossed his face, and he looked up to his older brother who was observing him cautiously. His brother handed over several scrolls which were orders letting them work in the cities and work with the infrastructure without the city guards trying to arrest them. They were what he needed to progress forward, so he handed them back to his brother and explained. "You keep those, so I don't lose them." Honesty crept into his smile and a touch of happiness lit his eyes. "Let's get this done."

23May2023 – Early Afternoon

The Malibu California Mansion Of Anthony Edward Stark

"If everyone would move down to the last door in the hallway, that's the medical lab, home of the rose quartz generator." James walked down the hallway, back to his group. They all followed him down to the medical lab. He was going to show them the rose quartz generator and explain what he could. Close to the middle of the room a silver, cylindrical tube that was a meter in diameter and about two meters in length sat on a heavy rectangular base that was a meter high by a two meters long. The chill metal lid opened smoothly lengthwise. The interior of the cylinder's lid was dotted with twelve, small, light emitting arc reactors. The reactors had small blocks of shining rose quartz crystal with a swirling channel carved into the back of them. The carved spaces were filled with the palladium traces that channeled the energy from the arc reactor into the crystal panels. Plush bedding on the bottom half of the cylinder finished up the rose tank.

"Huskarl Kron, was this the wall you found more of the suspicious shielding in?" She pointed to the far left wall. Looking around showed Frigga as much as it did in the recording. Things in the room were just hidden too well.

"Yes, my formadr." The huskarl wondered now if that was where the Chitauri soldiers were. He wasn't surprised when his hirdmen discreetly flared out his seidr to the entire drengr to warn them, Be ready for anything.

As Sean entered the room he thought he could hear someone faintly calling for help, so he looked around the room. There was no one that he could see who needed his help, so he let it go.

On the table set up against the right wall there was a small grey tablet computer on its charger. James walked over to it, picked it up to login, and brought up the menu to bring the rose tank into stand-by mode. "I'm going to bring the rose tank into stand-by mode, then bring it fully online. Before I do that I'd like to warn you that you will be able to feel the rose tank like you could feel the auto-cast system outside. This is going to be stronger, but you don't need to be worried. It isn't harmful." With his warning given he brought the tank into stand-by mode.

"Expand your core, it eases the chaffing some." Frey was accustomed to this room and was eager to see more of it.

Similar to before, Odin expanded his seidr core to deal with the incessant chaffing that came from the machine. It was warm, smooth, and colorless against his own seidr. It didn't feel like it came from a person at all since he couldn't detect the hint of a person in it.

Frigga eyed the machine now that it was turned on. It didn't feel as beneficial as she knew it was. It felt like this unnatural seidr was trying to merge with her core. She wondered how Loki stood the sensation then remembered that Loki was drugged and sleeping when in the generator.

"Jay, your core is still a little low. Would you like to demonstrate how the rose quartz generator works, so your grandfathers can see as it happens, or would you like me to demonstrate it and you can answer questions?" James didn't mind it either way since it would help both of them to have their cores filled and would be good to stand and answer for what was done.

"I'll go in the generator. It's comfortable. We should show it working closed then open." Jay looked to his grandfather and asked for another lift. "Can you set me down in it?"

Hesitation edged Odin's thoughts. He knew that this machine was a Great Work, and that it did very well for Loki, helping to bring his son's seidr core back together after it fractured for a second time. That didn't stop him from being a little nervous about putting his young grandson in it. The rose quartz generator was made to interact with a person's seidr core, and he still wasn't sure what part was the generator. "Jay, are you certain that you'll be well in the rose tank, or generator?"

Nodding, Jay smiled at his Afi Odin. "It's perfectly safe for me, or you, or anyone." An explanation looked like it was needed, so he volunteered one. "When it's turned on the seidr from the arc reactors is channeled through the rose quartz crystal by traces. This essentially refines the seidr from its raw form to generate a tightly controlled wave near the crystal. With enough power the field it generates enters the seidr core and tightens the seidr in the core as well. If the core is fractured this tightening results in the pieces of the fractured core coming together under such pressure that they fuse back into a single piece. In a non-fractured core, the wave still tightens the seidr it comes across, but this isn't harmful. It just bolsters and strengthening the interior of the core." Jay looked guiltily at his uncle then back to his grandfather and spoke again. "I took a crystal from father's extras. I can show you how it works."

"And what are you doing with that?" Walking over to his nephew, James was amused by the guilty look he received. He didn't believe that his nephew was going to do anything bad with the crystal. He suspected that curiosity was as play and didn't mind that.

From his interdimensional pocket Jay summoned the rose quartz brick that was large and thick. He offered it to his uncle, hoping that he wouldn't be in trouble for it. "I understand the science behind it. I just wanted to feel how it works. I'm sorry I took it. I was going to put it back. It isn't mine and I shouldn't have taken it."

An appreciation for his nephew's willingness to recognize his wrongs and apologize for them struck James. His younger brothers weren't so willing to recognize when they'd done wrong, but their children were. His nieces and nephews were good girls and boys. "Thank you for apologizing. You shouldn't take things that aren't yours, and you understand that. I'm not angry at you for taking this. This was a very small thing to take." He pushed his nephew's hand gently back towards the boy. "You may use it to show your grandfathers how the refining works. I'll take it when you're done with it."

"Thank you, Uncle Rhodey!" A bright and happy look shone on Jay's face when he held up the brick to his grandfather. Then he moved it so that his Afi Frey, who had stepped closer, could see it as well. He turned the brick over in his hands and showed them the spiral channel carved into the back of the crystal block. Looking between them, he asked his question. "Who wants to go first?"

"Go first?" Meeting Odin's gaze briefly, Frey looked at the simple looking crystal block.

"Yes, to use the block. If you send your seidr into the channel carefully then it will channel your seidr to the center of the spiral and into the crystal. The rune there helps to pull your seidr through the crystal. It creates the waveform. Father still uses the rune to enhance the block's efficiency so he can use less crystal to create the same waveform. It helps keep the fields stable too." Jay held up the block between then. "It's safe, so who wants to go first?"

"Ah. Brother?" Frey wanted to be able to use the block but had no problem with Odin using it first.

"Why don't you use it first? I'll wait until you're done." That Jay had this and was willing to share with them pleased Odin. There was more that he could tell about the rose quartz generator if he could feel it with his own seidr. He wasn't able to tell very much about the machine on the fence despite feeling its effect. He still wanted an explanation for it. Just feeling the effect of this machine was no longer good enough if he could get something more in-depth. Odin wondered if it would lessen his worry over putting Jay in the rose quartz generator when his seidr core was whole and healthy already.

Jay handed over the block of crystal to Frey then. Immediately he noticed that the crystal was cold in his hands, but warm at the same time as though it was already interacting with his seidr. Unfurling his seidr he probed at the block. Nothing happened, so he carefully sent his seidr into the channel like his grandson said to. A moment after he began to send his seidr down the channel it began to pull on his seidr. It was a light tugging that caused him to pull back. The tugging stopped, and he turned the crystal brick over in his hands, looking at both sides again. He couldn't find any difference, so he began to send his seidr down the channel again. The tugging started up soon enough. Instead of stopping he continued to carefully send his seidr into the channel carved into the back of the crystal block. The tugging grew more insistent, like the crystal was guiding his seidr. For one swift moment there was a paralyzing fear in his mind. His seidr told him that this was a drain that he was swirling down and to pull back immediately. Powerful calm hit him, and he didn't wonder at the source of it; that was right next to him. This calm let him overwhelm the irrational fear in his mind. It let him make it to the center of the swirling channel, to the carved rune sitting there. The rune was also a swirl of straight lines that had an entrance that felt like a gate to him. Passing through the rune let Frey send his seidr into the crystal. Of its own accord his seidr tightened into something that felt like it was capable of grabbing and tightened other things. He wondered at that. Frey turned the crystal block towards his own chest. While he couldn't view his own seidr core without a Healing Spell, he could feel what the effect of this crystal was. There had been many times over the years that he'd come into the room when Loki was in the rose tank. He always kept his core expanded. Now it was time for him to understand what was happening to Loki. Frey stopped expanding his seidr core. Right away the tightened seidr he was producing found its mark in his seidr core. It breached his core painlessly, then began supporting and tightening the seidr it found there. His seidr was flowing out of his core, through the crystal and painlessly back into his core. It was only for a moment that he supported this cycle, but it was enough. He felt more stable, calmer, and supported than he had before he used the crystal. Cutting off the flow of his seidr, he furled it back to his calmed core. What Frey could feel confirmed his previous opinion. "It's a miracle." The rose tank was indeed a miracle that Anthony created for Loki. Handing over the crystal block to Odin he spoke again. "It's going to tug at your seidr. Pay that no mind. Your seidr will want you to stop. Pay that no mind. Send your seidr down the channel and through the rune. Turn the block towards your chest and stop expanding your seidr core. It explains so much."

