A Gods Favor

Bring Him Home

Yrsa walked down the palace hallways to answer her fathers summons when she came upon Thor just outside Odin's chambers.

"Brother," she nodded in greeting. "What are you doing here?"

"Father asked to see me."

Her brow furrowed. "Me as well. Do you know what for?"

Thor shook his head as a guard came into the hall. "Prince, princess, the king will see you now."

"Loki lives and he has attacked Midgard." Odin's words were calm despite the gravity of the situation they conveyed.

"That's not possible," Thor stepped forward, distraught. "We watched him fall, Heimdall looked for him. If he had lived we would have known."

"He proved capable of hiding himself from the Allsight before and now he has done it again." Odin turned from the balcony he'd been looking over to face his children. "I will use the dark magic to send you to earth where you will retrieve your brother and the object he is after, tesseract. Once you have them both you will be able to use the tesseract to travel back to Asgard."

"How are we to find him?" Yrsa spoke for the first time since entering the room.

"You will land on a cliff," Frigga swept into the room as guards closed the door behind her. "Loki will be on a flying ship that should pass over shortly after you arrive but he will not have the tesseract."

The siblings looked at each other, knowing where the information came from and wanting to ask more but neither of them were willing to speak first.

"When do we leave?" Thor turned back to Odin.

-

Yrsa sat on the cliff, waiting for Thor as the storm built around her. She did not have to wait long before came swooping down, tossing Loki to the ground before her.

"Where is the tesseract?" Thor growled as he towered over Loki.

Loki's laugh was cold and humorless and he began to push himself up to sit. "Oh, I missed you too."

"Do I look to be in a gaming mood?" Thor's voice was louder this time, his rage building.

"You should thank me," Loki noticed Yrsa then as she had stepped up menacingly behind Thor, arms crossed. "Both of you should. With the Bifrost gone, how much dark energy did the Allfather have to muster to conjure you here?" Loki started to stand but Yrsa stepped forward, yanking him up by his leathers and dangling him in the air.

"We thought you dead." Barely a whisper, her words were a knife's edge as they left her lips.

Loki, unfazed, glared down at her. "Did you mourn?"

"We all did," Thor stepped to his sister's side. "Our father-"

Loki's finger shot up. "Your father."

Yrsa set him down with a rough thud.

"He did tell you my true parentage did he not?" Loki began to walk away, rubbing at his back and Thor followed.

"We were raised together. We played together, we fought together. Do you remember none of that?"

Loki turned, looking back up at them with hurt in his eyes. "I remember shadows on both sides of me. Living in the shade of your strength and her mettle. I remember you tossing me into an abyss. I, who was, and should be king!"

"So you take the world he loves as a recompense for your imagined slights?" Yrsa started down the trail as Thor closed in on him.

"The earth is under my protection, Loki! So you listen well-"

A streak of fire blew past them, taking Thor with it.

"I'm listening." Loki looked at Yrsa with a wicked grin.

"Stay here," she hissed through gritted teeth and picked up Mjolnir, taking off.

"This is beyond you, metal man." Yrsa heard her brother say as she landed behind the red armor. The surrounding woods and scenario were that of a vision Elora had spoken years ago. She knew then that this would come to a fight.

The metal man's armor clanked and he turned to face her. Smiling wickedly she spun the hammer and threw it at him, sending him through a tree.

-

Standing beside Thor on the ship with the Midgardians they listened in as a man spoke with Loki, warning him of the dangers of his cage before Loki lured the man into an argument.

"Loki is going to drag this out, so, Thor, Yrsa, what's his play?"

The siblings looked at each other and Yrsa nodded for her brother to tell them all that Frigga had relayed from Elora's scrying.

She paced the room taking in the strange technologies as the others spoke, moving around the table as several men entered the room. One with dark hair and a neatly detailed beard smiling as he looked her up and down.

"Have care how you speak," Thor's tone pulled her attention back to the conversation. "Loki is beyond reason but he is of Asgard and he is our brother."

The red headed woman at the table spoke up. "He killed eighty people in two days."

"He is adopted." Yrsa shrugged.

-

Loki sat in his glass cage, waiting for his moment when from the corner of his eye he saw a silhouette with dark hair and pale skin. He turned his head quickly but the silhouette disappeared. Every time he began to relax it happened again.