The World

Chapter Eight

When the cells were working again and the potential escapees were back within the golden walls, Cas made a mirror portal back to her rooms. It had been exhausting, lugging all those heavy brutes back into the cells after Fandral had reactivated them. Very exhausting if you took into consideration the fact that she'd just been fighting them.

    But her job wasn't quite done yet. Back in her rooms, Cas opened the leather bound journal for keeping track of her time in Asgard. It had turned into her notes about the bond between her and Loki, but it would serve a new purpose temporarily.

    Flipping to a blank page, Cas recalled the memories Loki had shown her of the prison escape. She frowned, coming to the clearest of the guy who had caused the escape. You told him an easy way up into the rest of the palace?

    Loki scoffed. I didn't tell him, I proved what he was thinking. There's a difference. Besides, I didn't think he'd actually do it.

    Uh huh, sure.

    Holding the image in her mind, Cas began to draw. Her pencil flew over the page, first in a light outline, then going in to pick out some of the larger points. Then to details, picking out the littlest thing that otherwise never would have been noticed. It's like his armor melded to him, became a second skin. Cas frowned, rewinding back through the memory. And the transformation, all because he crushed that weird stone...

    She flipped the page and tapped the pencil against it thoughtfully. But the tapping shifted to lines, sketched lightly at first, then hardened and bolded out. When she looked down, Cas was looking at a half finished sketch of herself. Loki, what are you up to?

    He didn't answer, but continued moving her hand across the paper to complete the piece. Keep thinking. If you focus, it makes it difficult, was all he said.

    Confused as she was, Cas obeyed, her gaze still on the paper so he could see what he was doing. But her mind wandered, focusing on various other things. Obviously, the marauder hadn't actually been one, but someone else in disguise. The question was, who? Had he been a distraction perhaps, so everyone was focused on the dungeons while somewhere else, something big happened?

    She didn't know. But she knew someone who would.

    Focusing again, Cas saw that the sketch had been finished. Not too shabby, she told Loki. You actually made me look beautiful for once in my life. She smiled. I hope you don't mind if I keep it.

    Loki didn't reply, but she could feel the pride. Cas stood and made her way to a wall, intending to open a small portal and talk with Thor. Instead, her gaze was drawn to the outside. Night had fallen, and many people dressed in black, were making their way towards the front of the city that touched the lake. She frowned, until she recalled that many had been lost in the prison escape.

    So Cas used the portal to make her way out to the bridge instead. Thor, Odin, and Jane were already there. She slipped into place next to Thor without a sound, waiting patiently. Wait a minute... She glanced around, where was the queen? Cas opened her mouth to ask, but then her eyes landed on a sight she never thought she'd see.

    Frigga lay in one of the boats.

    Cas's mouth dropped open and she clapped her hands over it in shock, tears beginning to pour down her face. What all had she missed while she was assisting Thor, Fandral, and Volstagg in the dungeons?

    Even as the boats were pushed out into the lake towards the edge of the realm, Cas was abruptly pulled away from the scene in front of her. Her eyes saw, not the boats drifting away, but a page in a book. To her shock, it was an exact replica of the drawing in her own leather journal that was back in her rooms. "Highness," came a voice to her left.