The waves of calm and a whisper of hope flowed out from James and over the people in the area around him. There was a whisper of anxiety in Frey's seidr, so he decided to focus his soul song of stillness through himself to handle it, and make sure that Odin was supported when it was his turn. They needed calm minds to think through this.

"Thank you." Odin nodded once as he took the crystal brick. The channel was clear cut and easy for him to see. Frey seemed to think that just going through it was the best course, so he unwound his seidr and sent it into the channel. Since he was prepared for the tugging on his seidr he didn't stop moving down the channel. A fear popped into his mind that tried to force him to pull back. He was prepared for that as well and so he didn't stop for that either. He reached the rune engraved at the center quickly and went through the gate that it had, then into and through the crystal. The tightness of his seidr was something new but not painful, so he carried on. Odin set his hesitation aside and turned the crystal on himself. The tightness breached his seidr core without harming him. In fact, he felt incredibly supported by the tightness. With a moment to think about what he was feeling he decided that the tightness felt more like a structure than just plain seidr, It was a structure that was bracing the inside of his seidr core, Negative emotions, the darkness of the curse, self-doubt, and self-loathing all faded for a few brief and blissful moments in that onslaught of support. All of that support came from seidr, a channel, a rune, and a crystal. This was so simple yet so powerful. It was a support that Loki needed for years. It was a support that his son-by-law tore himself apart to provide to Loki. Frey was right. "This is a miracle." Odin cut off the flow of his seidr, twisting it back into his stabilized core. Even after that his core still felt supported.

The man, James, looked dwarven to Hirdmen Vilulf; like a half-dvergar. He clearly wasn't though. There was something different about him that caused the hirdmen to keep an eye on him. He hadn't seen James do anything unlawful, dishonorable, morally dubious, or even rude yet. It was the man's ability to suddenly and powerfully project emotions that worried the hirdmen. If he could do that, then what else could he do? Hirdmen Vilulf wanted to know.

Reaching out through the house's systems he opened the lid of the rose tank "Do you want to see it working on a seidr core from the outside?" Jay liked that they appreciated what he had to share, even if he didn't think the rose quartz generator was a miracle. To him, it was a miracle that they survived its making.

12 crystals in the lid, 12 arc reactors, a swirl cut into the back of each crystal. What rune? Why the hell does that work? I'll have to get R&D on that. Director Fury tried to pay attention closely to what was going on around him. His unfortunate lack of magical education hampered his ability to fully understand what he was seeing. In a flash he wondered if Stark would let SHIELD hire Loki as a magical instructor after she unlocked him and a few other people. Unlocks, makes more, gifted, she can call giving people a seidr core anything she wants so long as she can provide SHIELD with it.

The block of crystal was handed over to James before Odin went to the rose tank and set his grandson down in it. He no longer feared for his grandson. Jay laid down in the bed and smiled up at him and waved a little wave. The lid began to close on its own.

The lid was closing, so James went to stand by the rose quartz generator with the tablet computer still in hand. "I'm bringing the rose quartz generator online from stand-by mode now." The powerful feel of the rose quartz generator filled the concrete room. "If you place your hand on the side of the tank you can get your seidr through the crack where the lid and bed meet. You can use a Healing Spell on Jay after that."

Both Odin and Frey stepped over to stand next to the rose tank. Setting their hands on the side of the tank, each of them used a Healing Spell which they slipped through the crack and past the crystals that were producing the tightened seidr. Through their Healing Spells they could see how Jay's seidr core was being filled for him by the machine. Soon enough the boy's seidr core was filled again. Neither could see any harm to the boy from being exposed to the tightened seidr as he was. 'With enough power the field it generates enters the seidr core and tightens the seidr in the core as well.' Jay's words entered their minds like the tightened seidr entered Jay's core.

Generated wave. The tightened seidr is the generated wave, the waveform. I understand. Feeling what he had, knowing what he now knew, Odin asked a question that he felt he probably already knew the answer to. "The rose quartz generator is where the crystals are?"

"Yes, the generator is all sixteen panels working in conjunction to provide a whole body seidr bath." James felt a little like a salesperson pointing out the features of a product. If it didn't need to happen he would have given them booklets to read over then ask questions about. The Elder Realms did things differently though, so he needed to do things differently for this event.

"Sixteen? There are only twelve crystals in the lid. Are there others in the bed?" Director Fury wanted to see under the bed like he had in the file played yesterday.

"Yes, there are four under the bedding. I'll show you if you want." Motioning to the lid, James offered them more access. Each King moved back from the rose quartz generator, breaking down their Healing Spells and stowing their seidr back into their cores.

Help me! Ever so discreetly Sean looked around again. There was no one he could see that was calling for help. It was starting to distress him that he couldn't find the source of the mysterious cries.

Before he opened the lid, James didn't bother to turn off the generator. "The generator can function with the lid open?" A thoughtful expression came over Frey's face. "Anthony would never answer my questions about that."

"He was deliberately stonewalling you." The thoughtful expression on Frey's face gave way to a lightly annoyed one, and James looked down for a moment. My younger brothers are a little retarded. He took a breath and met Frey's gaze. "Anthony hides things by making people think that there's nothing there to ask questions about, nothing to be found essentially. When someone, like yourself, already knows that there's something to ask questions about, but you don't know what specifically to ask about then he just stonewalls that person." A vague upset crossed James' features. "Loki wasn't a problem before the two of them went to visit you. Anthony was afraid that you would ask questions if you saw inside the generator when it was active." Jay held out his arms and Odin picked the boy up again. "So he told you it could only be active when it was sealed up tight so you couldn't see. He was afraid that you might have made Loki dissatisfied with how little she actually knows about the generator. Mostly," James undid the latches holding the bedding in place and removed it to place it next to the wall, "He was afraid that the two of you would come down here when he wasn't here and pull the bedding out only to see that there's no machinery for making nimp in here."

"That's the IV fluids and the dialysis machinery." Besides the four crystal blocks, Frey couldn't see anything else in the underside of the bed. Several plump bags of IV fluids sat attached to the pumping machinery that the dialysis machine used. A few tubes filled with the dialysis chemicals sat next to the machinery itself. Lining the interior of the bottom half were long vibranium rods that curved along the sides. Every rod had a rose quartz inlay with palladium traces to channel the seidr of the person in the bed downwards to the underside of the base and the machinery there.

"What he was most afraid of was you discovering this little hole," he drew their attention to the small square hole in the bottom of the tank area. A clear tube filled with a smoke and ruin came up from it, but only darkness could be seen beneath it, "Anthony was terrified that you might drop a light down there to look around, that you might find something that you weren't supposed to, and Loki would see it too." A little sigh drifted out of James' mouth. Frey should have been trusted with this years ago. "By stonewalling you he kept Loki from finding out." Shaking his head lightly, James dealt with his disappointment in his younger brother over how he treated a potential ally in Frey. "You should have been told years ago."

"You would have told me?" That was an interesting idea to Frey, that Anthony's Elder Brother himself might have pulled him aside and had a discussion with him about all of this.

"I think that you, above anyone else, would have understood if Anthony had opened up his workshop and the medical lab and shown you where it was from and what he was doing with it, opened up Loki's medical records and shown you when and why he was doing it, opened up the ghost drive and shown you how he was doing it. I think that you would have come to the same conclusion that I did, that as foul as the nimp is Loki needed its support. She doesn't always accept magical aid, but she readily accepts mechanical aid. I think that you would have been as unhappy to let it continue as I was, but ultimately I believe that you would have seen her extreme need and let it continue." James shook his head again. "There would have been medical oversight from a trained healer at that point."

It pleased Odin to have confirmation that it was dreadful necessity that prompted James to allow the continued use of the nimp. It was a powerful tool that, until they healed Loki, his child had required.

"Father was very scared that mother would find out and refuse to use the rose tank and the nimp. He didn't think he could keep her alive if he didn't have those things." Jay's voice was very small in the quiet room as he tried to defend his father. It wasn't easy since his father made it very complicated.

"Jay," his voice was more stern than normal, "There is no power than can be brought to bear that will make me stop caring for and defending your father. However, I will not defend his stupid decisions. You need to stop defending his bad decision making. Defending your family is laudable, defending dumb decisions is not. Accept that mistakes were made, work to set them right, when they've been set right, let them go. Do you understand?"

Jay thought about it for a moment and found it hard to accept, even if it was easy to understand. He did think that his uncle had given him part of this talk before though. "Don't hoard your mistakes?"

"Exactly. Defending a bad decision is itself a bad decision. Throwing one bad decision after another bad decision isn't going to make anything right. It just keeps the bad decisions around, so don't do it. You're better than that, Little Hawk."

