This time I managed to maintain my balance. ".....touch her." Thor finished his sentence angrily, bending over Jane, assessing her. "Jane, are you alright?" He asked, his voice fill of concern.
I'm fine, thanks for asking.
The Allfather approached her, running a hand over her arm. "It's impossible." A healer said, looking over where Grandfather was working. "The infection, it's defending her."
"Defending itself." Thor corrected, looking up.
The Allfather straightened. "Come with me." He instructed. "Hela, I'm sure your grandmother would love to see you."
I raced through the hallways towards my grandmother's chambers. I new the route like the back of my hand, and could teach the room from nearly anywhere in the palace. The door was cracked, creeping open when I knocked. There stood my grandmother, conversing with an illusion of none other than my very own father.
I could see his wife's dart to where I stood, but he returned his gaze to his mother as she continued to talk, either ignoring my presence, or oblivious. Either way, I decided it not best to interrupt.
"Does Odin share your concern?" My father asked, leaning in towards Frigga. I knew what he was hinting at, and I rolled my eyes at my father, trying to swallow my jumping nerves. I had waited for this moment to be reunited with my father, and all I wanted was to run at him, hold onto him, be his daughter, but there was one obvious problem: the man standing on front of me was an illusion, and my father was locked up somewhere within the palace depths.
"Does Thor?" My father continued, and I stood in silence. My uncle loved me, but hardly showed affection for his brother, or none that I had ever seen. "It must be so inconvenient, then asking after me all day and night."
"You know full well it was your actions that brought you here." Grandmother said, her voice strong. I gulped. That was the exact thing to set my father off.
"My actions." My father begin to walk. "I was merely giving truth to the lie I had been fed my entire life. That I was born to be king."
"A king?" My grandmother asked. "A true king admits his faults. What of the lives you took on Earth?"
"A mere handful compared to those Odin had taken himself." My father's reply was short and to the point, but I couldn't help stiffen. I had seen first hand the deaths my father had caused, having seen him kill a man who I could have called father.
"Your father..."
"HE'S NOT MY FATHER!"
I jumped. The rage in my father's voice was so raw, it scared me. His eyebrows creased, his gaze incinerating. I took several shaky breaths before realizing that my grandmother had caught sight of me, lurking in the shadows.
"Then am I not your mother?" She asked, her voice fragile.
"You're not."
My grandmother seemed unfazed. "Hmph." She said lightly, her lips curling upward. "Always so perceptive of everyone but yourself," she said quietly. My father stared her in the eye until the illusion vanished.