"It's just so hard to listen to people speak badly about him."

"I'm not speaking badly about him. I'm not saying that he's a terrible person, or that he needs to be thrown in jail, or that he's irredeemable. I'm giving his reasons for why he did things and then critiquing his poor decisions," stepping closer, he held one of Jay's hands, "Your dad made a decision about your mother's health based on fear instead of logic and reason, or trust, or even a calculated gamble on the help he could have received from Frey. No, it was fear. That decision robbed your mother of the medical oversight that she could have used, and it robbed your father of the training in healing that he could have used. Fear never makes good decisions."

Jay interrupted then, repeating what he'd heard before. "Because fear and panic are no one's friends."

"Exactly! Discussing what a person has done is not the same thing as discussing them. I'm not making a moral judgement when I say your dad made an objectively bad decision in not including your grandfather in what he was doing," Jay still looked hesitant, so James continued, "Look at the things your grandfathers did last night, look at what they've done today, look at what they're going to be doing. All because they know the truth now. How much better could things have been if your parents had dealt honestly with people? With your grandparents in particular? Do you understand what I'm saying, how fear and dishonesty don't lead to good outcomes?"

The three monarchs understood the lessons James was imparting to Jay and were each shocked in turn by his statement that they should have known years ago. Despite having seen it before, the fact that James was willing to put aside their indiscretions and allow them a chance to right what they set wrong was amazing. He had every right to make them grovel for what they'd caused yet hadn't. The man they were coming to know was a kind, compassionate, honorable, and practical man. Frey and Odin were still so grateful for the chance to be able to set right their wrongs while Frigga was grateful that there hadn't been any vindictiveness. Although, for Frigga that almost made it worse. There was healing while she felt like weeping for years over what she'd done to her own child. She would weep when she had the chance but take the healing too. A small smile touched her lips as she continued to scan the area.

"I understand, it's just hard to accept. I need some time to think about it before I can add it to my personal paradigm, but I don't think I can run another deliberation right now." Despite wanting to, running a deliberation of that size felt dangerous to him. There were already many deliberations still running in his mind. He didn't want to crash.

Pulling out his phone, James checked the status of the deliberations. "Everything looks good with your other deliberations. You can handle one more small one." They were proceeding apace, so he looked back to his nephew, then to Odin. "If he begins another deliberation it's going to put him to sleep for a few minutes. He needs to deliberate on this topic to settle it in his mind. Do you want to continue carrying him, or do you want me to set him down on the sofa in the living room?"

"I don't mind carrying him, he's no burden to me." Odin looked at Jay. "If you need to sleep more, then go right ahead. I'll support you whilst you sleep."

"Thank you!" Jay gave his grandfather a hug then settled down against his shoulder. The deliberation began quickly, causing a fuzzy feeling to overtake his mind. He closed his eyes and went to sleep.

Looking down at Jay as he slept brought a hazy sort of positivity to Odin's thoughts. He finally had the opportunity to do the things a grandfather might do, and he was enjoying it even more than he already knew he would. There was so much more that he wanted to do. Reading a story to Jay or telling him the folk tales and stories of the peoples of Jotenheim and Asgard sounded ideal to him. Taking him out to a park in Asgard to have a nice picnic also sounded wonderful, as did exploring the Royal Museum of Asgard. There were so many activities that came to mind that it was hard for Odin to set all of them aside. There was still the rest of the business in the house to tackle, including the Chitauri, which meant working with James. "May we see what's under the rose tank now?"

Before he opened the room up James went over and replaced the rose quartz generator's bedding, closed the lid, and used the tablet to shut the generator down. His gaze went to Jay again as he walked over to the spot of flooring that was hiding what he needed. "I was going to ask Jay to unlock the key pedestal, but he needs to deliberate more than I need him to do this. It will take me a few minutes to unlock the system." He placed his hand over top of the camouflaged thumb print digital lock and unfolded his seidr. In it he mounted the Learning Spell, which drew his memories in, then pulsed the spell down into the digital lock to make it think that he'd unlocked it. A small hole opened above the lock in the ceiling. A laser beam briefly fired down to hit the lock and unlock the subsequent locks at the edges of the wide circle around the thumb print scanner. The circle of floor sank lower into the floor and slid away. Out of the hole left behind rose a meter high, metal, key pedestal that was adorned with numerous security verifications to guard the factories; verifications like a finger and palm print reader, blood type verification, signature verification, retinal scan and many more. The first thing he did was to use the Learning Spell to mute the key pedestal so that it wouldn't bother Jay. One by one James kept pulsing the Learning Spell into the various locks to make the security system think that they were properly unlocked when they weren't. Several minutes later, as the last of the machine verifications was magically defeated, a small compartment unfolded out of the pedestal. A tiny keyboard was inside of it. James pulsed the Learning Spell into the keyboard to make the system think that the commands were entered to open to the bottom of the rose quartz generator.

In the floor in front of the rose quartz generator two small rails unfolded seamlessly from the floor. Two square holes that corresponded to the rails opened up on the bottom of the base of the generator. The rails extended out two meters towards the right side of the room. Before the generator rolled along slowly on the rails a hiss was heard as the pressure seals around the hole disengaged. The entire generator moved over the rails and away from the rectangular pit beneath it. Out of the pit rose three metal columns along the back left side of the pit. The columns rose high enough to nearly touch the ceiling. Affixed to the columns were a series of large arc reactors that powered heating panels. Over the heating panels were large bricks of rose quartz. Once they'd reached their peak height the columns shifted towards the top of the hole then compressed down to sitting side by side and sank down into the pit again. Two more of the columns rose from the top of the rectangular hole to shift towards the right side of the room then sank down again. On the wall of the pit that was towards the right side of the room three more columns rose, compressed towards the bottom of the hole, and sank down again. The last two columns rose from the bottom side of the hole, shifted to the left, compressed then sank down into the pit. The framework lock disengaged then. From out of the pit, supported by a pneumatic arm beneath it, a tall, slender, shining silver, cabinet-looking, metal rectangle rose up. The pieces it was made of seemed fused together as opposed to fit together. Out of the front of it came a clear tube that ran down to the rose quartz generator. Smoke and ruin were coming from the tube. "This is the NHP Fac, the Nanomachine Host Process Factory. It mimics the nanomachine host process in the Chitauri's bodies. It's able to create the nanomachines but we don't know if those nanomachines can calibrate to anyone, making them useless as a tool of healing. These things are indiscriminate weapons, and this machine makes them." Little curls of smoke were still coming from it from Jay's fiery purge.

Disgust roiled through James' mind, mixing with the rising anger as he looked over this abominable thing. This wasn't something that his younger brother should have been working on. He understood its purpose, to create better nimp in a more ethical setting, but the nimp itself was filthy. The nanomachines were tainted by where and who they came from, by what it took to make them. This was something else Anthony didn't need a reminder of. "Stand back," his voice was quiet, "I'm going to destroy this dangerous machine." Out of his unfolded seidr James extended more seidr. He switched his song to the soul song of withering and twisted it around the NHP Fac with his seidr. In just a minute the NHP Fac was ripped apart into tiny shards of metal that were growing more brittle with every second passed. Just as the shards were being ground down into dust he ignited the seidr around it, using his soul song to contain the blast. "You are not an old monster and will not be one."

James' voice was almost too quiet to hear, but both Frey and Odin heard it still. While Frigga didn't hear what James said she, like her husband and brother, heard the anger that spiked in James' normally calm seidr. She stepped between the firestorm and the Lord she was protecting when she felt the chill go through the room. The icy chill seemed to be the herald of James' anger. Each King looked at one another quickly while James created a firestorm that felt like an invocation of death. There was a cold rage in that storm that was more audible the longer it went on; at first breaking down the metal, then melting it, then burning the melted metal to ash, then burning the ash to less than nothing. James wanted this thing gone in its entirety, which was obvious to them. It was just a small display of wrath that made the three monarchs grateful again that he wasn't wrathful to them.

Flaring his seidr to Odin, Frey asked, Should we ask about the 'old monster', brother?

Quickly, Odin replied, It seems very personal. We should tread carefully.

We'll plan it out when we return to Vanaheim then.

That seems wise, brother.

Only when there wasn't even ash left did James quench the flames and switch his song back to the soul song of stillness that he put the undertones of hope back into for the sake of his guests. A satisfied smile touched his lips. "Half of the last of the nimp is behind the wall to the left," turning to Odin and Frey, he asked, "Do you want to deal with it now or later? Or do you have questions?"

Sean wondered at the sudden jarring shift in the song that was coming from James' white seidr. It was discordant and ugly with a decaying sort of feel about it. It was tightly controlled and directed at the NHP Fac but still able to be heard by him. Listening to it only solidified his opinion that he preferred the calm song to this one.

The wrath was gone again, replaced by a little chill edge in James' calm seidr. Odin walked over to stand next to the pit. Only the NHP Fac was damaged. The apparatus around it was unharmed while it was obliterated. "This bottom part is solely for the nimp, and the Chitauri? It has nothing to do with the generator?" Odin wanted explicit confirmation of what he thought to be true.

"Yes, the generator is just the crystal covered, small arc reactors in the cylinder. Everything else below it is meant to create nimp from the Chitauri. With Loki healed through traditional healing and that same healing being available regularly, I find it to be entirely unnecessary."

"Only the rose quartz generator will still be needed, while Loki's seidr core continues to heal." Frey couldn't agree more with James. Now that Loki's muscles, bones, and organs had been healed there was no need for the nimp. Only the rose quartz generator and a healer was needed now. A smile touched Frey's lips. He had half of those needs covered already. "Would it be possible for there to be a rose quartz generator on Vanaheim, in the palace, while Loki is there? The healing rooms in my Royal Palace are quite secure."

It didn't take James very long to think about it and make his decision. "Lady Audhumbla asked us to stay on Vanaheim while the location for a new house is selected and the house is built. Loki will need the generator before we get the house settled. For Loki's health, we can move the generator to Vanaheim. I can tune it once it's there, to make sure it's running optimally."

That turned both Kings towards him then. "You understand the engineering behind the rose quartz generator?" That didn't surprise Odin since he'd already seen James' treatise on the layers of reality, the interdimensional pocket, and anti-decay.

"Once you understand the principles behind it, it's easy to handle. You just need the right tools to work with it." James actually liked the thought of moving the generator to Vanaheim. It would be immediately available if Loki needed it. It was only a second's more thought for him to come to a conclusion. "I think I'll put another one together to have on Asgard as well. Loki would be safer if there was a generator in both of those locations." He turned to Odin to ask, "If you don't mind?"

Agreeing with his Little Brother that there needed to be a rose quartz generator on Vanaheim didn't prepare Odin for being offered one as well. He could see that this wasn't just a gesture, this was James trying to prepare Asgard for Odin and Frigga reconciling with Loki. The generosity and intent in the offer made it hard for Odin to speak for a moment. "Yes, that sounds wise to me."

He meant what he said. He truly means to bring us and Loki back together. That's the only reason for there to be one in Asgard. Frigga felt a wave of gratitude wash over her. For some reason he felt that it was good for Loki to have them back in her life. She still wasn't certain how he could be so compassionate, yet he was. Is he doing this for Stark as well? Loki being happy seemed to make Stark happy. Is he trying to take care of Stark in a roundabout manner? It must be that as well. He wants both of them to be happy. Or is it the whole family that he wants to be happy.

"Excellent. If there aren't any more questions, then I'll open up the warehouse and we can deal with the Chitauri." No one posed any more questions, so James turned back to the key pedestal. He pulsed the Learning Spell into it one more time to open the wall to the warehouse.

It was close, Director Fury almost asked about the nanomachines and how the hole beneath the rose quartz generator related to making them. Then he thought better of it. This wasn't a weapon he wanted on his planet, not now and not in the future. Any weapon of that capability that could be reclaimed easily by its original master wasn't fit for use by his forces. It was too much of a liability. What he needed was to sit down with James and Stark and discuss how to detect and defeat the nanomachines. Like a plague, the nanomachines needed to be exterminated when come across, not weaponized. Director Fury wondered then if there was the possibility to vaccinate against the nanomachines or put up some sort of preventative defense against it. They needed as many defenses against the coalesced machine solution as they could get. Would they be ok with SHIELD having the Asgardian electronic warfare suite? That might be asking too much. I'll have to find a moment to ask anyway.

To the left of the rectangular hole rails unfolded from the floor and ceiling. The rails that began on the ceiling over the hole were first, they went to the leftmost wall of the room. Rails that aligned with them perfectly unfolded from the floor, going over to the left wall. Part of the left wall pulled back and slid away behind the rest of the wall. It left a dark room exposed, with indistinct dark things hanging from the ceiling. A moment later the room's harsh white lights lit to reveal its unconscious occupants hanging in their eerie silence.

Twenty-three full frameworks hung silently from the rails, suspended in their replenishment bays. Gun-metal grey skin covered the large, muscular bodies in the frameworks. They were bodies with SHIELD tags at their throats. They were held in place by the heavy cuffs over the arms and legs of the captive soldiers. All of the cuffs had a thick layer of padding in them. Their wrists were bound while their thick hands were unbound and limp. Three large fingers and a thick thumb on their hands were as unoccupied as their three-toed feet which similarly hung limp. Their acid green eyes were closed, as was their maw of a mouth. A snug liquid breathing mask was fit over each of their noses and mouths. The bottom half of their faces were sculpted with teeth showing and no cheeks while the upper half of their faces gave way to hard chitin. The chitin led up to bald heads. Over their bodies were ports that were connected to tubes that carried nutrients to them while other tubes ferried away the excess nimp that they produced to tanks that were still smoking from the purge. Besides the tubes, there were cables that connected them to the frameworks they were hung in. All together it was a life support system that worked efficiently to keep these Chitauri soldiers alive, healthy, unconscious, …and producing nimp.

A horrifying chorus of agonized wails and unanswered cries for help greeted Sean when the wall opened. He wondered over to the entrance, shaking his head in disbelief. "Ät sa läangfethgar…" (By the ancestors…) It was more horrendous when he looked to the others and knew that he was the only one to see this house of horrors. To his runed eyes these weren't just voiceless Chitauri soldiers, they were the souls of those who had been taken prisoner by Thanos, bound to silence in the straight-jackets of Chitauri bodies. Those souls struggled in their restraints, screamed, wailed, and wept in despair. His eyes misted over. This was the most horrendous abuse of living beings that he had ever seen. He wouldn't, couldn't stand by and do nothing.

The reaction his beautiful seidmadr had to seeing the Chitauri told Frey that Sean was seeing more than he was. The open expression of horror and disgust, the sudden wet sheen to his crystalline eyes worried the younger King so he walked over to stand next to the Truthspeaker. Again came the whisper in dark elvish, a dialect of Shiväisith he didn't know and that the All-Speak didn't translate. "Sean, what do you see?"

As soon as Sean saw the Chitauri James knew that something was wrong. He switched his song to his soul song of blessings, focusing it through himself and aiming it solely at Sean, coming up behind the young man. He wasn't sure what was wrong, only that the young man was overly disturbed by the quiet room in front of him. A desire to free the Chitauri filled Sean's seidr whisper. James wanted to disregard it, to say that it couldn't be done, but he wasn't sure. Sean was special. Maybe with a little assistance, he can revert them or free them somehow. I'd like that. His invisible fires extended to see if he could help.

Gripping the frothy pearl of sjel-seidr in his seidr core tightly, Sean's runework lit so suddenly and so powerfully that everyone except James took a step back from him. That didn't matter to him though. He needed to speak with his Lady, so he pulled himself outside of time and reached for his connection to her in his mind. A cold wave in his mind heralded her thoughts arriving in his.

His distress greeted Lady Audhumbla so that she looked through his eyes to see what was distressing him so. She could see the lost souls that faced her Truthspeaker. What distresses you, my Truthkeeper?

Can we save them, my Lady? They've been so badly abused. They don't deserve this. No one does. His distress grew as he thought about what these poor souls were suffering through.

For you, my Truthspeaker, I will look, but I hold no hope for them, nor should you. Lady Audhumbla left her library, swirling away through time until she came to where her Truthspeaker stood. She saw the lost souls again and looked through the currents of time around them, expecting to find nothing to be offered to these sobbing souls besides a quick death. What she found caused her to look again. There was a tingle in the currents, like luck was clinging to nineteen of the twenty-three souls. Carmine and orange fires flowed around each of those nineteen. The flames carved out a moment in time that had come. The other four souls couldn't be saved, and she lamented for her Truthspeaker. This would be a hard situation for any of the Satska Soledras. They were such good people, to be able to do nothing was going to hurt the young man.

Looking through his eyes again, Lady Audhumbla marked the four souls in ancient runes that would send them to Valhalla's Rest in Niflheim to live out an afterlife in peace. Then she incinerated the bodies of those four souls, freeing them from their torture. An Einherjar arrived instantly as their lives ended to ferry their souls away. With that done she turned her attention back to her Truthspeaker. Four of them interacted with Loki during the invasion. They could not be saved. The others have luck wrapped around them. The firehawk has created a moment in time where these souls may be saved. The timeless Lady commanded her sjel-seidr to form duplicate bodies for these souls and marked them in the runes which would hold the souls in the bodies once they were put into them. She left the bodies waiting outside of time, waiting for Sean to use them, then went to warn him. I do not believe there will be such luck for the rest of the Chitauri. You must understand this, they cannot all be saved. When the battle comes you cannot stay your hand.

Yes, my Lady. I understand. I just can't leave these like this. Sean thought about how these souls were used, their bodies stolen and broken, their minds dissolved. They'd lived as property, their very souls enslaved. There was no slavery that a member of the Satska Soledras could stand.

The last thing that Lady Audhumbla did was to command her sjel-seidr to form the Learning Spell to gather her memories into. She released the spell into her Truthspeaker to show him how to use the bodies, how to grip the souls and move them through time. Go now, show them your mercy, my Truthspeaker. With that the ancient Lady left his thoughts, swirling back through time to her library.

A booming like the strike of lightning resounded in the warehouse as one of the Chitauri soldiers burst into flames from the inside. Another three booms forced the people standing in the medical lab backwards, except James who took a step closer to Sean, to see what he was doing. Coming back into the bounds of time with his newly acquired knowledge, Sean looked to see the four Chitauri who were burning into nothing. The flames crawled over their flesh leaving char in its wake. Within seconds they disintegrated into smoldering piles of ash and charcoal. They didn't concern him since he couldn't help them. The other nineteen souls were still shrieking out their profound anguish. They were waiting for him. Sean moved forward to the first of them quickly. "Hold on, I'm going to get you out of there." A sudden motion by his side caused him to look sharply to his left. James was standing at his side with his runework fully lit.

The young Truthspeaker was exerting enough pressure from his seidr that James had to light his runework to cover his heavy steps. The hardness that normally sat over his bones had moved to just beneath James' skin. Sean was definitely going to try to revert these Chitauri, so James was going to offer his assistance. "How can I help you?"

There was very little thought when Sean commanded the sjel-seidr to turn into a Learning Spell, which gathered his memories of what he needed and what he was about to do, then released it into James' shoulder. As the runes streaked up James neck towards his eyes Sean turned his attention back to the Chitauri before him. This soul presented itself as a male with blue skin, red eyes and a red mohawk. He struggled against being in the Chitauri flesh. No matter how hard he struggled he couldn't free himself. The next soul over as a green skinned, green eyed woman with red hair, and then a bright blue skinned, bald woman with blue eyes. They just kept going so he turned his attention back to the man in front of him.

There was so much pressure being exerted from both James and Sean that Frey, and everyone else, had to step back towards the right side of the medical lab. It was enough that it began to wake Jay from his slumber. Odin saw the boy stirring and backed away. Frigga and the drengr took up positions between the Lord and the two working men. "Lord Frey, Director Fury," Frigga spoke calmly, "come over with Lord Odin, please." With both the Lords and the Director behind her, she and the drengr took up defensive positions around them.

What Sean needed wasn't outside of what James could do, so he quickly designed a life pod with variable life support systems in his mind. Unfolding his seidr he created a swirling, shimmering aperture with one massive Conjuration Spell in it that he fused with his soul song of blessings. Then he infused the aperture with his designs for the pods. A simple touch was all he needed to draw a life pod out of the shimmering aperture. It landed on the floor with a soft whooshing as the anti-gravity systems kicked in to soften the landing, then the comfortable pod opened. His unfolded seidr was used to mount a massive Regenerative Weave mixed with a Calm Heart Spell. The pod and him were ready to help the young man now. Turning to Sean, James smiled. "Let's do this."

So that he could begin Sean commanded the sjel-seidr to extend into each of the Chitauri bodies, to align them with their new bodies and brand them with the Rune of Soul's Flight to allow Sean to be able to touch the souls with sjel-seidr; with the Body Rune to that would hold the souls in their new bodies; with the Rune of Life to ensure that the souls in their new bodies would be alive after they were transferred. It only took a second for the sjel-seidr to align the old and new bodies and brand them with the three runes. Shining strands of sjel-seidr connected the runes on the chests of the Chitauri soldiers, linking their effects to each other. The three runes formed a triangle with two on the top and one on the bottom. They were ready for him now. "I'm sorry." The young man apologized for the pain he was about to cause this person then plunged his hand in to the chest of the first Chitauri, punching through the triangle of runes. The soul was as ephemeral as he thought it would be, like gripping smoke. He'd had some practice gripping the frothing sjel-seidr, so this wasn't too foreign to him. Sean tightened his grip and ripped the person out of the Chitauri into their new, naked body. The Chitauri flesh burned away to crumble onto the floor and land as a little ashen dunes. As soon as they were out of the Chitauri, the blue man collapsed unconscious into Sean's arms. He handed the man off to James quickly.

The pod was open, and James was ready to be handed a limp body. He took the blue man and set him in the pod, infusing him with the Regenerative Weave and Calm Heart Spell then stamped his white seidr with the soul song of blessings to give the man some extra luck and healing. He closed the pod to let it begin working, left it in front of the replenishment bay they were at, moved the aperture and touched it to summon the next life pod. There were a few things to do with the person in the pod, but James liked doing this. This was genuinely breaking chains and freeing people. He knew his ancestors would be proud. The entire process, from the time Sean plunged his hand into the Chitauri to the moment James summoned another pod took less than two minutes. They moved on to the others, working closely together and finding a good rhythm of punch, pull, pod, move on until all of the Chitauri were burned away leaving nineteen unconscious, helpless people stowed away in life pods. The filled pods were left working in front of the bays where the people were pulled out of. After they were done James stood next to Sean as he was placing his own name rune on each of the life pods in dusky rose sjel-seidr.

What Sean needed next was a portal to Vanaheim, so he commanded the sjel-seidr to open a large portal to the West Hall of the Vanaheimr Royal Palace. A tall, wide, circular portal opened in the medical lab. The noise from its outer edge was a loud hum. Using his seidr to grip and pick up the life pods, he sent them through the portal to fill the West Hall. After that he commanded the sjel-seidr to find the Elder Heal Mistress or Elder Heal Meister on duty in the palace on Vanaheim. Elder Heal Meister Aelfwine Alfarrson was scooped out of the potions room in the Healing Rooms. The Heal Meister set down the inventory list he was checking and was teleported away to Midgard to stand in front of Sean and James.

His runework was still lit and exerted pressure from the sheer amount of power he was using when the Heal Meister was teleported in. Sean knew that this man would understand who he was and what authority he held by seeing his lit runework. The man's eyes opened wide when he saw the pink seidr in the Truthspeaker's runework and felt the power coming from James' still lit runework. Everyone could feel the luck coming from James. "Elder Heal Meister Aelfwine Alfarrson," Sean bowed to the man before him, speaking calmly and quietly to the emmiki, "I'm honored to meet you. My name is Truthspeaker McCorrmick, and I need your aid."

Pulling himself up to a more dignified stance and straightening out his healer's robes, the Elder Heal Meister put an agreeable smile on his face and worried over what a Truthspeaker could want with him and who the man standing next to him was. The half-dvergar looking man was more powerful than anyone else the Heal Meister had seen or heard of. Even his Lord wasn't so powerful, two Lords together weren't so powerful. He wondered how many Lords it would take to overcome such a power. He wanted to inform his Lord that there was a new Truthspeaker of the Norns and gain guidance, to inform his Lord that the Truthspeaker had an associate of extreme power. He wanted to tell his Lord that the Truthspeaker had crystalline eyes, and crystal on his face. The crystal dots on the young man's face was a familiar yellow, but he didn't have enough time to look over them. Staring at a Truthspeaker was an unwise idea, as staring at any emissary of the Norns was unwise. "Yes, how may I aid you, Lord Truthspeaker?"

Motioning to behind him, Sean put a smile on his face. He didn't want to frighten the Elder Heal Meister with how distressed he was over how these souls were treated. "If you look through the portal behind you you'll notice that the West Hall of the Vanaheimr Royal Palace has nineteen medical beds sitting in it. In those beds are nineteen people who have just been freed from slavery at Chitauri hands. They're in need of medical assistance and counseling to help them recover from the horrors they survived. I would be grateful if you could begin that process by seeing them out of the beds and seeing to their medical needs. They'll also need food and clothing. Can you do that for me, Elder Heal Meister Aelfwine?"

"Of course, Lord Truthspeaker. I and my healers will begin seeing to them immediately." The Heal Meister was honored to be chosen for this duty by an emissary to the Norns. The Truthspeaker's powerful associate smiled at him then. He hoped his actions would bring honor to Vanaheim. That would please his Lord.

"Do you have any questions before you begin your task?" There was no argument so far about him co-opting the staff in the Royal Healing Rooms, which pleased him greatly. Sean hadn't had many opportunities to use his authority from Lady Audhumbla so using it was still a little new. Being a rathsvidr to Eidesh gave him the practice he needed to wield the authority comfortably.

Elder Heal Meister Aelfwine thought about the situation quickly. He didn't want to waste the Truthspeaker's time or anger the young man with a delay. He certainly didn't wish to anger the Truthspeaker's associate. "There are only two questions that I can think of," the young Truthspeaker nodded to him, so he continued, "The first; do you know of any special needs that these people might have? The second; am I allowed to speak with my Lord on this matter?"

Sean's smile dampened a little. "Unfortunately, I don't right now, but I'll stop by later on and see what I can find. As for discussing this with Lord Frey, you may speak with him on this. I'll make him aware of it as soon as you're away through the portal."

A quick sigh of relief came from Elder Heal Meister Aelfwine. His Lord would be aware of this shortly. He bowed respectfully to the Truthspeaker. "Thank you, Lord Truthspeaker. I'll be off then to attend to those you've placed in my care."

"Thank you," Sean motioned to the portal, " May luck go with you."

James turned his song on the Heal Meister and stamped the healer's white seidr with it. The healer and his patients would have increased luck until the stamps faded away in a few days. The Elder Heal Meister turned and went through the portal quickly. Since there was no more need for his seidr he broke down the empty aperture, spell, and weave into seidr then stowed his seidr back into his core and switched his song back to a regular rendition of the soul song of stillness, still with hope. Even though the rest of the day had been grim, this made the day brighter. He thought that all he had to offer these people was a swift death, now they had a second chance at life. He knew that so long as they lived in the Nine Realms he needed to support these nineteen people. They helped to save Loki while being held in captivity by his younger brother. Restitution was owed, and he would pay it.

When he saw the silver stamp appear in the forehead of the Elder Heal Meister Sean didn't say anything. I felt like it came from James, but he didn't see it happen. All he could tell was that it felt lucky to him, so he turned his attention elsewhere. The portal broke down into sjel-seidr. Releasing the pearl of sjel-seidr let the frothing in his seidr core stop. Sean angled his seidr back into his core, extinguishing his runework. He looked back into the warehouse to all the empty frameworks with little piles of black ash under them.

"You do good work." James turned along with Sean to look back at the now empty warehouse.

"It would have been better if I could have saved all of them." The young man tried not to lament the loss of the four souls that he couldn't get to but had seen through their mental link how his Lady had granted them new lives in halls of Valhalla's Rest. He hoped that they would get the help that they needed there.

"Do you mind if I ask what happened with the other four?" James aimed his soul song of stillness towards Sean, who still looked upset.

"They interacted with Lady Loki's Road Untraveled during the invasion. It left them locked in the Chitauri flesh. Lady Audhumbla sent them to Valhalla's Rest in Niflheim. I couldn't pull them out."

Putting his hand on Sean's shoulder, the older man spoke reassuringly. "You rescued nineteen souls from bondage. Be proud of yourself. They have another chance to live now."

A little huffing chuckle came out of Sean's mouth. The tone of voice James used was so like his own father's voice. "My father used to tell me to accept my victories where I could find them. I think he would say that now."

The man who raised you had to be a good man. He would probably be proud of you. James didn't say that. He didn't want to come off as presumptuous or trite. "That's a very practical attitude. I can get behind it."

A relieved smile crossed Sean's face. He found the good colonel to be a very honorable man, an emmiki he believed that his father would approve of. "When you see Lord Stark again, can you thank him for setting aside a moment in time to save the nineteen of them. I wouldn't have been able to pull them out if he hadn't set that moment aside."

"Oh, he did? I'll let him know. It'll make him happy to hear about this." It made James happy to have played a part in this.

Shock still tinged Odin's thoughts. James and Sean each demonstrated impressive abilities again. "James? Sean? What has happened?" He had a hard time believing that he truly saw Sean pulling living people out of disintegrating Chitauri bodies then whisking them away to somewhere in the machine beds that James provided. It was more stunning to him when he realized that he only knew one of the three runes that were on the Chitauri chests as the two of them worked. It made the whole thing stunning and concerning.

Frey marveled to watch Sean pull people out of unconscious Chitauri. He was stunned to watch James pull complicated life-saving beds out of a bizarre Conjuration Spell. He wasn't sure what manner of Conjuration Spell it was, but he wanted to know and felt that Sean and James were lucky to have access to the spell. They worked well together moving in a rhythm that let them move through each Chitauri in a blur of motion. The first one, a blue man with red hair, took the longest since they didn't have the process down yet. It only took once for them to know what each of them needed to do. Frey wanted to be happy that these people had been freed, there was lingering doubt though. He needed to know that they were free of the nanomachines as well as where they were sent to before he could be happy about this. A little yawn next to him drew his attention then.

A more settled consciousness came to Jay than what he went to sleep with because this wasn't rest for his body, but for his mind. As hard as it was, he could almost accept people critiquing his father's actions. He just needed a little practice and he felt that he would be able to accept this shift in his personal paradigm. So long as people aren't criticizing father then I think I can do this. He went to greet his grandfathers when he saw the looks of concern on their faces as they both looked towards something, so he looked as well. The sight that greeted him blew his eyes wide with alarm. All of the captive Chitauri were gone. "Where are the Chitauri soldiers?"

Jay's disbelieving voice brought Sean's mind back to the people he was with. Looking towards them show him several alarmed people. It was time to explain his actions. Moving back out of the warehouse into the medical lab, he smiled reassuringly at everyone there. "Don't worry Jay, James and I were able to rescue nineteen of the captive souls here. They've been restored to their bodies and are free of the coalesced machine solution again."

"What about the other four?" Jay looked around for the last four of them wondering if they were freed as well.

A somber tone entered Sean's voice. "They weren't able to be saved. Lady Audhumbla sent them to rest in Niflheim. They'll receive a peaceful afterlife."

"How did you do this?" Cautious hope began an inevitable march into the digital boy's mind.

"My Lady taught me how to move souls through time and provided me with bodies to move their souls into. Your uncle took them when I pulled them out and placed them in medical pods to keep them safe. I sent them away to where they could be seen to. They're free and safe now." Sean began to worry that Jay was paling out very quickly; the boy's breathing was shaky.

This was one of his wildest dreams; the reality where the slave Chitauri were given back their lives so that Jay could apologize to them for what was done to them. After apologizing he always dreamed that he could thank them for helping to save Loki. Brusque emotion flooded Jay's mind, tightening his chest and throat, Fat tears sprung up from his eyes to roll down his cheeks. "Thank you. Thank you so much!" Jay put his little hands over his face as his cheeks turned red and he sniffled. He curled into Odin's shoulder for support. "We wanted this for so long. Father will be so happy!"

Relief that Jay was happy about this, instead of fearful again hit Sean. Looking over to Frey he explained further. "I sent the nineteen people to Vanaheim, to the Royal Palace under my protection. I also spoke with Elder Heal Meister Aelfwine Alfarrson and set him to seeing to them. I can move them elsewhere once they've recovered some." They'd go right to the clan, to Eidesh if he had to move them. Flaring out his seidr to Frey he apologized, I'm sorry I didn't ask beforehand, but I couldn't leave those poor souls stuck in slavery.

A quick flare in return let Frey reassure his young lover, I'm not angry with you. "They are welcome in my kingdom." Pride grew in his heart for how compassionate Sean was. He would have dealt the Chitauri a quick death, had expected to do just that, Sean saw them as the slaves they were and chose to try to free them from their bonds. It was an admirable and honorable decision that Frey had no problems supporting now that he knew these people were free of the coalesced machine solution. Thank you, Sean flared his seidr to Frey again and the younger King could feel a little desire for him warming the seidr flare. He supported Sean's compassionate endeavor and was desired more because of it. A little smirk touched Frey's face. He was going to remember that.

Stroking a hand down his grandson's back, Odin murmured. "There, there. All is well now." There was such brilliant happiness in Jay's expression when the boy pulled back some to look at him.

"I've wanted this since the moment we discovered that they weren't ...weren't corpses, but if a coalesced machine solution infection lasts longer than thirty seconds, then the DNA in the body is destroyed and replaced. It's unrecoverable at that point. I never thought they would be able to be set free," another huge smile touched his face as Jay wiped his eyes dry, "I hope I can apologize to them someday, for what we did. I hope I can thank them for helping to save Loki, even if they didn't know they were doing it, they still did."

His grandson raised several very good points. These people had suffered in captivity despite Stark's efforts to keep them nourished, comfortable, and pain free. Jay was also correct when he said that they helped to save Loki. These people were owed as well, so he turned to Frey. "These people are owed a debt of gratitude from Asgard. If there's anything that Asgard can do to aid them, then please let me know. Asgard will pay this debt."

"Vanaheim also acknowledges its debt to these people and will aid them. Asgard and Vanaheim will pay this debt together." Frey looked back to Sean. "However we can aid or assist them, please let us know."

"I will, thank you." Sean knew he should have recoiled from the public display of affection when Frey gently ran his seidr over the young man's front, all the way down, but he couldn't. He was the only person who could see it. That public intimacy caused a hot little frisson down his front that he hoped he controlled well enough to not be caught. James looked at him then looked away, that wasn't an encouraging look.

"I suppose there's just one last thing to do in here." James unfolded his seidr and pulled off the concrete on the left wall to reveal the metal walls of the warehouse underneath. He disconnected the left wall of the medical lab from the interior concrete walls of the warehouse and held them with his seidr in one hand. James then turned to the wall that was opposite the door out into the hallway and used his seidr to pull the concrete away from the floor-to-ceiling box that had housed Loki's replacement eyes. He pulled the box out of the wall from where it was situated. In his unfolded seidr he mounted another Conjuration Spell and another Learning Spell. He released the two of them to create several booklets on the metal and how to use it, which were adhered to each piece of metal. James turned to look at Director Fury, while holding the metal aloft with his seidr. "Directory Fury, this is a rare alloy, but it's better used to take advantage of the enchantment on the metal itself, which is the same as the wall in the hallway. It's able to completely block the passage of radiant energies, including seidr, up to a solar energy level or the tolerance of the metal because the metal is only so sturdy. It's excellent for hiding things from detection. I'll put it out from with the other metals."

"Thank you for that." The Director looked forward to putting that into utilization planning as well. SHIELD had more than enough things to hide, people included. A metal that could block energies sounded excellent for that purpose. For the first time in a long time he was excited about the future for SHIELD. There were many things that they were receiving that would give them quality of life upgrades that they'd needed for decades. This was the same sort of excitement he felt at being able to go through Howard Stark's library of designs. He hadn't even had a chance to ask about the library yet, and he felt like they had gone through the library to a certain extent. It was surreal until he remembered that James had a purpose in mind for what he was doing. It was something that had to do with Stark, Director Fury was almost certain of that. He wondered if James wanted to buy SHIELD's cooperation in some mission or other endeavor for Stark's benefit. It made more sense to him if the nature of the interaction was transactional. If this is a transaction, what is he buying? Access to Manpower? The manpower itself? Influence? I do have influence that he wouldn't be able to get on his own. The Director continued to ponder on the important matter.

It's a very effective enchantment. Having felt the efficacy of the shieling that the metal offered; Frey was curious about it. It was something that could benefit his military greatly to be able to enchant metal to hide ships, men, items, any number of things. "James, could you share the enchantment on the metal? Would Anthony be well with this? Is this a personal enchantment of his?"

A moment of consideration let James feel better about continuing to share things. "I suppose he wouldn't mind since it could indirectly make Loki and the children safer. Let me get you a booklet on it." In his unfolded seidr James mounted a wide Conjuration Spell and a wide Learning Spell that gathered his memories of the Blank Wall Enchantment into it. They released together to create four booklets on the construction and functioning of the enchantment. "It isn't a personal enchantment, it's just something that Anthony put together to keep seidr projects separate from one another. I didn't help to create this, I just cleaned up the design a little." He floated the booklets over to Frey, to Sean, and two to Odin so that Frigga could have it when she wasn't on guard duty. "That explains everything."

Both of the Kings and Sean thanked James then held the booklets and wanted to know. The knowledge filled runes traveled up their arms, over their shoulders, up their necks and into their eyes to deposit the information in their minds. This was another sublime work of magecraft from Anthony, with just a touch of James' influence, that the people learning it were glad to have. Frey and Odin each felt that this was going to have to go to their military leaders to use as they saw fit. It was seidr that blocked seidr so completely that it appeared to not be there at all. It was hard for the veteran warriors to believe that Anthony wasn't using this for military applications. Like James bending reality for easy children's snacks, this had so many more uses than what it was developed for. Sean was thrilled to have the enchantment because it would help hide is clan better. That was always needed. At the last, Frigga noticed the second booklet that was handed to Odin. She was interested in learning the enchantment but was doing something else right then. Although, she appreciated James making one for her to have as he had before. The booklet was going to go into her personal library.

Using his unfolded seidr James cut a hole in the wall out to the hallway and walked the scrap through it before turning to look at the group. "If you would give some thought to where you want to go next, then we can go when I get back. This won't take long." Not bothering to close up the medical lab, he turned towards the end of the hallway with the stairs and walked the scrap up the stairs, through the living room and out of the house.

A sudden, sharp, shooting pain lanced through Sean's head. As soon as it was there it was gone, leaving an ache in its wake. He winced at the headache forming as it was a reminder of how little time he had left. When Skuld came to him yesterday and asked for his help in serving justice he said yes without hesitation. He'd thought that he was doing the right thing, what his clan would be proud of. Mostly he thought that helping her would prompt her to help his ailing clan, the Satska Soledras. It was why he accepted putting quiet spaces in his mind, spaces that stored excess emotions and dubious thoughts. Each white seidr quiet space that he set aside carried its own heavy weight on his mind. It was clan rules that only two spaces were ever to be put in a mind for safety's sake. There were now five squatting in the memory chains of his mind. He thought he was safe to use them, that it was in course of helping his clan, but Skuld's betrayal was more devastating than just showing him how he'd betrayed Lady Audhumbla before he even met her face to face. It made the quiet spaces in his mind worthless. Sean felt used and betrayed himself by Skuld. She was supposed to bring his clan back to Aidesh, their master. Now he had to rely on Lady Audhumbla's mercy in forgiving his betrayal. The headache that was forming from the weight of the spaces he set aside was a hard reminder. The spaces, if not meditated on to clear them out, would turn dark in a few days. Once they were fully darkened the emotions those spaces held would explode in his mind, destroying everything around them. Sean rubbed at the side of his head and looked back to the empty warehouse. Using so much power was only going to shorten the time he had before the spaces burst. I have to be more careful.

A harsh spike of discomfort came from Sean. Frey wondered what caused it when he saw the younger man rubbing at his temples. "Sean, are you well?"

Stop acting like there's something wrong. He'll figure it out! You cannot expose the clan! "I suppose I'm not used to using those abilities. I'm fine though. It's just a headache." He smiled nicely for Frey to distract the younger King from the pain he found himself in.

Unfurling his seidr, Frey formed a Regenerative Weave for Sean and released it into the young man's skull. The sigh of relief that came on the heels of that weave made him smile. "You should be more careful with yourself."

The relieved smile became a happy grin aimed solely at Frey. The warmth of the Regenerative Weave working in his head was wonderful in the relief of pain that it brought to him. "I'll try to be."

"Good." Frey nodded to Sean then turned to Odin. "Brother, what if we went to the drone armory, then dealt with the white whale, then visit Loki's lab to see her Great Works? I think those are the main places that we need to see."

"That sounds like an excellent plan. It would let us see everything in an orderly fashion, I think." A little smile came to Odin's face then. "I think it might even end the tour nicely."

The warehouse walls and box were set down with the rest of the scrap then he stowed his seidr back in his core. James returned swiftly to his tour group. "So," he held his hands clasped in front of him, "where would you like to go next?"

"We thought that going to the drone armory first would be best, then we could go to the while whale. After the creature has been dealt with then we could go to Loki's laboratory to see her works." Odin answered for them.

"You'll like mom's lab. She has the prettiest trees. She let me sit in the orchard once and it was very peaceful." Jay chimed in again. Embarrassment tinged his thoughts again, making it hard to meet his grandfather's gaze. "It's better than the drone armory, and the cave."

Odin ran a hand over the back of Jay's head. "Then we'll definitely save that for last. Something nice to end on."

Another bright smile came over Jay's face. He was so glad that his grandparents weren't angry with him for all the things that he'd done and been a part of. He had already apologized to his mother for some of what he did but hadn't been able to apologize to her about the Chitauri and the box. After this day was done he had high hopes of being able to fully apologize to her finally.

Odin was behaving as well with Jay as James had hoped for. They were getting to know one another in a positive way despite the grim nature of the day. It was nice to see, and he thought he might show Anthony later on, to reassure him that things were going well.

Outside The Bounds Of Time

Vanaheim Royal Palace Guest Chambers

"Tony, no!" The shout tore out of Loki's throat like so many others had that day. Her hands were held tight in her grandfather's hands while her grandmother sat behind her to keep her stable. "Anthony!" She thought that watching her husband come close to corrupting into a monster was as bad as it got. She was so wrong; it was painful to watch the things that Anthony was doing to himself in order to make the nimp. They were things that she knew had to be scarring and scaring Jay as well. She was tempted to look away when the saw blade went through his leg, Even through the gag she could hear his scream. The process to create the nimp was hideous and brutal. For a moment she questioned again how he was able to stomach looking at the nimp after all of this. It was easy to question when she knew the answer already. Her beloved loved her more than his own life and wellbeing, but she wished that he hadn't done these things to himself. And Jay was willing to enable this for her. More tears streamed down Loki's face. She couldn't seem to stop them. Part of her wanted the tears because they obscured what her Amma was showing her. She wanted to look away; wanted to think that if she didn't see it then maybe it didn't happen. That wasn't true though.

She could see the pale phosphorescent blue glow working in his flesh to reattach his leg. Loki shuddered again, remembering the feel of the blue burn, the nanomachines. The itch traveled through her until her Amma released another Regenerative Weave into her spine. The weaves helped with the phantom sensations from her memories. There was nothing that could help the horror she felt as Jay released Tony's bonds and brought the Medic Armor over to Tony. Her husband had rolled off the workbench and landed face first on the hard concrete floor of his workshop. He had no one to help him up, so he stayed on the floor for several minutes as Jay did what he could with the armor. The recording ended and another began quickly.

Elder Gorynych found himself on the verge of tears as well. His litil-svass had cried so much that the front of her dress and the blanket over her were wet with the little drops. He kept a solid hand on her hand despite wanting to take her to her husband. It would help his litil-svass to see her husband, but she still had things that she needed to be shown. It was his responsibility to help her see what had been unseen, to be there for her when she needed him after that.

Loki knew now that the firehawk was drugging her, was using Thanos' nanomachine blood on her, had built and put her into a box whose design was taken from Thanos' torturous box, and now she'd seen how the firehawk abused himself and his child to try to create the nimp for use on her. She knew what happened during the sessions from her own point of view and now Lord Gin had to be a part of showing their litil-svass what happened to the firehawk when he was treating her Void Sickness. The firehawk hid that from Loki as well, all for Loki's wellbeing. It saddened the High Lord that the firehawk was so sick with fear and paranoia because of how afraid he was of losing Loki.

These terrible emotions should never have been foisted off on litil-svass' bound mate. Thanos, and certain belligerents in Asgard, were responsible for a large portion of this mess. Lord Gin wasn't going to solely blame others. After the tragic slaughter of the second Inquiry to Enlightenment and the personal losses of the second Blood Wars he and his Lady wife decided to withdraw from the Nine Realms to grieve and perhaps find peace. There was no peace to be had though as Asgard descended into misery and depravity while drifting away from the other Elder Realms. Neither he nor his wife could deny it any longer; they never should have left. The Nine Realms needed them, their guidance, patience, and tolerance. Most importantly, the Nine Realms needed his dark elven lawgivers again and so he needed them back.

Gratitude for his Lady wife filled Lord Gin's mind. The entire Satska Soledras clan was slaughtered by the blood mages in the Second Era Blood Wars. As a Lord he lost his greatest servants and one of his most powerful tools to maintain peace in the realms. As a grandparent he and his Lady wife lost tens of thousands of their grandchildren in one night to the most horrific of deaths. It tore a hole in his heart that only finding the Satska Soledras again could heal. Lord Gin didn't even know how it happened. Somehow the might of Midgard resurrected the clan, though not fully. Sickness plagued the clan. The new Satska Soledras were suffering from Void Sickness without ever having been into the void between stars. Since his Lady wife's Truthspeaker, one of the Satska Soledras, was returned to the strength of an Elder Realm dweller and had his seidr and runic eye lens returned to him, the markers of Void Sickness were gone. Lord Gin suspected that as a people who lived off of seidr that they were dying from a lack of it. Neither he nor his Lady wife were going to allow them to continue starving to death.

They would be handled very soon, as the dead Satska Soleras would be handled. He already had their souls resting in the glersalddysm, now he just needed to shepherd them safely to Niflheim. When he went to discuss things with his wayward daughter then he was going to bring them with him. Niflheim was one of the few places that he had to take a ship to. The Veil of the Void that he put up blocked any teleportation or seidr travel to or from Niflheim. The dead wouldn't walk the lands of the living again so long as the Veil of the Void was in place. Despite having to deal with his daughter, and probably punish her, he was still looking forward to the trip. It was a trip with the new Satska Soledras to entrust them to the custody of the rest of the clan's dead in Niflheim. It'd been so long since he'd visited Niflheim. It was the First Era when last he went. After he put the Veil of the Void in place he swore that he wouldn't violate the boundary of the dead's space. He hadn't once broken that promise. Having his daughter, Lord Avhelanja, give him reports on how the clan was doing was the only reason he didn't visit Niflheim at the end of the Second Era, after the slaughter.

Lord Gin wanted so badly to apologize to the clan for his mistake and for not making it to them in time. The clan was betrayed, the blood mages made it past his wards in the body of a traitor. He didn't know who it was, but he knew that was the only way past his wards. Being immortal gave him the time to investigate. He knew what happened, but not the name of the traitor and the name of the High Priest or Priestess of the blood mages who launched the attack after the traitor bypassed his defenses. The attack bore all the marking of the High Priest, but none to name who the person actually was. It'd been almost four hundred thousand years since it happened, and he had no idea what the name was of the perpetrator of this crime. Without a name there couldn't be any punishment.

That distressed the old High Lord greatly as he thought about finding the torn and corrupted bodies of his beloved grandchildren. The plan had been to draw the blood mages away from the clan and slaughter them in the fields of Asgard. He was in the middle of a battle with the blood mages and was winning as he expected to when all the enemy lines broke and ran from him. He knew something was wrong after the battle when communications with the clan were cut off suddenly. Lord Gin and his Lady wife teleported back to the clan's subterranean lands on Svartalfheim. The usually cool, dry caverns that housed the Satska Soledras clan were steamy with blood. The smell was overbearing. A moment after he arrived something light bumped into his foot, so he looked down to see Gunborg's head staring up at him. The child was barely old enough to walk and her eyes were scooped out, her eye lids were torn and hanging from her face like meaty scraps. Runes were branded across her forehead and her mouth was sewn shut. Burns singed where her neck had been. He knew these wounds; the child was used as an explosive shield for the High Priest's meat puppets. Falling to his knees before her, he stared in horror. Not two days before that he was sitting in the town square bouncing her on his knee and singing with the other children. Lord Gin unleashed his seidr to sweep over the whole of the Satsha Soledras' lands. Babies, children, young adults, men and woman, pregnant women, the elderly, the already sickly and injured were all gone. The High Priest spared no one. They were all dead and the High Lord wept.

The tears of despair had become tears of joy for the Satska Soledras because they were still alive and living on Midgard. They could come back to him. There would be time in the future to spend with them again. All of that time was thanks to his Lady wife. More gratitude for his Lady wife filled Lord Gin's mind again and their eyes met. They smiled lightly at one another before turning their gazes back to the recording. Before they could spend time with their favorite clan of dark elves they had to see to their other precious grandchild.

Lady Audhumbla liked the hope and love her Lord husband's thoughts. They warmed her as she held her granddaughter in her lap, both giving Loki the physical support that she needed and holding Loki back from fleeing the room to find her firehawk. The ancient Lady commanded her sjel-seidr to merge again with the pearl of sjel-seidr in Loki's seidr core. Through it she was able to take on Loki's feeling of fear, horror, and sorrow and inject her light-hearted memories to help keep her grandchild calmer than she would be otherwise. She was calm for her granddaughter, calm for her Lord husband and calm for her blood-brother. Loki was already crying in pain as she witnessed her firehawk's pain and the pain of her special child. Lord Gin was trying to hold onto a brighter future instead of wallowing in the past's pain. Elder Gorynych was on the precipice of distress. He was always so sensitive to the grandchildren's pain. It wasn't hope or distress that was lurking beneath her calm mind. It was still an apocalyptic rage. Her Little Sister's betrayal had now harmed her husband and blood-brother as well as her grandchildren. A little shiver of that rage went through her, and she shoved the rage back down under her calm so that Loki wouldn't notice it. It would only scare her litil-svass to see the true extent of her fury even if it was aimed at Skuld. Her wrath was such that it could raze worlds. Loki was brave and stalwart, but it wouldn't matter. If Lady Audhumbla was to display her indignation fully then Loki would turn and sensibly run in the other direction. There was only ever one person brave and sturdy enough to stand before the might of her rage and she married him, then gave him many children, then linked her soul and mind to his soul and mind. He was more than precious to her. Skuld tried to stand before the timeless Lady's rage like the braggadocious welp that she always was. Her Little Sister never could stand before her. Skuld wasn't very sensible. Her Little Sister didn't ever think to run until it was too late, far far too late.